The impoverished Loxicha region of Oaxaca state continues to face daunting political challenges (see ETS! Vol. 5 #1). The latest blow came on January 12 when Jaime Valencia, the newly installed mayor of San Agustin Loxicha (the region's largest town) was shot dead in a bloody ambush while walking to his house from the municipal palace.

The state prosecutor blames the murder of Jaime Valencia on his predecessor, Lucio Vasquez, said to have ordered the killing from his prison cell in Oaxaca city where he being held for another politically motivated killing.

Within days of Valencia's murder, state police had arrested seven men alleged to be the assailants and their accomplices. Authorities also confiscated a collection of firearms, including one AR-15 assault rifle and a shotgun identified as the murder weapons. The arrestees are said to be guardias blancas--paramilitaries, and close associates of Lucio Vasquez.

Loxicha is one of the poorest regions of Oaxaca, one of Mexico's poorest states. Oaxaca shares many of the same problems as its neighbors Chiapas and Guerrero; lack of infrastructure, endemic corruption, racism against its Indian population, and an army presence verging, in some areas, on military occupation.

Loxicha is one of those occupied territories. The army arrived in the autumn of 1996 chasing, they said, the EPR, the Popular Revolutionary Army. The EPR, originating in Guerrero, was blamed for an attack on a police barracks in the coastal resort area of Huatulco, Oaxaca in August 1996. One of the guerrillas, identified as a former municipal official of San Agustin, was killed in the attack that left several police officers dead.

This connection with Loxicha provided justification for the police and military to invade the region. A series of raids between September and November 1996 resulted in the detention of 77 men, among them the entire municipal administration of San Agustin.

One of the prime "witnesses" who pointed out which men should be arrested was Lucio Vasquez, at the time a state police officer and associate of the then state governor, Diodoro Carasco.

The arrestees and their families all deny any involvement with the EPR and claim they were singled out for their opposition to corrupt and oppressive rule by local strongmen (caciques) and politicians. The Union de Pueblos Contra la Represion y Militarizacion en la Region Loxicha (UPCRMRL) says that in return for his efforts, Vasquez became municipal president through the machinations of governor Carasco and with the occupying army and police on hand to keep people from voting the wrong way.

The prisoners of Loxicha have recounted experiences of torture to extract confessions and of being forced to sign blank pages over which confessions were later written. The reported tortures included beatings, electric shock and having carbonated water mixed with chile powder forced up their noses while their mouths were held shut.

Acknowledging the serious problems surrounding the scores of detentions between 1996 and 1999, governor Jose Murat and the legislature passed an amnesty law in 2001 that freed all the Loxicha prisoners being held on state charges. The 27 remaining prisoners are being held on federal charges and the Liga Mexicana de Derechos Humanos (Mexican Human Rights League) and other groups have pressed president Fox to act on a stalled federal amnesty.

Jaime Valencia was elected municipal president in August 2001 and assumed the office on January 1. According to his family, he had already received death threats in December and these threats continued in early January.

According to the state prosecutor, the assassination was ordered by Vasquez to prevent Jaime Valencia from uncovering a massive theft of public funds. Among those arrested in the wake of Valencia's murder were two managers of CONASUPO, a government subsidized store that provides basic foodstuffs in poor rural areas. These men have reportedly admitted involvement in the killing and in a scheme that skimmed money from the proceeds of the store.

The state legislature on January 17 suspended the municipal authority of San Agustin and installed its own interim administration. Alicia Mesa of the Red Oaxaquena de Derechos Humanos (Oaxacan Human Rights Network) worries that the current situation will be "used as a pretext to further militarize the region."

The state prosecutor has called for precisely that and plans to increase the police presence in the region. The five year buildup of such forces, however, has done nothing to reduce the violence in the region. According to human rights observers, the situation has been just the opposite: the rise in violence has accompanied the military and police presence.

The UPCRMRL says that only "respect for our community and municipal institutions" will restore peace to the region. They say that the violence and military occupation has more to do with "the struggle for power among political factions," than with any guerrilla activity.

While the government and news media continues to insist that the EPR is active in Loxicha there continues to be a notable lack of evidence: no actions, no communiques, and of the hundreds arrested, none seem to genuinely belong to this army. Some observers believe that the EPR is a creation of the government itself for its own purposes.

UPCRMRL's website is at www.loxicha.org.