Community members from Tabak, Aldama remain on alert and within barricades after constant attacks with high-caliber weapons became constant. The territorial conflict with Santa Marta community, in the municipality of Chenalho has escalated, leaving dozens of dead and injured.

By: Elio Henríquez

Excerpted from La Jornada

San Cristóbal De Las Casas, Chiapas

This Sunday (June 6) in Chiapas 120 municipal presidencies (mayors) were renewed.

The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) reported that as of Sunday afternoon inhabitants of the Santa Martha community, in Chenalhó, had perpetrated some 50 armed attacks against the population of Aldama.

The Frayba said that the attacks were directed at citizens who went to vote in the Aldama community of San Pedro Cotzilnam. It did not report any injuries.

The human rights organization indicated that the permanent commission of 115 comuneros and displaced persons of Aldama reported that the shooting comes from different points of the Santa Martha community in Chenalhó.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada on Monday, June 7, 2021

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/06/07/estados/029n2est

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ARMED GROUP INJURES INDIGENOUS MAN IN ALDAMA, CHIAPAS

After a long pilgrimage through various clinics, Julio César Pérez was able to have his leg wound cared for in the San Cristóbal de Las Casas hospital, where he was humiliated and discriminated against. Photo La Jornada

By: Elio Henríquez

San Cristóbal De Las Casas, Chiapas

The mayor of Aldama, Chiapas, Adolfo López Gómez, reported that yesterday morning residents of neighboring Santa Martha community, in Chenalhó municipality, shot and injured Julio César Pérez Pérez, a 24-year old indigenous man, who is a native of Xuxchén community in Aldama.

The municipal president explained that the victim “was taken to the San Andrés Larráinzar hospital, where they told him that they didn’t have the materials necessary to care for him, and he was therefore moved to the emergency room of the Cultures Hospital, in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.”

He received humiliating and discriminatory treatment

Upon arriving at that hospital he was attended to in a degrading and discriminatory manner, because the doctor refused to withdraw the bullet lodged in his body and, mockingly, he said that: “extracting it only happens in action movies,” to them discharge him without further medical attention despite his condition.

López Gómez pointed out that Pérez Pérez was injured in the calf with a heavy-caliber weapon when he was transporting brick blocks in a vehicle, together with other people, from San Pedro Cotzilnam to Xuxén, since a housing project is being carried out in this latter community.

Julio César Pérez received medical attention for an injury to his leg at a hospital in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, where he was humiliated and discriminated against.

“The attacks of the Santa Martha paramilitaries began this Sunday morning from various trenches, as we say, located in Telemax, Tocoy, Toctic and Volcán,” the mayor explained. He added that from those places several men “with high-caliber weapons began to attack the communities of Cokó and San Pedro Cotzilnam in the early hours of this Sunday morning.”

Separately, the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), specified that: “the siege persists, since just this week alone there have been 61 armed attacks” from Santa Martha towards the Aldama communities. The NGO expressed its concern “about the insufficient intervention on the part of the Mexican State to stop the violence existing in the region.”

It recalled that just last April 23 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures in favor of the Aldama indigenous communities that have been attacked.

On May 8, members of a Santa Martha armed group shot and killed Pedro Lunes Pérez, 24, a native of the Cokó locality. For years, different communities have denounced belligerent activity in the zone.

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UPDATE: 32 ATTACKS IN ONE DAY ON ALDAMA COMMUNITIES AND THE NATIONAL GUARD

The assault that the indigenous residents of Aldama have experienced for more than 5 years from armed groups in Chenalhó that shoot at them had one of its most violent days this Wednesday (May 26). From 8:18 am to 10:48 pm, the Tsotsils received 32 attacks with firearms, which for hours left inhabitants of the Ch’ivit community, who had to stay hidden for several hours, fenced in until they managed to escape. In 3 communities the shots continued for more than 7 hours. Tours of the National Guard and the police forces didn’t stop them. They were also attacked a little before 4 pm. “In these moments they attacked the National Guard and state preventive police at 03:46 pm,” points out the report that the inhabitants document for each aggression.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Monday, May 24, 2021

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/05/24/politica/009n1pol

Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee