BARTOLOMÉ CHÁVEZ SALAS, BRAD WILL, VICTIMS OF PRI-ISM IN OAXACA

"Justice can not be bought nor can it be sought out as charity."

Ricardo Flores Magón

Santa María Yaviche, Villa Alta, Oaxaca./

17th of October, 2008

Attorney General of the Republic

Attorney general of the state of Oaxaca

ULISES RUIZ ORTIZ

We, the undersigned, are members of the Community council of the CIPO-RFM for Santa Maria Yaviche, members of the APPO (Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca), members of the National Indigenous Congress and aherents to the Other Campaign of the EZLN.

With great pain in our hearts and despairing about the lack of justice in Oaxaca, we bring to your attention: As you may know, the 16 of October marked 5 years since the assassination of Bartolomé Chávez Salas by CROCUT, the paramilitary group from Tanetze de Zaragoza, under the command of Cesar Toimil Roberts and Jacobo Chávez Yescas, leaving in the wake of their cowardly attack 9 woulded community members; among them a woman, using fire arms reserved for the exclusive use of the military. As the preliminary investigations state in cases 146/2003 and 975(h.c)2003 and 324/2003, 38/2003, exp: a.p. oax/1/264/2003 and a.p. pgr/oax/oax/264/2003 and that to this day have remained uninforced.

On this same day, as we were commemorating this very painful day in the history of our community, we found out that our compañero Juan José Martínez Moreno, member of the APPO was detained by the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI) who are charging him with the death of Brad Will, U.S. Indymedia journalist. We also found out several days ago that the PGR will request that a federal judge mandate orders of apprehension for members of the APPO: Miguel Cruz Moreno (member of the organizing committee of CIPO-RFM and couselor of APPO Edgar Santiago, Hogo Jara and Arturo Villanueva.

In the face of all this, we say: that in Oaxaca you cannot speak of justice when from the communities we see clearly all to the contrary; Or what can they say about the issue of our community? Will they answer cynically with the same arguments used on the notification document? They said that it was a confrontation, when in fact we were at a meeting of comuneros: we were attacked.

Second - that the social representative of the state court resolved the situation, when in reality, they released from prison Lino Filiberto who was in for the crime of agravated manslaughter, agravated assault, attempted murder, just as they also haven’t executed orders of apprehension for: Cesar Toimil Roberts, Jacobo Chávez Yescas, Hernán y Erik Chávez Martínez, Equidel Ruiz Cruz, Héctor Chávez Martínez, Elias Chavez, Victorino Salas, Leobardo Chávez, Eustorgio Ruiz, among others.

And now it turns out that they imprison those like us who denounce the true assassins as in the case of Juan José Martínez Moreno, they pursue us, detain us, they acuse us for crimes that we have not committed, or they cause us to go into exile as in the case of compañero Raul Gatica (exiled in Canada). We ask ourselves: Is this the way that justice is done in Oaxaca?

From the consejo de base of CIPO-RFM IN SANTA MARÍA YAVICHE