Two years have passed since the days of May 2006. For the population of San Salvador Atenco and Mexico were the entire day of terrible violence. And unfortunately, even death. After two years, the population of San Salvador Atenco and / comrades / the stand in solidarity with their fight is back on the streets, those in the capital, why not drop the silencio, the ' olvido. But moments before he told a Sunday Capitaline, we should go back to 2006. Indeed, a bit 'before. The Fox project, the expropriation-trick and the first protests in Atenco
San Salvador Atenco is a citizen of the State of Mexico, one of 31 states that comprise the United Mexican States. Has 15,000 inhabitants and is not far from Mexico City: a little over an hour's drive. A town like any other, except that in 2001 the president, Vicente Fox, said that his government intends to build a new airport in its territory of Atenco. The ejidatarios , the farmers of the common land for the construction of the airport are not even consulted, and would be expropriated and compensated with the sum of 7 pesos per square meter. Less than 50 euro cents. The farmers and the people of Atenco were organized rapidly in Frente del Pueblo en Defensa de la Tierra that between 2001 and 2002, mobilized with energy and determination, organizing various events and initiatives, and gaining the support of the EZLN, of 'entire range of social movements in Mexico, some sectors of the left more or less institutional. Faced with the mobilization of the Fox government actually abandoned (though never formally canceled) the project. The victory of the movement was clear, but the blood was paid so much. The clashes between
Frente and police were very hard, and both sides raise the bar. The use of force by the Mexican police was outrageous, even at levels not seen in these parts for a while '. San Salvador Atenco was effectively under military occupation, the events were charged with violence. And when twelve leaders of the Frente were arrested, the movement said, seizing 19 people, mostly police officers, other public officials. In the square, from the the Frente , appeared the machete. The "prisoner swap", or better, "arrested" against "detention", it did almost immediately, the police withdrew from Atenco. But meanwhile there was a dead man to cry. José Enrique Suarez Espinoza, campesino, 49, died a few days after the event on 11 July 2002 from his injuries in the clashes.
Texcoco, the flower growers and the masacre de 2006
The curtain falls on Atenco here. Let's go back to May 2006. Not far from San Salvador, in the municipality of Texcoco, some vendors of flowers are put in the square as usual, for a market day whatever. But a vast array of order (about 400, compared with fewer than 80 flower growers) evacuate them by force: they are street vendors, illegal, and that square is for the construction of a Wal-Mart, a mall.
Indeed, the actions of the police seems more like a pretext (suspicion confirmed, in hindsight, the fact that the construction of the Wal-Mart will begin on a ground other than the fighting) to support the flower growers Frente del Pueblo of Atenco, in addition to belonging to Otra Campana, a movement launched by the EZLN few months earlier. It seems more than coincidence that, in those days in early May, a delegation of Zapatistas and Marcos are visiting Mexico City to promote the project's social and political Otra Campana.
Clashes between police and flower growers, who were soon flock to support militants Frente del Pueblo and several other organizations and movements are now very violent. Machine guns in open view and massive use of tear gas on the one hand, Molotov cocktails and burning tires on the other. 94 demonstrators "arrested" by police, 11 police officers "detained" by the movement. Dozens of wounded on both sides. And another dead: Javier Cortés Santiago, 14, of the Frente del Pueblo .
numbers, and the extent of the facts will be clearer and more evident over the next few days. Bulletin printing a word reappears dark, sad, gloomy, you always hope in the continent of archives, but occasionally returns . D esaparecidos. On May 5, Ben 63 people no longer know anything. It will take some 'because those who had disappeared to reappear after a possibly arbitrary detention.
And there are those who will not return: Ollin Alexis Benhumea, student of twenty years in the clashes of May 4 is hit by a tear gas canister launched by police, who explodes on his head. Alexis died a month later. The methods of "easy to violence" of the Mexican security apparatus did not end there: twenty-six women, arrested and about to be transferred to jail, get raped by masked policemen. Only the patient work of the National Commission of Human Rights will be able to reconstruct the facts and go back to those responsible in some way (to avoid any possible criticism and silly accusations of bias and lack of objectivity in the exposition of these events, links, report immediately the CNDH: http://www.cndh.org.mx/lacndh/informes/espec/recatenco/atenco.htm) .
Remember
and claim the second anniversary of the events of 2006, the streets of downtown Mexico City have seen remove the population of San Salvador Atenco, comrades, ordinary people. This time, from the movement, there were no machetes, Molotov cocktails and burning tires to. There was only the need to be there and remember. To claim a fight where the "defense of the earth" has a crucial value, a legitimacy that goes beyond the confines of the small town hall mexiquense: extend, and find support and fellowship, in other states of Mexico, and elsewhere. It 'strange that the same message, and almost the same words, is in the middle of the fight, yet so distant and different in many other respects, a great little valley that is resistant. But here's
Atenco, Mexico. The political leaders of the Frente del Pueblo are in prison for two years, the main ones among them have already received, for summary, convictions over twenty years. In Mexico, for simple political crimes, is in a cage twice as much as would a murderer in our country. For this, one of the most popular slogans in the parade was " Presos politicos, libertad! . The event
. it hurts to admit it was not partecipatissima. Unfortunately, sectarianism and the lack of communication inside the movement is not strictly a disease or Italiot Turin. This year, as in 2007, there were two parades. One morning and one afternoon, one organized by militants Zapatista Other Campaign in Mexico City, one from the Frente del Pueblo . Given that even those who were there and now writes failed to fully understand the reasons for the division, I try to summarize what I understand and intuit. Some areas of the Frente del Pueblo are close, and when non-participating members, the PRD. And this is a problem. The PRD is the party of the left that the EZLN, and all social movements participating in the project of the Zapatista Otra Campana explicitly and strongly oppose. Marcos and Otra see in the PRD is not only an absence of concrete alternative to neoliberalism and to the right, but a threat and a danger. It may be useful to point out that the mayor of the municipality of Texcoco, one of the flower growers evicted by force on the pretext of making us WalMart is the PRD. It also national headquarters in the PRD have done, and do, little to report abuses and crimes, which were widely tested, the Mexican police. I close raccontatomi
citing an episode from a companion, who was attending a course with a senior professor of the philosophy faculty of the UNAM. Speaking of the events in Atenco, the prof did not seem so convinced of the desirability of the fight, and began to sciorinare filosofume theory of Marx and varied, and the companion, a little 'angry, said something like: "A Atenco, the government wants to take the land farmers and give him five pesos per square meter.'s all. Marx What does it matter? ". That's it. The simplicity of the struggle. The simplicity of a legitimacy win. The simplicity of a dignity to defend. This is Atenco. todos somos Atenco.
Links:
http://www.ipsnet.it/chiapas / (the excellent website of the Committee Chiapas Torino, precious and inexhaustible archive of news from Mexico)
http:// www.carta.org/campagne/chiapas/altracampagna/9629 (letter to the parents of Marcos Ollin Alexis)
http://mujeressinmiedo.blogspot.com/ (collective of women of the movement of San Salvador Atenco)
http://chiapas.indymedia.org/
http://mexico.indymedia.org/
0 comments:
Post a Comment