[Author’s Note: Initially submitted in 2012, as part of the course material for the Master’s Program in Women’s Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies. At the time of this publication, thanks to the efforts of this remarkable woman and others who have kept their unflinshing and caring commitment for the human rights of Indigenous People, the Autonomous Community of San Juan Copalá thrives and celebrates it sacred Earth-based and stars embodied cultural legacy. This is my small contribution in telling the story of Betty Cariño—herstory and history.]
“The release of convicts accused of the assassination of activists in San Juan Copalá, Oaxaca”
El caso de Alberta Cariño, van dos liberados
Introduction
Under the rubric of overpopulation we see an increase in the sanctioned elimination of Blacks and Brown people, i.e. Afrodescendants and Natives on a global scale. The covert and overt extermination of aboriginal people in the Americas—influenced by US market policies—is more than a national shame, for it presents an international crisis in crimes against humanity. A dangerous collusion between US leaders, bankers and corporate interests constitutes the main purveyor of weapons and exporter of wars in the world. It is time to stop the ongoing selective genocides of Black and Brown people. The link between crimes against Blacks and Indigenous people is strongly related to a notion of overpopulation popularized by the Malthusian population control theory—and the unfounded and dehumanizing fear it engenders in ignorant masses is feeding a selective global genocide of Dark Ones on a global scale. In short, the murders of Black youths are more than isolated police crimes.
Overpopulation has become a key word linked to opportunitstic conflicts, corporate inhuman worker’s conditions for profit, and mass exterminations by those who wield political and economic control. While for those invested in the values of human potential there are more creative ways of coexistence, like diplomacy—a rare recourse these days—and conflict resolution strategies, to name but two. The increase in population has been found to threaten the stability of the power structures, status quo, and big banks’ economic agenda. So, select groups of land and rivers dependent people continue being targeted as the “enemy,” while labeled as “terrorists” by the growing totalitarian terrorist regimes and multinationals that wield power.
We continue to witness the US police and the military deployed under the pretext of political, crisis and economic conflicts, for the systematic extermination of select groups of people, mostly Black and Brown people in areas identified for their abundance in precious metals—cadmium in northern Africa as a prime example. Global economic interests combine with centuries of racism in the scheme for population control, while US national security is portrayed as at risk by tensions fueled by policies and legislation that further oppress desperate people. Many of us are the next to be affected in this crisis. This will not stop by raising our voices about the losses of our loved ones of a given “race,” because law enforcement and military powers are being positioned and encouraged to eliminate masses of Blacks and Brown people at a scale incomprehensible to most.
Seemingly isolated cases of police crimes against people of color, and Brown people, may well serve as part of a scheme to desensitize the general, meaning white, population in order to appease “public opinion” about the escalating genocides of Black and Brown people in the Americas as well as globally. It is possible that members of the Black Lives Matter movement in the US may not have made the connection between the global scope of the genocides and the possibility of a desensitization scheme to escalate a mass genocide of Black and Brown people.
I propose that the terrorist killings targetting Blacks, so called “Latinos,” and Indigenous men and women in the US seem to be a scheme to influence public opinion towards an ethos of fear aimed at disarming dissent and increasing precarious conditions, incarcerations and the oppression of innocent majorities. As more people are disensitized to events where the police kill Blacks, First Nations people and Americans south-of-the-border with impunity, less and less people will object to the decimation of thousands more to come, here and elsewhere.
On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on a West Philly neighborhood, 6 children and 5 adults died, 65 houses burned down, 250 people were left homeless. The event was described as a urban war zone (Google “move bombing”), article by AJ Rosario:
http://theantimedia.org/remember-police-dropped-bomb-neighborhood-philly-neither/
One cannot fail to see the connections between crimes against Indigenous women in Canada, (Oct 2004 Amnesty International report titled “Stolen Sisters: A Human Rights Response to the Descrimination and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada”), Americans south-of-the-border Indigenous populations in Oaxaca, and the killing of isolated or groups of Black citizens in the US, as a scheme to terrorize the rest of the onlookers: all US citizens.
