San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México
May 26, 2023
Bulletin No. 12

Tension in Zapatista territory

On January 1, 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation (EZLN, Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) took up arms, declaring war on the Mexican State, fighting for work, education, health, justice, land and freedom. After 12 days, and due to the pressure of national and international civil society, a ceasefire was decreed for the Zapatista peoples. After the San Andrés Dialogues, the Mexican government failed to comply with the agreements to reform the Constitution and fully comply with the rights of indigenous peoples. Since then, the EZLN has built its autonomy and self-determination within in its territory in a civil and peaceful manner. The EZLN is also a key actor for the advancement and exercise of the rights of indigenous peoples.

During these 29 years, the EZLN has been harassed and continuously attacked by the Mexican Army and groups related to the State. The strategies of war and counterinsurgency modify their methods of violence, in order to destroy and co-opt the resistance and emancipatory movements that are fighting for the respect of their rights, and in this territory for the collective rights that they claim as original peoples.

We have constantly documented and denounced the facts of violations of territory, autonomy and self-determination, aggressions, armed attacks and criminalization, among others, in all spheres of responsibility, such as the unpunished murder of teacher Galeano in 2014, which marked a new scenario regarding organizations allied with the three levels of government (federal, state and municipal).

In this six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, that has not been left behind. Attacks against the lands recuperated by the EZLN are constant. In some autonomous territories we have documented aggressions, threats and armed attacks, such as that of the Good Government Junta of Caracol 10 in Patria Nueva, where EZLN Support Bases have suffered serious human rights violations such as arbitrary deprivations of liberty, torture, forced displacement and several wounded by firearms.

At present, the Law for Dialogue, Conciliation and Dignified Peace is in force in Chiapas, in which the EZLN is an example and has had a continuous action in which it proposes, builds and resists in a peaceful way, being a watershed for many peoples who are for the defense of life and territory.

Of all these acts of aggression and attacks against the Zapatista movement, the State bodies that have jurisdiction and that must respect, guarantee and protect human rights have been informed with all documentary rigor, without having shown political will to address the urgent situation. From the Frayba we express our concern about the constant violence that the EZLN has received and that we see increase due to the active impunity generated by the Mexican government.

In one of its last communiqués of 2021, the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command of the EZLN (CCRI-CG-EZLN) warned that Chiapas was on the brink of Civil War. Its perspective is a symptom of those who are living in Chiapas territory.

From the Frayba, we state that we live in constant insecurity, with high risk to life, which has led to an increase in extreme violence against the EZLN Support Bases, such as the violence committed on May 23 in the region of Moisés y Gandhi. This has expanded to other territories that are being wounded from the criminality that controls the lives of communities and towns such as that which takes place on the southern border of Chiapas.

In this context, we declare that our unavoidable duty is to stop this violence that has been growing and we see that it can be done with the organization of towns, communities, organizations, neighborhoods and districts; from their own roots and culture, to deactivate violence and build peace from below, betting on the possibility of the reproduction of existence where the good life is pondered.

It is urgent that the Mexican State do its job fully and immediately address the underlying problem in order to guarantee dialogue and peace in Chiapas, generating clear routes to achieve it.

We call on national and international solidarity to demand that the Mexican State act forcefully, so that the attacks against the autonomous political project of the EZLN and the generalized violence in the state of Chiapas cease immediately. We also ask the solidarity to show signs of support to the peoples who defend life, territory, Mother Earth and peace.

Originally Published in Spanish by Frayba, Tuesday, May 26, 2023, https://frayba.org.mx/la-opacidad-e-inaccion-del-estado-mexicano-es-una-amenaza-inminente-la-paz-en-chiapas and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee