{"id":2685,"date":"2007-11-10T11:55:21","date_gmt":"2007-11-10T16:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2685"},"modified":"2007-11-10T11:55:21","modified_gmt":"2007-11-10T16:55:21","slug":"the-return-of-the-barbarians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2685","title":{"rendered":"The Return of the Barbarians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Resistance and state of exception in Mexico<\/strong><\/p>\n

Claudio Albertani<\/strong>
\n translated from Spanish by Kurt Hackbarth<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the \u201cstate of emergency\u201d in which we live is not the exception but the rule<\/em>.<\/p>\n

– Walter Benjamin<\/p>\n

Modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of a state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries, but of entire categories of citizens who, for whatever reason, cannot be integrated into the political system<\/em>.<\/p>\n

– Giorgio Agamben<\/p>\n

In a small book of great importance for understanding modern times, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben analyzes the paradoxical and disturbing concept of the \u201cstate of exception\u201d. [1] A typical feature of Nazism, the \u201cstate of exception\u201d is the violent response of the powers-that-be to extreme conflicts; it is the empty space that marks the suspension of the legal system as well as the usual relationship between law and authority. Agamben defines it as a no-man\u2019s-land where the traditional differences between democracy, absolutism and dictatorship melt away; the crack barbarism slides through. Far from disappearing with the defeat of classical totalitarianism, the state of exception insinuated itself at the end of the twentieth century as a power paradigm, attaining today its maximum expansion around the world. Everywhere, governmental violence is free to ignore international law and its regulatory aspects with total impunity.<\/p>\n

The specter of the dirty war<\/strong><\/p>\n

Agamben\u2019s analysis is directed principally at George Bush\u2019s United States. The \u201cPatriot Act\u201d, enacted at the end of 2001, suppressed habeus corpus and introduced a culture of suspicion typical of totalitarian regimes. Whoever receives the stigma of \u201cenemy\u201d automatically loses his or her most basic rights \u2013 beginning with the right to life \u2013 and is treated as a pariah, subject to torture, clandestine prisons, assassination and forced disappearance. With different levels of intensity, the model is currently being generalized around the world. In Latin America, it has been principally applied in Columbia and, most recently, in Mexico, as we will see.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

According to a journalistic reconstruction, on May 24th, 2007, the State of Oaxaca\u2019s \u201cUnidad policial de Operaciones Especiales\u201d (Police Unit for Special Operations) arrived on the scene of the Del \u00c1rbol Hotel due to the alleged presence of an \u201carmed group\u201d.[2] Immediately after, the army arrived. A news bulletin reported the apprehension of four people, supposedly ministerial police from Chiapas who had not handed in their official letter of assignment to the state attorney general\u2019s office upon arrival in Oaxaca. Soon, human rights organizations concluded that the four were not police at all but guerrillas, precisely, two members of the EPR, Gabriel Cruz S\u00e1nchez (also known as Raymundo Rivera Bravo), 55 years old, and Edmundo Reyes Amaya, 50 years old, who have since then been detained and disappeared. [3]<\/p>\n

On June 1st, the State Committee of the People\u2019s Revolutionary Democratic Party (PDPR), Zone Military Command of the People\u2019s Revolutionary Army (EPR), released a communiqu\u00e9 demanding that its members be returned alive. [4] The age of each (about fifty years old) indicated that they were neither neophytes nor mid-ranking figures but militants with a long history. Other communiqu\u00e9s followed but, except for precious few exceptions, most of the print and electronic media ignored them.<\/p>\n

On June 20th, Alejandro Cerezo, a member of the Cerezo Committee (an organization dedicated to the defense of human rights of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience[5]<\/wbr>), received some threatening messages on his cellular phone (given to him by the Interior Department and whose number, along with those of his siblings Francisco and Emiliana, is confidential)<\/wbr>. On the 26th, he received an e-mail which it is worth quoting in full[6]:<\/p>\n

From: tiburcio loxicha <misscerezos@<\/wbr>hotmail.com<\/a>>
\nTo: <comitecerezo@<\/wbr>nodo50.org<\/a>>, <comitecerezo@<\/wbr>espora.org<\/a>>
\nSubject: FROM DADDY
\nDate: Tue, 26 Jun 2007<\/p>\n

how are you? hot? what\u2019s up with all the disappeared people? family? beloved uncle? fabulous father? That\u2019s life the family in deep shit again, anyway we\u2019re watching the three of you from close by, those from la palma and your beloved family, and your little assface uncle and his little chatterbox friend who doesn\u2019t stop talking and the other one who talks and talks too, but maybe it\u2019s better they stop talking and keep quiet or I\u2019ll fuck them up. Only god knows, and those dickheads marx and lenin too. Tell mommy and daddy not to be cowards to do what they\u2019re going to do so they can see how we\u2019re going to strip and fuck you but good. Poor uncle and zapatito they though they were hot shit but they dropped like doves out of the sky. See you later lovies. From the sierra del sur. Your real parents.\u201d [7]<\/p>\n

The Liga Mexicana por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights) (LIMEDDH) pointed out the following: a) the name Tiburcio Loxicha refers to the name Tiburcio, which according to intelligence organs corresponds to Tiburcio Cruz S\u00e1nchez, historic leader of the EPR (not being held), supposedly the father of those affected and brother of one of the detainees; b) Loxicha is the region that the intelligence organs mention as being one of EPR influence; c) \u201cmisserezos\u201d is an allusion to the message of the young people\u2019s mother. The phrase: \u201chow are you? hot? what\u2019s up with the disappeared people? family? beloved uncle? fabulous father?\u201d[8] clearly refers to the people disappeared in Oaxaca on May 24th; d) \u201czapatitito\u201d could be a reference to Gabino Flores Cruz, detained on June 14th, 2007 in Ixhuatl\u00e1n de Madero, Veracruz, and linked with the Other Campaign. [9]<\/p>\n

The threats contained the unmistakable mark of psychological warfare. Moreover, they flaunted a high level of information that very probably came from intelligence organs. The conclusion is that the Mexican government considers the Cerezo Contreras brothers to be virtual hostages, susceptible to punishment at any moment, their only crime that of being human rights activists.<\/p>\n

On June 27th, a new and anguished communiqu\u00e9 from the EPR asked: \u201cWhat do we have to do to be considered news? Our comrades have been held for 33 days (\u2026) as detainees disappeared by this criminal government; 33 days of vicious torture while the system keeps trying to find some legalistic way to make us out to be delinquents or terrorists.\u201d [10]<\/p>\n

Once again, both authorities and press were silent. Between July 5th and 10th, eight explosions of PEMEX gas and oil pipelines took place, located in Celaya, Salamanca and Valle de Santiago, Guanajuato, as well as in Presa de Bravo, a municipality of Corregidora, Quer\u00e9taro, seriously affecting the central-northern industrial corridor.<\/p>\n

Although it was clear who did it, the Mexican authorities at the beginning spoke of \u201cincidents\u201d. On the 10th, the EPR declared that the attacks were in retaliation for the disappearance of their militants. The communiqu\u00e9 warned that the \u201charassment will not stop until the governments of Felipe Calder\u00f3n and Ulises Ruiz return our companions alive\u201d. [11] In the following weeks, the EPR carried out further, demonstrative attacks in Chiapas and in the city of Oaxaca itself, in the days preceding the elections for mayorships and the state legislature. [12]<\/p>\n

I do not intend to defend the EPR. Without taking into account the damage the explosions caused to the already-deteriorate<\/wbr>d Mexican environment, it is clear that attacking PEMEX in these days of neo-conservatism is \u2013 to say the least \u2013 inopportune; the PAN and the private sector already exist to do just that. Furthermore, the bombings in Oaxaca were used by the local government as electoral propaganda to justify their repressive policies. Even so, it is necessary to recognize that the EPR got the burning theme of the disappeared back onto the table.<\/p>\n

In this respect, the posture of the government \u2013 both Oaxacan and federal \u2013 is chilling: \u201cthere are no disappeared; the people being looked for are not in any of the prisons of the national penitentiary system\u201d. [13] Alter visiting the Campo Militar (Military Field) No. 1, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) reported that they \u201cdid not find the two EPR members supposedly disappeared\u201d.<\/wbr>[14] Clearly, even if they had been there (and not in some clandestine dungeon), it is difficult to imagine the army handing them over.<\/p>\n

The Attorney General\u2019s Office (PGR) \u2013 a federal agency \u2013 claimed that nobody officially reported the disappeared as missing, but Nad\u00edn Reyes Maldonado, daughter of Edmundo Reyes Amaya, reported that the Oaxacan office of the Attorney General refused to receive the official complaint of her father\u2019s disappearance. [15]<\/p>\n

And the left? Mostly, they ignored it. Particularly clumsy was the silence of the \u201cOther Campaign\u201d, for neo-Zapatistas themselves, as mentioned, were included among the threats.<\/p>\n

For his part, the \u201clegitimate\u201d President, Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, saw the attacks as being executed by the government itself in order to cover up the myriad of scandals it is complicit in. According to AMLO, the real dirty war is the one the government is waging against himself and the center-left coalition that supports him, the Broad Progressive Front.[16]<\/p>\n

Few, very few, demanded what is elemental: the dismantling of the mechanisms of the dirty war and the presentation, alive, of the two disappeared members of the EPR. Doing so does not mean approving of the attacks, nor does it mean supporting the strategy of the armed groups, much less sharing its Marxist-Leninist point of view. What it does imply, solely, is a fundamental act of justice and a minimum of political perceptiveness. For the moment, the offensive has been unleashed against \u201cterrorist groups\u201d, but peaceful activists and common citizens could be next\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unlinked acts?<\/strong><\/p>\n

With its sixty million poor people \u2013 more than half of whom live in extreme poverty \u2013 Mexico has recently vaunted two unusual records: the richest man in the world \u2013 the telecommunications magnate, Carlos Slim[17] – and the largest confiscation of cash in the history of humanity, $205 million dollars packed into canvas bags in a quiet villa in an exclusive Mexico City neighborhood. [18]<\/p>\n

This being the state of things, social control becomes a strategic priority: the country is like a pressure cooker, ready to explode anywhere and at any moment. This explains why the Mexican government is negotiating a \u201cMexico Plan\u201d with the United States equivalent to the \u201cColumbia Plan\u201d that has so devastated the South American country. With the pretext of combating drug production, organized crime and terrorism, what the Mexico Plan is really about is eliminating all political opposition south of the Rio Grande. [19]<\/p>\n

Equally worrying is the Agreement for Prosperity and Security in North America (ASPAN) that the American government has been promoting since the World Trade Center attacks. Signed on March 23rd, 2005 in Waco, Texas by the then-Presidents George Bush, Vicente Fox and Paul Martin and reaffirmed on August 21st, 2007 in Montebello, Canada, by Harper, Calderon and Bush, the agreement seeks primarily to strengthen US security and secondly trade, economy and the energy sector along the lines laid out by NAFTA.[20]<\/p>\n

\u201cASPAN,\u201d Carlos Fazio writes, \u201cis part of the trend towards the militarization and transnationalizatio<\/wbr>n of the \u2018war on drugs\u2019, manufactured and imposed by the United States all over the continent, to which the \u2018war on terrorism\u2019 is now added as part of the same counterinsurgency package. Such a tendency contributes to the reinforcement and re-legitimation of the domestic role of the armed forces and the militarized police corps similar to the one played during the Southern Cone dictatorships, which provoked condemnation and their loss of prestige because of the dramatic effects on human rights\u201d.[21]<\/p>\n

ASPAN, then, is a sort of militarized NAFTA planned by Washington and the North American Competitiveness Council (CCAN), a business organization made up of Mexico, America and Canada\u2019s principal businessmen. One of its objectives is to repeal the Mexican non-intervention law, opening the door to the participation of Mexican troops in imperial wars and, especially, the direct intervention of the American army in the internal affairs of the country, just like in Columbia.[22]<\/p>\n

For his part, Felipe Calderon\u2019s government is already making significant steps in this direction. In March, the Senate approved an \u201cAnti-Terrorism Law\u201d that criminalizes social protest and makes it possible for social activists to be accused as terrorists.[<\/wbr>23]<\/p>\n

On May 9th, 2007, the Diario Oficial de la Federaci\u00f3n (Oficial Federal Record) published a decree \u2013 signed by President Calder\u00f3n and the Secretary of National Defense, General Guillermo Galv\u00e1n Galv\u00e1n, creating the Army and Air Force Special Corps, named the Federal Supportive Forces Corps. Their goal: to reestablish \u201cpublic order and the rule of law\u201d wherever necessary, which has all the makings of a new tool of repression at the direct disposal of the president.[24]<\/p>\n

Along the exact same lines of the model imposed by the United States, the National Defense Department (Sedena) and the Public Safety Department (SSP) assert that civil justice cannot try soldiers who commit human rights violations and other crimes while acting as federal police. [25]<\/p>\n

In June, an unusual event occurred: the dismissal of the entire command structure of the two principal repressive bodies of the Mexican government: the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI) and the Federal Preventative Police (PFP).[26] The measure was presented as necessary to \u201ccombat corruption and avoid the penetration of crime into the state security forces\u201d, but it is clear in the current context that this also has implications for the government\u2019s counterinsurgency strategy.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the National Center for Investigation and Security (Cisen) was restructured, the goal of which was to transfer its intelligence functions to the army.[27] Two further events worthy of note: the freeing of General Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro and the amparo (legal protection) given to ex-president Lu\u00eds Echeverr\u00eda.[28] Tried for drug trafficking (for which he spent six years and ten months in Campo Militar #1), the former is one of the people most responsible for the dirty war of the 1970\u2019s. The sentence restores all his rights to him as well as the rank of general.<\/p>\n

Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, founder of the \u00a1Eureka! Committee, denounced the decision as an enormous injustice due to the large amount of testimony proving that Acosta Chaparro was responsible for a large number of forced disappearances and acts of torture in the State of Guerrero.[29]<\/p>\n

For his part, Echeverr\u00eda was tried for the Tlatelolco (1968) and Jueves de Corpus (1971) killings, but one accusation after the other has fallen by the wayside. A masterpiece of juridical contradiction, the most recent ruling establishes that the acts under consideration do, indeed, constitute genocide but, at the same time, exonerates the principal organizer of the acts from all responsibility.<\/p>\n

The impunity of Echeverr\u00eda and other officials \u2013 for example, the sinister torturer Miguel Nazar Haro, ex-head of the Federal Security Office, also released \u2013 has even been approved by the Mexican Supreme Court which determined that, even when committed, the statute of limitations for the crimes they were being tried for had already run out.<\/p>\n

The eagerness to rehabilitate the worst repressors in recent Mexican history goes hand in hand with the constant calls by President Felipe Calder\u00f3n to the armed forces to \u201ccombat the threats of those who attempt to affect the nation\u2019s security with criminal acts\u201d, which directly conveys the idea that the army that is the greatest defender of the legitimacy of the republic.[30]<\/p>\n

It is clear that such sermons give carte blanche to the tormenters of Cruz S\u00e1nchez and Reyes Amaya – and all the torturers in all of the country\u2019s clandestine prisons – to continue what they are doing with the most complete impunity.[31]<\/p>\n

According to the dissident general Jos\u00e9 Francisco Gallardo \u2013 who suffered eight years of prison for having dared to exist on a military ombudsman for Mexico \u2013 \u201cFelipe Calder\u00f3n governs in the states by means of his military commanders. (\u2026) We are at the point of arriving at a bunker state, where the army is in permanent confrontation with civil society and keeps it permanently fearful. This is already happening now, daily, in the south and the border area.\u201d [32]<\/p>\n

Only within this disconcerting context \u2013 which corresponds to the state of exception described by Agamben \u2013 can we understand the detention, disappearance and torture of the members of the EPR. We are not only talking about one barbarous act, but a counterinsurgency maneuver carried out at the highest level. The objective is clear: force the EPR to commit desperate acts so as to then be able to criminalize social movements.<\/p>\n