Mixteca Woman in Autonomous Territory South of the US Border
Copal is a kind of amber that is used as incense, and is found in Mesoamerica. This earth-based and resilient resin provides us with an appropriate metaphor to describe the gentle nature of the Copaltecos, as the Triqui first nation people of San Juan Copala, who live besieged by the fires of corporate greed encroaching upon their Autonomous Territory, are known. But as gentle as the Triqui people have been, there are serious oppressive forces threatening the very life of this people. Activist Bety Cariño gave her life in the struggle for the autonomy and land sovereignty of San Juan Copala, yet the government is funding paramilitary forces to massacre and perpetrate ethnic cleansing for the profit of at least one Northern corporation. It is imperative for feminists in the US to recognize the efforts and self-determination of the indigenous Mixteca women. Feminists in the US need to address the ways in which belonging to a consumer society represents colluding with the empire against the Third World.
Even when I write from the standpoint of a panentheist mujerista, I hope to reduce whatever subjective awareness of oppression to ashes at the inexhaustible altar of the grief and suffering of my indigenous sisters and brothers from south of the Border. What importance can any personal grief have when observed from the standpoint or awareness of their sacrifices in daily life? I would also like to apologize in advance for the probably offensive and accusatory statements that I will be directing to the privileged theologists, spiritualists and Christian good people in the U.S.—offensive to those who assume a defensive position, not to the compassionate ones.
This essay is an attempt to make the transformative, inspiring leadership and spiritual drive of Beatriz Alberta Cariño Trujillo, significant as it is in the persistent struggle of the Triqui first people in the Autonomous Territory of San Juan Copala more broadly known among my peers in hopes to invite further analysis about indigenous Mixteca mujeristas. It is not possible to explore the multiple aspects of indivisible systems of community solidarity at more length in this brief essay. I hope that more human rights activist mujeristas, feminists and indigenous nations defenders make it their mission to lend more support to the struggles for survival of the peace loving Triqui people.
Not covered in this essay are issues of the colonization of other indigenous communities close or far away from the Triqui and Mixteca people of Oaxaca and from other lands within America, the America from Arctic to Antarctic. There is also little time and space for me to mention the many elements of linguistic appropriation by the imperial culture of the US in, for example, the essentialist, expansionist and genocidal misuse of the word “American” in English language—as if the other America, about 35 sovereign states, do not exist. This is only one of the many issues that point out to the height of the US government’s imperial arrogance—the US media does not cover the US perpetrated terrorism against the others: the faceless Americans. I would like to encourage more discussions and studies confronting these issues in other essays. However, I hope for the written word to raise its loud and deafening cry at the injustices that corporate and colonial interests keep perpetuating in our own “back yard” or México (not to mention the rest of Central, South America and Puerto Rico).
Early in 2010 I learned about the plight of the people of the autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala and the valor of Beatriz Alberta (Bety) Cariño Trujillo, who at that time was preparing the Second Humanitarian Caravan. Cariño was the founder and director of CACTUS (Spanish language acronym for Centro de Apoyo Comunitario Trabajando Unidos/Centre for Community Support Working Together), a non-profit organization defending the Triqui farmers displaced by government armed and funded paramilitary groups (UBISORT-PRI, MULT, MULT-I). Cariño also organized women’s collectives in northern Oaxaca and was an advocate for the indigenous people´s right to autonomy and their sovereign access to land, food and water. She dedicated her life in defense of the human rights of the Triqui and Mixteca people, and to improve the quality of life and the civic participation of the women in San Juan Copala and other regions. One thing that impressed me the most about the Triqui people was their efforts in adhering to nonviolent ways of conflict resolution. Despite being unarmed, they persisted with dignity to preserve the land of their ancestors, their solidarity and their traditions, even if this meant confronting armed paramilitaries who assassinated their most vocal leaders.
In the year 2005 the Triquis reached a population of 786 inhabitants, and by 2010 their population was reduced to 630 inhabitants, some of whom had been assassinated, while many “disappeared” and others were displaced outside the autonomous territory.
