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.
- Todisna - A newspaper from the UPCRMR | Contains information in english.
- January 30, 2002 | The impoverished Loxicha region of Oaxaca state continues to face daunting political challenges. The latest blow came on January 12 when Jaime Valencia, the newly installed mayor of San Agustin Loxicha (the region's largest town) was shot dead in a bloody ambush while walking to his house from the municipal palace. + more
- 24 de Enero 2002 | By Jorge Lofredo | Solo la decisión política de mayor democracia en la región, cuya responsabilidad recae en el gobernador Murat Casab, puede romper la inercia violenta, liderando un proceso para la recomposición del tejido social y aplicando la ley sin distinción, aunque no sólo se resume a una cuestión legal sino que es primordialmente política; esto es: el fin de la impunidad. + more
- July 24, 2001| Amnesty International - Canada | Indigenous Peoples in Mexico : A community Terrorized | Gaudencio García Martínez, an Indigneous Zapotec man from Loxicha region of Oaxaca state, was reportedly tortured by judicial police after his arrest on November 7, 1996. He says that soaked dirty cloths were held over his face, water was forced up his nostrils, electric shocks were administered to his genitals and police threatened that he would be buried alive. + more
- París, Francia, abril de 2001| San Agustín Loxicha | La venganza de los caciques | By Claudio Albertani | Mientras en México se desarrollaba aquella gran ceremonia incluyente que fue la Marcha Zapatista, del otro lado del océano una voz indígena más se unía al clamor por democracia, justicia y libertad.
- Información enviada a Mario Rojas, Director de Tlahui. México, a 4 de Enero, 2001. Mex - Se demanda apoyo para que finalice la persecución de indígenas zapotecas en la región Loxicha en el sur de Oaxaca.
- January
2001 | www.zmag.org
| En Planton,
the Women of Loxicha | By Troy Skeels | No one denies that the women have legitimate grievances. The government doesn’t try to refute it, nor does it have the will to confront the women. It ignores them, while it does its brutal work miles away, in Loxicha, effectively invisible to the world. - September 13, 2000 | The women of Loxicha have been encamped under the eaves of the Governor's palace in Oaxaca for over three years. They demand the release of their sons, husbands and brothers from various jails and prisons throughout Mexico, incarcerated as suspected members of the guerrilla EPR, the Popular Revolutionary Army.
- Red India de Oaxaca | History of Loxicha (in spanish)
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