Displaced Triqui women and children from the self-declared autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala began a hunger strike today to demand an end to the paramilitary violence that has killed at least ten people in the past 5 months. They are calling on the government to guarantee the safety of autonomy sympathizers trapped in the town by a paramilitary siege.

Today was to mark the start of emergency church mediated talks between MULT-I, the organization behind the autonomous municipality, and MULT, one of the groups accused of participating in the paramilitary siege of Copala. The other group is the UBISORT, which has been linked to the PRI, the political party which has ruled Oaxaca for 8 consecutive decades.

In a press conference to announce the start of their hunger strike, displaced spokesperson Reyna Martínez Flores announced that MULT-I would cancel its participation in the dialogue due to a surge of violence over the weekend. She and the other protestors want security guarantees for the evacuation of autonomy sympathizers trapped in the town, among them, two people over the age of 90.

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Mexico will kick off celebrations tonight to mark the bicentennial of its independence from Spain. One town that won’t be celebrating is San Juan Copala, where violence has forced the cancellation of any official event.

Members of San Juan Copala’s indigenous autonomy movement say armed men from rival factions entered the town Monday, took over the local government building, and fired off automatic weapons. A local woman was reportedly injured by a high-caliber bullet, but has been unable to leave the town or seek medical attention.

A communiqué alleges that pro-autonomy residents have been given an ultimatum to either leave the town or face death.

Around 25 women and children displaced from San Juan Copala have been living in a protest encampment in downtown Oaxaca City since August 11th. They are all members of the movement that declared the town an autonomous municipality in January 2007.

The women moved their protest encampment a few blocks on Monday night from the central plaza (or zócalo) to the Santo Domingo church area. The state government had agreed to send tons of food and two police patrols to San Juan Copala in exchange for having the main square cleared of protests for the duration of Bicentennial celebrations.

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The Food and Agriculture Organization is holding a 4-day conference in the Mexican city of Guadalajara, with a focus on agricultural biotechnologies in developing countries. The conference has drawn criticism from farmers and environmental groups for its favorable stance towards genetically-modified crops.

The four companies that hold the patents on biotech seeds tout the technology as a solution to world hunger.

Pat Mooney, Executive Director of the non-profit ETC group, was on the conference’s international steering committee until he resigned in protest a few days ago over what he says is a bias in the conference documentation and a lack of space for opposing viewpoints.

Mooney said he’s particularly concerned about the position of the Mexican government in light of a recent announcement of 24 field trial of genetically-modified corn.  “The fear here” said Mooney “is that Mexico’s going to walk away from this conference saying ‘well, we brought the international community to Mexico, to the center of diversity for corn and everyone thought that biotech was lovely’. And so they can walk away saying that now they’ve got the approval of the United Nations for what they’re doing.”

Groups critical of the biotech industry’s role in agriculture have gathered in Guadalajara to hold parallel events. Participation in the FAO conference itself is by invitation only.