Headache From Temple To Jaw

Amado Avendaño Figueroa, a journalist committed to social causes

Amado Avendaño Figueroa

Journalist committed to promoting and defending human rights in Chiapas

"lawyer by profession, professional journalist, and politician by accident", so defined, Amado Avendano Figueroa, former rebel governor of Chiapas , who backed the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) contested the 1994 elections.

journalist Amado Avendano was surprised when the morning of January in the central square of this city, addressing the hooded armed group leader in arms, I call it by name so affable and confianzuda was Marcos, recalled later in his long speeches full of anecdotes.

In his private office forever Amado Avendaño presume that first meeting with the leader of the EZLN. After these many more flood his album with the militants, with the support bases, with the indigenous children, with each and every one of the actors who were part of the rebel movement as protagonists.

Born in the coastal town of Mapastepec, 65 years ago, Amado Avendano came to study law in this city, where he dabbled in journalism to start in February de1968 his paper "Time, which informs and directs."

Six years later in 1974 after the flooding of the city, Gov. Manuel Velasco Suarez, a native of this place, won as mayor of this city the last ruler of the city council to stand Amado Avendano, to replace the mayor Federico Ruiz Salazar, who declared himself ill and could not meet the president Luis Echeverria, who had visited the disaster zone.

In that 1994 was held in this city, the First Indigenous Congress Fray Bartolome de Las Casas, who was one of the history of the rebel movement that gestaría in the Lacandon Jungle.

finished his Avendaño municipal management and journalism back to the trench where his wife, the brave, Concepción Villafuerte consolidated the family company giving voice to the Indians, the marginalized and repressed by the government .

covered the emergence of social organizations in the eighties and repression, the arbitrary actions from governors and Juan Sabines, to Absalon Castellanos and Patrocinio Gonzalez Garrido, exposing all time.

When the armed uprising on January 1, 1994, Amado and Conchita learned very early from the ranks of armed Indians buzzed by the wet and icy streets of this city. From his small office and fax ramshackle spread to major national and international channels and radio televisión la Primera Declaración de la Selva Lacandona emitida por el EZLN.

A partir de ese alzamiento el periódico Tiempo no tuvo otra opción: tomó partido, filia rebelde. Se convirtió así en el órgano de difusión del ELZN. La familia Avendaño tuvo que ceder y entregar como cuota los 26 años de periodismo a un levantamiento indígena.

En ese marco de 1994, cuando Amado Avendaño regresó de Santiago de Chile, su familia le notificó que la sociedad civil lo quería de candidato a gobernador de Chiapas por the PRD, which had therefore decided to support the EZLN General Command.

Avendaño ventured to the jungle and was in search of explanation. There was no one else was sentenced to contend with the PRI candidate Eduardo Robledo Rincon. The order of the command in the voice of Subcomandante Marcos was to head a transitional government that will create a new local constitution and convene "Now-a free and democratic elections.

line with rebel Amado walked across Chiapas, campaigned until a trailer rammed his truck on the coastal road near the town of his birth. And though he survived with various injuries, three of his associates were killed in July 1994.

And although officially lost to the PRI candidate, Amado Avendano was imposed as governor by rebels who claimed the victory, the pro-Zapatista movement of civil resistance that packed the central square of Tuxtla Gutierrez, where he took sworn in as new governor at the same time the constitutional president protest took only two kilometers into a theater guarded by hundreds of police y militares.

“Cuando el Gobierno Central se empecinó en darle el triunfo a quién no lo había obtenido en las elecciones, porque en las elecciones ganamos nosotros, no es porque yo Amado Avendaño Figueroa haya sido una figura política que la conociera todo el mundo, sino que le resultó contraproducente el atentado, porque Amado Avendaño no lo conocían, a raíz del accidente se hizo una explosión publicitaria extraordinaria y entonces el pueblo, por coraje, por lastima, por admiración, el día de las elecciones, que fue un mes después del accidente-atentado, todo el mundo fue y voto por mí”, diría Avendaño in 1998.

Avendaño be governor to rebel, "was more symbolic than real," as his closest collaborators in the rebel cabinet were left alone. Said one rebel one its partners, including the social ex-leader Rubicel Ruiz Gamboa was murdered in 1998, were co-opted by the government.

Amado Avendano was reference in the rebel movement, know and have their picture taken with him, a living legend, was what many did in the context of each " Zapatour " where it appeared.

Dear and valued by Subcomandante Marcos, and l Monday 26 April at 5 pm Avendaño Figueroa suffered a stroke immediately was taken to Hospital this colonial city.

Doctors fought hard to stabilize. Avendaño Figueroa had to be transferred to Comitan an hour after the incident, on 27 about 6 of the morning, was diagnosed with brain death, the journalist and social activist.

After long 72 hours of agony, on Thursday, April 29 to 18 hours, Amado Avendaño Figueroa stopped breathing, doctors said her family, now headed by the widow of Concepción Villafuerte Avendaño who hoped that "only a miracle" could save your life.

I disconnected the respirator, since the doctors argued that after 72 hours the body would start to infections and complications and decided it was better to opt for "the most painful," said their children.

For the Zapatistas, "was a listening ear and respect for the indigenous people of Chiapas pain even before the dawn of war against oblivion, heard when most were silent and watched as many were blind.

Luis Hernández Navarro described it: "Uncomfortable for both the power and the left party, made his life in praise of ethics, courage, tenacity, resistance ... His life may well become one more chapter in the book Archangels, Paco Ignacio Taibo II.

Adolfo Aguilar Sinz considered him "a human being with immense kindness, a simple and incisive intellect and belief and ideas expressed with modesty and humility and defended in their daily practice existence, greatness and courage. "

Avendaño Figueroa, a lawyer, professional journalist and politician by accident is one of those Chiapas'll never need a street, a park, a prize or a monument to be remembered.

honor honor their memory is thousands of Chiapas and Mexico who, like him, but anonymous, still struggling for freedom, democracy and justice that makes it so necessary to Chiapas.

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In March 2007, the Human Rights Commission Federal District -When he was president of that body Emilio Álvarez Icaza, put the name of Amado Avendaño Figueroa to the Press Room in recognition of Chiapas committed to defending human rights in Chiapas.

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http://www .cdhdf.org.mx / index.php? id = bol4307

Quotes what was said at that event Avendaño Figueroa

Blanche Petrich, a reporter for The Jornada, reported that during the rebellion of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in 1994, the legal representative of Amado Avendaño was supplemented with journalism. "In a talk with him, told me that Indians often came to the writing, with teeth in her hands, to report assaults in against them, sometimes with signs and other without speaking. Were attending the Public Ministry, but not wanting to initiate investigations, the case was published in the newspaper. "

commented that the construction of credibility in the eyes of the natives was an arduous task of founding the newspaper Tiempo. "In 1994, the San Crisis Time was the epicenter of the work of journalists covering the Zapatista phenomenon. The long journey of this newspaper went solo and counter. He suggested that this medium had resonance, " added.

defender and journalist indigenous people, as he called Blanche Petrich in May 1994, Amado Avendaño was the candidate of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) for governor of Chiapas. "It broke all the schemes proposed policy, as intended to install a provisional government and to convene a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution for the state, where the people were the protagonist. It was the only way to achieve peace. "

The journalist said his small peaceful revolution meant pure subversion and violent authoritarian rule, a way to subvert the anti-democratic system, which remains 13 years later despite the alternation. So for power was essential to eliminate the hope eliminate Amado Avendano said.

For its part, the journalist Concepción Villafuerte Blanco, said that ignorance of the meaning of human rights is a major violations prevails. "The fact that governments encourage this ignorance, not provide the media, information and culture on human rights, is a deliberate action to the people of this country do not claim them."

addition to not provide that knowledge, said that another violation is the obstruction of the civil actions that promote education and human rights. "They know that they are solely responsible for the violations, it is clear that trying to stop them," said.

White Villafuerte said that many forms of repression against journalists and human rights defenders which range from simple verbal threats to murder. "Sometimes reporters do not kill them for what they publish, but what they are supposed to publish, and that was the case of journalist Roberto Mancilla, who was investigating the death of homosexuals in the state," he said.

To refer the situation in Chiapas from the press March 19, 1989, date of commencement of activities of the Centre for Human Rights Fray Bartolome de las Casas, the journalist denounced the climate of hostility that characterizes the practice of the profession until now. "Unintentionally, we are involved in defending human rights, mixing the newspaper report, the public defender and personal involvement. It has not changed the situation, but we no longer suffer, simply face, "he said.

Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, journalist independent contributor to La Jornada, referred to the work of the whole family Avendano Villafuerte, as an example of fairness, unselfishness and solidarity, to remember 1994, when she went with other young reporters to cover the Zapatista uprising.

also noted that putting the name of Amado Avendaño to the Newsroom "is a reminder to all journalists that we are not just there journalism at the power and accept its rules of the game as the only possibility. There are voices, no work and no dignity expressed, sometimes in hidden or buried, but they are there. "

Ramírez Cuevas said that next Avendaño Figueroa, whom he described as an example of civil hero for his arduous task of confronting the cacique power in Chiapas, at a time when there were no human rights commissions "were learning of ethics that was working for the truth, the truth was known, in that it had no price, or hierarchies, or great personalities."

For his part, José Reveles Purple, a journalist with El Financiero, revealed the assassination attempt Amado Avendano on July 25, 1994, from power, as a candidate for governor of Chiapas , which saved his life, but not three people who died, and at that time was classified as an "accident."

According to the inquiries he made his own widow, Concepcion Villafuerte, which was released in September 2000, Amado Avendaño was seized with the complicity of his then-PRI contender, Eduardo Robledo Rincon, who was the attorney in that state, Jorge Enrique Hernandez Aguilar, and the teachers' union leader, Gómez Jiménez Germain, to assassinate the founder of the newspaper "Time."