Keynote Speaker | || |

 

Wednesday, MARCH 27th | 18:00 hrs | Adams Auditorium | See Map

FELIPE DE JESUS ANTONIO SANTIAGO

Felipe de Jesús Antonio is a young Zapotec from the Loxicha region of Oaxaca state in southern Mexico. Since 1996, on suspicions that Loxicha was a bastion of the EPR (Popular Revolutionary Army, an insurgent army with no relation to the EZLN in Chiapas), Mexican army and police agents have occupied the region, carrying out a violent campaign of terror and destruction.

Felipe de Jesús was arrested in July of 1997 by state Judicial Police, and then disappeared for the next nine months, during which time he was moved between several clandestine prisons and subject to physical and mental torture, and believed he would never survive. After over three and a half years in prison, Felipe was freed in 2001 after no evidence was found to support the case fabricated against him. Along with other ex-prisoners and their families, he now campaigns to secure the freedom of the 28 Loxicha men, all of them Zapotecs, who remain unjustly incarcerated in Oaxaca.

The Loxicha case is an extreme example of the Mexican government's alarming treatment of indigenous communities in Oaxaca and elsewhere in Mexico, where impunity reigns, and militarization and grotesque violations of human rights continue unchecked. Especially since September 11th, 2001, military cooperation among the member countries of NAFTA- including Canada- is being scaled up. Does Art Eggelton, Canada's Minister of Defense, who last January visited Mexico to hold private meetings with representatives of the Mexican Army in the interests of deepening bilateral "defense" relations, really know who he's bedding down with?

Wednesday, MARCH 27th | 18:00 hrs

Adams Auditorium | McGill University - Engineering Building : University Street Entrance - See Map


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The following are internet resources on the situations lived by indigenous peoples in the region of Loxica in Oaxaca, Mexico. Some articles are in spanish and others in english. Visit source sites to get more information.

 

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Indigenous Peoples in Mexico: A community Terrorized

Maps | Mexico | Oaxaca | Loxicha


Relevant Organizations and Networks


For more information on this event contact:

Alaya Boisvert | Speaker Coordinator

THE PROJECT
project@ssmu.mcgill.ca
Phone: (514) 398-3001 x 09600
Fax: (514) 398-7490
McGill University Student Centre
Blue Box 94
3480 Rue McTavish
Montréal, Québec H3A 1X0

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