MEXICO: CHIAPAS

For 14 years, the indigenous Zapatista women and men and the Zapatista National Liberation Army (ZNLA) have resisted the violence of the Mexican State. After the original uprising on the 1^st January 1994 - when the ZNLA took control of the majority of the state of Chiapas in south-east Mexico - the civil population was subjected to bombing raids, massacres, torture and 'disappearances' on the part of the Mexican Federal army, extreme violence that was only reduced after huge demonstrations and solidarity around the world put pressure on the government.

Since then the Zapatistas have tried and retried to find a peaceful solution to guarantee the rights and protection of the Indigenous population, but on every occasion the Federal government has betrayed them, waging a low-intensity war against the population of Chiapas. With the intention of destroying the community organisation of the indigenous peoples and crushing support for the ZNLA, the Mexican army have also trained and financed paramilitary groups of coerced rural workers to invade Zapatista land, threaten and carry out violence, persecution and torture and violate basic human rights.

The current situation in Chiapas is critical. While the administration of the new, fraudulently elected President Felipe Caldarón brutally represses civil society demonstrations around the country (Atenco, Oaxaca…), in Chiapas the number of Federal soldiers has been doubled and paramilitary groups are ever more numerous and violent, acting with total impunity. Rural indigenous workers are being thrown off their land and autonomous authorities are threatened, while the government uses every means available to divide indigenous communities and create ethnic conflict, including giving Certificates of Ownership of indigenous community land to enemies of the Zapatistas, and making large sums of money available to families and communities (for the building of schools, etc) that declare themselves against the ZNLA.

MEXICO: ATENCO

On 3^rd May 2007, the village of San Salvador Atenco (on the eastern outskirts of Mexico City) was the scene of violent confrontations between the police and local farmers who oppose the expropriation of 4,000 hectares of their land for the building of a new airport. The farmers insisted that they would rather die than give up their plots and join the ranks of the poor in suburban slums, and therefore took hostages and retreated into their village behind burning barricades [1].

The following day 3 thousand police stormed into the village and crushed the rebellion. A minor was killed, another young person fell into a coma, 217 men and women were detained and tortured, and 23 women were sexually attacked. They included the Spanish women Cristina Valls and María Sostres Tarrida, the German Samantha Ariane Marei and the Chilean woman Valentina Larissa Palma [2].

MEXICO: JUAREZ CITY, THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

The most famous case of feminicide is in Ciudad Juárez, where, from 1993 to 2006 there were 464 women murdered, what the experts call “systematic sexual feminicide”. In 14 years, the city has become a paradigm of feminicide violence, the tip of an iceberg of a phenomenon suffered by the whole Mexican Republic and documented by the Special Commission on Feminicide, who have prepared the first “x-ray” of feminicide in the country. This survey, carried out in the 32 federal provinces, draws attention to the 1,205 girls and women that were murdered around the country in 2004: 4 girls and women were killed every day, and more than 6,000 girls and women were murdered from 1999 to 2005.

The frequency of crimes and rape against women is linked to the current context of the Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada, that has destroyed the minimum conditions of survival of the majority by transforming human rights into commodities, and created an atmosphere of repression of people’s resistance. In addition, the risk of increased militarization as a result of the establishment of the PSP (North America Partnership for Security and Prosperity) has specific implications for women, due to the level of impunity in cases of crimes perpetrated by the military.

Besides Ciudad Juárez, among the most recent cases of violence and murder is the case of an indigenous woman, Ernestina Ascención, in Zongolica, Veracruz, and among cases of sexual aggressions are the examples of 13 women in Castaños Coahuila, and the girls from Carácuaro and Nocupétaro, Michoacán. Despite having been victims of sexual abuse, the authorities – supposedly those responsible for justice - have thrown the women of Atenco and Oaxaca into jail, a violation all their rights. We can confirm, therefore, that today’s government is using sexual violence to intimidate women who organize themselves to struggle for their rights.

In Mexico, this reality coincides with the total impunity of those who have committed these crimes, but what is worse is that it is the very authorities responsible for assuring rights to women who acquit the perpetrators, demonstrating clearly the prevailing context of State violence. [3]

Sources:

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,768471,00.html

[2] Retrato Radical, interview with Sub-commander Marcos, December 2007

[3] Concha, L.A. (2007) La violencia feminicida en México