Resistance in Oaxaca´s Sierra Mixteca

The Oaxaca´s Sierra Mixteca is one of the most impoverished regions in Mexico. One of the poorest regions in Mexico's second poorest and most indigenous state, the Mixteca has become a land without men, most of whom have migrated north to the US and other regions of Mexico.

Productive soil is virtually non-existent, eroded and acidic due to hundreds of years of over-grazing by goats and sheep introduced by the Spaniards, who found the temperate cold of the Mixteca perfect for wool production. Nowadays, the little farming to be done takes place in the valley´s seasonal streams through the construction of permeable dams that obstruct the flow of water without retaining it, a old Mesoamerican trick that floods the nearby corn patches and then trickles downstream to the next patch.
The Mixteca has been all but forgotten by state and federal governments, who have exploited the region´s largely indigenous population so thoroughly that that the area has one of the country's highest indexes of migration. But contrary to what one might be led to believe, the Mixteca is a place full of hope, community, and resistance.
Last year, during the popular uprising that took place throughout the state of Oaxaca, the Mixteca was a hotbed of action. Although things have calmed down since last fall, when 1.5 million people (in a state of 3 million) had taken to the streets, la lucha--the struggle-- is something alive here in the Mixteca, it is spoken and sung, eaten and breathed, every day.
The Center for Community Support and Working Together (CACTUS, in its Spanish initials) based in the regional capital, Huajuapan de Leon, has been a steadfast defender of human and indigenous rights in the Mixteca. Cactus is part of the APPO ( Peoples´ Popular Assembly of Oaxaca), and was an active player in the popular movement last fall.
I had the chance to visit with Bety Cariño, one of Cactus' founding members, in Huajuapan. During the repression that followed the popular movement, Bety´s partner Omar was jailed, and others like Bety herself threatened with imprisonment and forced into hiding.
Bety serves organic coffee grown in the Mixteca by various indigenous communities, and starts to chat about the state of la lucha in the area. Times are tough, money and food hard to come by, she says.
¨We´re dying,¨ she says, "but we aren't going to die. This is a movement of resistance. To say that we are here, that this is our community, this is our fight."
Important at a time when there is almost no national nor international media coverage of events in the area. One year after the whole world had their eye on Oaxaca, nowadays it seems almost forgotten thanks to the media blackout. Not only is there no national coverage, says Bety, but for almost six months after the events of November 25th the radio signal in the entire state was shut off by the states nefarious governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.
Bety, who took part in many radio takeovers, is quick to point out that although the APPO is in a process of re-evaluation, that the real heart of the movement is the Oaxacan people.
"In reality the APPO didn't make the movement, the people did. That was the most amazing part of it all, the real political awakening of the people", she says.
Camilo, who can attest to the solidarity of the people, was in Oaxaca city on the night of the 25th. Running from the PFP, he was sheltered in a strangers house.
"The people helped us, but we could hear the police shooting on the street. We could see the dead bodies on the street," he says.
There are still many people missing in the state, most likely dead, and many others still in jail. Although all of the 24 people arrested from Huajuapan have been freed, the repression by the state continues, although more discreetly.
But in spite of the repression, the "dirty war" as it is known, the people continue to fight, looking for new ways to counter the state, to create autonomy and fight poverty, outside of the centralized frame of the APPO.
The home-sprung community transports, buses and taxis who operate without state approval, are a good example. The government gives out taxi and bus licenses to paying friends, who then pay the drivers badly and repress unions. Instead of supporting the government, the people use neighborhood taxis, which although unlicensed, are local, cheaper, and the money goes right to the driver.
"It may not seem like something revolutionary, but its a way not to support the authorities," says Bety.
Another example is the formation of autonomous community San Juan Copala. In January indigenous Triqui authorities formed the autonomous municipality of San Juan, incorporating 20 of the 36 Triqui communities. The new municipality will be run following usos y costumbres, local political traditions based around the community assembly, which elects leaders and makes decisions, marking a big change from the top-down corrupt politics of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) which until now had divided and thoroughly impoverished the Triqui region.

San Juan Mixtepec is another community working towards self-determination and autonomy. A small indigenous community north of Huajuapan, in San Juan migration has taken such a heavy toll that the community authorities have imposed a 5,000 dollar fine on any family who sends a young person to the US. The authorities, mostly men who live in the US and only return to serve their one-year mandate, have organized the building of basketball courts, a municipal building, a church, an auditorium, and are currently building a high school. All the projects are community sponsored and built, without funds or help from the government.
In this community, like some 400 others in the state of Oaxaca, the government follows local usos y costumbres, the traditional form of government. Based around the assembly, town authorities aren't really leaders, rather followers of the will of the people, decided in the assemblies in the recently built auditorium. The people come to a consensus, which of course is far easier said than done, and the authorities carry out the mandate of the assembly. Local authorities, who are unpaid, dread being called back from the US to serve as the job is a tough one. They work from 6 am to 10 pm daily, losing out on money they could be earning in the US. Ironically, these men generally don't speak Spanish, just Mixteca and a little bit of English.
Although San Juan Mixtepec doesn't make headlines like big protests or road blockades, it is a place of daily revolution, a place where the state has little say. San Juan Mixtepec is trying to stop the exodus of youth to the US, and in turn trying to build up the foundations of the community, hoping to reverse the slow-death of the Mixteca.
But as Bety reminded me, there is still much work to be done.
¨On the periphery, far from the grand avenues, outside of the shopping centers, our indigenous communities are dying¨, she said