“Pasta de Conchos is very important because it will set a precedent for how mining should operate, how workers should be treated, and [show] that companies should think twice before opening mines”, Cristina Auerbach.

Obtilia Eugenio Manuel defends the rights of the Tlapanec people in the state of Guerrero and founded the Organisation of the Me'phaa Indigenous People (Organización del Pueblo Indígena Me’phaa, OPIM). In November 2019 she received Mexico’s National Human Rights Prize in recognition of her “significant trajectory in effectively promoting and defending” basic human rights. PBI accompanied Manuel between 2005 and 2011.

How and when did you start defending human rights?

On June 22, 2019, PBI accompanied EDUCA (Servicios para una Educación Alternativa) at Oaxaca’s first ever “Guelaguetza” against mining, in the municipality San Martín de los Cansecos. Various communities from the Valles Centrales in Oaxaca joined together to commemorate the state’s annual “Rebellion Against Mining Day” and to reaffirm “¡Sí a la vida, no a la minería!”(Yes to life, no to mining!)

Enclaved between the Sierra Madre del Sur and the Costa Grande, in the state of Guerrero lies the Atoyac de Álvarez municipality, a place where wounds from the “Dirty War” of the 70s have still not healed.

Between 25 and 27 March, 2019, by request of Tita Radilla, PBI accompanied the Asociación de Familiares de Detenidos, Desaparecidos y Víctimas de Violaciones a los Derechos Humanos en México (AFADEM), as the sixth stage of excavations commenced in the search of numerous disappeared persons.