Rojava is not alone, is not the only place where the autonomous areas are blooming. Nochixtlan, although not explicitly, is organized in the pure libertarian style in syntoni with the theoric Democratic Confederalism. Located in Oaxaca, Mexico, for many reasons and many years has beeng the desperation of the Masters, has been a political instability focus, where popular organization flourishes and narcos are repeatedly expell out. On June 19, 2016 there was a local government and police abandonment in Nochixtlan followed by an a militar assault from the side of the DC Federal Government forces. The people rejected and humiliated them out. Since them the town of about 13,300 citizens lives in a situation of Self-Government, creating its own political and social structures. Is curious that there are narcos only where police is present.
While its clearly observed a rupture with the political model can be seen a continuity with the economic and social standard. Despite the stampede of politicians and law enforcement, the economic powers remain intact. Comrades, be aware of their conspiracies! We do not believe that they allow any self-gobern to undermine their interests. They are already maneuvering to sabotage your project as you have suffer. You can not trust them, you have to do something!
From the tarcoteca we modestly believe that the better way to protect yourself is to expand the model to neighboring communities and create a strong and free Confederation. You must be able to seize this unique opportunity, and deepen the transformation root in your traditions. The Masters want you docile and servile, but you were born proud and free, you turning back to the cradle.
We present a translation of an interview with two Citizen Committee delegates, Suzana and Sergio, which explain the origin, development and possible end of the experience. We will issu a second translation about the model of Municipal People's Council followed by the Nochixtlan community. It is to highligth how the tradicional native organization based on local elected delegates meeting in assambly match with the basic free municipal anarchist organization.
We will be watching the events in curse, wishing the expansion of the self-consciousness in the surrounding areas and encouraging solidarity and support in all its ways. Your experience counts as a VICTORY!
Nochixtlans we are with you!
Cheers up Comrades, you are an example for the world!
Health!
PHkl/
tctca
________________
Source-
Nochixtlán rumbo al autogobierno: Entrevista con compañeros mixtecos del Comité Ciudadano – Ruptura Colectiva (RC) 21.8.2016 seen at
Portal Libertario OACA 28.8.2016,
tarcoteca spanish version 31.8.2016, translated by
tarcoteca counterinfo 4.9.2016.
Two months after the slaughter
[1] [2] [3], the people of Nochixtlán still remains without Governmental authorities but with a Popular Committee that is part of a dynamic political empowerment in scope to resume the Maners and Customs of the region [in an anticapitalist way in addition]. Our team has meet Sergio Lopez Garcia and Suzana Avendanio Hernandez, both elected members of the newly created Citizen Committee to keep the governance in Nochixtlan. With them, we go back on the events of last June 19, the planned act of terror, the flight of the municipal authorities, the burning of the Municipal Palace, the establishment of a People's Assembly with the election of Districts Representatives and the current
"psychological warfare" created by several
disturbing elements, including the local preacher, that are sowing discord to facilitate
the return of the former municipal and police authorities.
Q- How would you define the values that gather the peoples of the region as Mixtec and what these values allow you in a matter of resistance and social organization?
Suzana: Nochixtlan is considered as a people with deeply rooted traditions and customs. Personally, I believe that one of the main values that unite us as a people is the Mutual Fraternity. By origins, it is considered that our ancestors were very warlike and over the time this bellicosity has been transformed into a kind of tranquility. But at the time you want to step above this values and origins, rise again the people we have of root and blood, we will not bow to anyone or let walk all over us. We are an honest and quiet but not submissive people.
Nochixtlan now rises again in a stage of metamorphosis because that cocoon in which it has lock up itself has been attacked, that tranquility in quotes, so resurfaces the root bellicosity of the people. I believe that this will keep moving forward in the sense that, for the same reason that Nochixtlan is taking up this attitude, could be call of "sleeping", now we see people intend to demonstrate and demand, not beg, what It corresponds as a People.
Sergio: The Mixtecs is a warrior People, have always fought and continue fighting for a groove, for a meter or for land boundaries. Now unconsciously resurfaces the adrenaline against the impotence of a government that does not listen and does not do things up for people. We protest because everything is a fallacy. They tell us: "today we will make a reform and will lower the prize of the gasoline, will lower the gas, will drop everything" but finally happens the opposite.
Q- What kind of broader interests have interfere with this union and, for you, what state forces came this June 19?
Sergio: That's a global issue and it is clear that there are larger interests. Mexico belongs to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and obviously since Salinas [former Primer Minister] began to insert the country into this scheme, they want Mexico to be standardized at international level when really Mexico is not a developed country and follow through is still appart as is unable to compete with these countries. Our culture, our customs, our way of life is different. It is no longer a single teacher and educational reform problem but a social and deeper problem.
For many, this thinking is far from this vision because their thinking is the television one, the one the government sells. The government gives some concessions to make people not think and instead to be narrow mind, and that's what keep them submissive and still thinking that the government is doing far well. That's the problem. The government gave some concessions to the teachers and used them, exploit them, but lately as teachers get free and learned to fight, the situation become like seen and happened to us in Oaxaca and Mexico.
Suzana: I think it is a government's strategy. They had plans to attacks Chiapas but knowing that there would also have deal with drug lords, decided to attack Nochixtlan instead which has the reputation of being a very quiet village. Wanting to submit and impose the idea that they will prevail, they tought that here would be no answer.
They never expected such rebellion in Nochixtlan.
Now, entrepreneurs come together [organizing protest against popular mobilization because of their economical lost] but in reality they do not lose much because the losers are the employees, not them. They say that they will stop paying taxes but: Who are the entrepreneurs? Who is going to take the money? That is why I say that is a government strategy: political and economic interests are the one moving around despite they said that are "others".
I think it's the money question what is trying to avoid here, and unfortunately envolved us nochixtecans. But as I say, now that flaw left them backfired.
Q. Can you tell us as witness your version of the events that occurred of June 19 [the day of the policial assault to the town]?
Sergio: I came up because I heard the bells of the church, and when church bells are rung in a village is an alert call. Given this warning I went close to the hospital and I found my friends, my people, my neighbors, and I saw the face of repression ... I can show you the [smoke] bombs they throw and that obviously suffocate the people, they could see nothing.
We join together to counter the attack of the Federal Police and obviously we had nothing but stones, sticks and whatever we found. We repel them blowing stones. Later, and because they brought a lot of equipment, they get into the hospital, they took it and prevented people to be attended. Once they ran out of bombs they retract, we make them fell back to the river stone throwing, where the bridge is. Then they reloaded. An helicopter filled with bombs came to supply them so they re-deploy again. It was a seesaw.
I remember there was a truck for chickens and a teacher's car parked and at the time they arrived, the police themselves set them fire, to averything that came to their pass they set fire. It is at that moment, when the [burning] smoke started and they initiate shooting guns. At the beginning we did not realize because we were stuck still where there was shooting but we saw people falling on the other side of the street. Some people said that they started shooting from a few hotels belonging to people of the same political line [the mayor's line]. The feds set there a day earlier.
So because of this I say that this was planned and that should be an only responsible. It is this matter, justice, what the government does not want to address or direct to.
Now all the media say that there are only wounded in the police but not citizens. There is also no subversive groups in Nochixtlan, was the people itself who answered here. Yes countrymen came from surrounding villages to support but they only came at the end of the events, to repel the police. The vast majority were we, the people itself .
P- Once the police withdraw, What were the popular mechanisms that led to acts of spontaneous reproof against Juquila hotel, the City Hall and the former Nochixtlan mayor ranch?
Sergio: I think it was the rage and wrath of the people, because when you see that this place has fallen [under policial control], who are shooting, and the authority, rather than help, leaks and does not reappear, of course that all you think brings you to take a decision of this kind, like burning the palace, because when you see your people dead or wounded, the wrath and adrenaline do that happen.
People said that soon after the same municipal employees were there to emptied and burned municipality facilities to erase all evidence. They finished burning everything because maybe they was interested in cover up some proofs. They were not entirely the only but otherwise I imagine that
there was looting and later others completed the burn. It is the year they call "of Gentleman" and here, unfortunately, is a chiefdom. Never nothing has being clarified, [the goberment] has never reported what was doing, how much money was entering, how it was spent, and there is no transparency in government, those are the interests that might cause all that.
 |
| "Get out Army from OAXACA, People Murderers" |
Suzana: About the ranch, at the end there was no such burning because people did not even get to that place and also the ranch was unoccupied. Animals, deer, horses, peacocks and others -because they like hunting a lot- were not even there, and had been removed and taken to another ranch that is over here. The ranch manager said that he torched different areas around, which gave the impression that the ranch was on fire but it was nothing like that. If people had wanted to attack the mayor, he was closer at his mother's house [not at the ranch], but it was never the intention.
I believe these events occurred more by impotence and rage of people, because it is not really a town of armed people. Normally, no one has pistols at home. People came in support for teachers.
Q- What were the events that led the municipal authorities to flight ?
Suzana:
I think they already knowed what was going to happen because inexplicably disappeared before the events and never appear again, nobody kick them out. In the case of the mayor, not only him but his whole family, from mother, wife, to brothers, that were not attacked. That's what pointed him more as guilty.
I do not know if the Federal Government strategically, perhaps, made a covenant with him: "How much I have give you to betray your people?". [The Mayor] is still absent of his responsibilities since then, but continues on duty because he has not been suspended, so
he keeps taking his salary. It is very surreal situation the one we live in Nochixtlán, no governance but remain payments.
The people had a totally lacked presence of government at the time of attack, and then they re-emerging one by one, even two by two, the Finance Adviser and Roads Director, who participated against the people. For example, the Finance Adviser was throwing Molotov cocktails against teachers. They were going to lynch him at the hospital but other Adviser who knew the people interceded, and thanks to that, he could escaped. He was gone for more than a month and a half. Now he rise again as if nothing had happened, he really believed we have a lack of capacity to retain history in our minds.
Sergio: The Local police was absence at all the times, even more they stop the ambulances evoiding them to give service to the wounded. The municipality did not support at all to his own people.
Q- How was the process of constitution of the Popular Assembly that brought to its self designation?
Sergio: It happened on June 23, about five days after 19 [massacre day]. Simplest people just assist to a town meeting, so they cast a call, they made a loud speaker and gather all the people, about 2000 came, don't know if by curiosity or morbidity. Even there many tried to lead, perhaps those who wanted to take the control of this movement. They decided to no longer recognize the authorities for his absence and said "Let's appoint a representative committee of the town to get in charge of giving solution to the issue as a mediator. Let's elect representatives by district". Then they gathered by neighborhoods and appointed their representatives. I was elected the other day because this day there were absent the most of my neighbors. They sat in the chapel and named us during a popular representative assembly. They proposed us because they believe that we are clean people in this regard. In fact if you investigate Mrs. Suzana, she is a servant that never has had any public office or even a criticic for doing something wrong, we all are people of integrity.
Personally I have participate in a party, I had to admit, but I gained respect, everybody knows I am brave and in this way you're changing the world and intervening [in the social process]. In my ranch [distric], people came with a huge buckground of corruption but this time I went and told them: "Wait a moment, who wants to vote has to think twice, and who wants to propose something has to think twice, because is the future of this town what is on play here. In second term I mean that the one to be candidate must have a moral quality, has to have full transparency and has to be trustworthiness to be candidate." We popped in this dynamic and at the end things come together. Normally people came and all raised their hands, imposing, wanting, but when they all stopped [to reflect] there were few appointees, I believe that thanks to a sense of responsibility.
As we were already working on the issue and we had the president moving around, demanding, demanding, demanding him to comply with its transparency, with honesty, and so that things were happening.
I almost not speak in the assamblies, rarely intervene, and even sometimes some colleagues don't let me talk, and Doña Suzana the same, but is also a job that I maybe have being doing for more than 18 years. It is not a coincidence that they appoint us, you have to be smart and you have to stand up. It is a work of resistance, and sustainable will always be sustainable. In that respect we have been driving, and we have not be won politically. In the assemblies you realize that nobody argue that is simply because we are honest people. So we feel very calm.
Suzana: Most of the named accepted at the time they were appointed but soon after the first committee was formed it disintegrated. I am part of the current committee appointed to replace those who left. I think I was named because I wanted to participate at his moment and for personal conviction. With the rest is the same: united by the same ideological connection and a common sense for the best interest of Nochixtlan.
