Repression in Atenco

July 2007

Background to the repression

On the 3rd May 2006 rural flower farmers took their flowers to sell at the market in Texcoco (near to Mexico City) but were violently attacked by police who accused them of not being a legitimate business. Several clashes with riot police ensued as residents from nearby San Salvador Atenco along with groups of students attempted to defend the flower sellers. Six police officers were taken hostage by the protestors and then released as a gesture of goodwill. Hundreds of demonstrators were injured and at least three police officers were severely beaten. The community of Atenco had previously gained fame when residents, led by the 'People's Front in Defense of the Land' (FPDT) defeated corrupt government plans to build an international airport on their land.

 

Thousands of police launch an attack on the town of Atenco

The following day after hostilities had ceased and the residents of Atenco had returned home the town woke to an invasion of 3,000 state and federal police carrying batons, shields and guns. They entered houses by smashing windows and breaking down doors and once inside they destroyed and looted belongings, beating and arresting residents. Most of the arrests made were indiscriminate but some were not. The police had with them a masked informer who pointed out the houses of political activists including members of FPDT as well as local campaigners involved with the Zapatista instigated 'Other Campaign'. The police operation lasted seven hours during which they met little resistance. They beat people in the streets including women, elderly people and minors. Many were beaten until unconscious before being arrested and thrown into vans. Some women were raped and forced to perform sexual acts while being beaten in the streets, for others this ordeal began once they were being transported in police vans. A 20 year old student was left in a coma and later died after the extreme police brutality left his brain 'visibly exposed'. A 14 boy was shot and killed. The police and mainstream media initially tried to blame this death on the protestors but it was later confirmed after autopsy that he was killed by a police bullet fired at point blank range. Reports have recently come from a doctor attending to prisoners stating that “several people” suffered gunshot wounds.

 

Ordeal of those arrested in Atenco

For the 270+ innocent civilians who had been arrested the ordeal had just begun. Although the police and notoriously corrupt politicians were quick to deny allegations of vicious beatings and sexual abuse there are many, many statements that have been released by the victims of this repression all of which corroborate each other. The complaints are also being supported by several human rights organisations. Prisoners, many of whom were severely injured, were handcuffed and thrown on top of each other on the floor of police vans, some forced to lie face down in pools of blood. The vans took hours to transport the detainees to prison during which they continued to be viciously beaten. Female prisoners were stripped and violently sexually abused. Upon arrival at the prison detainees were forced to walk through a 'gauntlet' of police who kicked and punched them as they passed. One Chilean and two Catalan women were sexually abused by police before being expelled from the country. The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has documented the sexual abuse of 23 women, seven of whom were raped. A spokesperson for the CNDH stated that the claims were backed up with medical, video and photographic evidence so that "no one can say that these women are lying". Lawyers representing the women have said that 45 women were raped or sexually abused. Doctors attending to the injured inside the prisons have reported countless cases of victims with severe internal and external injuries as a result of police beatings.

 

Current Mexican political system does not hold the answers

The extreme brutality carried out by the Mexican state against its own citizens in San Salvador Atenco offers a tragic example of the nature of the Mexican political system. Lopez Obrador, the popular PRD leader (Party of the Democratic Revolution) and former presidential candidate, was heralded in much of the mainstream press as part of the leftist, anti-imperialist shift in power taking place in Latin American politics. However, the mayor who was directly responsible for the Atenco attack was in fact a member of the PRD, a fact flagged up by Obrador as evidence that the PRD is capable of a 'hardline' stance. It is a sad fact that all the mainstream political parties are quick to support rape, torture and murder for personal political gain. This recent violence is an escalation of the ongoing suffering imposed on Mexico's poor by the ruling class already made worse by the neo-liberal North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed in 1994. As long as the vast majority are governed by the state on behalf of a minority of wealthy politicians and businessmen (domestic and foreign) there will be no solution to the widespread poverty and the state will have to use ever increasing violence to enforce its power.

 

The Zapatistas and The Other Campaign

Instigated by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), and developed by indigenous groups, autonomous workers unions, student, peasant and women's groups and countless others from the length and breadth of Mexico, 'The Other Campaign' seeks to find a participatory, non-hierarchical alternative to governmental power so that individuals and social groups can take control of their own lives free from the capitalist model. The EZLN burst on to the scene in 1994, launching a rebellion in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Although until recently their focus has been predominantly local and ethnic (indigenous) they have inspired an international anti-capitalist movement and gained support and solidarity from across the world.

 

Free remaining prisoners and protest Mexican state terrorism

 
There are 12 victims of police violence who remain in prison facing sentences of up to 112 years. These charges are clearly motivated by the political need to justify the use of such excessive force and to silence and discredit dissenting voices. Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity Group joins the FPDT, the EZLN, various groups affiliated to 'The Other Campaign' and groups from all over the world in forming the National and International Campaign for Freedom and Justice for Atenco and calling for;

 

 

    • The immediate release of all 12 prisoners
    • The dropping of all charges against those arrested in Atenco and Texcoco.
    • To respect the human rights of political prisoners
    • The resignation or removal and prosecution of all government or police officials responsible, materially or intellectually, for the repression and human rights violations
    • An end to the criminalisation of social movements by the Mexican State.

 

Action

You can help by taking part in any protests organised here in the UK and by relaying the above demands to the following people:

 

Prisoner Solidarity

Paypal account to help support prisoner solidarity efforts (set up by the Centro de Medios Libres):

http://www.vientos.info/presosdonaciones/

Get Involved

We invite you to join our email list (sign up here) and to attend our regular organising meetings.

Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity Group,
c/o 17 West Montgomery Place
Edinburgh
EH7 5HA
Scotland

Email: edinchiapas@yahoo.co.uk

Or click here for our Facebook page

The EdinChiapas group is part of the 'UK Zapatista Network': ukzapatistas.wordpress.com