Torture and Assassination of Salvador Olmo Garcia: Only Justice In Vengeance

June of 2016 there was a week when the state violence escalated out of control in the territory of Oaxaca during the teachers strike. This was when the Mexican army was video taped shooting machine guns at the unarmed community on the barricades in Nochixtlan and in other parts of Oaxaca. The news first came out of this outbreak of violence on a weekend just after an anarcho-punk band played a show in a small town of Oaxaca called “Huajuapan.”The Huajuapan anarcho-punk show was in part organized by the well loved “chava,” Salvador Olmo Garcia, also called “el abogado.”  Shortly after the punk show, the chaos began to spread, after the next day’s show in the city of Oaxaca was cancelled, and the anarcho-punk community organized themselves to respond to the crisis.

Later that same week, the community radio station where Salvador “Chava,” “el abogado” volunteered at had a threat made to it in the middle of the night. With tensions high as the violence was barely calming down from “Nochixtlan” and surrounding, the people at the radio station called Chava at his home at midnight and asked him for help with the reported unknown vehicles surrounding the station.

Chava left his house around midnight walking towards the station in response to his companeros call for help. Chava never arrived at the station, He had stopped to tag a message on the street where gentrification was covering up local works, and shortly after the police captured him for no known reason. He was then gone for many hours. His dreadlocks were found later cut off and thrown on the road of a nearby colonia. At 4am, Chava reappeared running down a street, tortured, who knows how long, but he managed to escape. Then, authorities again caught up with him, as a police truck ran him over forward, then again backwards, killing him.

The degree of torture that was done to him as a anarcho-punk, outspoken opponent of mining, and a radio programmer utilizing his native language, made it clear that this was not a local police killing. The tactics used appeared sophisticated.

This week his case goes to court, and for the well being of his family hopefully it turns out the way they would like. But for his friends locally and throughout the world, we know that the only justice will come from vengeance. So although best of hope for the sake of the family in the courts, but at the same time, fuck the courts.

Several acts have been done in his name, including a link to this article showing an action done by “Grupo Autónomo de Sabotaje Salvador Olmos García.”

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