By: Elio Henríquez, Correspondent

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas

The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) reported that in March it documented 437 attacks against communities in Aldama municipality, perpetrated by armed groups from the town of Santa Martha, located in Chenalhó. In a statement, it said that those attacks led to “the intermittent displacement of 3, 499 people, who are experiencing the impact of permanent violence.”

It added that during a fiesta celebrated in the town of San Pedro Cotzilnam, Santa Martha inhabitants shot and injured a musician from the neighboring municipality of Santiago El Pinar, and a 9-year-old girl in the community of Tabac, located in Aldama.

The Frayba assures that the Mexican State “has failed to comply with recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for guarantying the security and life of the population in Aldama.”

It recalled that: “in the face of the armed attacks and violence that have sharpened since the beginning of 2018,” representatives of the 115 community members and the Frayba requested precautionary measures from the IACHR.

This commission considered that there is a “situation of gravity, urgency and the possible generation of irreparable harm,” because of which “it updated the follow-up to measures MC-882-17 and MC-284-18” in favor of the Tsotsil families in 22 localities of the municipalities of Chalchihuitán, Chenalhó and Aldama “under resolution 102/21(monitoring) dated December 15, 2021.”

Likewise, it added that “the actions that authorities of the Mexican State have carried out to guarantee the life and safety of the population have been ineffective, as we have constantly set forth.”

It also affirmed that the Federation “has centered its attention on the territorial conflict, because of which on the previous March 3 it handed over to the Aldama community members the Cerro Bola property located in the municipality of Ixtapa, a site that is almost 100 kilometers from their place of origin. The same day as the ceremony to hand over the property the population was under constant attack.

“However, the state and federal governments continue to neglect the investigation, and fail to disarm and disarticulate the aggressor group, its sources of financing and the linkage with state and local authorities,” Frayba concluded.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada, Tuesday, April 12, 2022, https://www.jornada.com.mx/2022/04/12/estados/027n2est Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee