More violence in Oaxaca,… and why the supposedly poverty fighting strategy has deteriorated into violence in the villages

UPDATE,... two persons have died so far,... one on the spot and the other just few hours ago,.... (comment by wet_ahuizote)

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Poverty fighting strategy in Mexico consists of a number of elements. One is the transfer programme, ‘CONTIGO’. This programme is managed from the federal level directly from an agency in SEDESOL. Although CONTIGO is a federal programme, state governors have some degree of influence on it. I am not saying that they have the power to include or exclude people from it, no, their power is more bureaucratic.

Sedesol, the social development secretariat, has delegates in each Mexican state. They are in charge of looking after the good functioning of federal programmes. They are supposed to work and be representatives of the federal government.

However, in practice these delegates are ‘negotiated’ until their appointment is okayed by the state governor they are going to work with. Furthermore, is not an uncommon practice to find that those delegates are actually representatives of governors’ interest at the federal level and not the other way round.

But why governors would like to have someone pushing their agenda in Sedesol? The reason is simple: MONEY, the business of poverty.

Another part, and perhaps more important, in the strategy of ‘poverty fighting’ has to do with the distribution of fiscal funds. This is, that the amount of money that comes from taxes in a year is to be distributed among the states for them to do the same to the municipalities so that every municipality will have resources to build infrastructure. They way this transference takes place is somehow simple and complicated at the same time.

On the one hand it is simple as it follows a progressive principle; the poorer a state is the more resources it will receive. That is State of Mexico receive more resources as it is the largest in population and more than half of it is poor. Then we have southern states of Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca, where poor population is of about 80 per cent, but as they are far smaller than state of Mexico, they receive less resources, but nonetheless it is a considerable amount.

On the other hand it is a complicated matter as it involves technical and political aspects. Technical, to calculate how much poverty there is at state level. The discussion as to who is poor and who is not is a rather obscure one, only for researchers and policy makers.

The political aspect has to do with governors’ willingness to pass on funds to municipalities. At state level, it is slightly more difficult to enforce that the right amount of money reach the municipalities, and even more difficult to, once in the municipality, that money do what it was supposed to do: build basic infrastructure and reduce certain aspects of poverty.

It is common to find that municipality’ majors spent money in different things. Also, frequently we’ll see the case of open corruption where money just disappears. However the most widespread situation is that ‘some relatives’ happens to be the favourite suppliers, with it majors’ families get richer and richer, and villages get worse and worse.

Until something happens that people just got enough of that and decides to change that situation. Well, in Oaxaca there is currently a situation in one of the municipalities, in Zenzontepec. Twelve people were badly injured and one died due to violence provoked by the ex-presidente municipal (former major), who wants his nephew to become the next person in charge.

In Oaxaca, in most of the rural communities there is a system for electing authorities. It is the so-called ‘usos y costumbres’, which is a direct way of electing the next municipal president and allows people to settle their differences on the spot. This system has prevailed from long time so there used to be a fair and open way for democratically elect public servants.

Now a days however, and this is only my opinion, with the influence of the political parties, especially pri. That system has become useless in present times. Mainly because pri supporters have all the means to bully, and even kill those who date to oppose them. Hence it is normal to find that municipal presidents elected under the ‘usos y constumbres’ tradition are strongly linked to pri.

In Zenzontepec, the former municipal president Heraclio Hernandez Martinez, who now is a deputy in the state chamber of representatives, is accused of corruption. He wants his nephew to take over for him not to be prosecuted. And the community protested and took the municipal building.

Once there, Hernandez Martinez came with some strongly armed men and attacked the community killing one person and injuring twelve more. Some people say that he spent lots of money buying machine guns so that he built a small paramilitary force to control that area.

The fact is, in Oaxaca governor himself has promoted the creation of paramilitary groups. These kind of activities have been financed with money that is supposed to be used to fight poverty. The usage of violence to get away with corruption and political abuses is becoming ‘normal’ and is getting worse by the day.

