Above Photo reads: Stop the attacks on the Zapatista Peoples! Paramilitaries out of Chiapas!
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas. November 21, 2021.
To the Peoples of the World
To the Indigenous Governing Council
To the National Indigenous Congress
To the National and International Sixth
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellions
As the Ajmaq Network of Resistance and Rebellion, adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle, we denounce the cowardly armed attack suffered by our compañeros and compañeras Bases of Support of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (BAEZLN, their initials in Spanish), of the Moisés y Gandhi Autonomous Community, belonging to the Good Government Council “New Dawn in Resistance and Rebellion for Life and Humanity,” Caracol 10 Flourishing the Rebel Seed, by paramilitaries of the Regional Organization of Ocosingo Coffee Growers (ORCAO).
The ORCAO paramilitaries from the community of San Antonio Las Flores, which is also part of the Siete de Febrero region, at 10:00 a.m. went to check the water pipes. They had only checked them for a few moments, when they began to shoot from different points towards the community of Moisés y Gandhi.
They were shooting intermittently, several high caliber shots hit three houses in the community, putting the BAEZLN of the community at risk.
The armed attack continued and at 4:30 in the afternoon, a group of paramilitaries approached the Zapatista Autonomous Secondary (Middle) School “Siguiendo el Caminar de los 2 Mártires” (“Following the Path of the 2 Martyrs”) of the community and set fire to three classrooms, burning them instantly. It’s worth remembering that on October 14 the Autonomous School suffered an armed attack by ORCAO; today they carried out their threat and their attempt to put an end to autonomous education.
This group of paramilitaries have carried out actions under the protection of the Ocosingo municipal authorities, where the misnamed Green Party (an offshoot of the PRI that plays dirty with Morena) governs, and where its main leader is an official of the municipality. They act under the protection of Governor Rutilio Escandón Cadenas in exchange for the votes that the Green Party gave him to become governor of Chiapas. A favor is repaid with a favor.
The actions they have carried out have been publicly denounced, however they have remained in total impunity: the looting, robbery and burning of the Arco Iris store on August 22, 2020, located at the Cuxuljá crossroads, Ocosingo municipality.
On November 8, 2020 the Good Government Council of Patria Nueva denounced “the kidnapping and torture of a comrade Zapatista Support Base from the community of San Isidro, annex of Moisés y Gandhi, by the paramilitary organization called ORCAO.”
On September 11, 2021 the paramilitary group kidnapped two members of the Good Government Council José Antonio Sánchez Juárez and Sebastián Núñez Pérez, keeping them as disappeared until September 19.
Faced with the acts carried out by the paramilitaries of the ORCAO, the complicity of the Green municipal government and the State and Federal governments of Morena,
We demand:
Immediate cessation of aggressions against the autonomous community of Moisés y Gandhi,
Enough of the counterinsurgency against the Zapatista communities initiated with the PRI, continued with the PAN and now implemented under Morena.
Respect for the Autonomies that the EZLN is building in its rebel territory.
The Heart is Below and to the Left
You are not alone!!!!!
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Originally Published in Spanish by Red Ajmaq
Sunday, November 21, 2021
Translation: Schools for Chiapas
Re-Published by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 