Q- What are your primary goals and short-term political way as committee members?
Sergio: We will continue until the issue in matter will be clarified and that can be summarized in three parts:
- First it is the
attention to the Wounded, something is already on the way as Human Rights took up the matter and a
Civil Association was created.
- On the other hand there is the issue of
Justice in which nothing has been done. No offender identified, nobody, not material or intellectual. I believe the issue is there because there are facts and evidence, and the truth should be known. If there is Justice there is also transparency but if there is no Justice we will know nothing.
- The point number three, which is the one in which we are moving and fighting now, is obviously linked to the first:
assist to the fallen and wounded and compensated them with international standards, as we ask for a number of requests, infrastructure, labor supply and development we want for Nochixtlan. That's what we're looking for.
We're talking internally to have a better organization, but unfortunately few people is interested in the development of Nochixtlan or simply afraid of retaliation. We were a lot in the beginning and had many of the PRI [Partido Revolucionario Independiente, traditional left party] but because they were relatives of the former president, when the people began to demand Justice they fear to demostrate and did not had the civil courage to face him. However
we are concerned that fear is playing its political roll and, at the given moment, the people could leave us, I say clear. Maybe it will not but the worst thing the government can do is divide us so the people can leave us alone.
We will reach to the deepest and we will demand the government to guarantee our safety because we do not know if the resentment of these people can harm us. We also have family but we are not afraid, but we take care because we are determined people. It has been shown that in the world only few people have made changes and not trought the parties but trught the people and their determination to change things. So we are few but very aware.
Even thought we will continue to the end because we are nochixtecans, we are concerned for what happens here and above all we care about the future of our children, for they do not re-live this kind of events again. It is not a petty issue but a question of ideals. With or without represents, I believe that only by conviction we will always fight for development, to have freedom, dignity and a better life, but I also believe that we fight for other people who do not have the courage to speak and express themselves. We are people who come from the culture of effort and is no strange to us to fight for what belongs to us. Normally here in the committee we are all professionals and that's one of the things that drives us. I have a job and have to look for it every day, but we have this commitment to do things right and give us time for everything just because we would like to eliminated the parties in Nochixtlan.
Suzana: The requirement of nochixtlan people is monetary compensation justice, and right rightnow there is no other way. The government has to integraly cover the costs of the debts [left by the former local goberment and policial assault], compensate to the relatives of the dead and give the integral part to the wounded. We are human beings, but they came here to kill us as if we were grasshoppers or bugs. How much is that little money that only can cover the minimal required needs to assist the wounded? It's nothing for them, but it is the political game of a government that is truly evil. We support all actions taken in the legal way but practically is not our duty because that's why the Civil Justice Association of Wounded was settled for.
We walk on the outside in making the infrastructure work and in this way we try to benefit our people, the citizens.
All the necessary paperwork to the make the Masters desappear has being done but is a long legal process. Our interest is to create something permanent, an infrastructure that allows both real social and cultural or economic change in the village.
Perhaps is avail with the spilled blood, I think it is necessary to honor the fallen, that this bloodshed was not in vain and will always remain in the minds of the people and the new generations to come. We must give thanks to whom sacrifice and we will continue assuming to the last consecuences.
We will touch all the necessary doors with the desire for a different development, a new rebirth of Nochixtlan. That's the only thing that moves us committee members in common. If we can not do it together I personally think we will do by our own. Our ideals are not finished here and each one has fought in past independently and in different ways to see a different Nochixtlan. And it is because of the possession of conscience, because we are not move by any power or economical interest.
Fortunately what we have now is the result of a great effort, and what we have visualize is a future for the children, for youth, for a different social and cultural development. It is a visionary but healthy vision. I believe that none of the companions pretended to reach in any way to power. We are moved by the sense of conscience and personal conviction. We are related to the same ideology of having a different Nochixtlan for next generations and that these recent events do not left unpunished, because if we have amnesia today, tomorrow will happen again and much worst.
The only thing that can disintegrate us now is the lack of support from the people, and now we go against the tide because there are many more enemies than friends, or people who ideologically commune with us. But hey, we're a bunch of crazy.
Q- What is known about these people internal and external elements that are sowing discord inside and outside the assemblies and what are you planning to do as a committee to deal with these strategies?
