By: Elio Henríquez, Correspondent

Mapastepec, Chiapas

The Civilian Observation Brigades (Brico, Brigadas Civiles de Observación) installed in the community of Nuevo San Gregorio, Lucio Cabañas autonomous municipality, “have documented new attacks that put at risk six support base families of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN, Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional),” the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) reported.

It denounced that on June 9 “at 7:23 am 19 aggressors entered and started to cut down trees to reinforce the barbed wire that they illegitimately installed two and a half years ago in the community.” It specified that “at 1:27 pm they met in the center of the community, the meeting point for the Zapatista bases, insulted the population and especially the Brico obervers;” they also threatened them with death, just like they did to members of the Frayba, before leaving at 2:38 pm.”

The new intimidations “constitute a risk to the physical and psychological integrity of the people and a clear obstacle to international observation based on the Mexican Constitution and the United Nations Declaration on the Right and Duty of Individuals, Groups and Institutions to Promote and protect universally recognized freedoms, which have been signed and ratified by the Mexican State.”

The Frayba pointed out that on multiple occasions it has informed the three levels of government “of the frequent attacks on the EZLN support bases in Nuevo San Gregorio, who remain in resistance and defense of the territory recuperated in 1994.”

The organism over which the Bishop Emeritus of Saltillo, Coahuila, Raúl Vera López, presides reiterated that: “faced with these circumstances, a risk exists to personal security and integrity due to the fact that the aggressor group threatened to forcibly displace and close the houses where the support bases live.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada, Monday, June 13, 2022, https://www.jornada.com.mx/2022/06/13/estados/031n3est and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee