Juan Medina liked very much to participate in the organization of the festival that year after year commemorates the recovery of land in the community of Santa María Ostula. It is an important commemoration, because being a Nahua indigenous community, everything is always against it: racism, prejudice, the interests of big capital, the invasive and violent presence of criminal groups, political parties, the disease of ambition and the power, and colonialist history. All against.
But one day everything changed and the balance tipped in favor of the community. On June 29, 2009, thousands of people participated in the most important social process of recent decades in the region. And that is why Juan liked being part of this celebration, remembering his own participation in that event while reaffirming his commitment to defending the territory.
But this year, on the 14th anniversary of the recovery, Juan was not present, at least not in person, although he was present in spirit, in example and in rage. He was murdered on April 14, 2023 for fulfilling the duties that the community entrusted to him throughout 2022 as head of Tenencia: to maintain order in his community.
In December 2022, shortly before leaving his position as a civil authority, he arrested a person who tried to cross part of the Ostula territory with a truck full of sacks full of marijuana.
Currently, the trafficking of this plant is illegal in the community of Ostula, so Juan, supported by members of the Communal Guard, arrested this person - originally from the neighbouring town of Salitre de Estopila - took his details, proceeded to confiscate the sacks and arrest him.
Juan's killer, believing himself immune to the laws of Ostula, which emanated from a Nahua village, was angered by this arrest and vowed to kill him in revenge. Months later, when Juan accompanied his wife to a food stall during a party in the same Salitre de Estopila, a man unloaded an AK-47 assault rifle on him. The party ended at that moment and the people who witnessed this crime confirmed who the killer was. Juan's wife witnessed his murder and this caused her enormous trauma.
His spirit remains
On June 29, 2023, during the commemorative event there were some participations by different invited people, among them the current authorities of Ostula, who asked for a minute of silence for the 39 people killed and the 5 people missing as a result of the agrarian conflict and the defense of the territory.
It should not have happened, but Juan's name was on the list, read by one of his closest friends. His sister Socorro, one of the first women to hold positions of authority in the community, was very forceful when referring to her brother's murder: "My family and I want justice for my brother's death. We have provided all the evidence and filed the corresponding complaint, but the murderer is still free and there is no authority to pursue him."
This year has been another very difficult year for Ostula. After several years of calm, the violence generated by the group known as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has claimed more lives.
On January 12, Isaul Nemesio Zambrano, Miguel Estrada Reyes and Rolando Magno Zambrano, three members of the Communal Guard, were killed by a CJNG cell in an attack carried out at a surveillance post established on the border of the territory of Ostula and the municipal capital of Aquila.
Since this criminal group joined forces with the mining company Ternium to try to expand its mining facilities, attacks against the communal guards and community groups that are still active in the coastal mountains have increased.
At certain strategic points, the CJNG has begun to use C4 plastic explosive bombings using drones more frequently, and this turns the region into a battle front that is only kept pacified thanks to the community of Ostula and the fact that it insisted on letting its territory become the scene of mega projects and the Ternium mining exploitation yard.
Juan's spirit remains in the community on this anniversary, the example of the guards who lost their lives is in the fury with which he left to commemorate the recovery of lands. And the community hopes that the list of people killed for defending the territory never grows, because for Ostula, this is the irreparable loss of men and women who have made this territory a dignified and peaceful place to live.
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