Indigenous Communities Rise Up in Mexico

For the sec­ond time in less than two years, an indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty in the south­west­ern Mex­i­can state of Michoa­can has erect­ed bar­ri­cades and seized con­trol of secu­ri­ty mat­ters. Locat­ed in the Purepecha high­lands of the Pacif­ic coast state, the small com­mu­ni­ty of Urapi­cho in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Para­cho has been under the self-declared con­trol of the peo­ple for about a month now.

For the sec­ond time in less than two years, an indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty in the south­west­ern Mex­i­can state of Michoa­can has erect­ed bar­ri­cades and seized con­trol of secu­ri­ty mat­ters. Locat­ed in the Purepecha high­lands of the Pacif­ic coast state, the small com­mu­ni­ty of Urapi­cho in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Para­cho has been under the self-declared con­trol of the peo­ple for about a month now.

The news was pub­li­cized this week with the post­ing of a video on YouTube that shows armed and masked men, some clothed in mil­i­tary-style cam­ou­flage cloth­ing, attend­ing a sand-bagged check­point, where motorists are searched. Two anony­mous, masked spokesper­sons explain the rea­sons behind the upris­ing and the goals of their move­ment.

Res­i­dents say they have been under assault from crim­i­nal bands which have a strong foothold in the region. The Span­ish-speak­ing spokesman men­tions four peo­ple who were forcibly dis­ap­peared in 2009 and 2010, includ­ing a woman named Bautista. “We don’t know her where­abouts,” he says.

The Purepecha com­mu­ni­ty is locat­ed between the towns of Para­cho, long known for its local­ly pro­duced gui­tars, and Cher­an, a larg­er indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty that rose up in April 2011 and seized con­trol of the local gov­ern­ment. Still bar­ri­cad­ed and under com­mu­ni­ty guard, the Cher­an rebel­lion broke out after locals grew frus­trat­ed by vio­lence and gov­ern­ment inac­tion in stop­ping the clear-cut­ting of the area’s remain­ing forests. Like Urapi­cho, numer­ous deaths and dis­ap­pear­ances blamed on orga­nized crime have been report­ed in Cher­an.

The Urapi­cho upris­ing occurs amid esca­lat­ing social con­flicts that have polit­i­cal tem­per­a­tures at the boil­ing point in Michoa­can. In dif­fer­ent parts of the state, mul­ti­ple con­flicts pit stu­dent, teacher and indige­nous groups against the Insti­tu­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Par­ty (PRI)-led state gov­ern­ment, as well as leg­is­la­tors from the PRI and allied Green Par­ty against the cen­ter-left PRD, PT and MC par­ties.

On Sun­day, Octo­ber 14, ten­sions explod­ed when the Fed­er­al Police recov­ered bus­es that had been seized by protest­ing stu­dents from three rur­al teach­ers’ col­leges. In the raid, scores of stu­dents were detained, bus­es burned and sev­er­al offi­cers injured.

In response, any­where between 15,000 and 40,000 demon­stra­tors, the esti­mates depend­ing on the source, crowd­ed the state cap­i­tal of More­lia Octo­ber 17 denounc­ing Pres­i­dent Calderon and demand­ing the res­ig­na­tions of state Gov­ern­ment Sec­re­tary Jesus Rey­na Gar­cia and PRI Gov­er­nor Faus­to Valle­jo, who was elect­ed to office in a con­tro­ver­sial Novem­ber 2011 elec­tion.

Con­tin­gents rep­re­sent­ing the Nation­al Coor­di­na­tor of Edu­ca­tion Work­ers (CNTE), the Purepecha Nation and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions par­tic­i­pat­ed in the mobi­liza­tion. A large group of stu­dents encir­cled the state attor­ney general’s office, while a sec­ond group num­ber­ing in the hun­dreds blocked one of Morelia’s high­way exits.

As the week end­ed, the CNTE vowed to con­tin­ue protest­ing in More­lia until the remain­ing 8 stu­dents detained on Octo­ber 14 were released. Out­side the state cap­i­tal, pro­test­ers report­ed­ly occu­pied the town hall of Para­cho and threat­ened to block­ade access to oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ties.

 

more ingo at http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/2012/10/19/indigenous-communities-rise-up-in-mexico/