Let us remember that the attempt to link social movements with guerrillas is not new. In the course of the uprising led last year by the People\u2019s Assembly of the Pueblos of Oaxaca (APPO), the then-State Attorney General Lizbeth Ca\u00f1a Cadeza accused the organization of \u201cguerrilla and subversive tactics\u201d.[33]<\/p>\n

Those who carried out the kidnappings \u2013 the EPR directly accused General Juan Alfredo Oropeza Garnica, head of the eighth military region with headquarters in Oaxaca and an expert in counterinsurgency [34] – thought with all probability that the guerrillas\u2019 response would be local. If this were the case, the PEMEX attacks were an unpleasant surprise for the architects of the dirty war, which explains the conflicting declarations made about it by government officials.<\/p>\n

As part of the same campaign of intimidation, leaks of military intelligence to indulgent reporters linking former political prisoners with the EPR have multiplied in recent months, opening the door to repression.[<\/wbr>35] One such reporter, Vladimir Galeana, wrote that the EPR holds its Mexico City meetings at the main office of the Ricardo Flores Mag\u00f3n Libertarian Social Center, an open and publicly-registered group that has absolutely nothing to do with armed struggle and which does not share the EPR\u2019s ideology, though it does have the great sin of having carried out acts of solidarity with political prisoners.[36] Even when the accusations are patently false, the intent is clear: to criminalize dissent.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the definition of \u201csubversive\u201d no longer includes only those who engage in armed struggle, but can, based on necessities, be widened to include political activists, inconvenient journalists (two of whom died last year in Oaxaca[37]) and tiresome human rights defenders\u2026<\/p>\n

It is clear that linking the APPO and its sympathizers with the guerrillas provides an unbeatable excuse for justifying repression against the movement. This being the case, when armed groups do not act \u2013 as they did not last year \u2013 it becomes necessary to invent them. [38] This explains, first, the appearance of phony guerillas in Oaxaca and after, the open provocation of the kidnapping-disappea<\/wbr>ring of the two leaders of the EPR. Now as before, the principal target is the APPO, which intelligence organs consider to be a much graver threat precisely because it is \u201cuncontrollable\u201d<\/wbr>.<\/p>\n

A bloodstained Guelaguetza<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201cGuelaguetza\u201d that is officially celebrated in Oaxaca is more a simulation than a genuine folk festival. The tradition, however, is authentic. It goes back to the pre-Hispanic era, when the villages of the central valley worshipped Cent\u00e9otl \u2013 the goddess of corn \u2013 in a temple situated on the current hill of Carmen Alto and dedicated to Tl\u00e1loc, the god of rain. With the conquest, the ritual was turned into the commemoration of the Virgin of Carmel, celebrated on the Sunday following July 16th and repeated eight days later on what was called the \u201coctava\u201d.<\/p>\n

With the religious ceremony consummated, the secular festival \u2013 called \u201cLunes del Cerro\u201d (Monday on the Hill) \u2013 began on the following Monday with its syncretisms and carnvalesque transgressions. The indigenous people from the city and nearby villages came to dance and exchange gifts to the sound of whistles, drums and flutes. The mescal, the aroma of the food, the smoke from the copal and the tobacco merged into the collective communion and ecstasy dedicated to the regeneration of the community.<\/p>\n

In the 1930\u2019s, the tradition suffered another mutation, transforming into a secular ritual at the service of the post-revolutionary State. What is was now about was paying a \u201cracial homage\u201d to the Oaxacan underclass, which \u2013 as Hermann Bellinghausen points out \u2013 is in itself a racist idea.[39]<\/p>\n

The festival began to include delegations from the seven regions (the Central Valleys, the Sierra Ju\u00e1rez, the Ca\u00f1ada, Tuxtepec, the Mixteca, the Coast and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec)<\/wbr>, who paraded their traditional dress, music and dance before the smiling gaze of the local elite. Soon, it was named \u201cGuelaguetza,\u201d a Zapotec word which evokes the idea of cooperation and reciprocity. \u201cGuelguees\u201d is a compound of the words for \u201ccorn field\u201d and \u201ccigar\u201d, as the working of the corn implies mutual support and the cigar evokes a ceremonial, and therefore sacred, element. [40]<\/p>\n

In recent years \u2013 and especially beginning in the 1990\u2019s \u2013 the Guelaguetza has turned into big business, to the benefit of the hotel industry, restaurants, travel agencies and shops that cater to tourists, as well as serving to support the governor in office. At the Guelaguetza Auditorium, regional political bosses fight for the best seats in order to be photographed with the governor and other members of the state bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

In 2006, the APPO successfully disrupted the official festival, forcing the hated governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO), to suspend it. The APPO then organized an alternative festival at the stadium of the Oaxaca Technological Institute, which saw the participation of indigenous dancers from each of the seven regions of the State of Oaxaca plus an eighth, the Sierra Sur (Southern Sierra Mountains), in homage to the struggle of the Loxicha people. The dancers were accompanied by fireworks, bands and thousands of people chanting their political demands, the most prominent of which being the removal of the tyrant Ulises Ruiz. In spite of the fact that, days before, unknown \u201cguerrillas\u201d had burned the platform of the official auditorium, the event was a success.<\/p>\n

This year, the APPO again promoted a non-commercial Guelaguetza. However, the circumstances were now much more difficult. Emboldened by the climate of repression that has taken hold of the entire country, URO wanted revenge. After the repression of 2006, the police presence in the area had become both spectral and terrifying. Detentions were more selective \u2013 such as that of David Venegas, APPO council-member who is still being held despite his having received an amparo \u2013 and the militarization more discreet, but the reign of terror continued.[41]<\/p>\n

With \u201cOperation Guelaguetza 2007,\u201d the state of siege returned which, paradoxically, damaged the tourist industry more than the demonstrations, it being well known that tourists do not appreciate violence. On Sunday, July 15th, the alternative dancers paraded through the streets of Oaxaca, ready for the celebration. Tension was on the rise: various vehicle caravans trying to enter into the city were intercepted and their riders thrown out of the area without any semblance of legality.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Under these conditions, the teachers\u2019 union decided to move the event to the Plaza de la Danza (the Plaza of the Dance) and not the traditional auditorium located on the Cerro del Fortin (Fortin Hill), clearly now \u201cenemy\u201d territory.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, URO lay in waiting. The opportunity he had been waiting for came on Monday the 16th. Around 11 in the morning, approximately ten thousand people, including teachers, dancers and APPO sympathizers \u2013 began marching from the main plaza called the Z\u00f3calo to the Plaza de la Danza. At Crespo Street, they set off towards the Fortin Hill, where the official auditorium is located. When they were a kilometer away, they ran into a blockade installed by hundreds of preventative, auxiliary and municipal police supplemented by members of the military. For a half hour, the demonstrators tried dialoguing with the authorities until a rocket flare went off near the El Fortin Hotel. This was the signal. Municipal, preventative and financial police, the PFP and even the uniformed soldiers (an ominous new development) launched a sudden and massive assault on the protestors.<\/p>\n

The nightmare was back. The police attacked without qualms while the demonstrators defended themselves however they could, giving rise to a four-hour-long clash which left a total of more than 70 people detained and 40 wounded. Amongst those beaten was the teacher Emeterio M. Cruz, who spent several weeks in a coma and is still suffering the effects of the beating.[42] Although photos exist of the police thrashing him brutally, the Secretary of Civil Protection, Sergio Segreste R\u00edos, impassively declared that \u201cthere is an internal investigation underway, but there is still no proof as to who might have been responsible\u201d. [43]<\/p>\n

As had already happened during the November 25th repression the year before, nobody was safe and the forces of order raged against passers-by and reporters alike. Various reporters were injured despite their identifying themselves as members of the press.[44] \u201cThis is so you don\u2019t keep defending those fucking APPO members\u201d, spat a rabid anti-riot policeman at the lawyer Jes\u00fas Alfredo L\u00f3pez Garc\u00eda, who was lying lifeless on the pavement covered in blood after being beaten with batons and kicked. [45] Even worse was the treatment given to the detainees. The violence \u2013 mostly against women, but also against the men \u2013 was not an \u201cexcess of the moment\u201d but rather a deliberate and strategy, planned from the top, of psychological warfare.[46]<\/p>\n

From state of exception to state of rebellion<\/strong><\/p>\n

If terrorism is a technique designed to provoke fear and anxiety throughout the population without distinguishing between military objectives and civilian victims, what the Mexican government is doing against social movements is pure terrorism. It has eliminated the division between the violence that founds and the violence that maintains the law and has declared a merciless war against all those categories of citizens that are not able to be integrated into the political system. The scenes we impotently witness \u2013 blood on the pavement, the terrorized faces of innocent people, children, women and the elderly brutalized, activists on their knees before the sadistic gaze of their repressors \u2013 reminds one more of Pinochet\u2019s Chile or present-day Iraq more than a country that calls itself democratic.<\/p>\n

Whether by fury, impotence or ineptitude, the authorities either do not want to or cannot act within the legal code that supposedly represent. \u201cThe police,\u201d Benjamin wrote at the outset of the Nazi era, \u201cintervene for security reasons in countless cases where no clear legal situation exists, (\u2026) in the form of brutal humiliation, with no relation whatsoever to legal ends.\u201d [47]<\/p>\n

A year after Felipe Calderon\u2019s inauguration, the repression has become generalized, labor rights have been practically suspended and the government represses miners, teachers, flight attendants, and all other workers who insist upon their rights. According to Rosario Ibarra, in seven years of federal administrations ruled by the PAN there have been nearly a hundred forced disappearances. Likewise, the arbitrary detentions, torture, illegal searches, arrest warrants with no legal foundation, and something new, rape, which did not occur in the 70\u2019s and 80\u2019s.[48]<\/p>\n

All of the facts examined here \u2013 the detention\/disappear<\/wbr>ing of the EPR militants, the militarization of the police and intelligence body, the rehabilitation of the architects of the dirty war, ASPAN, the Mexico Plan, the suspension of individual rights and the brutalization of defenseless demonstrators \u2013 can be explained within the framework of a latent state of exception. Experimented with in Oaxaca, the model is now being extended all across the country, including those states governed by the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).<\/p>\n

In the Monta\u00f1a region of the State of Guerrero, the attacks by Governor Ceferino Torreblanca (PRD) against the community police, a security and assistance corps created by the Mephaa, Na Savii, Nahua and mestizo communities to defend themselves from political bosses and tree-cutters, are multiplying. [49]<\/p>\n

An activist, David Valtierra, founder of Radio \u00d1omndaa (\u201cThe Word of the Water\u201d) was detained on August 9th (incidentally, the international day of indigenous peoples). His crime? Defending the customs of his people, fighting for the construction of the autonomous municipality of Sulja (or Xochixtlahuaca)<\/wbr>, and keeping open a space on the radio where the indigenous Amuzgos could voice their opinions in order to keep excesses of power in check.[50]<\/p>\n

