NEWS CENTER – Dozens of organizations wrote a joint statement condemning the attacks realized by paramilitary groups against the Zapatistas, in Chiapas. The statement can be read as it follows:
“To the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional)
To the National Indigenous Congress
To the National and International Sexta
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion
To those who sign the Declaration for Life
To the people who sow Dignity and Organization
Organizations, collectives and networks adhering to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle denounce the continuity of aggressions, harassment and forced displacements with the complicity and impunity of the three levels of government towards the autonomous communities of; El Esfuerzo, Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipality Comandanta Ramona; Nuevo San Gregorio, Moisés y Gandhi region, Poblado La Resistencia, Poblado Emiliano Zapata, Poblado San Isidro and 16 de febrero, Municipio Autónomo Rebelde Zapatista Lucio Cabañas, of Caracol 10 “Floreciendo la Semilla Rebelde”, of the Junta de Buen Gobierno “Nuevo Amanecer en Resistencia y Rebeldía por la Vida y la Humanidad” in Chiapas, Mexico. We also denounce the obstruction of the human rights work carried out by the Civil Observation Brigades (BriCO).
On Thursday, July 14, 2022, the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) documented that at approximately “08:00 hours, ejidatarios of Muculum Bachajón, headed by the ejidal commissariat together with municipal police and civil protection agents, arrived at the town of San José Tenojí, Chilón, where they held a meeting, at around 13:50 hours, they violently entered the town of San José Tenojí, Chilón, where they held a meeting: 50 hours they violently entered the village “El Esfuerzo”, autonomous municipality Comandanta Ramona (it has 54 hectares of land recovered in 1994 by the EZLN), displacing six families Bases of Support of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (BAEZLN) who left their usual place to save their lives and moved to the community of Xixintonil, they also set fire to the houses and their property and there is a risk of losing 20 hectares of corn and beans that have not yet been harvested.”
On June 29, 2022, in a press conference, our comrades from Frayba presented a Bulletin where they denounced the death threats against national and international observers and the obstruction of their defense work.
We recall that since March 2021 a camp for the BriCOs was set up in the Zapatista community of Nuevo San Gregorio with the objective of safeguarding the physical and emotional integrity of our Zapatista comrades. In a context of constant aggressions since November 2019 by a group of people coming from different neighboring communities known as “Los 40 Invasores”, who have encircled and dispossessed 155 hectares of land recovered in 1994 by the EZLN, which are part of the collective territory of Nuevo San Gregorio.
Since April 2019, the Moisés and Gandhi Region has been the target of armed aggressions by the paramilitary group of the Regional Organization of Coffee Growers of Ocosingo (ORCAO), due to an agrarian interest in dispossessing lands recovered by the EZLN.
On May 5, 2022, the paramilitary group ORCAO forcibly displaced four families made up of 29 people in the town of La Resistencia, as well as 11 families made up of 54 people in the town of Emiliano Zapata. To this we add the paramilitary aggressions towards the town of San Isidro and the town of Moises and Gandhi.
In another aggression, on January 10, 2022, at approximately 01:00 hours, the autonomous community of 16 de Febrero was attacked, where an unidentified group of about 15 hooded and armed people entered the autonomous community, in addition to beating some families and disappearing four people for a few hours.
As adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, we have been witnesses to the dignified process of resistance and dignity of the Zapatista families in order not to give in to criminal provocations. In the same way we have been witnesses and accompaniers of the work of the observers and of our compañerxs of Frayba. We can assure that we have tried to do an impeccable job as defenders of rights, where the main objective is and has been to safeguard the project of autonomy and life that the Zapatista struggle represents. The importance of the work of the BriCOs is fundamental within the political work in the state of Chiapas, a work that has been carried out for 28 years. We find it highly worrisome that this work, which is committed to life, is being threatened in different ways, even to the extreme of threats of rape directed against our fellow observers. It is truly regrettable that the observation activities in this territory have been suspended, we know and share the reasons why our Frayba comrades have taken this decision, as it leaves the inhabitants of the Zapatista community of Nuevo San Gregorio vulnerable. Today, once again we see the misgovernment of the supposed and cynical “Fourth Transformation” that allows the life, physical and emotional integrity of human rights defenders to be threatened.
Faced with this whole scenario of war against the life and autonomy of the Zapatista peoples, we can say that it has been 28 years where Mother Earth resists and gives sustenance to the autonomy of the Zapatista peoples, guardians of the recovered lands that are legitimately the lands of the EZLN. From there flourishes and seeds the fabric of life that resists and rebels against this criminal capitalist system; through a relationship of respect and care for Mother Earth with organizational processes through autonomy from the community and the collective, are places of resistance that illuminate the horizon and we can look at ourselves in the mirror that another world is possible.
Therefore, we call on all comrades adhering to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and Networks of Resistance and Rebellion, so that all of us as comrades in the struggle for Life and for the defense of Mother Earth can join in from our geographies, according to our own ways, We call on all of us, as comrades in struggle for Life and for the defense of Mother Earth, to join together from our geographies, according to our ways and times, to DEMONSTRATE AS SOON AS WE CAN, with the objective of denouncing this war against life, the autonomy of the Zapatista peoples, for the integral security of human rights defenders and to demand that the Mexican government cease its complicity and impunity.
We also call to participate in dislocated and public actions during the first week of August 1-8 to jointly make visible the denunciations. That is to say, we call to demonstrate spontaneously and jointly, without one way canceling the other to break the media siege… All voices!
Stop the harassment of the Zapatista communities!
Stop the counterinsurgency practices against the communities of Caracol 10 of the EZLN!”
Signed by:
- Red de Resistencias y Rebeldías AJMAQ
- Red Universitaria Anticapitalista (Ciudad de México)
- Mujeres y la Sexta, Abya Yala
- Resistencias Enlazando Dignidad-Movimiento y Corazón Zapatista (Red MyC Zapatista)
- Sexta Grietas del Norte
- Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Tlalpan
- Mexicanos Unidos
- Armando Soto Baeza
- Carolina Concepcion González González . Profesora – Investigadora en la UABCS.
- La Paz, Baja California Sur
- Peter RossetEspacio de Lucha contra el Olvido y la Represión (ELCOR-Chiapas)
- Diana Itzu Gutierrez Luna (Chiapas, México)
- La Cátedra Jorge Alonso
- Colectivo Nodo Solidale (México – Italia)
- José Antonio Olvera Llamas
- Colectividad Nuestra Alegre Rebeldía(NAR) de la Red Morelense de Apoyo al CNI/CIG
- Lumaltik Herriak
- Desmi A.C.
- Charlotte Saenz
- Caitlin Manning, San Francisco, CA
- Comite de Apoyo a Chiapas, Oakland, CA
- Miriam de Nazaret García del Saz
- Enrique Bauza Ferre
- Red de Solidaridad con Chiapas, Buenos Aires – Argentina
- Raúl Zibechi (Uruguay)
- Colectiva Corazón del Tiempo / Puelmapu territorio ancestral Mapuche
- Ramona Mercado Autogestivo Natural, Córdoba, Argentina
- Valeria Sbuelz, Córdoba, Argentina
- Red de feminismos descoloniales
- Citizens Summons, Bonn, Alemania
- Tampico abajo y a la izquierda
- Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT)
- Constanza Araya Sandoval, Antropóloga, Madrid
- Associació Cultural el Raval-El Lokal
- IF Mexicogruppen, Dinamarca
- Red Latina sin fronteras
- Patrícia Rios Brandi
- Centro de Documentación sobre Zapatismo – CEDOZ-
- Elena Cedrón portal Confraternizarhoy, Argentina
- ¡Compas arriba! Medios Libres
- Olivia Meehan
- Asociación Cultural Q’anil, San Juan Sacatepéquez, Guatemala
- Francisco De Parres Gómez – Antropólogo / Fotógrafo
- Carolina Elizabeth Díaz Iñigo – Antropóloga
- Colectivo Transdisciplinario de Investigaciones Críticas (COTRIC)
- Asamblea Libertaria Autoorganizada Paliacate Zapatista, Grecia
- Y Retiemble!. Colectivo de apoyo en Madrid al CNI-CIG y al EZLN
- Miriam Barranco Díaz.
- Ma. Eugenia Sanchez Diaz de Rivera.
- Colectivo gata-gata. Alemania.
- André Nascimento
- Assentamento Utopia e Luta – Porto Alegre-Brasil
- Valentina Cisneros
- Israel Mora Pirra
- Antonio Gritón (artista visual)
- Arturo Anguiano Profesor-investigador
- Morfin Otero, Francisco
- Inés Durán Matute
- Escuelas para Chiapas
- Kate Keller
- Alicia Castellanos Guerrero
- Gilberto Lopéz y Rivas
- Sylvia Marcos
- Bárbara Zamora
- Raúl Delgado Wise
- Ana Esther Ceceña
- Juan Villoro
- Jorge Alonso Sánchez
- Márgara Millán
- Servando Gajá
- Comunidad Circular AC
- Sashenka Fierro Resendiz, Ensenada, BC
- Magdalena Gómez
- JAD Co.Productions
- Núria Gràcia
- María Eugenia Sánchez
- Magdalena Gómez
- Aída Hernández
- Juan Carlos Rulfo
- Elisa Cruz Rueda
- Raúl Romero Gallardo
- Silvia Resendiz Flores, Activista feminista, Ensenada Baja California
- Luiz Alberto Barreto Leite Sanz
- Epifanía Pérez Vázquez, Adherente a la Sexta Declaración
- Cassio Brancaleone
- Arbel Mendoza Pérez/ Misión de Guadalupe, Chiapas
- Clara Redal Montané, Madrid
- Unitierra Oaxaca
- Carlos López Beltrán
- Paula Mónaco Felipe
- Mujeres de la Sexta Jovel
- Coopia
- Lengualerta (cantor-CDMX)
- Fernanda Navarro
- Renata Ferreira da Silveira – Porto Alegre/Brasil
- Marcelo Argenta Câmara – Porto Alegre/Brasil
- Dilermando Cataneo da Silveira – Porto Alegre/Brasil
- Bárbara Gonçalves Hesseln – Porto Alegre/Brasil
- Nelson Rego – Porto Alegre/Brasil
- Sinthia Cristina Batista – Agb Porto Alegre – Docente UFRGS – Porto Alegre/Brasil
- Ateneu Libertário A Batalha da Várzea – Porto Alegre/Brasil
- Associação dos Geógrafos Brasileiros – Seção Porto Alegre
- Teia dos Povos – Brasil
- Teia dos Povos São Paulo – Brasil
- Teia dos Povos Rio Grande do Sul – Brasil
- Teia dos Povos Ceará – Brasil
- Teia dos Povos São Paulo – Brasil
- Território Junana – Maquiné/Brasil
- Utopia e Luta Assentamento Urbano – Porto Alegre/Brasil
- Federação Anarquista Gaúcha – FAG – Brasil
- Resistência Popular Vale dos Sinos – Brasil
- Deriva Jornailsmo Independente – Brasil
- Mecha de Arizona State University
