Hilario Ramírez Morales and the OEEM. Mixteca Cultural Resistance in Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero

Abstract

This document focuses on the social struggle waged by the te savi (Mixtec) leader Hilario Ramírez Morales, which began in the mid-1960s in the municipality of Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero state, and was cut short with his death in 1981. The main objective of this research is inscribed in the hermeneutic-reflexive paradigm. With this type of analysis, an approach to the life of our historical person begins in order to publicize the struggle he carried out, covered and characterized by cultural resistance. The procedures led to the recording mainly of documentary information, complemented to a lesser extent by oral testimonies, which summarize the tasks that the Mixtec leader coordinated to promote, together with other young people of his ethnic group, peaceful liberating actions aimed, first, at establishing inter-community networks and civil associations through the constitution of the Organización de Estudiantes y Ex-Estudiantes Mixtecos (OEEM); and second, in the consensual construction in the original localities of a ?struggle program? that took up the most heartfelt demands of the population. Among the results, it stands out that Hilario Ramírez strengthened alliances with a group of liberal Catholic catechists and, with them, strengthened the organizational structure at the municipal level that continues to this day. Likewise, Ramírez managed to promote ethnic congresses in La Concordia, Coapinola, Ahuacachahue, the city of Ayutla and other locations. Their struggle, in the end, contributed to the OEEM achieving the introduction of the bilingual education system, a legitimate conquest for the communities that did not want to lose their language, and that at the same time demanded the use of the Castilian language to defend their rights under the control of the oppressive mestizo class in the Mixtec region. However, in 1981, the reactionary onslaught of local chiefdoms of the former indigenous line intensified. Faced with complaints from the OEEM, those wealthy groups chose to kill the leader on May 21. With this criminal action, the caciques believed that the struggle and resistance of Hilario Ramírez ended.