Juchitán has just started mourning. The unexpected death of the artist Franciso Toledo shook the state. But the Oaxacan people don’t get a break. “The isthmus is ours” meeting, organised by the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), is about to start. The aim is clear, to articulate the views of the indigenous and peasant movements of Oaxaca, and beyond. In defence of the territories which the government aims to offer to electrical, mining and logging companies, among others.
“They don't inform us about how [this project] is going to affect our lives, how it is going to impoverish us more, if you are going to bring development, what kind of development, for whom, how, why, that is what we want to know, because we own the territories. We are the ones who have safeguarded these territories for hundreds of years since the time of colonization,” said Bettina Cruz Velásquez, a Binnizá woman who defends human rights, at the start of the meeting.
Representatives of more than a hundred indigenous organisations met in Juchitán between the 6th and 8th of September 2019, along with free and independent media, environment, artists and Oaxacan people in general
