COMMUNIQUE FROM THE CNI-CIG AND THE EZLN ON THE COWARDLY KIDNAPPING AND MURDER OF COMPAÑEROS FROM THE EMILIANO ZAPATA POPULAR INDIGENOUS COUNCIL OF GUERRERO
The National Indigenous Congress [CNI], the Indigenous Governing Council [CIG], and the Zapatista National Liberation Army [EZLN] condemn with pain and rage the kidnapping and murders of José Lucio Bartolo Faustino, CIG council member from the Nahua indigenous community of Xicotlán, and Modesto Verales Sebastián, National Indigenous Congress delegate from the Nahua indigenous community of Buenavista. Both were part of the Emiliano Zapata Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero [CIPOG-EZ], which is a member organization of the CNI-CIG. Narco-paramilitary groups who operate in the municipality of Chilapa de Álvarez and who are protected by the Mexican Army as well as by municipal and state police carried out this crime.
At 3pm yesterday, May 4, our compañeros were attending a meeting with other members of the CIPOG-EZ in Chilpancingo, Guerrero. On their way back to their communities they were kidnapped and murdered by these narco-paramilitary groups that operate with total complicity and protection from all three levels of the bad government, which pretend to address the indigenous communities’ demands for security and justice. The indigenous communities have repeatedly denounced to the federal government the impunity with which the criminal Celso Ortega wages violence against them. It is important to mention that our murdered compañeros and their communities have for years been organizing their own Community Police in order to resist the violence, extortion, and poppy cultivation imposed by two criminal groups in the area, Los Ardillos and Los Rojos. These two groups control municipal presidencies across the region and are protected by the Mexican army and the municipal and state police. At one point they even managed to get one of their leaders named president of the Guerrero State Congress.
We hold all three levels of bad government responsible for this cowardly crime, as they have been complicit in repressing our peoples’ organization in defense of their territories. We also hold the bad government responsible for the safety and security of our brothers and sisters of the CIPOG-EZ.
As the National Indigenous Congress-Indigenous Governing Council and the Zapatista National Liberation Army, we send our collective embrace and solidarity to the family members and compañeros of José Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastián, and we share with them our commitment to continue this path of autonomy and dignity for which our fallen compañeros provide a light and an example.
We denounce the intensification of neoliberal repression against the original peoples, nations, and tribes who do not consent to these death projects in Guerrero and in all of Mexico, nor to the violence which is used to impose these projects and to repress, kidnap, disappear, and murder those of us who have decided to sow a new world from the indigenous geographies that we are.
We demand justice for our compañeros.
Attentively
May 2019
For the Full Reconstitution of Our Peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us
National Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista National Liberation Army
Chiapas Support Committee 