The Triqui people have been subjected to near starvation as well as blockades of food, medicine and medical care. As of today, there have been five massive Caravans of well wishers in solidarity with their struggles, people from surrounding communities who have risked their lives by joining efforts to take foods, medical and hygienic supplies to the People of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala. In an article from Waging Nonviolence, an online “People-powered news and analysis” journalist Michael Perillo reports that, “Ubisort also prevents damaged electricity cables and a busted pipe that delivers the community’s water supply from being repaired, forcing residents to use a contaminated water source. Moreover, sharpshooters who surround the area have kept the community under permanent fear.”[1] Amnesty International also explains why 700 Triqui people are being killed, “San Juan Copala […] declared itself an autonomous municipality in 2007. This means it governs itself through the traditional indigenous practices and does not recognize the authority of existing public officials.”[2] Therefore, while transnational corporations force their access by bribing state authorities in order to “develop” they actually steal, plunder and destroy the people of Copala’s indigenous territory.
The Triqui People of San Juan Copala asserted, “Because our communal struggle, through a peaceful organization, seeks to do away with the repression, imposition and cruel treatment to which we were subjected, first by the governments and then by ‘organizations’ which, rooted in lies and corruption, have taken from us our word, our decisions and have taken our right to live as first peoples; we don’t have weapons, we don’t need them: we know that with organization and with the solidarity of the people of Mexico and of the world we will soon attain a life of peace, with justice and dignity.”[3] This is such a rare demonstration of valor and true heroism. Where in the U.S. do we encounter people facing corruption with this persistent boldness and valor, even at the risk of ethnic cleansing? The Triqui People are an inspiration to the first nations within and outside of the United States. At the present time in the U.S., more and more corporations profit from people’s fears: security-surveillance related businesses, people with anxiety related diagnosis seeking counseling or psychological assistance, culminating in the mass hysteria of a Department of National “Security” in a country where there is no people security. In this climate, it is inspiring to listen to the testimony of Bety Cariño at the Front Line Dublin Platform state, “They are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them.”[4] Cariño was not present at the Mexican Congress in March 2002, as Comandanta Esther, a Zapatista leader from the southern state of Chiapas urged those gathered there, “I want to explain the situation of women as we live in our communities, […],” but, “I am not telling you this so you pity us. Comandanta Esther’s discourse should convince those intellectuals removed from the daily life of indigenous people that culture is not monolithic, not static […] many indigenous women want both to transform and to preserve their culture.”[5] As a mujerista indigenous leader, Cariño was driven to transform and to preserve the culture and the ancestral lands, including the ancestral air, water and fire of her ancestors.
“On 27 April 2010, at approximately 14:40, a humanitarian group made up of 30 human rights defenders as well as international observers were on their way to San Juan Copala to deliver provisions like foods and medicines to indigenous communities who have been under siege by armed groups.”[6] The caravan was ambushed. Paramilitaries linked to the government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz blocked the road ahead with large boulders, while UBISORT paramilitaries (Union for the Well-Being of the Triqui Region) opened fire on the unarmed members of the caravan. Betty Cariño, founder of Community Support Center Working Together, CAUCUS and Jyri Jaakkola, an international solidarity activist from Finland, were killed, while others were wounded in their attempt to run away from their attackers. Betty Cariño’s extraordinary courage asserting the human rights of the people and challenging the criminal colonial stance of the patriarchal government resulted in her assassination during the paramilitary ambush to the caravan in support of the Triqui people of the Autonomous Territory of San Juan Copalá. Without the collaboration and solidarity of a committed feminist and mujerista activist like Betty Cariño, and CAUCUS, the organization that she founded, the Triqui of San Juan Copala will be forced into extinction. More recent searches show that CAUCUS, the organization founded by Cariño, is no longer active.
At the First Indigenous Women’s Summit of the Americas decolonizing efforts on the part of indigenous mujeristas were loud and clear. Whereas most Mexicans pay homage and reverence to Catholic authorities, “The indigenous women’s response is a significant expression of a newly gained spirit of autonomy and self-determination. The women’s declaration, in both tone and content, also speaks of the erosion of the [c]hurch’s dominion over indigenous worlds. These povety stricken and unschooled women, highly dedicated to caring for their children, elders and their communities, have shown themselves to be braver and less submissive than some feminist negotiators at a recent United Nations meeting with Vatican representatives.”[7]
The Sixth caravan in support of Triqui autonomy, February 4, 2012
On February 5th 2012, after a 2nd encounter of displaced people at Universidad de Chapingo, the sixth caravan in support of the Triqui autonomy movement was ready to depart at the historic site of San Salvador Atenco. However, as a result of the strike in such an important venue for students and workers struggles, the event was transferred to San Salvador Atenco where the community is also faced with threats of being displaced in favor of capitalist megaprojects, like the attempt to build an airport in their territory, and now they confront the prospect of yet another project.[8] [Original text in Spanish, translated into English by Swami Pujananda.]
