El Charco is a small mixtec community from Ayutla de Los Libres municipality in the state of Guerrero's Costa Chica region. It's population is around 200 residents and is located 35 kilometers from this municipality's administrative center, it has historically remained forgotten until it drew fame for the massacre of eleven villagers June 8 1998, when army soldiers surrounded this small town's Caritino Maldonado School where a group of guerrilla fighters from the ERPI were supposedly lodging.

The mountainous region where El Charco is located has been since colonial times a zone of refuge for indigenous groups including mixtecos, tlapanecos and nahuas, surviving in precarious conditions cultivating maize and sugar cane in plots of land of undersubsistence. For a very long time these indigenous groups found a rudimentary complement to their income by laboring in fields bordering the pacific coast's Costa Chica region where during the period of second world war, plantations such as copra and some commercial crops such as Jamaica (hibiscus flowers), were expanded. The fragile equilibrium of this economy was consequently fractured by the opening of the economy and by economic reforms undertaken by then president Carlos Salinas de Gortari which provoked the collapse of regional agricultural products. In the last decade we saw an increment in poverty, migration (to the port of Acapulco, to the north and the even to the United States).

Because of the massive exodus of men looking for work, the important role of providing for the indigenous families fell to the women who remain in their towns. As a consequence of the regional impoverishment, the use of fertilizers and chemical herbicides grew, causing environmental deterioration, and the expansion of clandestine cultivation and violence. To this precarious situation were added the devastating drought of 1997 and the effects of tropical storm "Paulina" which hit the region that same year.

Due to the explosive situation, the region was militarized. Anticonstitutional police checkpoints were established, abuses, kidnappings, torture and the arbitrary detention of people, such as the detention of three peasants from Tlachimala. The military siege to the region had its most tragic event with the massacre of El Charco June 7, 1998, which was condemned by non-governmental groups and by Liga Mexicana de Derechos Humanos affiliated to the Federacion Internacional de Derechos Humanos with headquarters in Paris.

For ancient Mexicans, the massacre was neither fortuitous nor an isolated act, but one more event taking place in a long series of aggravating circumstances that are part of a policy of discrimination and extermination which includes making a mockery of the OIT's 169 agreement, through which the government pledged internationally to respect the autonomy of indigenous peoples, on down to the massacre itself.

The seriousness of the repression provoked the town's people to demand punishment for those responsible and this demand for justice placed other demands second on the list. In this manner, during a conference between Social Organizations and of Congreso Campesino which took place on November 29 and 30, 1998 in the town of Ayutla and aimed to discuss economic demands made by farmers (credit, capitalization of forest products, warehouses for the Jamaica (hibiscus flowers), hydraulic infrastructure and to capitalize the agricultural infrastructure), the rules forced them to place in the middle of things demands for justice and punishment for the military men responsible for the massacre. As a result, a human rights reflect on workshop that took place on September 16 and 17, 1999 with participation from Comite de Viudas de El Charco (El Charco's Widows Committee), the Eclesiales de Base Community, the Organizacion Independiente de Pueblos Mixtecos y Tlapanecos (OIPMT), and people from Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD), a Comite Coordinador de Defensa de los Derechos Humanos de la Costa Chica was formed, with headquarters in the Ayutla Municipality, which posed as fundamental duties:

1. - The demilitarization of the region.

2. - The creation of a Human Rights Network.

3. - The collaboration between church and non-governmental human rights organizations.

This Committee denounced that groups of sicarios were being created in the mixtec community of La Concordia. From this point forward there was a sharp increase to pressuring its members. In April of 2000 Galdino Sierra Francisco was assassinated, he was a member of the Tlapaneca de Barranca de Guadalupe Community, and had organized the Colonia La Unificada, which participated in Comunidades Eclesiales de Base; on November 19, 2000 Severiano Lucas Petra, from La Fatima community was murdered; in January of 2001 Andres Marcelino Petrona a local leader from the community of El Charco, was murdered with the use of long weapons in the town of Tepuente, he was also a member of Comite de Defensa de los Derechos Humanos.

Despite the illusions generated by democratic transition, with the arrival of Vicente Fox to the presidency, the situation in this region remains the same and the people responsible for the massacre in El Charco go unpunished, in the same way the murders that followed continue to go unpunished. Defenders of human rights continue to be persecuted, and whose denunciations are not being heard allegedly because of lack of consistency. Furthermore attempts have been made to link the victims to subversive groups and to drug traffickers. Within this context of persecution and repression the murder of defense lawyer Digna Ochoa occurred.

In the last year, assassinations and human rights violations have occurred in the indigenous Ayutla region. According to an article from Maribel Gutierrez published in El Sur de Acapulco April 1, 2002, the most outstanding events have been: the assassination of indigenous leaders by paramilitary groups, the raping of women by army soldiers and the militarization of indigenous communities. The Organizacion Independiente de Pueblos Mixtecos Tlapanecos (OIPMT) pointed out aggressions carried out by the army in Barranca Tecuani and Barranca Bejuco, the torture of land peasants in Roca Colorada September 19, 2001 and to do justice in the case of condemned assassinations. The Organization suspects paramilitary groups to be guilty of these crimes.

Added to this repression are the recently committed rapes of indigenous women Valentina Rosendo Cantu February 16, 2002 in Barranca del Bejuco, Acatepec Municipality, and Ines Hernandez Ortega in Barranca Tecuani, Ayutla Municipality March 22 of the same year, carried out by army soldiers from 41 Batallon de Infanteria del Ejercito. Just a few days later a decapitated corpse was found in the region, next to it were found papers referring to a supposedly settling of scores between subversive groups.

The OIPMT denounces that widows from El Charco massacre have not received compensation and that these communities are asking for a reopening of the investigation.

Recently three indigenous persons from El Camote community were sterilized by means of manipulation and deceit. These cases are added to the one where nineteen Mixtec peasants were left sterile in 1998, for which justice hasn't been served.

Finally, the OIPMT demands that hostilities against community police officers from the indigenous region of Ayutla be stopped, these officers are not allowed to carry weapons, when this police force is recognized by the Mexican constitution and by Convenio 169 of the OIT signed by the Mexican government, this police force is the only guarantee of security in the area. The Ayutla communities want to follow the example of San Luis Acatlan and Malinaltepec, where community policing has stopped all delinquency in the area.

We call for solidarity with the people from the region wounded by repression, demanding as well the immediate freedom for political prisoners.