anarchistic alternatives in the capital of capital
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Marianne Bullock
Saturday, March 1st, 1 to 6 pm
NYC Feminist Zinefest
Barnard College
3009 Broadway
James Room
(4th floor, Barnard Hall)
By Scott Campbell
El Enemigo Común
Since mid-January, when armed self-defense groups launched an offensive against the Knights Templar cartel in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán, Mexico, much ink has been spilled evaluating the pros and cons of the self-defense movement. Critiques and speculations have been leveled from the left and right, yet what has largely been absent is an appreciation for the events in situ.
From the right (including the government and mass media), the self-defense groups have been labelled as vigilantes, taking the law into their own hands, armed by an opposing cartel, and threatening to turn into paramilitary death squads a la the AUC in Colombia. Such meritless talking points are not of concern here.
What is of concern is the predominant response from the left, where the self-defense groups have received a lukewarm reception at best. Held at arm’s length, the self-defense movement is chastened for not being like the autonomous municipality of Cherán in Michoacán or the CRAC community police in Guerrero. For not being indigenous, for not having a comprehensive platform, or for cooperating with the government. From behind computer screens, those who are dodging the bullets of the Knights Templar (and occasionally of the state) are patronizingly told what they are not and what they should be doing.
Fortunately for the self-defense groups, they did not wait for nor did they petition the support of the left. For years, communities in the Tierra Caliente have faced murder, rape, kidnapping, extortion and terror at the hands of the Knights Templar cartel, which operated with impunity in the region. Faced with state inaction, or complicity, toward the cartel, the communities decided, via assemblies, to form self-defense groups. Emerging from these community assemblies, they can only be considered legitimate manifestations of the people’s will. The inclusion of landowners and businesspeople in the self-defense groups does negate their popular origin, as all members of the community were targets of the cartel’s actions.Similarly, the sole goal of ridding Michoacán of organized crime does not make them unworthy of support. Perhaps they are not, as armed formations, environmentalist, anti-capitalist or anti-authoritarian, though many among their ranks may be so. The focus on the cartels is clearly understandable, as it is the cartels who are the main impediment to a life with dignity for these communities. The focus on the Knights Templar specifically, as opposed to other cartels, is likewise easily comprehensible. Far from it meaning that the self-defense groups are armed and financed by rival cartels, it is simply the fact that it is the Knights Templar terrorizing the Tierra Caliente, so naturally they would be the primary target of groups originating from the Tierra Caliente. In numerous interviews, self-defense spokespeople have indicated their groups’ opposition to all organized crime operating in Michoacán and in Mexico.
That the groups are not like Cherán or the CRAC is also a misguided critique. Part of it is based on the fact that the self-defense groups are not wholly indigenous and not wholly rural. Instead of embracing the emergence of urban, mestizo self-organization, somehow this is held up as a point of criticism. Such a perspective is indigenist in the extreme, and a denial of agency based on ethnicity and locality. An oppressed people have the right to organize and rise up, regardless of that group’s composition, and regardless of if it mimics the predominant model of armed formations in Mexico. Finally, many participants are indigenous, it is just not the primary focus of the organization.
Also held up as a distinguishing factor is that the self-defense groups, unlike Cherán or the CRAC, cooperate with the police and army. This is both true and false. Yes, the self-defense groups have agreed to be integrated into the state’s forces. At the same time, the groups have previously shown their willingness to act in opposition to the state, which is precisely what brought so much focus of the plight of the Tierra Caliente and pushed the state into acting against the Knights Templar. Some may critique the move as naïve, but if the main goal is to rid the area of organized crime, the groups remain empowered to do so, and remain armed. The agreement can be seen as a tactical move to achieve their goal. If it becomes a hindrance to doing so, there is no evidence that the groups would not break with the state and pursue their objectives on their own yet again.
Cooperation with state forces, no matter how objectionable, is common to the self-defense groups, Cherán and the CRAC, blurring the lines of any criticism which uses state cooperation as the standard for support or not. Cherán has invited both the Federal Police and the military to set up bases near their community to aid in fending off organized crime. The CRAC recently joined with a rival organization, UPOEG, and became a state-approved formation. Whether this is good or bad is another matter. The point is that the issue is not so cut and dry when it comes to the relationship of the state with self-organized armed groups and communities in Mexico.
