To the people of Mexico and the people of the world
To the networks in support of the CIG
To the networks of resistance and rebellion
To the National and International Sixth
To the communications media
We denounce with pain and rage the cowardly assassination of our compañero Samir Flores Soberanes, a community leader in Amilcingo, Morelos; one of the principal opponents to the Morelos Integral Project and a delegate of the National Indigenous Congress for many years.
At approximately 5:40 am on February 20, armed people arrived aboard two vehicles and knocked on door and when Samir came out, they shot him four times, two bullets to the head that a few minutes later took away his life.
Yesterday, Samir explained the reasons that the peoples of Morelos have for opposing the Morelos Integral Plan, at an event organized by the bad federal government delegate Hugo Erick Flores, who was present in the municipality of Jonacatepec to organize the forum related to the alleged “consulta” (referendum or vote) with which they seek to impose the thermoelectric plant in Huexca, Morelos and the complementary projects that dispossess territory and threaten the life of the entire region.
We place responsibility for this crime on the bad government and its bosses, which are the companies and their legal and illegal armed groups that seek to rob us, bring us death and turn off the lights that give us hope, like compañero Samir.
Sincerely,
February 2019
For the Integral Reconstitution of Our Peoples
Never More a Mexico Without Us
Nacional Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Government Council
Zapatista National Liberation Army
Below is the initial report of the murder in La Jornada (photo added)
They murder an opponent of the gas pipeline and thermoelectric plant in Morelos
Samir Flores Soberanes
By: Rubicela Morelos Cruz, correspondent | Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Cuernavaca, Morelos
Samir Flores Soberanes, one of the opponents of the Morelos Integral Project (Proyecto Integral Morelos, PIM), was murdered this morning outside his house, located in the town of Amilcingo, municipality of Temoac. According to his family members and compañeros in struggle, around 6 o’clock in the morning two cars arrived at his home; the occupants called to him, he came out and they shot him with four bullets. His family and neighbors took him to the hospital in Jonacatepec, but he died on the way.
According to Jaime Domínguez, of the Peoples’ Front in Defense of Land, Water and Air of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala, Samir was prepared to go to conduct an Amilcingo community radio program, a means by which residents of that town resist the extending of the pipeline that passes through their lands, which they consider an official imposition, as well as the two thermoelectric plants in Huexca, and the aqueduct that they say will leave the campesinos of Ayala without water.
Domínguez, a compañero of Flores Soberanes, demanded that president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco Bravo “clarify our compañero’s murder, because in our country things go unpunished; we demand that se dé the whereabouts of the material killers be given, as well as those of the intellectual authors of this cowardly murder and that justice be done.”
Samir had already been physically attacked and beaten by a shock group that was created in that town in 2014. On that occasion he, together with other neighbors, tried to stop the work on the gas pipeline in their community. He also suffered various violent evictions and blows in mobilizations from members of the Mando Único (Single Command) of former governor Graco Ramírez’ administration, in Amilcingo as well as in Huexca.
Samir Flores Soberanes suffered direct attacks on the part of the leader of the Central Campesina Cardenista, Humberto Zamora and his people, the same ones that acted as a shock group against local opponents of the PIM.
Yesterday, Samir Flores Soberanes questioned the federal delegate in Morelos, Hugo Eric Flores, at a forum held that the state government held in the municipality of Jonacatepec. According to Jaime Domínguez, he told the federal official that they are opposed to the thermoelectric plant in Huexca because it would finish off the water because of the pollution that it would bring to the whole state. He asked the federal delegate not to lie to the population with respect to the water scarcity the hydroelectric project will cause, and to admit that there will be pollution of the environment.
Flores Soberanes had stayed with other compañeros of the Peoples Front in Defense of Land, Water and Air of Morelos to go to rebuke Hugo Erick in Hueyapan, where the state government has scheduled another forum on the matter. Members of that social group placed responsibility on the Federal Electricity Commission and both current and former state governments: “for the dirty politics they have done in the affected towns, confronting them and even creating shock groups to attack opponents of the PIM.”
“A few days ago we sent an open letter to the country’s president, in which we asked Obrador whom to blame if the attacks against our compañeros continued to escalate, since in Amilcingo, in Huexca, and in other communities they constantly attack them both verbally and physically, and there were even death threats.”
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 
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