In the southeast of Morelos, 13 indigenous communities are fighting against a savage project of urbanization imposed by the PAN governor, Marco Adame, in alliance with predatory business interests. The communities object to the construction of 50,000 dwellings in an ecological reserve and the drilling of enormous wells that would finish off the regions already-strained water resources. Faced with public demand to put a halt to building speculation and safeguard natural resources (water in particular), the authorities in Morelos have launched a campaign to bring the people\u2019s movement into disrepute, arguing that it is \u201cillegitimate,\u201d and also trying to link it to\u2026the EPR! [51]<\/p>\n

In August, the counterinsurgency offensive spilled over into the State of Chiapas, governed by the PRD. On the 18th, federal and state police helicopters arrived in the towns of San Manuel y Buen Samaritano in the Lacandon Jungle to evict its inhabitants with the outlandish accusation that they were destroying the mountains of the Montes Azules ecological reserve.[52] The real reason is clear: the operations \u201care part of a global strategy of clearing out the area with greatest biodiversity, acres of forest and sources of fresh, non-contaminated water in the country and all of Mesoamerica\u201d, as the environmental organization Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste asserts.[53]<\/p>\n

On August 28th, federal soldiers raided the town of Venustiano Carranza, Chiapas, looking for a training field and people accused of belonging to the Revolutionary People\u2019s Army (EPR). Similar operations took place at the same time in Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca, and in Coyuca de Ben\u00edtez, Guerrero. [54]<\/p>\n

In communities without conflicts but with natural resources, it is the authorities themselves who stimulate the violence. Such is the case \u2013 and this is only one example of many \u2013 of Santiago Xanica, a Zapotec community in the Sierra Sur mountains of Oaxaca. In this lush, peaceful-looking village, the state government has been provoking bloody confrontations amongst residents who used to be supportive neighbors. The goal here? To break up a tradition of sociability considered to be incompatible with dominant values and, especially, to appropriate the area\u2019s natural resources, the most important of which being its water and biodiversity.<\/wbr>[55]<\/p>\n

This being the state of things, how is it possible to stop this hideous violence machine?<\/p>\n

The investigation and reporting carried out by human rights organizations is very important. In August, a symbolic trial against Ulises Ruiz and Felipe Calder\u00f3n was held in Mexico City\u2019s Z\u00f3calo in which members of the academic, cultural and artistic communities and human rights defenders all participated. The jury\u2019s verdict was categorical: \u201c[throughout the course of the repression] they inflicted pain and physical and psychological suffering along with the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of both detainees and citizens, in order to force them to no longer participate in social mobilizations.\u201d<\/wbr>[56]<\/p>\n

Also worthy of note are the repeated exhortations by Amnesty International, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the International Civil Commission for Human Rights Observation (CCIODH by its Spanish initials) which in one way or another have placed the Mexican government on the defensive. [57]<\/p>\n

However, it is essential to recognize that even though such reporting is very necessary, it is not sufficient. What is most important is that social movements become conscious of their own strength and do not let themselves become frightened into inaction. If the powerful beef up their military and security forces, it is because they fear new waves of social protest.<\/p>\n

It is necessary to unify resistance and construct a wide, inclusive and non-violent movement that works at the national level \u2013 and also at the international level in defense of migrant rights in the northern and southern borders \u2013 against the militarization of society and the criminalization of protest.<\/p>\n

The focal point of such a movement would be the construction of a space that would be autonomous and independent of political parties and whose minimum, basic and unifying goal would be the end of torture, respect for human rights, the freeing of political and social prisoners, and the re-appearing of the detainees\/kidnapped<\/wbr>. In this way, the dirty war could be ended and the state of exception transformed into a state of rebellion.<\/p>\n

September 1st, 2007
\nclaudio.albertani@<\/wbr>gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

———————<\/p>\n

[1] Giorgio Agamben, Estado de Excepci\u00f3n, Pre-textos, Valencia, 2004.<\/p>\n

[2] Carlos Montemayor, \u201cEPR\u201d, La Jornada, July 14th, 2007. Montemayor\u2019s version is based on that of Pedro Ans\u00f3tegui, a Oaxacan political columnist linked to military intelligence.<\/p>\n

[3] LIMEDDH, \u201cDetenci\u00f3n desaparici\u00f3n de dos integrantes del Partido Democr\u00e1tico Popular Revolucionario, PDPR, en Oaxaca\u201d, http:\/\/espora.<\/wbr>org\/limeddh\/<\/wbr>spip.php?<\/wbr>article178<\/a><\/p>\n

[4] Please see: http:\/\/chiapas.<\/wbr>indymedia.<\/wbr>org\/display.<\/wbr>php3?article_<\/wbr>id=146297<\/a><\/p>\n

[5] On August 13, 2001, the brothers Alejandro, H\u00e9ctor y Antonio Cerezo Contreras were arrested and tortured in Mexico City following a number of explosions in banks. Alejandro was freed and exonerated on March 1st, 2005 while Antonio and Hector are still being held in the Almoloya de Ju\u00e1rez high-security prison in the State of Mexico.<\/p>\n

[6] The original text of the e-mail reads as follows: como est\u00e1n? calientitos? que pedo con los desaparecidos? familia? adorado t\u00edo? fabuloso padre? As\u00ed son las cosas de la vida otra vez en pedos la family, ni modos los ni modos los tenemos bien cercas a ustedes tres, a los de la palma y a tu querida familia, y a tu tiito cara de culito y a su amiguito habladorcito que no para y el otro tambi\u00e9n habla y habla, pero a lo mejor ya no hablan ya se quedan calladitos o ya les cargo la verga. Solo diosito sabe, y tambi\u00e9n marxito y leninito culito. Dile a papito y a mamita que nos sean cobardes que hagan sus mamaditas para que vean como los vamos a poner a ustedes desnuditos y bien cojiditos. Pobre de t\u00edo y zapatito se cre\u00edan muy chingoncitos y cayeron como palomitas del sur. Hasta luego amorcitos. Desde la sierra del sur. Sus verdaderos padres.<\/p>\n

[7] LIMEDDH, http:\/\/espora.<\/wbr>org\/limeddh\/<\/wbr>spip.php?<\/wbr>article194<\/a><\/p>\n

[8] In Spanish: como est\u00e1n? calientitos? que pedo con los desaparecidos? familia? adorado t\u00edo? fabuloso padre?<\/p>\n

[9] Hermann Bellinghausen, La Jornada, July 6th, 2007. See also:
\nhttp:\/\/zapateando.<\/wbr>wordpress.<\/wbr>com\/2007\/<\/wbr>07\/25\/no-<\/wbr>estoy-desapareci<\/wbr>do-aclara-<\/wbr>gabino-flores-<\/wbr>cruz\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[10] See: http:\/\/www.estesur.<\/wbr>com\/categoria.<\/wbr>jsp?categoriaid=<\/wbr>4&id=5857<\/a><\/p>\n

[11] See: http:\/\/www.el-<\/wbr>universal.<\/wbr>com.mx\/notas\/<\/wbr>vi_436125.<\/wbr>html<\/a><\/p>\n

[12] La Jornada, July 29th and August 2nd, 2007.<\/p>\n

[13] \u201cNiega la PGR captura de dos guerrilleros\u201d http:\/\/www.milenio.<\/wbr>com\/index.<\/wbr>php\/2007\/<\/wbr>07\/12\/92321\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[14] La Jornada, August 15th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[15] Letter from Nad\u00edn Reyes to Florent\u00edn Mel\u00e9ndez, Mexican delegate to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.
\nhttp:\/\/hastaencontr<\/wbr>arlos.blogspot.<\/wbr>com\/2007\/<\/wbr>08\/carta-<\/wbr>de-nadin-<\/wbr>reyes-maldonado-<\/wbr>la-cidh.html<\/a><\/p>\n

[16] \u201cAlerta AMLO de guerra sucia contra \u00e9l y el FAP\u201d, La Jornada, July 21st.<\/p>\n

[17] Francesc Relea, \u201cEntrevista con el hombre m\u00e1s rico del mundo\u201d, El Pa\u00eds, July 12th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[18] La Jornada, March 17th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[19] \u201cU.S. Anti-Drug Aid Would Target Mexican Cartels\u201d, The Washington Post, August 7th, 2007; Nydia Egremy, \u201cPlan Colombia para M\u00e9xico\u201d,
\nhttp:\/\/www.voltaire<\/wbr>net.org\/article1<\/wbr>49107.html<\/a><\/p>\n

[20] The North American Free Trade Agreement came into force on January 1st, 2004, the same day as the Zapatista insurrection.<\/p>\n

[21] Carlos Fazio, \u201cLa sombra del ASPAN\u201d, La Jornada, August 27th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[22] For further information on ASPAN, see: http:\/\/www.psp-<\/wbr>spp.com\/?<\/wbr>q=es<\/a><\/p>\n

[23] La Jornada, April 27th, 2007. Not yet approved by Congress, the law is in a sort of legal limbo.<\/p>\n

[24] \u201cFuerza sin l\u00edmites\u201d, http:\/\/revoluciones<\/wbr>mx.blogspot.<\/wbr>com\/2007_<\/wbr>05_18_archive.<\/wbr>html<\/a><\/p>\n

[25] La Jornada, August 29th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[26] \u201cM\u00e9xico releva a 284 mandos policiales para luchar contra la corrupci\u00f3n\u201d, El Pa\u00eds, June 25th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[27] \u201cCambios en el CISEN\u201d,
\nhttp:\/\/www.poresto.<\/wbr>net\/content\/<\/wbr>view\/8141\/<\/wbr>1\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[28] La Jornada, June 30th and July 13th, 2007. Another of those responsible for the dirty war in the 70\u2019s, Miguel Nazar Haro, was released several months before.<\/p>\n

[29] \u201cAberrante, la liberaci\u00f3n de Acosta Chaparro: Rosario Ibarra\u201d http:\/\/www.notiver.<\/wbr>com.mx\/index.<\/wbr>php?id=74632<\/a><\/p>\n

[30] See the Eureka Committee\u2019s letter and Rosario Ibarra\u2019s declarations in La Jornada, July 29th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[31] The persistence of torture in Mexico has been denounced by the principal international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. See: http:\/\/thereport.<\/wbr>amnesty.org\/<\/wbr>esl\/Regions\/<\/wbr>Americas\/<\/wbr>Mexico;<\/a> \u201cHuman Rights Watch urge a Ulises indagar y sancionar abusos policiacos\u201d, La Jornada, July 25th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[32] La Jornada, July 30th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[33] \u201cComisi\u00f3n Civil Internacional de Observaci\u00f3n por los Derechos Humanos\u201d, Informe sobre los hechos de Oaxaca, February, 2007, http:\/\/cciodh.<\/wbr>pangea.org<\/a><\/p>\n

[34] EPR, communiqu\u00e9 of July 19th,
\nhttp:\/\/www.estesur.<\/wbr>com\/categoria.<\/wbr>jsp?categoriaid=<\/wbr>4&id=5947&<\/wbr>pagenum=1<\/a><\/p>\n

[35] See in particular the \u201cReporte \u00cdndigo\u201d (http:\/\/www.reportei<\/wbr>ndigo.com<\/a>), Raimundo Riva Palacio\u2019s articles in El Universal and those of Vladimir Galeana (http:\/\/www.rumbodem<\/wbr>exico.com.<\/wbr>mx<\/a>).<\/p>\n

[36] Vladimir Galeana, \u201cSe activan nuevamente los grupos guerrilleros\u201d<\/wbr>, August 24th, 2007, http:\/\/www.rumbodem<\/wbr>exico.com.<\/wbr>mx\/macnews-<\/wbr>core00000\/<\/wbr>notes\/?id=<\/wbr>77048<\/a><\/p>\n

[37] \u201cThe 37 journalists assassinated and disappeared in Mexico\u201d http:\/\/periodismode<\/wbr>esperanza.<\/wbr>blogspot.<\/wbr>com\/2007\/<\/wbr>05\/los-37-<\/wbr>periodistas-<\/wbr>asesinados-<\/wbr>y.html<\/a><\/p>\n

[38] \u201cSupuesto comando armado hizo explotar tres petardos en Oaxaca\u201d, La Jornada, October 3rd, 2006.<\/p>\n

[39] Hermann Bellinghausen, \u201cLa revancha de la Guelaguetza\u201d, La Jornada, July 23rd, 2007.<\/p>\n

[40] Interview with Nic\u00e9foro Urbieta, July 30th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[41] For an analysis of last year\u2019s events, please see my article, \u201cEl espejo de M\u00e9xico. Oaxaca un a\u00f1o despu\u00e9s\u201d, www.rebelion.<\/a><\/wbr>org\/noticia.<\/a><\/wbr>php?id=52119<\/a><\/p>\n

[42] In the two following weeks, the July 16th prisoners were released one by one, not without first suffering all kinds of humiliations. On August 27th, Marino Cruz was released but in a wheelchair, with a catheter and an artificial respirator.<\/p>\n

[43] See the photos at: http:\/\/oaxacaenpied<\/wbr>elucha.blogspot.<\/wbr>com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[44] Reconstruction based on: http:\/\/oaxacaenpied<\/wbr>elucha.blogspot.<\/wbr>com\/search\/<\/wbr>label\/OAXACA%<\/wbr>20REPRESION,<\/a> corresponding to the days July 16th and 17th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[45] La Jornada, August 4th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[46] See the testimony of various prisoners at: http:\/\/www.rojoyneg<\/wbr>ro.info\/2004\/<\/wbr>spip.php?<\/wbr>article18985<\/a><\/p>\n

[47] Walter Benjamin, \u201cPara una cr\u00edtica de la violencia\u201d, Ensayos escogidos, Ediciones Coyoac\u00e1n, M\u00e9xico, DF, p\u00e1g. 183.<\/p>\n

[48] La Jornada, September 1st, 2007<\/p>\n

[49] \u201cGuerrero: Ataca gobierno estatal a polic\u00edas comunitarios\u201d<\/wbr>, http:\/\/cml.vientos.<\/wbr>info\/node\/<\/wbr>10390<\/a><\/p>\n

[50] See: http:\/\/www.apiavirt<\/wbr>ual.com\/2007\/<\/wbr>08\/14\/libertad-<\/wbr>a-david-valtierr<\/wbr>a-arango-<\/wbr>de-la-radio-<\/wbr>nomndaa\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[51] Andr\u00e9s Barreda, \u201cMorelos: provocaci\u00f3n gubernamental vs. propuestas populares\u201d, La Jornada, August 5th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[52] See the official complaint at: http:\/\/enlacezapati<\/wbr>sta.ezln.<\/wbr>org.mx\/denuncias<\/wbr>\/795\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[53] Document cited by Hermann Belllinghausen, La Jornada, August 29th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[54] La Jornada, August 28th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[55] See: \u201cInforme de la \u201cCaravana de salud y resistencia contra la represi\u00f3n y marginaci\u00f3n de los pueblos indios de Oaxaca\u201d, http:\/\/www.lahaine.<\/wbr>org\/index.<\/wbr>php?p=24253<\/a><\/p>\n

[56] People\u2019s trial against Ulises Ruiz and Felipe Calder\u00f3n. Mexico City Z\u00f3calo, held on August 3rd and 4th, 2007.<\/p>\n

[57] See in particular, http:\/\/cciodh.<\/wbr>pangea.org\/<\/wbr>index\/index.<\/wbr>shtml<\/a> and Amnesty International\u2019<\/wbr>s latest report, \u201cM\u00e9xico Leyes sin justicia: Violaciones de derechos humanos e impunidad en el sistema de justicia penal y de seguridad p\u00fablica\u201d,
\nhttp:\/\/web.amnesty.<\/wbr>org\/library\/<\/wbr>Index\/ESLAMR4100<\/wbr>22007<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Resistance and state of exception in Mexico Claudio Albertani translated from Spanish by Kurt Hackbarth The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the \u201cstate of emergency\u201d in which we live is not the exception but the rule. – Walter … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-Hj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}