The indigenous council (CSIM) in Mexico’s Michoacán state has denounced threats of forced disappearance against its spokesperson, Pável Uliánov Guzmán. Speaking to Phoenix Media Co-operative, he insisted that he won’t let these threats deter his political campaigning for greater indigenous autonomy and rights.
On 27 November, the CSIM said, a municipal government leader reportedly threatened to ‘disappear’ Uliánov “if he kept promoting autonomy” in local indigenous communities. This is not the first time he has been threatened in this way either, the organisation stressed.
Amid the right-wing state repression of the 1970s, five of Uliánov’s relatives were forcibly disappeared. With this in mind, the CSIM insisted:
No more forced disappearences against political opponents or social activists.
Context: Rising indigenous autonomy in Mexico
As I wrote in the New Internationalist in 2021:
in the Mexican state of Michoacán, many [indigenous] P’urhépecha descendants are leading the way in the struggle for self-rule, free from the disgraced party-political system that’s failed them so badly.
Michoacán’s second biggest city is among the world’s most dangerous. It’s also the region where the disastrous US-backed military escalation against drug cartels started back in 2006. For more on how indigenous communities have been building local democracy to increase security, social justice, and environmental protection, see the full article.
Pável Uliánov Guzmán: “The flower of autonomy will flourish everywhere”
Uliánov told Phoenix Media Co-operative that he won’t let the threats deter him. He said:
We won’t give up and we won’t sell out. We’ll keep fighting for autonomy and self-government for indigenous people, for the protection of land and Mother Earth, for our culture and perspective of history, for human and collective rights and, above all, for memory, truth and justice for our disappeared political figures.
It’s our duty to continue with our resistance and struggle, because that’s what our ancestors did.
If it falls upon us to be seeds, earth or water, let it be. The flower of autonomy will flourish everywhere.
The CSIM has shared messages of solidarity with Uliánov from numerous communities in Michoacán.
Phoenix Media Co-operative 