Statement on the Recent Arrests in Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón

Statement from Miguel Peralta’s Support Group following the recent arrests of three more community members from Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, Oaxaca.

The Indigenous Mazatec community of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón is a factory where they manufacture crimes through a combination of political party-caciquismo, state corruption, impunity, and indolence.

Since 2010, Indigenous women, men, children, and elders of the municipality of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, in the state of Oaxaca, have been under siege by a cacique group led by Elisa Zepeda Lagunas and her father Manuel Zepeda Cortés.

The cacique family has utilized their different political positions at the municipal and state levels to orchestrate the continued persecution in complicity with different levels of government in Oaxaca, the judicial power of Oaxaca, and the legislative power at the state and national levels.

For thirteen years the people of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón have seen their right to live in freedom and peace trampled on. The community fabric has been unraveled by the systemic repression that the state has permitted and participated in.

The tolerance of the persecution against the Mazatec people of Nguixó is outrageous. They have faced political imprisonment, arrest warrants, fabrication of crimes, half-century prison sentences—like that which was imposed twice on Miguel Peralta—public accusations, harassment, and media attacks.

It is shameless the way the Zepeda Laguna cacique family has used the three branches of government—executive, legislative, and mainly judicial—to prevent community organization. The racism is evident against Indigenous peoples who defend their own forms of representation, their natural resources, and their territory. That is to say, their right to live.

Until when? What more? How many more arrests are they going to carry out for fabricated crimes? How many more acts of torture are they going to allow? How many more freedoms do they intend to snatch away? Their lies do not have any substance. It is clear that they govern tyrannically, and that political persecution is the method chosen by Elisa Zepeda, her cacique group, and her family, to impose themselves in the Sierra Mazateca and the state of Oaxaca. In the face of all this, we continue making noise to demand:

End the persecution in all its repressive forms against the Mazatec people of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón! Immediate freedom for Jaime Viduaria, Artemio Viduaria, Ranulfo Viduaria, Alfredo Bolaños, Fernando Gavito, Francisco Durán, Paul Reyes, and Marcelino Miramón! Absolute freedom for Herminio Monfil, Jaime Betanzos, and Miguel Peralta!

Enough already of the impunity and simulation of justice! The state’s justice only serves those in power. All of the arrests carried out against the compañerxs of Nguixó have been illegal because the crimes for which they are accused don’t exist. What exists is manipulation, and criminalization against those who resist in Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, both inside and outside the community, in the streets, in the encampments, in the mobilizations, in the prisons, in persecution, in exile from the community.

Freedom for all the Prisoners, Persecuted, and Processed of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón!

Down with the Prison Walls!

Supreme Court Take the Case!

Eloxochitlán Resists!

Peralta Betanzos Family (from Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, ex-prisoners and persecuted), Grupo de apoyo en solidaridad con Miguel Peralta, Grupo Solidario de la Mazateca con los presos y perseguidos políticos, Grupo de Trabajo No Estamos Todxs, Colectivo contra la Tortura y la Impunidad (CCTI), Los Otros Abogadoz, Axolote Radio, Cruz Negra Anarquista México, IndiosSinDios, Valentín Peralta (Plastivaleando), Colectivo Revuelta, Antagonismo Editorial, Red Mujeres Violeta AC, Amigos de Mumia en México, Herbolaria y Somática, Confederación General del Trabajo en España, Libre Ya Comisión por Karla y Magda, Luis Betanzos, Amador Betanzos, Teodora Montalvo, Comité Integral de Derecho Humanos Gobixha AC, Espacio Autogestivo Casa Moustra (Oaxaca), Ya Basta Netz (Alemania), Tlamino