[Below is the July 12 denunciation from the CIPOG-EZ that caused the cancellation of the caravan.]
Communiqué given more murders and threats against promoters of the CIPOG-EZ and CNI delegates in Guerrero, while impunity, corruption and omission continue in the three levels of government
National Indigenous Congress press conference about the Campaign for Life, Peace and Justice in Guerrero.
Community Territory, Guerrero, July 12, 2019
To the Zapatista National Liberation Army
To the National Indigenous Congress
To the Indigenous Government Council
To the Peoples of Guerrero
To the Peoples of Mexico
To the national and international Sixth
To the networks of resistance and rebellion
To the networks in support of the CIG
The men, women, children and grandparents that make up the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata, must once again lift our voice to denounce the omission of the municipal, state and federal authorities before the humanitarian emergency that intensifies in community territory of the Low Mountains (Baja Montaña) of the state of Guerrero. The narco-paramilitaries continue murdering our CIPOG-EZ promoters and CNI delegates; others have initiated a campaign of threats against our organization, for the purpose of exterminating and disarticulating the organized peoples.
On Monday, July 8, 2019 the indigenous Nahua men David Domingo Alonso and Marcelino Pedro Rojas, local CIPOG-EZ promotors and CNI delegates in Guerrero, natives of the community of Ayahualtempa, municipality of José Joaquín de Herrera. According to the testimonies of neighbors of the narco-paramilitary group “Los Ardillos,” it “picked them up” (kidnapped them) at the Jagüey crossing and they appeared murdered the following day in the locality of Chautla, which is located before the arch of the entrance to Chilapa, and a few kilometers from the Chilpancingo-Tlapa federal highway, a place where it is public knowledge that it is controlled by this group.
On Wednesday, July 10, 2019 the indigenous Nahuas Juana Hernández Ambrosio and Alberta Matías Tendón local CIPOG-EZ promoters and CNI delegates in Guerrero, were cowardly murdered, with the same modus operandi. They were picked up and disappeared at the Jagüey crossing, where they took them off public transportation and around five o’clock in the afternoon their bodies were found on a dirt road in the Corral de Piedra district of the municipal capital of Chilapa de Álvarez. There is a National Guard presence in this zone, although their arrival has not represented any change in the face of the violence of narco-paramilitary groups.
Since Friday, July 5, 2019 and to this date we were informed that the narco paramilitary group “Los Ardillos” conducts investigations and follow-up against various state and regional CIPOG-EZ promoters and CNI delegates, particularly against our Na Savi brother Jesús Placido Galindo, to whom they say that they are: “looking all over the state, to tear him to pieces.” Transport drivers from the High Mountains and other regions of the state confirmed telephone threats, as well as commissioners of the Low Mountains who gave warning to promoters of the organization so that they could alert their compañeros.
The siege of the indigenous Nahua communities that are members of the CIPOG-EZ has not ceased, the narco paramilitary checkpoints continue and they make a list of the population that heads to the municipal capitals at those checkpoints. The State and Federal governments announced with drums and cymbals the arrival of the National Guard, but we don’t see greater security or that justice is done to our brutally murdered brothers and sisters.
Once again we insist and reiterate that we hold the responsables governments of the municipality of Chilapa de Álvarez in change of Jesús Parra García, the state government of Héctor Astudillo Flores, both members of the PRI and federal MORENA government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador responsible for the physical integrity and the life of our Na Savi brother and state promoter Jesús Placido Galindo, as well as of all promoters of the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata. Since each one of these authorities has been informed directly in different ways since more than a month ago about this alarming emergency. We specifically asked the government of AMLO to apply security measures corresponding to law with urgency due to the gravity of the situation, and as of the moment at more than a month from the request it continues being remiss.
The children and youths of the 22 CIPOG-EZ communities that are under siege from narco paramilitary groups continue without going to school, from kindergarten to high school. Besides the psychological terror that our communities are experiencing, the state of Guerrero and specifically the poor indigenous and campesino communities continue being subjected to a regimen of modern blood and slavery. The actions of the three levels of government evidences their complicity by action or omission and so it seems that what they seek is to create a scenario of tolerance so that the narco paramilitary groups dismantle the indigenous organizations that seek to construct our own destiny, far from slavery and political bosses.
Marichuy with CIPOG-EZ members.
Our only crime is defending life, defending land, defending territory, fighting for the integral reconstitution of our peoples, struggling to open the path to life, in the midst of the death that this system imposes on us. The death sentence for our brothers and sisters José Lucio Bartolo Faustino, Modesto Verales Sebastián, Bartolo Hilario Morales, Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote, David Domingo Alonso, Marcelino Pedro Rojas, Juana Hernández Ambrosio and Alberta Matías Tendón, was for trying to construct a dignified future in peace for their peoples, in the midst of “the finca” that the narco paramilitary groups have constructed in coordination with the bad governments, in order to subject the indigenous communities under fire, taking advantage of the misery and marginalization in which they survive.
