Contrary to the “erroneous idea” that the dirty war was not cruel against the indigenous peoples in the 70s of the last century, the lawyer and researcher Francisco López Bárcenas recovered in his book We Weekly Jose García: A revolutionary supposedly Ñuú Savi (Editorial Petricor), which will be presented today, the legacy of the normalista teacher who participated in the armed opposition and was disappeared 50 years ago.
In interview with The Day, The Mixtec teacher born in Santa Rosa Caxtlahuaca, Oaxaca, said that “we are in a country where indigenous peoples matter and we have to take them seriously even for revolutions,” despite the notion that “indigenous people do not want to participate.”
He added that “as in any organization, no one takes up arms or demands violence if they have not first exhausted peaceful means. This has been historically demonstrated among the indigenous peoples of Mexico, at least.”
Wenceslao José García, born in September (28 or 29) 1949 in San José Zaragoza, in the Oaxacan municipality of Santa Cruz Itundujia, was a normalista leader; member of the Revolutionary Action Movement (MAR), for which he received military training in North Korea; leader of the September 23 Communist League (LC23S), and part of the link with the Party of the Poor and Lucio Cabañas, as well as head of the Emiliano Zapata Revolutionary Brigade.
López Bárcenas mentioned that indigenous participation has been ignored or set aside “because it is not similar to that of the mestizo population. Revolutionary theories have advocated the construction of the party as a vanguard. The people have other dynamics, and I think those are almost not seen.”
José García exemplified these ways, because after the closure of the Moisés Sáenz Normal School, in Reyes Mantecón, Oaxaca, and being placed in the student leadership, he met in his town with some of the principals. To Mr. Cliserio Zúñiga, after talking about government corruption, he said: “You who know history understand that there will have to be a lot of struggle for there to be a change.”
The author of Solitary rebels: Magonism among the Mixtec peoples He referred to the need to see more of the people’s own forms. If the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) is considered, “they had to invent or create the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Council almost parallel to the Army, because the indigenous people did not want to participate in the area where the armed organization was located.
“It is worth taking these logics seriously. The EZLN is a good example of how the years have passed, 31 already, and despite the problems they may have, they are still there, but it has a lot to do with the fact that they have learned from the logic of the people.”
In this volume, López Bárcenas focuses for the first time on a character who participated in the armed struggle of the 70s, whom he learned about after reading some files from the dirty war and in which it caught his attention that one of those mentioned was Mixtec.
Wenceslao José García was atypical, the author described, “because he was a very active 18-year-old boy. He doesn’t get into school, he isn’t interested in indigenous movements; he is studying, he wants to be the best student and, surely, the best teacher. The attack comes on the Moisés Sáenz Normal School, in Reyes Mantecón, in Oaxaca, everything that he had saved jumps out and with all that energy he defends it.
“From the national normalista movement that they defeated, something emerged that permeated a lot in his life, which makes him unique among other leaders of the LC23S: the indigenous. In a hierarchical, military structure, he always seeks the very Mixtec trait, arguing, even among themselves. On the other hand, he clashed a lot, especially in his time in the league, with the idea that the proletariat has to be the vanguard in the revolution.”
He got along much better with Lucio Cabañas and felt more comfortable in the MAR, where the point of the vanguard in the revolution was more flexible, since they worked a lot with peasants, and the rural teachers were, and mostly indigenous.
López Bárcenas asserted that the guerrilla “agreed strongly that the vanguard did not necessarily have to be the proletariat, that reality told him that the peasants were the advanced class at that time. It is a current debate in the discussion of the organizations, although the armed struggle does not prevail. That problem remains unresolved.”
The advisor of indigenous communities and specialist in the history of the Mixtec peoples said that Wenceslao José García disappeared three times, the first for his family when he traveled to North Korea to receive training.
The second disappearance occurred when agents extracted him from Lecumberri, after his almost accidental capture. The third, when he was deleted from the list of the National Commission for the Search of Missing Persons in the previous six-year term. He was enlisted again due to claims from his family and groups.
López Bárcenas recalled that this month marked 50 years since his forced disappearance. “The Ministry of the Interior issued a bulletin acknowledging that it was its agents who disappeared him. That was discussed in the community and they said: ‘it’s good that they recognize him. Now that they tell us where he is.'”
The teacher commented that the text is also a tribute to María José García, who after years of not seeing her brother, and after his imprisonment, decided to go to the then Federal District to work to be close to him and help him. In September 1975, Wenceslao José was released from prison, according to a letter from his companions in which they reported that he was called “to court,” so he left the cell and did not return.
the book We Weekly Jose García: A revolutionary supposedly Ñuú Savi It will be presented today at the facilities of the Historical Archive of Mexico City (Republic of Chile 8) at 5 p.m.
Accompanying López Bárcenas will be the historian Camilo Vicente Ovalle and the Zapotec poet Irma Pineda, whose parents were disappeared. “They supported me a lot. Also Alicia de los Ríos; unfortunately she is in Chihuahua. I hope María José García arrives; I would like that very much, because we also have to vindicate her. She took care of her brother in the Normal School and then in prison.” Gloria Muñoz, director of the digital newspaper, will also attend We are misinformed.