The crux of the situation is that the self-defense groups should be evaluated on what they are, not what one would wish them to be or what one would desire they do. And what they are is an authentic people’s movement organized against an oppressive force. To hold them to a standard of purity not even existent among the movements they are critiqued against and held up to is not only intellectually dishonest but also unconstructive. Evaluated based on their own process of formation, their proposals and their actions, the self-defense groups have not given cause to merit recrimination. Ultimately, they will act regardless of what those of us from afar say or write about them. The minimum they deserve is a disinterested, fair evaluation.
By Fernando Camacho Servín
La Jornada
January 25, 2014
Translated by Scott Campbell
The activist and theater director Juan Francisco Kuykendall, who suffered a fractured skull during the December 1, 2012 protests against Enrique Peña Nieto’s inauguration, died early Saturday morning after suffering a cardiac arrest.
“Kuy died at 5:05am. They have still not given me the death certificate and we don’t know what they are going to say the clinical cause was, but since 2:30 in the morning he was in cardiac arrest,” said Eva Palma, the victim’s partner.
The health of Kuykendall Leal – who for the past three months was at the Zone 30 General Hospital of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) – was critical for a long time, she explained.
“He was very malnourished, with deep scars and since he used tubes to urinate and to eat, infections began to attack him. Just yesterday when I went to see him I could tell he was having a lot of difficulty breathing,” said Palma in an interview.She said that since Kuykendall’s injury, suffered during the protests against the inauguration of Enrique Peña Nieto, the activist was treated at several IMSS clinics, including at the XXI Century National Medical Center, where he was discharged for supposedly being in “stable” condition.
“The thought that sticks with me is that men as productive and concerned with culture as Kuy, who was an activist since the ‘70s, don’t deserve to end up like him, because of the state, because of men like Peña Nieto, Osorio Chong or Manuel Mondragón, who were the ones who ordered the operation.
“The capitalist system is very unjust and in the end, my partner fell in battle, but he leaves us his example, his legacy and we are going to claim him as an adherent to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. He fell in battle for his ideals,” Palma emphasized.
After being hit in the head with a projectile – it is believed it was a rubber bullet – Juan Francisco Kuykendall suffered a cranial fracture causing him to lose part of his brain mass.
It is expected that this Saturday afternoon a wake will be held for the activist at a funeral home in the Doctores neighborhood in Mexico City.
Originally from Tamaulipas
The 67 year old, originally from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, migrated to the Federal District in 1967 with the goal of being an actor. He achieved that at the National Institute of Fine Arts, where he studied drama.
His wife, Eva Leticia Palma Pastrana, remembers that 1968 was a year of political turmoil that “also impacted Kuy,” as he is known among friends and family. On October 2, he joined the students’ protest, but during the arrests he was saved by a Cuban doctor who hid him in her apartment.
Many years later, after becoming a playwright, set designer, theater teacher and supporter of organizations and collectives such as the Other Campaign, we wanted to go to the May 2006 protests in San Salvador Atenco, but we got lost. We were saved many times, says Palma Pastrana. The same did not occur on a Saturday, when Kuy, 67 years old and a resident of Coyoacán, went with his friend Teodulfo Torres to the protest around the Chamber of Deputies.
“We entered on Eduardo Molina Avenue, because everywhere else was closed. We were heading to see what happened, I took out my video camera and then I heard a thud. I turned to see Kuy, but he was already on the ground.”
Complaint filed at the PGR
On January 18, a group of friends and family of the teacher Juan Francisco Kuykendall filed a complaint with the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) to demand clarification of what happened and punishment for those responsible for the attack.
Joined by members of the student movement #YoSoy132, the Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land, and other social organizations, Rodrigo and Fernanda Kuykendall, children of the academic, entered the premises of the PGR to file their lawsuit, which also requests full compensation for the injury.
This past September, in response to continued criticism around its use of solitary confinement, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) began an internal audit of its “restricted housing operations.” As noted earlier by Solitary Watch, no women’s prisons are listed in the Scope of Work provided by the team hired to conduct the Special Housing Unit Review and Assessment.
Photo by Juan José Estrada Serafín
Aquila, Michoacán
January 18, 2014
Translated by Scott Campbell
From the Self-Defense Group of Aquila, Michoacán to the general public:
Today, the residents of the municipal seat of Aquila, tired of the extortions, rapes, killings, kidnappings and all sorts of criminal acts committed by the Knights Templar; given the complete abandonment of the citizenry by the municipal and state governments who for 12 years did not provide the security needed for our people to have a peaceful and dignified life; we have decided to organize our self-defense group in order to expel organized crime from our town, and we invite the rest of the people of the municipality to rise up against crime, so they never again feel fear or pay protection fees.