The war of extermination against the organized indigenous peoples intensified at the start of 2019, it was just January 20 when Gustavo Cruz Mendoza, a member fue asesinado el integrante of the Concejo Indigenous and Popular Council of Oaxaca–Ricardo Flores Magón (CIPO-RFM), was murdered. Gustavo Cruz Mendoza was an indigenous communicator that fought for his people and for defending their territory in the Chinanteca region of Oaxaca. On June 20, 2019, five months after this cowardly murder, Regulo Jiménez Pulido, Fidel Cruz Mendoza and Mario Cruz Jerónimo, relatives of the late Gustavo and collaborators of the CIPO-RFM, were also murdered. These crimes remain completely unpunished.
On February 20 our indigenous Nahua brother Samir Flores Soberanes from the community of Amilcingo, Morelos was murdered. Samir was an active member of the Peoples Front in Defense of Land and Water of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala, which maintains a dignified struggle against the thermoelectric plant and the gas pipeline in Huexca. Samir was also an indigenous communicator, a well-organized compañero along with his community and communities of the region, and that was his crime.
From March to date in the indigenous Otomí communities in the State of Mexico that resist against the Toluca-Naucalpan Superhighway project, the aggressions, threats, groups of paid hit men, incursions of the State Police protecting the construction companies and the omissions of the bad governments have increased. Despite the fact that they have been winning the legal fight, illegality, corruption and impunity are imposed jointly with public force and violence, in order to isolate them and consolidate this long process of dispossession, which benefits the top business and political groups, and leads to the destruction of the forest, the water and life.
Since March 15, our organized indigenous prisoner brothers in the state of Chiapas that are fighting for their freedom began a hunger strike that continues to this day and has gone on for 121 days. They have been arrested without an arrest warrant and were obliged to confess under torture to crimes they did not commit, among many other injustices, which they continue telling and denouncing. Our indigenous brothers on the hunger strike are: The True Voice of El Amate: Abraham López Montejo, Germán López Montejo, in El Amate prison (Cintalapa); The Voice of Indigenous in Resistance: Adrián Gómez Jiménez and Juan de la Cruz Ruiz in CERSS 5, (San Cristóbal de las Casas) and Men in Resistance: Marcelino Ruíz Gómez, Baldemar Gómez Hernández, in CERSS 10, (Comitán de Domínguez). And as of this moment no authority has offered a solution to their just demands, they have only found deaf ears in the bad governments.
In April 2019, our brothers of the EZLN denounced how the militarization and the counterinsurgency war against the Zapatista communities have increased. They said clearly: “Now, in addition, members of the Federal Army and Air Force enter into the mountains and appear in the communities saying that war is coming and that they are just waiting for orders from the ‘very top.’” The only crime of our Zapatista brothers has been struggling for the just demands of the indigenous peoples of all of Mexico and giving an example of how to organize and defend the life of the original peoples faced with the war of extermination.
In May, an indigenous youth was murdered and three were injured in the indigenous community of Zacualpan in the state of Colima, where they are organized in the Zacualpan Indigenous Council for Defense of Territory. Organized crime and the tolerance of the three levels of government made these acts happen, was how our brothers denounced it.
These are only some of the cases that we know about and remember today, because we understand that the war of extermination is hitting us very hard in Guerrero now, but that it extends throughout our country and is costing lives, a lot of lives. Although the government has changed its skin, it continues protecting the interests of those above, at the expense of other lives. That’s why we reiterate today that the CIPOG-EZ is not going to surrender, it continues and will continue struggling for the life and dignity of the original peoples, despite the fact that we face a system of death and destruction that insists on exterminating us.
For the integral reconstitution of our peoples!
Justice for José Lucio Bartolo Faustino, Modesto Verales Sebastián, Bartolo Hilario Morales, Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote, David Domingo Alonso, Marcelino Pedro Rojas, Juana Hernández Ambrosio and Alberta Matías Tendón, members of the CIPOG-EZ and the CNI-CIG!
Justicia for Gustavo Cruz Mendoza, an indigenous communicator of the CIPO-RFM murdered!
Viva the Otomi indigenous resistance of the State of Mexico against the Toluca-Naucalpan Superhighway!
Freedom for Fidencio Aldama of the Yaqui tribe!
Justice for the indigenous community of Zacualpan!
Stop the counterinsurgency war against the EZLN!
Never more a Mexico without us!
Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ)
Regions: Costa Chica, Costa Montaña, Montaña Alta and Montaña Baja of Guerrero
July 12, 2019
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Originally Published in Spanish by the Congreso Nacional Indígena
Friday, June 12, 2019
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 
A cancer of evil spreads across the land. The blood of Innocents cries for vengeance. The truth of things is is largely hidden from the eyes of all. People everywhere are hypnotized and lulled to sleep. If the Zapatistas are triumphant the great evil World Order will collapse. Long live the Zapatistas. Every drop of blood you spill now assures their destruction. My heart tries to stay for the pain you suffer.
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