Global IssuesMEXICO: Humanitarian Convoy Braves Risk of Attack
Despite the threat of armed attack, a second humanitarian convoy is attempting to break through a paramilitary blockade of the Triqui indigenous village of San Juan Copala in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Two people were killed in late April when an international humanitarian convoy attempted to take basic provisions to the village.
Made up of dozens of human rights activists and observers, journalists and several legislators, the so-called 'Peace Caravan' is trying to take food, water and other basic supplies to the 786 people in the village, which declared itself 'autonomous' in January 2007.
The convoy expects to arrive there on Tuesday.
'We hope the convoy will help change the situation in San Juan Copala,' Jorge Albino, a spokesman for the autonomous village, located 600 km south of the Mexican capital, told IPS by phone.
The group, accompanied by observers from the National Human Rights Commission, a state body, is escorted by the Oaxaca state police.
The April attempt to break through the siege of San Juan Copala was thwarted when the international convoy was fired on by the Union for the Wellbeing of the Triqui Region (UBISORT), a paramilitary group accused of ties with the state government, which has been in the hands of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for eight decades.
'The risk is high,' Jessica Sánchez, an activist with the non-governmental Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equity in Oaxaca, told IPS. 'Guarantees must be demanded to allow the caravan to enter the municipality safely.'
Two people were killed in the Apr. 29 ambush by UBISORT gunmen: Beatriz Cariño, director of the local non-governmental Centre for Community Support Working Together (CACTUS), and Jyri Jaakkola, a human rights observer from Finland. Both were shot in the head, and several other people were injured.
The convoy, which included activists and observers from Belgium, Finland, Germany and Italy, was attempting to break through the blockade around the village staged by UBISORT since January.
But the bloodshed didn't end there. On May 20, Timoteo Alejandro Ramírez, 44, and his wife Cleriberta Castro, 35, were killed by an armed group.
Ramírez, who had already suffered two attempts on his life, was one of the driving forces behind the town's declaration of autonomy, and the leader of the Independent Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULTI).
Their murders remain unsolved.
Mexican and international human rights organisations, as well as seven members of the European Parliament and two members of the German parliament, have urged the authorities to provide the convoy with protection, to avoid another attack and to allow the vehicles to reach the village.
Representatives of San Juan Copala have also asked the federal and state governments for protection.
Any aggression against the humanitarian convoy would bring a renewed national and international outcry and would reflect poorly on the Oaxaca state government and the administration of conservative President Felipe Calderón, who promised an in-depth investigation into the killings of Cariño and Jaakkola.
Albino complained that the Oaxaca state government 'has said there are no guarantees for the caravan, while claiming that nothing is wrong in San Juan Copala. But that's not true.'
Oaxaca, one of Mexico's poorest states, is set to hold state elections Jul. 4. Recent polls indicate a virtual tie between PRI candidate Eviel Pérez and Gabino Cué, who heads a heterogeneous opposition coalition made up of Calderón's National Action Party (PAN), the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and the smaller Labour and Convergence parties.
'Rather than being dismantled, paramilitary groups in Mexico continue functioning as a permanent preventive counterinsurgency mechanism,' José Sierra, an expert on military affairs, wrote in the current issue of the Mexico City magazine Contralínea.
Human rights groups are on the alert to any incident that might occur, Sánchez said.
The Red de Medios Libres Abajo y a la Izquierda, a network of alternative and left-wing radio stations, will provide live coverage Tuesday of the convoy as it approaches San Juan Copala.
Oaxaca, where most of the population is indigenous, is no stranger to unrest. From May to October 2006, the local section of the national teachers' union and the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), an umbrella group of around 300 local organisations, occupied the main square of the state capital, demanding the removal of Governor Ulises Ruiz.
The groups accuse the governor, a representative of the most conservative wing of the PRI, of corruption, authoritarianism and squelching opposition by means of violence and intimidation. The uprising was finally put down by federal troops sent in by then President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) of the right-wing PAN.
During the months of protests, at least 20 people, mainly demonstrators, were killed, including independent U.S. journalist Brad Will. In addition, an estimated 370 people were injured and 350 arrested. Although the protests flared up again in mid-2007, they quickly fizzled out.
At the same time, splits within the Triqui community have long been common in this region, although they have grown worse since the 1970s, when the indigenous communities created 'El Club', a group that later became the Triqui Movement of Unification and Struggle.
That group later divided, giving rise to MULTI, which controls the autonomous San Juan Copala municipality.
UBISORT blames the state government for failing to intervene in the conflict, which has claimed at least a dozen lives since 2007. The paramilitary group would benefit from federal government intervention, which would likely be aimed against the autonomous local administration.
In April 2008, Felícitas Martínez and Teresa Bautista, two young indigenous reporters with the Radio Copala community station, were ambushed and shot to death on a rural road near the town -- victims of the violence arising from the divisions among their people.
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service