As is known from the national and international media, our municipality previously attempted to remove the yoke of organized crime. This movement was led by members of the indigenous community of San Miguel Aquila. This community is one of the four that comprises the municipality, and is owner of an iron mine whose resources are exploited by the transnational mining company Ternium. This company pays a royalty to the indigenous community for the extracted iron, which it hauls from Aquila, Michoacán to Tecomán, Colima, and organized crime charges them a monthly quota. That is to say, they ask the residents to part with the money they receive. If they don’t pay, they kill them. So the indigenous from this community decided to form their community guard in order to protect their heritage, life and dignity. They invited us to join them, but we, as prisoners of fear of the reprisals from organized crime, decided not to support them.The illegitimate municipal president, Juan Hernández Ramírez, was invited to join the movement and to stop paying fees to the criminals in the region, but instead decided to flee and to leave his people at the mercy of organized crime. It is known that this president obtained his post as a result of fraudulent elections, during which the Knights Templar cartel undertook to intimidate people into voting for Juan Hernández. They also burned ballot boxes where he had a clear disadvantage. But all of their tricks were not enough, as the rival candidate won the elections. So the criminals threatened him with death so he would not take the position. And that was how Hernández Ramírez became municipal president at the hands of the Templars. The period of July 24 to August 13, 2013 – when the community guard of the indigenous from the community of San Miguel Aquila operated in the area – was one of immense calm. The rapes, kidnappings and payments of protection fees disappeared as the criminals fled. Seeing the results of the community movement, we became inspired to support the cause of the community. However, on August 14, a joint state and municipal government operation, together with the Marines, entered Aquila and dismantled the community movement. They took 45 prisoners. The Special Operations Group (GOES) and State Judicial Police killed two and also beat women, children and elderly who called for them to return the men who were defending them from organized crime. When the community guard was dismantled, the Knights Templar, under the auspices of the state and municipal governments, decided to “exterminate” all the residents of San Miguel Aquila. Miguel Alcalá Alcalá, Emilio Martínez López and Miguel Martínez López were tortured and murdered by Templar criminals. Later, Ignacio Martínez de la Cruz, Francisco Javier Ramos Walle and Carlos Zapien Díaz were disappeared on November 25, 2013 and haven’t been heard from since. The remaining residents were displaced, prisoners of panic and sadness as their government did nothing to protect them.
Once the community guard was completely dismantled by the tripartite alliance of the Knights Templar-State Government-Municipal Government, the Knights Templar decided to charge fees from the entire population, which particularly impacted our humble neighbors who are of limited means. We thought that if we didn’t support the community guard, the Templars would have compassion on us and wouldn’t charge us fees, or at least would not increase them, nor hassle our families. However, they returned more ambitious and bloodthirsty. The Templars increased the fees because they lost income from those who were jailed, murdered, disappeared and displaced. Only some in the community hand over payment to the Templars, but they are the ones who have ties to them. They are José Cortes Méndez, Miguel Zapien Godínez, Fidel Villanueva Espinosa, Juan Carlos Martínez Ramos, Juan Zapien Sandoval, among others.
The self-defense phenomenon in Michoacán has great momentum, every day there are more people who decide to expel the criminals from their regions, which has caused the Templars to migrate to neighboring regions, in particular into our area, increasing the wave of violence in Aquila. So we are faced with the panorama of violence which we are returning to live in again, with the complicity of our state and municipal government and the apathy of our federal government. It is for these reasons that the residents of the municipal seat of Michoacán opened our eyes and decided to organize as a self-defense group in order to expel all criminals from the area. Our social struggle will not end just when Federico González, alias “El Lico,” the boss of the Knights Templar cartel in the Aquila-Coahuayana region, falls, but when all his partners and gunmen do.
Our self-defense movement organized by the residents and people in general of the Aquila area is inclusive. Because of this we gave a vote of confidence to municipal president Juan Hernández Ramírez and invited him to join the struggle against crime. But the mayor once again showed his Templar leanings, he decided to leave the area. As such, our self-defense group and the people who support the movement condemn the criminal and indifferent attitude of Juan Hernández Ramírez. Let it be clear that our self-defense movement was born of social necessity, against organized crime. It seeks to reestablish peace and order for our people. We invite other towns, villages and communities in the municipality of Aquila to join our struggle, as we seek only well-being and social peace.
