San Juan Copala is a town in the municipality of

Santiago Juxtlahuaca Santiago Juxtlahuaca is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. It is in the Juxtlahuaca District of the Mixteca Region The Mixteca Region is a region in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, part of the broader La Mixteca area which c ...

in the Mexican state of

Oaxaca Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...

. It is located at , at an altitude of 1578 meters above sea level. According to the 2005 census, carried out by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, San Juan Copala has a total of 786 inhabitants. San Juan Copala is exclusively inhabited by the indigenous people of the area, the Triqui.

Autonomy and political struggles

San Juan Copala was an independent municipality of Oaxaca from 1826 to 1948, when the state congress ordered its dissolution and annexation to the nearby territory of

. Since this annexation, Triqui people have been in a sometimes violent struggle with state and local authorities over the control and governance of their town. Due to a large series of political and social conflicts, in 2006 some residents of the town declared themselves an "Autonomous Municipality" following the example of the Municipios Autónomos Rebeldes Zapatistas in

Chiapas Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...

. It has been the setting of events that brought international attention to the human rights situation in Mexico in 2010, when

human rights observer Legal observers are individuals, usually representatives of civilian human rights agencies, who attend public demonstrations, protests and other activities where there is a potential for conflict between the public or activists and the police, sec ...

Jyri Jaakkola Jyri Antero Jaakkola (February 11, 1977 – April 27, 2010) was a Finnish human rights activist. He was on his way to San Juan Copala, a village of indigenous Trique people that has declared itself autonomous, as a human rights observer when he ...

and

Bety Cariño Bety is a nickname. Notable people with the name include: *Bety of Betsimisaraka Marie Elisabeth "Bety" Sobobie of Betsimisaraka or ''Betia'' (1735–1805), was queen regnant of the kingdom of Betsimisaraka, consisting of the island Île Sainte- ...

were murdered by members of the local paramilitary group UBISORT while trying to deliver humanitarian goods to San Juan Copala, which had been cut off from supplies such as food, medicine, electricity and water by a UBISORT blockade for several months.Paramilitaries Kill Two Human Rights Activists in Oaxaca, Democracy Now!, April 30, 2010, https://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/30/paramilitaries_kill_two_human_rights_activists

References

Populated places in Oaxaca {{Oaxaca-geo-stub