We of the space called Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom (VOCAL) are writing to denounce the serious climate of harassment,  criminalization, and persecution that the Ulises Ruiz Ortiz government  and the local news media have directly unleashed against some of our  members in recent weeks.

In particular, the repression began to get heavier after the events of  June 20, 2008, when the organized people impeded Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’s  presence in a public act convened by the municipal government of  Zaachila.

They are blaming our members for initiating violence, when this was provoked by the PRI party municipal President Noe Perez, and his father,  Mr. Natalio Pérez, who pistol in hand, fired at people peacefully  protesting to defend themselves against the imposition of Ulises Ruiz  Ortiz’s presence in their lands. This aggression is documented in photos  and videos.

Nevertheless, for several days the local news media, echoing the  statements of Ulises Ruiz and other government functionaries, have  spread the story on television, radio, and in the written press that the  violence was provoked by some of the schoolteachers in the town of  Zaachila,  "el Alebrije" (David Venegas), and VOCAL members. Threats  have been circulated in these same news media that the full force of the  law will be brought to bear against those who provoked the violence,  thereby putting the blame on the people’s organization that is alive as a movement. In response to this resistance, the government’s response is  clearly to try to discredit movement organization in Oaxaca with the  same old dirty strategies: seeking out leaders to co-opt, repressing  activists, blocking alternative information pages, stepping up the  arrest of graffiti artists and beating them before they turn them loose,  making false accusations, and intimidating all those movement spaces in struggle who aren’t willing to negotiate the dignity of resistance; this  dignity is visible in the reorganization going on among different  peoples in the neighborhoods, barrios, collectives, and spaces,  and it  resounded in the streets on June 14, 2008. At the same time, the police  presence is steadily increasing and there are calls for the application
of more federal force.

Direct harassment against us has occurred in news broadcasts on Channel  9, the state TV channel, with photos displayed of several VOCAL members:  Silvia Gabriela Hernández Salinas, Efraín López, Eduardo Zanabría, Rubén  Valencia, and David Venegas Reyes. News reports say that there are  warrants out for all these comrades and that they will be arrested any  minute.

They accuse us of provoking violence in our state of Oaxaca with the  clear intent of justifying repression, prison, and even our  disappearance by the government in complicity with the news media at  their service.

Our case is not an isolated example; on the contrary, it is a symptom of  the wave of repression against all the rest of the comrades in the  Oaxacan social movement who are beset by the permanent police presence.

The police presence at many of our private homes and meeting places is  constant. We consider the risk of being arrested as latent and highly  probable. It is this situation that prompts us to make this climate of  repression and harassment public. We will not let these hostilities  continue; they clearly reveal the climate of repression by the state and  federal government against all of us who participate in the Oaxacan  social movement. The true motives that the state is now directing its  repression against VOCAL, just as it has against other movement comrades  in other circumstances, are clear.   We are true to our word and keep up  our clear, public, peaceful participation in the social movement in  Oaxaca and ceaselessly struggle for the demands of our movement to  overthrow Ulises Ruiz Ortiz: punishment for the murderers of our people, freedom for all political prisoners, and an in depth transformation in
Oaxaca.

We know we’re not the only ones at risk because different peoples,  collectives, organizations, teachers, and neighborhoods are also in  struggle, making it possible to strengthen the social movement in  Oaxaca. We are being targeted now because we have responded to calls for  solidarity and support that some of the peoples have sent out to the  movement as a whole, and we have done it in solidarity as brothers and  sisters. This poses a serious risk for the state at a time when it is bent on dividing and conquering a social movement in Oaxaca that is  setting out on the road towards a true, deep, radical change in our  society—a change born in the people’s roots and nourished by the  ancestral wisdom almost blotted out during the last 500 years of such  heavy imposition and injustice. Today Oaxaca says enough is enough!  We’re not willing to live the way we have before. After 2006, nothing or  nobody will ever be the same again.

We demand justice, freedom, and an end to the hostilities against the  social movement as a whole and against our comrades Silvia Gabriela  Hernández Salinas, Efraín López, Eduardo Zanabría Hernández, Rubén  Valencia Núñez and David Venegas Reyes, and ask all of you comrades to  help us in spreading the word about our situation. No matter how hard  they try to silence us or stop us, we know what they’re trying to do and  we’re not going to let them do it. We’ll never tire of denouncing their  repression.

Ulises Ruiz out of Oaxaca!

Freedom for all political prisoners in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the world!

Punishment for all those guilty of murders and disappearances!

Freedom and justice for the peoples of Oaxaca!

Voces Oaxaqueñas Construyendo Autonomía y Libertad, (VOCAL)

Important note: To help us in the collective dissemination of this mail,
we ask that you  write “Adhesión comunicado” on the subject line.

The communiqué and list of adhesions will appear at:
www.vocal.lahaine.org
Address for sending notice of adhesions:



Send a copy of this communiqué to:


Felipe Calderón, Presidente,

Lic. Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo, Secretario de Gobernación


Lic. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, Procurador General de la República
,

Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, Des-Gobernador del Estado de Oaxaca,


Evencio Nicolás Martínez Ramírez, Procurador del Estado de Oaxaca,


United Nations High Commission for Human Rights


Representative in Mexico of the Office of the UN High Commission for
Human Rights

Jina Hilani, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Human
Rights Defenders