Sergio:
This is a group of people who supports the elected fled president, someone who was disguised to be on the party (PCD) and in which was invested heavily, knowing that if he did nor win the elections they was going to miss the city [PCD just enroled a businessman, one of the Masters]. I think they are loosing memory. This party was going to disappear if they were not bet on this person, who really served to hide what they was doing, and he allow them to keep doing it. So that
this shock group is still taking care of those interests, and that's why everything is dirty and the situation is so difficult here in Nochixtlán.
About the unfair interventions at meetings, at the end, when the assembly was over, I think they were outside the law. These people who overwhelm with their own opinion and monopolizes the microphone with their speech of hatred and fear did not have the civil courage to do at the time they should. I think they are pure shock agents because they want to impose themselves and they felt hurt with some of the agreements that the people approved at the meeting when it stated "We do not want cops at the feast or any gala, nor the rulers." As they are shock agents they want their authority obey and they went to that, to break the agreements. However, they are a minority and it was evident in the assembly. I do not think we should be worried because when the People arrive [to decide], it determines and People is aware of the social struggle. We are more.
Suzana: The participation of these people is well known. It is a people that has ideologically PRI trends and people who in one way or another, shows their frustration at the union of the People.
They have had children who they wanted to become presidents one day and have never figured out that the People would not accept, so this is people resent by fact that their relatives have been unable to come to Power.
This people is also consider to represents the economic powers, are traders, the largest economy in the village, and now they feel fear more than anything. First, it is people who do not participate in any popular events, as demonstrations, also did not suffer the aggressions to which Nochixtlan was subjected. They are happy to comment and participate from the bottom of its den, well hidden in there. They are not even aware of what is happening in the village, dedicated to watch television and to be guided by the media wich, as everybody knows, their news are "wash". It is fearful for losing their economical patrimony more than anything.
They are known in the village because they relate with people who are considered much more intellectual and therefore their interventiosn [in the assambly] are boring. They do not understand people because they use very big words, they want to impress, but this is not the way. I think people should speak, but supported by their attitudes and actions, and when that is not they are rejected, treat as crazy.
Q- What are the strategies the former authorities are using to recover the municipality?
Suzana:
I think their strategy is mostly just draw attention in the fact that they control all the supporting programs [public services] and they based on it, people has to pay the services and everything else. They consider that this is their duty, keep on controling the town's economy, collect taxes on market day on Sunday, etc ... That's what's interesting to them.
We should also mention that
the priest is also involved in the sense that is very supportive with the council. He argues that in those days he supported the teachers, the People, because he opened the doors of the church to get in the wounded when the town was closed and the doors never opened. I believe that the priest must have a sense of humanity, that is what is spected, and must serve the people in an ecclesiastical way, each and every one. But he psychologically manipulates his disciples with his support [the scaped officers] saying that his position is now also to support the unprotected, that according to him are the officers. In one way or another, he has a lot to do in the confrontation that divides citizens because he has not a neutral position, without any tendency to either side. Psychologically and very subliminally, he manipulates his people, which are very attached and very close to the habit of attend to the Mass and all this things.
Sergio: He incites powerfully to violence, manipulating the poor people and is getting into political land that does not belong to him. In the same Mass he talks about politics, in his sermons he says "Citizens in 'la calenda' we want the authority and the police appear because otherwise others will take advantage of the movement". For me, it is a delicate thing when
father says "I am the highest authority!". When that happens to a head of the church, I think he lost his reason. So we accuse him clearly of what could happen in Nochixtlan, the confrontations, because he is not measuring the consequences of his actions and his words.
Now, with the former authorities,
all political turn tangled because they want to reemerge as heroes, even the priest, when they really were not here when they were needed the most. Now, they want to be the authority when they have really never been, because I believe that an authority must fulfill with the human sense, the informal. They have failed as authority, and was demonstrated in these days that with or without them Nochixtlan is alive and marching.
Q- How is to live in Nochixtlan without the presence of police forces and what are the alternatives to its return in the municipality?