Other issues—A Climate of Impunity and Resistance[9]
Is the NAFTA superhighway yet in place? Is the evidence of the North American Union, an economic construct which supersedes the notion of national borders in favor of profit or the so called “Economy” (the economy that profits a few is no economy to the People, the native or oppressed people) a covert way of imposing the free-for-all of an economy without borders for corporate/banking/political powers? Can an “Economy” designed by bankers married to political power co-exist with the intended concepts of democracy in the U.S.? The same borders that are blurred into nonexistence by the North American Union agreements in place between US, Canadian, and Mexican governments, conveniently exist in monolithic “Immigration Laws” to punish and to profit from the poor people who cross them. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, and the Department of Homeland Security, insecurity to most of the planet, are arms designed as a profiting machinery oppressing destitute, so called “immigrants,” who have to abide by the “laws and borders” imposed by an oppressive nepotism posing as democracy. Why is it so difficult to demonstrate to the People of the US that the borders meant to separate Mexico, Canada and US in order to criminalize migrant workers are the same borders blurred to non-existence by the opportunistic NAFTA , North American Free Trade Agreement? Learning and teaching in the US would be easier were the people of this country not mesmerized and brainwashed by the Media and alienating forms of entertainment.
The deplorable crimes against humanity perpetrated against the people of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala have attracted the attention and solidarity of the governments of Norway, Finland and France. Maureen Meyer,[10] Chief Coordinator of Programs for Mexico and Central America at the Washington Office on Latin America, WOLE, redacted a letter to Gabino Cué Monteagudo, Governor of Oaxaca, requesting that his administration protect the Triqui people of the Autonomous Territory of San Juan Copala, in no uncertain terms. At the end of her letter Maureen Meyer explicitly stated that she expected a response in writing from the governor of Oaxaca.[11]
One may wonder if the very name “Autonomous Municipality” carries within it a kind of contradiction preventing or limiting the possibilities of more widespread international support. It is perhaps easier to conceive of an autonomous “territory” than to conceive of an autonomous municipality. The very term “Municipality” conveys the sense of a hamlet, village, a small community… an area not likely to harness the international support that the Autonomous Territory of San Juan Copala would attract were it a territory and not a “municipality.”
According to Mixteca attorney Francisco López Bárcenas[12], There are 16 indigenous nations in Oaxaca, and the Triqui People are one among these 16. The Autonomous Territory of San Juan Copala, land of the Triqui People, extends over 517.6 km2.[13]
It is important to understand the displacement of the People in Triqui territory of Oaxaca in the context of the expansion plans and other “needs” of the former Continuum, now Fortuna Silver Mines, Inc., for greater access and free range to develop an airport and all the other infrastructures required for the mining, exploitation and excavations in the Oaxaca region.
On January 23, 2012, in the open source online site Intercontinental Cry, Ahni reported on Zapotec protesters being shot on behalf of “Fortuna Silver Mines.”[14]While some may contend that the Canadian mining interests bring “progress” to the Oaxaca region, I consider this so called progress meaningless to people who are facing extinction, while their ancestral region is enriching the pockets of corrupt officials and foreign investors. For obvious reasons, this is the kind of news that the mainstream media covers only from the perspective of the Canadian mining company, and not from the perspective of first peoples. One Zapotec was killed, and another man is in recovery after police officers and other armed men opened fire on a crowd of protesters in the municipality of San José del Progreso, Ocotlán, Oaxaca, Mexico. Shamelessly, the struggles of the first peoples of San Juan Copala, like those of most other natives are being officially covered under the smoke screen of a “war against organized crime.”[15] But, who are the criminals or the terrorists in this case, the people or the State? If we support such a State, where is our conscience? It should be with the oppressed.