SINCERELY
The Self-Defense Council of Aquila, Michoacán
The recent release of 74-year-old Lynne Stewart has made headlines. Stewart, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, was granted compassionate release December 31, 2013, after a protracted struggle by Stewart and supporters across the country. Stewart, whose cancer has spread to her lungs, lymph system and bones, will spend her remaining months with her family in Brooklyn.But what about the aging and infirm people incarcerated nationwide who lack Stewart's fame and support? The United States has some 125,000 prisoners age 55 and older, quadruple the number in 1995.
In the United States, prison policy separates an incarcerated mother from her newborn baby less than 48 hours after birth.
By Adrián Alvarado
Kaos en la Red
January 15, 2014
Translated by Scott Campbell
The taking of the municipality of Nueva Italia by self-defense and community guardians, and the attempt to advance on Apatzingán, important drug trafficking territory in Michoacán, set off red alarm lights for the regime. Immediately, the federal government announced the “Accord for Federal Support for the Security of Michoacán,” whose main objective is: “to rigorously and indiscriminately enforce the law against those carrying arms illegally.” The first action of the accord was to disarm the community guardians and self-defense groups, sparking clashes with the federal forces. The result: not one drug trafficker was detained or bothered, it is reported that four members of self-defense groups are dead at the hands of the army.
The significance of self-defense groups and community guardians
On February 24, 2013 the self-defense groups and community guardians appeared and spread throughout the state of Michoacán. According to their leaders, they used the Cherán and the Community Police in Guerrero as models by which to confront the drug trafficking thugs and killers.
The residents of the municipalities of Tierra Caliente for years were at the mercy of organized crime. Ranchers, farmers, professionals, workers, and businesspeople endured kidnappings, murders, extortion. The state’s response was nothing but complicity. The political struggle unleashed between politicians from the PRI and the PAN, in particular the sister of former President Felipe Calderón and the current PRI governor Fausto Vallejo, revealed that high and low-level government officials in Michoacán are in collusion with organized crime.
The community’s discontent expressed itself with the emergence of community guardians and self-defense committees. Initially armed with rifles, machetes and sticks, they tried to restore peace and quiet for their families and communities. We can read the statements of some regional leaders of the community guardians, and we can understand the emergence and rapid expansion of them: “We are tired of living in humiliation,” is said over and over again in interviews and statements. Rapidly these groups were formed and grew to include 14 municipalities. The quick advance of armed sectors of the population set off the government’s red alarm lights.
The residents and communities in arms questioned the exclusive monopoly of the bourgeois State to exercise violence and authority, even if the State’s “authority” was incapable of ending organized crime in Michoacán or at the national level. The armed people, through self-defense groups and community guardians did much more to combat organized crime in less than a year than the government’s police and military operations did during the previous 12 years.
From this, a logical conclusion can be drawn: If the people and the communities in arms can resolve their problems, beginning with the state of insecurity, without the intervention of the bourgeois State, as it has been an obstacle to living with dignity, then we don’t need it. The regime understands this, hence its response to the self-defense groups and community guardians.
Much has been written about this, including some who have asked if it is not a strategy by the PRI government to form paramilitary groups. The answer can be found in reality itself and not by making erroneous comparisons with events in different countries. These comments come from a place of distrust for our people and the possibility that as communities, students or workers we can self-organize and deal with this rot. As this is thought impossible, then all types of fanciful musings and bureaucratic maneuvers from above are imagined.
Certainly the self-defense movement is contradictory, many sectors of society are involved in it. They themselves have stated that they are made up of farmers, agricultural producers, businesspeople, workers, students, and including some community and municipal authorities. The main objective is to combat organized crime. They have taken over municipalities and community, have held popular assemblies, have taken weapons from the thugs and with these have armed the people. At first there was a certain confidence in the State, in the army, federal police and in some authorities. Their own experience has led them to important conclusions: to trust in their own forces. The police, army and local authorities betrayed them, municipal presidents have held marches against the self-defense groups, and they have left the criminals to act with impunity against the groups.
Although it is a movement against organized crime and not against the regime, the residents of Tierra Caliente have learned much in these months about what the State is and about the effectiveness of popular organizing, and these are dangerous lessons for the regime and valuable lessons for the people and workers. The response from the armed populous to the state and federal government is clear: we will not stop and we will not disarm.
What side is the government on
The Accord for Federal Support for the Security of Michaocán includes five basic points:
The “Accord” is a clear message to the armed populous, not to the criminals, as the first action was to try to disarm the community guardians, which provoked clashes and left some dead. No action has been taken against the criminals who have burned buses, businesses, blocked highways; they have not detained a single reputed drug trafficker. The “accord” has a target and an objective: the disarmament and crushing of the self-defense groups and community guardians.
