We demand to know the whereabouts of David Venegas Reyes

At approximately 3.50 pm on Sunday 29 January 2012, our comrade David Venegas Reyes was arbitrarily arrested on the direct orders of Jesús Martínez Álvarez, Secretary General of the Government of Oaxaca; this happened as he, along with other comrades, was accompanying the caravan back to the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, led for over a year by the displaced women. [Castellano] [Français]

---

We demand to know the whereabouts of David Venegas Reyes

At approximately 3.50 pm on Sunday 29 January 2012, our comrade David Venegas Reyes was arbitrarily arrested on the direct orders of Jesús Martínez Álvarez, Secretary General of the Government of Oaxaca; this happened as he, along with other comrades, was accompanying the caravan back to the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, led for over a year by the displaced women.

Early information from this afternoon indicates that he was arrested approximately 20 minutes away from San Juan Copala, and then taken away from the area where the Displaced Caravan is. As we did not know where he was being taken, we began to search for him.

At 5.50 pm, we presented ourselves at the State Attorney's Office, specifically at the Sub Office of Preliminary Investigations for the State Government of Oaxaca, where all information that could clarify the whereabouts of our friend was denied us. At the same time we tried the town of Huajuapan de León, a town near the Triqui region. Later we went to the offices of the State Attorney's Office located in the Colonia Experimental district at 7.30 pm and the headquarters of the Oaxaca Secretary for Public Security to discover the whereabouts of David Venegas Reyes. No information could be had in any of these places.

We add to these facts that we have made insistent requests to various State government human rights' bodies that they deal with his localization, but these too have been denied. We are thus denouncing the forced disappearance of our comrade David Venegas Reyes.

In this context, we wish to alert people about the tense situation in the region at this time, and it is still uncertain whether San Juan Copala comrades can return to their town.

This adds to the unbridled campaign to legitimize impunity in Oaxaca that the government of Gabino Cué Monteagudo has been leading in recent days, to justify the attacks against the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, and shows that peace will not come to the Triqui region or Oaxaca as long as it is the government itself that conflicts with and represses the people, who are merely struggling for their self-determination, preventing them from returning home by way of force, talking about a non-existant peace when in fact it is the very State government that breaks off the process of dialogue and any solution to the violence being carried out against the inhabitants of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala.

We hold Gabino Cué Monteagudo and Jesús Martínez Álvarez directly responsible for the detention and disappearance of David Venegas Reyes.

We demand the immediate production of David Venegas Reyes!


Oaxaca de Juárez, 29 January 2012, 8.00 pm

Voces Oaxaqueñas Construyendo Autonomía y Libertad (VOCAL)

Translation by FdCA - International Relations Office