[Lasnetmail] Oaxaca: Two Copala Community Radio Announcers Killed

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Oaxaca: Two Copala Community Radio Announcers Killed
By Jessica Cecilia Martínez/correspondent and Guadalupe Gómez Q.

Oaxaca, Oax., April 8, 08 (CIMAC).- Teresa Bautista and Felicitas
Martínez, 22 and 20 years old respectively, reporters and announcers for
the community radio La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (The Voice that Breaks
the Silence) of the popular government of San Juan Copala, were killed
in an ambush yesterday at Llano Juárez on the highway from Joya del
Mamey to Putla de Guerrero, as they were traveling by car to the state
capital along with several other people.

Wounded in the attack were Faustino Vásquez Martínez, the official in
charge of Vital Statistics at Juxtlahuaca and a militant in the  Social
Welfare Unit of the Triqui Region (UBISORT); his 22 year-old wife
Cristina Flores; and his children  Agustín Gustavo and Jaciel Vásquez
Flores, age 2 and 3, according to information provided by state judicial
authorities and the Center for Community Support Working Together (CACTUS).

The two women and their traveling companions left for the city of Oaxaca
around one o'clock in the afternoon. They were going to coordinate the
discussion group on "Community and Alternative Communication: Community
Radio, Video, Press, and Internet" at the Statewide Forum for the
Defense of the Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca, scheduled to begin
tomorrow at the Teachers' Hotel of the National Educational Workers
Union (SNTE), Section 22.

The shooting occurred approximately 50 kilometers away from the town of
San Juan Copala, 350 kilometers to the west of the city of Oaxaca. Those
who were hit had several bullet wounds and were taken to the Amigo del
Niño y del Madre Hospital in Putla de Guerrero.

In a telephone interview, the state Attorney General said that 20 7.62
caliber shells were found at the scene of the ambush--the kind commonly
used in AK-47 rifles. The facts were noted in the Rrevious Investigation
105/2008.

FULFILLING A COMMUNITY OBLIGATION

The civil association CACTUS, based in Huajuapan de León, condemned the
attack and demanded that state authorities investigate and punish those
responsible for the crime.

In a statement sent out today, CACTUS members expressed "our pain, our
rage, and our heartfelt sorrow" for the deaths of Felicitas and Teresa.

With them, recalls CACTUS, "we were on the road to the creation of the
Triqui community radio, The Voice that Breaks the Silence. We remember
their laughter and the way they felt so nervous when they saw that their
voices gave voice to those people who had never had one. We will always
be touched by the way they made the San Andrés Accords come alive as
they exercised their right to autonomy and freedom of expression on live
radio and put into practice their right to speak their mind as women, as
indigenous women, as Triguis".

The radio station, a project of the autonomous municipality of San Juan
Copala, was inaugurated by municipal authorities last January 19.
Broadcasts began at the modulated frequency 94.9, in the framework of
the gathering of communities and organizations to mark the first
anniversary of the creation of the autonomous municipality.

At the inauguration, speakers said that the radio was created to
broadcast information about the reality experienced in the Triqui
region, to talk about local activities, the way life is there and in the
state, and to report on federal and international politics because the
region has been practically incommunicado. This would be a way to break
the circle that has impeded communication with other communities in
Oaxaca and in the country.

With this in mind, the two radio journalists were on their way towards
fulfilling a community obligation through their participation in the
Statewide Forum for the Defense of the Rights of the People of Oaxaca,
in which The Voice that Breaks the Silence would coordinate the
discussion group on Community Radio.

CACTUS members declared that the attack heightens the lack of security
experienced in the state, as well as the state repression against
autonomous municipalities and community radios exercising their right to
communication stipulated in the International Labor Convention 169.

08/JCM/GG
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