The government will certainly try to payoff and corrupt some of the leaders, in order to provoke division and demoralization among the communities – the call to join the police is the first evidence of this. Any approach or deal with the federal government will do away with what has been gained these past months and the violence, crime, kidnappings, extortions, killings will return. The criminal gangs will seek revenge against those who dared defy them and the local, state and federal governments will leave the people of Tierra Caliente at the mercy of organized crime.
Which way forward
The refusal to surrender weapons is positive, and to refuse to compromise with the federal government, to continue trusting in the strength of the movement, in the people and the communities, to regain lost ground and to recover the initial plan, to advance to Apatzingán and Morelia, to do away with organized crime and the government that protects it. To convert the natural feeling of hate towards organized crime and towards those who protect them into a program that assures the end of drug trafficking and all that it represents. To seize the assets and properties of the narcos, the politicians and businesspeople who protect them, to denounce and replace authorities linked to organized crime with popular representatives chosen from community assemblies. To link up with social and popular movements at the local and national level, to be wary of any deal with the local or federal government, to trust, just as now, in the people.
Drug trafficking is intrinsically linked to political and economic power in some regions, it can’t be done away with without shaking up power. When the government speaks of peace and order, it is referring to the peace of the cemeteries, where the people continue burying victims in silence.
The self-defense groups and community guardians have taught us a great lesson: only the people can save the people, and they are an expression of the great social events in which our people and workers will be the main actors.
By Jaime Quintana Guerrero
Desinformémonos
January 5, 2014
Translated by Scott Campbell
Federal District, Mexico. In the middle of Christmas, and after two years of opposition to the construction of a gas station on their land, the people of San Pedro Mártir were evicted from their protest encampment. But they guarantee that not even with the impressive police operation – when more than 2,000 of the capital’s forces encircled the town – will they stop their struggle against its construction that, they say, is illegal and represents the entry point of changing their traditional way of life.
Located in the Tlalpan district, south of Mexico City, the inhabitants maintain that “the gas station represents an imposition by businesses on our way of life,” says one of the opposition activists. “What is to come is a legal and peaceful struggle until the gas station is decommissioned and demolished,” announced a member of the Movement of Neighborhoods and Peoples of the South, which is part of the opposition.
A young woman recounts that, alongside the peaceful and legal protest, the repression they were exposed to is spreading. “Our idea is to remain strong and we are convinced that our stance is legal,” she says.
The inhabitants of San Pedro Mártir say that the construction of the gas station, which began in 2011, “violates land use and environmental regulations. The permits were obtained in collusion with officials from the Tlalpan district, the Ministry of Development and Housing (SEDUVI), the Federal District’s Ministry of the Environment (SEDEMA) and Mexican Petroleum (PEMEX),” a woman said.The gas station belongs to the Mexican Corporation of Gas Stations (CorpoGas), a company founded in 1982 and is the group that sells the most fuel in the country. In the first half of 2011, it sold 632 million liters of fuel. The commercial director of CorpoGas is Juan Carlos Niembro Núñez, also the owner of Bicentennial Parking Attendant (OEB), which will own 23,320 parking spaces for ten years in Mexico City.
“The construction of the gas station has a deeper meaning. Being an indigenous people, it has to do with our heritage of customs and traditions,” explains a young man from the movement. “Here we decide what can be built and what can’t,” according to the people’s decision, he notes, adding that the government permits a large amount of illegal building. San Pedro Mártir belongs to the indigenous peoples who still retain their own organizational characteristics, language and customs that were present at the beginning of colonization.
The commission of three people from the Movement of Neighborhoods and Peoples of the South – which during this time marked 40 years of existence – told Desinformémonos that they fear that the construction of the gas station will mean the beginning of more construction that is distinct from their way of life. “This means to deny us as a people,” says the young man.
Land use laws in this area do not permit this type of construction, the commission adds. “They use streets, the public roads, and that is prohibited. It is not feasible to build on- and off-ramps, which is dangerous because it is on the Mexico-Cuernavaca highway,” explains the woman. As well, there is the danger of having fuel in the area, as “here we are very religious, with parties and fireworks, and it is feared that a disaster might occur.”