Suzana: It's something surreal, I repeat, how the situation seems to us:
in the month and a half without police there was nothing, no robberies, nothing, and practically now that the police is back with their patrols and all the rest, I was said that yesterday in a ranch were stolen eighty heads of sheep transported in two vans. These kind of actions, one must think that are manufactured because going with trucks and get so many animals is done to create fear, psychosis, among the people. So I ask if you think that it is really odd that when we were emotionally, psychologically, more fearful and unprotected nothing happened and now that the cops start patrolling again the people is beginning to have such problems. It is set up for people to start to support this type of [policial] actions, because if you analyze before and after you can think that we are better with police, because of the fear arises.
Anyway, if you find a patrol, you will see that the police go on but with an attitude of fear, fear of the reaction of the citizens, so there is no assurance on what police should repressent.
Sergio: It's "insecurity" what is reflected in their faces. They painted some [patrolling] cars on white and began to look like civilians. Bad ideas, no transparency, only wanting to make up what can no longer be hidden. In one of our meetings one person came and told "I can be a policeman of the town". It's very interesting that we could have a
community policing because if we keep an eye between citizens we will have better security than if people were bring from the outside, trained for this, bribed, corrupted, dirty, and that is what makes us more harm.
I consider that we could return to a citizen police.
P- In a long term, what kind of utopia is aspiring you?
Sergio: Personally it's a dream that I have, I'd like Nochixtlan back to the Manners and Customs [as in
Cheran Autonomy] because I think they have worked. In the villages, if someone deviates is corrected and changed, is healed, maybe they spend three years of sadness but them come more years of joy, but here we have many years of sadness and few of joy.
The policy run by these people has always work bad, priist [PRI supporters], without informing, without accounting, can not speak about the chieftainship, can not speak about a clean politics,
it has being only a policy that just benefits their own families, their friends. They never call to consens a public bid on a resource, thay never informed the People that were going to do some work, they did no bring to the public that we really want. Always themselves, their families and that's why we do not agree. So now we need the participation of people, dialogue, assemblies, plebiscites, the referendum, taking into account every last citizen worth to change this town.
I would like the Manners and Customs to have popular governments and the most honest, more honourable, more proven people reaches govern Nochixtlan, because unfortunately since the money arrived and the parties arrived, they have destroy the essence of men. From them it has contaminated the development of communities and that is what I would like to me, that governments were citizens and people elect them for their integrity, not people made by marketing or television or the chiefdom as in this case.
Suzana: I agree with the aspirations of my partner that I would like resume the Uses and Customs would and that citizens were elected according to their actions. I think it would be the best because it would be remediated so much vitiation that has emerged here with both parties and get rid of social, cultural, economic development, all kinds at Nochixtlan.
Actually, we live under a regime too limited and it is a very sad situation to limit the development by personal interests. If not by the government, is the "Communal Property," a group of people who own extense mass of land and that has get rich selling land and not sharing their resources and its stockshares to the public. Reportedly, Nochixtlan is 100% community but we as citizens have not access to the information and meetings they have.
Most Nochixtecans are not considered as commoners but these villagers are made up of families, people who come from the villages and can be psychologically handled very easily due to lack of knowledge more than anything. It is considered that Nochixtlan is now a place of guerrillas,
I believe that the guerrillas are the political parties. These are the real guerrillas that have been polluting the majority. We are the few who perhaps ideologically have not been contaminated. So is.
Blog-
AutoGobiernos de México | Noticiero del México Librefcbk-
Autogobiernos de México_____________
Notes
[1] http://www.contralinea.com.mx/archivo-revista/index.php/2016/06/22/el-estado-mexicano-responsable-de-la-masacre-de-nochixtlan-epr/
[2] http://elpais.com/especiales/2016/nochixtlan/
[3] http://www.sinembargo.mx/19-06-2016/3056179
To Know more
Autonomies against Narcos: El pueblo indígena purépecha que se liberó del narco no quiere nunca más políticos ni policías | Blog del Narco
Cuestioning wellfare state in México: Sin pensión, 75% de los adultos mayores en México - Proceso 28.8.2016
Un informe revela que el Gobierno de Morelos enterró cuerpos en una fosa al estilo de Los Zetas | Internacional | EL PAÍS 23.8.2016
Convocatoria al Quinto Congreso Nacional Indígena – Centro de Medios Libres México 28.8.2016
