INDIGENOUS PEOPLES COUNSEL OF OAXACA
RICARDO FLORES MAGoN (CIPO-RFM)
What is the CIPO? CIPO is a movement of poor people who struggle against injustice. We are an organization of communities that fight non-violently. Our strength lies in supporting one another; being independent of all political parties, legal or secret, and from government institutions and organizations. Within CIPO-RFM, our activities are the result of assemblery agreements and therefore our triumphs and failures belong to all of us. We, the CIPO, are 24 communities of Chatin@, Mixtec@, Chinantec@, Zapotec@, mixe, triqui, black and mestiz@ peoples. In our house there is a place for everyone.
We choose the name Ricardo Flores Magon because he was indigenous, libertarian, and although he was born in Oaxaca, his heart, thoughts and work were for the freedom of all the peoples of the world. To follow his principals means to struggle without seeking any material gain or personal benefit whatsoever, to fight to eliminate egotism, leaderism, the lies and to live without aspiring for power nor imposing ourselves on anyone. Mutual support, solidarity (tequio, gueza, gozona), non-violent direct action, autonomy and self-determination (autogestion) are the paths we take to freedom. We, the members of CIPO, call ourselves Magonistas because Magonism is the way in which we indigenous understand the libertarian fight.
ATTN: JOSe MURAT CASAT (governor of Oaxaca), ULISES RUIZ (new governor elect of Oaxaca) and THE PARAMILITARIES (hired assassins/death squads):
Aproximately at 6:13 a.m. on September 14th, 2004, more than 200 police and special forces of the state government, UPOE, preventive police, touristic police, state judicial, Federal Agency of Investigations, both uniformed and plainsclothed, under the direction of leiutenant Jose Vera Salinas, using nightsticks, tear gas, deafening bombs and water hoses, evicted us, without warning, from the encampments of protest that we, the members of CIPO-RFM and the democratic workers of the Union of the Three Powers of the State (Sindicato de los Tres Poderes del Estado), have had in front of the government palace and in front of the temple of Santo Domingo in the city of Oaxaca since April 20, 2004. Our brothers and sisters encarcerated are: Dolores Villalobos Cuamatzi, Miguel Cruz Moreno, Leoner Lopez Alaves (16 years), Reynaldo Feria Hernandez, Carmen Lopez Perez, Gumaro Lopez Alaves, Kalid Peres Gomes (19 years), Margarita Garcia Garcia, Abacuc Cruz Cruz ,Gildardo Perez Gomez (17 years), Hipolito Rodriguez Soriano, Jose Cruz Cruz, Abel Ramirez Ramirez, Guadalupe Garcia Garcia and Mauro Garcia Garcia. After having been interrogated by means of physical and psychological torture within the State Justice Department, they have been kept isolated, not even lawyers or doctors have been permitted to visit to verify their legal status or asist their wounds, and they remain seperated in diverse jails throughout the state. Eleven were sent to Ixcotel; 1 to Miahuatlan (Margarita Garcia) and 2 to Etla (Abacuc Cruz and Dolores Villalobos). Furthermore, the bail for each one of them has been set at $45,000.00 with the exception of Dolores Villalobos, whose bail is set at $61,000.00, and the members of the Union of the Three Powers of the State, Abacuc Cruz and Margarita Garcia, who have been denied bail altogether as an act of revenge. In the afternoon on the 14th, we returned to set up camp again in the Zocalo (central plaza) before a massive police force, both uniformed and plainsclothed. The 15th of September, during the night, before and during the “grito” (celebration of independence day), we were attacked by police who attempted at all costs to remove us before the eyes of the crowd of people who were present. They managed to rob our sound system and our backpacks full of food for our friends. The day of the 16th, there was another big display of police force to control the independence day parade and in order to carry out the orders of their boss Murat, they used tear gas that harmed a little girl of five years and her mother. However, they were unable to achieve their goal and had to deal with us throughout the parade. The 17th went by without further agression, but we were still watched by police. In the early morning of the 18th, at 2:10 a.m., again more than 200 police, dressed in black with black masks, armed with sticks, rods, knives and heavy weapons returned to attack our people, resulting in more than 10 injured, our comrade Jovita Ramos Lopez was seriously injured and had to be taken to the red cross and two comrades were “disappeared”: Eusebio Chavez Soriano and Lorenzo Bautista. The CEDH (a human rights organization) didn’t want to testify the facts and Saturday the 19th, the repression continued when the fourth penal judge notified our imprisoned comrades at Ixcotel that Jose Cruz Cruz and Gumaro Lopes Alvez, both communitary authorities of San Isidro Aloapam, would no longer have the right to freedom under bail because they were considered a threat to society. Currently, we are pestered non-stop and the police are constantly present at the office of CIPO-RFM with the intent of arresting the organizing members and assassinating our comrade Raul Gatica. We hold the following people directly responsible for this agression: Governor Jose Murat Casat, Secretary General Celestino Alonso, State Justice Attorney Rogelio Chagoya, Secretary of Citizen Protection Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, who chooses to benfit from the violence and repression in order to impose himself as the new “governer.” For all of the above, WE DEMAND:
1. Respect for the Autonomy of our communities
2. Execution of the orders to arrest the paramilitaries de la CROCUT: Cesar Toimil Roberts and Jacobo Chavez Yescas who are the murderers responsible for the masacre en Santa Maria Yaviche on the 16th of October, 2003.
3. The arrest of the murderers of our brothers in Yucunicuca and Lagunilla Yosonotu
4. Immediate and unconditional freedom for the political prisoners of CIPO-RFM.
5. Solitions to the agrarian conflicts in San Isidro Aloapam and Santa Catarina Yosonotu.
6. Guarantee for the life of Raul Gatica Bautista
Like this we are resisting with non-violent tactics and creativity as our weapons, that which the powerful do not know how to combat; they only know how to use brutality.
IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL FREEDOM FOR POLITICAL PRISONERS!
For the reconstitution and free association of our pueblos. CIPO-RFM
TRABAJADORES DEMOCRaTICOS DEL SINDICATO DE LOS TRES PODERES
Consejo Indigena Popular de Oaxaca
Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-RFM)
c/: Emilio Carranza 210
Sta Lucia del Camino
Oaxaca, Mexico
C.P. 71228
Tel: 011 52 (951) 51 7818 3
or 011 52 (951) 517 8190
ciporfm@yahoo.com.mx
mujercipo@hotmail.com
los_magoneros@hotmail.com
cipo@nodo50.org
www.nodo50.org/cipo