We want to live as we want
“Today it starts with the gas station and then come the shopping malls. It’s a process of annihilation of the peoples,” explains the young woman. “The illegality with which they impose these projects – such as the gas station – is a message that they don’t care about the peoples, their way of life, their sense of community and the earth. We want to live our way, and they want to impose changes on us by force.”
An older woman from the community – who also declined to give her name – recalls San Pedro Mártir’s history of struggle. She says that the most important chapter happened 40 years ago, when they opposed the construction of the Military College: “The people took to the streets. At that time it was the men who began to organize and demanded to be heard.” The schools, the water and the bridges that the people have today are as a result of their struggles, the woman adds. “The government didn’t just come and put those things here, they were demanded by the people.”
Another front in San Pedro Mártir’s battle is the scarcity of water. “We saw how the Peña Pobre paper mill took the water and left the fields without trees, and the struggle began. There have been intense struggles which have impacted the people of San Pedro Mártir, and what is coming will be the same,” the resident says.
The defectiveness of the law and repression
On December 25, when the Ixtliyolotl encampment was dismantled, “they encircled us from La Joya, which is several kilometers from here. The town was surrounded,” says the young woman. The activist says the deployment of police forces was massive. “All we were asking was that they follow the law.”
It’s been two years and three months of legal, civil and peaceful struggle, says the commission. They explain the authorities violated the protective measures granted on May 14, 2013 by the Human Rights Commission of the Federal District, even as the matter is still before the courts – with injunction 777/2013 issued in favor of the town against the last ruling of the Superior Court of the Administrative Tribunal of the Federal District (TCADF).
Residents complain that the very company removed the seals marking it as closed. “There is no law. The company showed us a number of documents that they sent to various agencies, which does not mean that they have permission for the gas station to operate. They never showed us a permit or approval from the authorities. We don’t understand why they sent in the police,” says the young man.
The activists gave the district head of Tlalpan, Maricela Contreras, documents regarding the two rulings in their favor, but she did nothing, says the young woman. “That’s complicity and they’re leaving the people to do the work the authorities should be doing. What we got from the district head of Tlalpan is silence and repression. The encampment had legal protective measures, and a few days prior we won an injunction, and they send in the police.”
A June 27, 2011, administrative decision ruled that land use permit 59177-181-SOKA10, issued for the gas station on October 28, 2010, is contrary to Tlalpan’s Land Use Program. Zoning resolution 037661, issued on November 27, 1991, stopped, therefore, having effect on vested rights, as well as environmental impact authorizations and construction permits. An injunction against the zoning resolution was obtained, and the environmental and urban impact reports were issued based on the land use permit.
The Ministry of the Environment determined that the gas station did not meet the necessary requirements, as the land use permit requested was for 300 square meters, but in reality the station occupies 2,300 meters. Their construction permit expired on December 5, 2011, however, they continued building, reports the Movement’s commission.
The inhabitants of San Pedro Mártir filed three lawsuits, with rulings in favor of the town. They include two rulings for annulment (I-52703/2011 and I-71002/2011) and one for public action (IV-10810/2012). The first chamber of the Administrative Tribunal annulled the land use zoning certificate issued by SEDUVI. Revoked were the November 22, 2010 urban impact report DGAU.10/DEIU/030/2010; the December 6, 2010 type C construction permit RG/TL/3033/2010; and the environmental impact authorization SMA/DGRA/DEIA/000425/2010 issued by the Federal District’s Ministry of the Environment.
The fist of the “left”
“The mayor of Mexico City, Miguel Ángel Mancera, beats the people down using his district officials,” explains the woman. “To not recognize that we have communal ways of doing things in the streets, in the church and with the land is to attack us.”
The young man from the commission explains that the majority of those who maintained the encampment were women and that they were repressed. “The district head Maricela Contreras feigns having a feminist government in favor of the people, but allowed the repression and preferred the voice of the businesspeople. She stayed silent. These kinds of politicians also serve the corporations, and they make use of their public offices to benefit the private sector.”
“A government that violates rights and represses cannot be said to be leftist. Mancera’s government is not leftist nor progressive, it is a repressor,” says the young woman.
Mancera “sees us as ignorant and believes that the people don’t know what they are doing. And of course we know,” exclaimed, angry, the adult woman. “What they are doing impacts the poor in Mexico. We are not ignorant and we don’t want bread and circuses.”
“This struggle is for dignity. Although it is a huge corporation and we have more than two years in the fight, we haven’t accepted bribes. To fight with dignity is what defines us,” explains the young man in the resistance. “They come to ask us what we want, and we respond that we want them to remove the gas station,” he concludes.
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