The parallels between the Ley de Seguridad Nacional[16] [the so called “Law of National Security”] in México and the so called National Defense Authorization Act , 2012 NDAA, in the U.S. are too significant to be ignored. In the context of a borderless global economy, journalist Chris Hedges expounds further on the destructive fork tongued political dialogue where there are no borders, and apparently no limits, for the mafia of the so called “economy,” while it secures borders and laws erected to perpetuate crimes against humanity.[17] The very name and functions of the UBISORT paramilitaries (Union for the Well-Being of the Triqui Region) is significant and evocative of the euphemistic distortion of the state government, or the loyalties of the governor of Oaxaca. While the government loyalties are not with the people, the state and national administration sides with the paramilitaries who pose as defending the “well-being of the Triqui Region” while in fact the word “region” in this case means the defense of silver and gold mining interests of the Canadian miner Fortuna Silver. Defending Fortuna Silver’s interests is leading to massacres and the demise of the Mixteca and Triqui population defending their ancestral lands. The Triqui people’s defense of their ancestral lands represent an obstacle to the “well-being” of the Canadian mining company that has secured legislation in favor of their surface soil and subterranean mining exploration and exploitation. The water used for the mining exploitation, estimated to last twelve years, diverts all underground water to Fortuna Silver, the mining company, and leaves the people in a vast territory and their water supply heavily contaminated with toxic chemicals for an indefinite length of time. For more on the Oaxaca mining project affecting over 34, 000 hectare, see the documentary Minas y Mentiras: La verdad sobre la mina Cuzcatlán en San José del Progreso (1 de 3). [18]
(To be continued, Essay Part 2)
(Meet Mago Contributor) Swami Pujananda Saraswati.
Notes
[1] Michael Perillo, Nonviolence takes hold in “Mexico’s Gaza,” http://wagingnonviolence.org/2010/06/nonviolence-takes-hold-in-mexicos-gaza/
[2] Ibid.
[3] El Enemigo Común, San Juan Copala: On the second caravan and the autonomous project. http://elenemigocomun.net/2010/05/second-caravan-autonomous-project/
[4] Bety Cariño testimony to the Front Line Dublin Platform, http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/files/en/Testimony%20by%20Bety%20Carino.pdf
[5] Sylvia Marcos, Mesoamerican Women’s Indigenous Spirituality, in the Journal of feminist studies in Religion 25.2(2009), 30.
[6] Front Line Defenders is a legally registered Irish charity, http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/2478
[7] Marcos, Mesoamerican Women’s, 34.
[8] Municipio Autónomo San Juan Copala, WordPress.com, Sexta Caravana de Apoyo a la Autonomía Triqui [Sixth Caravan in Support of Triqui Autonomy.] https://municipioautonomodesanjuancopala.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/sexta-caravana-de-apoyo-a-la-autonomia-triqui/
[9] More on the Climate of Impunity and Resistance http://elenemigocomun.net/2011/05/year-after-copala-caravan-ambush/
[10] Maureen Meyer, Senior Associate for Mexico and Central America, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) http://www.wola.org/people/maureen_meyer
[11] Maureen Meyer, Transcript attached [online scanned letter is legible in Spanish language, but prints blurred]. http://todosconlacaravana.blogspot.com/
[12] Francisco López Bárcenas, La Persistente Utopía Triqui: El Municipio Autónomo de San Juan Copala
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ahni, Zapotec Protesters Shot on Behalf of Canadian Mining Company. Intercontinental Cry, http://intercontinentalcry.org/zapotec-protesters-shot-on-behalf-of-canadian-mining-company/
[15] Daniel Arrellano Chávez, (et.al.) Translated by Scott Campbell. The “Low-Intensity War” Against Autonomy (Part One) http://elenemigocomun.net/2010/12/low-intensity-war-against-autonomy-part-one/
[16] Estados Unidos Mexicanos [Mexican United States]Ley de Seguridad Nacional, http://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/LSegNac.pdf
[17] Chris Hedges, Corporations Have No Use for Borders, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/corporations_have_no_use_for_borders_20120130/
[18] Minas y Mentiras—La verdad sobre la mina Cuzcatlán en San José del Progreso, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk4ZouXcvt0[19] Virat: macrocosm, the physical world extending to the galactic beyond. Glossary of Sanskrit terms, http://www.selfdiscoveryportal.com/cmSanskrit.htm