ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some lived experiences and testimonies of indigenous political activists in the Mexican state of Oaxaca who have endured both state and paramilitary repression while opposing wind energy farms financed by transnational capital. After tracing cases of repression against popular movements in Oaxaca’s rural areas since the 1980s, this chapter details common paramilitary tactics employed against opponents of the expansive corporate wind parks that have been installed in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. It also illustrates a plurality of strategies that ethnic Zapotec activists have used in their attempt to maintain cultural and territorial autonomy in the face of violent threats from paramilitaries as well as from the state.
