CHERÁN, Michoacán, Mexico: Body of María Guadalupe Campanur Found

PREFACE: This past week in Phoenix and across the country women from all walks of life mobilized and took to the streets to demand an end to persecution, discrimination and racism. In Phoenix, the Indigenous Women organized an Honoring Indigenous Women March that led the way before the 22,000 marchers at the Arizona State Capitol on Sunday January 21. 

That same day in Michoacán Mexico, the Caravan For Life being led by Maria de Jesus Patricio Martinez was attacked and the independent media journalists covering the Caravan for Life were threatened and robbed of their equipment.

Maria de Jesus (MariChuy for us Indigenous Peoples of Mexico) is the spokeswoman for the Indigenous Governing Council (CIG) Mexico, and is engaged in the Mexican presidential elections as a candidate nominated NOT BY ANY POLITICAL PARTY, but instead by the surviving Indigenous Nations themselves via the National Indigenous Congress (Congreso Nacional Indigena) as a collective political movement of national Indigenous Self Determination.

During the Tour for Life, MariChuy spoke out against the murder of María Guadalupe Campanur T. of Cherán. She refused to stay silent. She refused to accept the murder of yet another (5 in Michoacan just this year) Indigenous Woman, another victim of the narco-state in Mexico.

The attack on the Caravan for Life on January 21 in Michoacán cannot go unchallenged, it cannot be allowed to be normalized or sanitized by the mass media and even worse, we cannot allow the complacency and complicity of "Silence Gives Consent" to be the policy of pathology that has resulted in so many, too many, many times too many MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN across the centuries of CONTINENTAL genocide and colonization here our homelands of the Great Turtle Island Abya Yala.

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January 18, 2018

CHERÁN, Michoacán, Mexico - The social activist of this indigenous community, María Guadalupe Campanur, was found dead on Tuesday night, however, authorities only today released the news of her murder.

This day, this woman is the fifth murdered in Michoacán so far this year.  She was confirmed in her identity by the authorities, who located the corpse of Guadalupe, 32 years old, in the premises of Irapo, a town of Santa Cruz Tanaco.

 

A report to the police and emergency crews warned about the discovery of the body of a woman, whose body was found in a state of putrefaction and with a knife wound in the neck, on the road to Carapan-Uruapan, at distance of 37 kilometers.

After confirming the discovery and beginning with the first steps of investigation, it was finally learned that the victim was María Guadalupe Campanur T., social activist of this municipality and who participated in the creation of the community security patrols.

The murder is being investigated by the authorities in order to clarify the nature of the crime, so the corresponding investigation case has been opened.

The Indigenous Purepecha community of Cheran is the only municipality in Mexico where there are no elections, as its inhabitants chose their authorities and their Council, in accord with their indigenous customs and traditions.

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