Next are a video, from our friend Frida and some notes from Mexican newspapers reporting those events, here I summarised what I considered the most important and, of course had my own personal opinion on that matter. (comment by wet_ahuizote)




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this is from el imparcial de Oaxaca,...
Habitantes de Zenzontepec piden desafuero del diputado Heraclio
Durante su administración adquirieron armas de alto poder, asegura edil

Habitantes de Santa Cruz Zenzontepec solicitaron este lunes el desafuero del diputado local, Heraclio Juárez Mendoza, al señalarlo como responsable de la violencia que se vivió este fin de semana en esa comunidad, en donde hasta ahora el saldo es de una persona muerta, 16 lesionados y 20 detenidos.

Al respecto, el presidente municipal, Antonio Merino Mejía, manifestó que hay impunidad en cuanto a los hechos de violencia ocurridos este sábado en su comunidad, porque el gobierno sólo quiere pagar las curaciones y los gastos funerarios, pero no castigar a los responsables de este enfrentamiento.

Quieren proteger al ex munícipe Heraclio Juárez, dijo, quien no comprobó más de 5 millones de pesos, pero además mi administración ha sufrido el primer requerimiento para el pago de una obra por más de un millón de pesos, cuyo adeudo es el ahora diputado quien subsidia a los grupos de choque.

A la vez, los acusó que en esa administración adquirieron armas de alto poder, las cuales utilizaron este sábado en el enfrentamiento, por lo que exigió que se investigue al diputado local, porque con dinero del pueblo se compraron las armas que no aparecen en ninguno de los inventarios.

Lo inconformes quienes en un principio se plantaron en la Secretaría General de Gobierno, en donde dialogaron con el sub secretario, Joaquín Rodríguez Palacios, no lograron ningún acuerdo, sólo una cita para las 14:00 horas, con el secretario general, Manuel García Corpus, quien 45 minutos después llegó a la cita.

Ahí, los manifestantes fueron claros en su petición, al exigir el desafuero del diputado local, Heraclio Juárez, al señalar que no tiene la calidad moral para estar en el Congreso, porque no solo saqueó el ayuntamiento de Santa Cruz Zenzontepec, sino poco le ha importado la vida de sus paisanos para tapar sus fechorías.

A la vez advirtieron que si no hay una respuesta en las próximas horas a sus reclamos, los habitantes tomarán otras acciones, porque un grupo caciquil no puede imponerse ante el reclamo generalizado de los pobladores.

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and this is from frontera.net
Un muerto y 12 heridos fue el saldo de un enfrenamiento ocurrido anoche y la madrugada de este sábado entre grupos antagónicos del poblado de Santa Cruz Zenzontepec, en la Sierra Sur de Oaxaca, informaron autoridades estatales.

De acuerdo con el reporte de la Subsecretaría de Desarrollo Político del gobierno estatal, los hechos iniciaron cuando un numeroso grupo de pobladores, encabezado por Rogaciano Avendaño, líder de la población, se presentó anoche en el palacio municipal de Zenzontepec.

El palacio, que permanecía en poder de simpatizantes de la pasada autoridad municipal, pretendía ser desalojado por los inconformes, quienes acusan al edil anterior, el priísta Heraclio Juárez Martínez, de intentar imponer al frente de dicho ayuntamiento a su sobrino, Wilfrido Hernández.

Luego de intercambiar golpes e insultos, los inconformes se retiraron del lugar, para presentarse nuevamente a las 6:00 horas de este sábado, armados de palos, machetes y armas de fuego, de los cuales se valieron para recuperar el palacio municipal.

No obstante, derivado del enfrentamiento, una persona murió y al menos 12 resultaron heridas, algunas de ellas de gravedad, quienes ya fueron trasladadas a la capital del estado para ser atendidas en el Hospital Civil "Aurelio Valdivieso".

De acuerdo con el titular de esta dependencia estatal, que interviene en la conciliación de las partes en pugna, Joaquín Rodríguez Palacios, debido al grado de efervescencia, hasta el momento no ha sido posible el ingreso de la Policía Preventiva.

Sin embargo, se espera controlar completamente la situación en las próximas horas.

En tanto, pobladores encabezados por Avendaño realizan su denuncia ante la Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (PGJE).

El municipio de Santa Cruz Zenzontepec se localiza en la región de la Sierra Sur, y pertenece al distrito de Sola de Vega. Su método de elección de autoridades se rige bajo el Sistema de Usos y Costumbres.

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