Chiapas Support Committee
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Zibechi: Financial capital loots Rio de Janeiro
FINANCIAL CAPITAL LOOTS RIO DE JANEIRO
By: Raúl Zibechi
In less than a decade Río de Janeiro has suffered three large events that modify its features: the Pan American Games in 2007, the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. Financial capital takes advantage of that succession of sports mega-events in so short a time to remodel one of the most beautiful cities in the world, where it obtains enormous profits and provokes irreparable damage to the poor.
This month the Rio Popular Committee of the Cup and the Olympics launched the fourth dossier titled Mega-events and Human Rights Violations in Río de Janeiro (comitepopulario.wordpress.com). Throughout the 170 pages it analyzes the principal consequences that the events are having on the city and its population, at the same time that it reveals those who benefit from the million-dollar works that the FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, among others, impose.
“The sports mega-events mark the return of the most violent form of contempt for housing rights in the city,” can be read at the beginning of the dossier. We’re talking about a “social cleansing” that consists in relocating the poor to open opportunities for businesses of the large corporations, in “noble” zones like Barra da Tijuca, Jacarepaguá and the historic center, while it moves them to far away zones where they must begin their lives over again from nothing. As of now almost 5,000 families are displaced from 29 communities, with another 5,000 threatened with eviction.
The Cup Committee supports the desolate communities with studies and analysis, but its members also put their bodies on the line to resist the bulldozers that knock down homes. Women are at the head of the resistance, like Inalva Britos, in Vila Autódromo, and Alessandra in Providencia Hill. In the popular barrios the women sell food in the neighborhood or they make artesanía, a strategy for survival that they will not be able to continue in the desolate “barrios” of the Mi Casa Mi Vida program. Resisting is a question of life.
Río is the city most affected by real estate speculation. The price of housing rose 65 percent between 2011 and 2014 compared to an average of 52 percent in Brazil. The price of rent rose 43 percent, compared to 26 percent in São Paulo. The list of works is impressive: two stadiums (Olympic and Maracaná), the Olympic Village and Port Maravilla; six light train lines, expansion of the metro and of the freeways or rapid urban highways: all financed with public money.
Just the remodeling of Maracaná in Río demanded 1 billion 50 million reals (470 million dollars). The public works budget increased 65 percent since the 2010 budget, reaching the astronomical number of 1 billion 500 million dollars just for public works on the World Cup and the Olympics. The principal beneficiaries are the large construction companies: Odebrecht, OAS, Camargo Corrêa and Andrade Gutierrez, coincidentally, those that make large contributions to the political parties in electoral campaigns.
Odebrecht has completely remodeled Maracaná, which also manages the enclosure. It (Odebrecht) also shares with Andrade Gutierrez the construction and management of the Olympic Village, management of Olympic stadium with OAS, and even 20 large public works in Río de Janeiro, hundreds in the 12 cities that are World Cup seats, including new airports and hotels. Just the new Terminal 3 at Guarulhos Airport (São Paulo) had, as of now, a cost of 1 billion 500 million dollars.
None of this can be done without repression. The Army’s occupation of the Complexo da Maré (130,000 inhabitants in 16 favelas), until the World Cup ends, is hardly the action the population knows best. This week, the government of Río state reported on the incorporation of eight new armored vehicles for the Special Operations Battalion (BOPE, its initials in Spanish), which will be used in the “pacification of the favelas” operations(O Globo, 24/06/14).
In the four months prior to the Mundial, the Secretary of the State of Río reported 4,250 compulsory admissions of homeless people, who are transported to a shelter 70 kilometers from the city’s center, where, according to the dossier of the Cup Committee, they are lodged in precarious conditions and suffer torture practices.
“Río de Janeiro is becoming a more expensive and unequal city all the time,” the dossier of the Cup Committee points out. A fractured, conflictive city as happened at the recent Carnaval, when more than 70 percent of the 14,000 garbage collectors went on strike. After eight days of harsh conflict and disqualifications, one of the categories of low-paid workers obtained a 37 percent increase in their base salary, which is still barely 500 dollars. Despite the pressures, the enormous encampment of 4,000 people organized by the MTST (Movimiento de Trabajadores Sin Techo) three kilometers from the Itaquerão Stadium.
While half of the World Cup is still in dispute, demonstrations have decreased and the number of people mobilized is less than in previous weeks. Even so, the protests are far from disappearing. The success of the days in June 2013 is not forgotten; they stopped the increase in tickets for urban transportation, but in reality they were questioning the city model that capital is imposing with support from a broad coalition of parties.
A recent MTST communiqué, which maintains an encampment of 400 people in front of the municipal chamber demanding affordable housing, assures that its struggle did not begin with the World Cup, nor will it end with when it’s over. “We reaffirm that the big legacy of the World Cup was the real estate speculation and urban exclusion.”
After July, when the ball stops rolling and the fires of the media artifice die out, Brazilians will return to their everyday life, paying abusive prices for very bad transportation. The resistance to the recent urban extractivism begins.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Friday, June 27, 2014
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/06/27/opinion/021a1pol
ACNUR wants Mexico to consider refugee status for minor migrants
ACNUR WANTS MEXICO TO CONSIDER MINORS TRAVELING TO THE U.S. AS REFUGEES
A Honduran child rests under the train, in Arriaga, Chiapas, waiting to board The Beast. Photo: Alfredo Domínguez
By: Blanche Petrich
** They cannot be forcibly returned to their country if there is a risk: commissioner
** From January to June they have deported 8,239 without the knowledge of Comar: Francisco Sieber
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Acnur) mobilizes in Mexico to assure that the Mexican government guaranty the right to protection of those Central American children and adolescents, the majority Hondurans, who because of the risky conditions and violence that obliges them to emigrate towards the north, alone or accompanied, merit obtaining refugee status.
In an interview, the Acnur official for protection in Mexico, José Francisco Sieber, reported that in the last 18 months (2013-2014) the Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees (Comar) recognized 56 minors as refugees.
It is barely a drop in the ocean. Last semester alone 11, 265 Central American children were “rescued” (according to the official lexicon) and processed by authorities migratory. Some 8 mil 239, were deported without passing through the Comar.
Faced with the high number of children deported, Sieber insists on “a fundamental point” of the international right of displaced children: “the right of not being forcibly returned to their place of origin if their life or their security is at risk.” Also, faced with the crisis of minors detained in United States border cities, the country has the same obligation as the region’s other states: protecting and giving refuge if their security is threatened in case of being repatriated.
Acnur report soon
In March of this year the Acnur office in the United States published a report on the new lines of displacement of the Central American population towards that country and the situation of the unaccompanied minors detained in border cities. Titled Niños en fuga (Children on the run), the report emphasizes the urgency of strengthening access to asylum and other forms of protection. A similar report with investigations of the United Nations officials about child migrants that cross through Mexico will be published soon.
In the stories collected in this field investigation, Sieber indicates, “we observe that there are more and more elements of violence in their narrative all the time; the children comment that there are situations of extortion, homicides, threats, attempts at recruitment into criminal groups, like gangs, and those are factors that caused their exit.”
That obliges the region’s governments to extend their protection practices. The challenge, in this case for the government of Mexico, which is the transit country, “is to identify the cases in which the minors effectively cannot return to their places of origin because they can confront risks to their security.” Those are the cases where the right to refuge must be applied.
“We are not saying that violence is the only reason for these rising flows. Reasons for migration are multiple. But we do say that violence appears with greater frequency in dialogues held by our officials with the children and, above all, with the adolescents, the majority coming from Honduras. We are hearing many and very diverse references to different forms of violence. That worries Acnur and makes us mobilize and work with the authorities to take measures that would permit responding to this situation.”
Challenge: distinguishing between migrants and refugees
–Given the circumstances in which the displaced are moving, how do you differentiate between those who emigrate because of economic causes, like poverty, and those who do it fleeing from violence?
–That’s why I speak of the challenge. There are situations where many of the children could have, as the best solution based on their best interest, family reunification in the country of origin. However, there could be others that no longer can return and that, therefore, should be considered refugees.
–Is it adequate to treat the petitions for refuge case-by-case when one is talking not about a migratory flow, but rather of a mass exodus? In the 1980s, with the mass arrival of Guatemalans that were fleeing from the war, the focus was not on individual asylum, but rather on refuge to entire communities. Would it not be applicable to the emergency that is experienced now?
–At the moment, what we see is that response mechanisms for the cases that seek international protection as refugees do exist. Another big challenge is that people know about these proceedings and they understand that they can access them. Not all of them have knowledge of the existence of an office like the Comar.
“The difference is that now not only do we have a legal framework of international refugee law, but also a Mexican law on refugees that is innovative in certain aspects like that of complementary protection.”
–Are these mechanisms sufficient to impede the Mexican State from deporting those who need protection?
–Exactly. And this is a fundamental point. There is a principle in international refugee law that protects them against any measure of forced return. If the person is recognized as a refugee, he or she is under the protection of this legal principle, and cannot be returned to their country of origin.
–We see in the Honduran press that in recent weeks there had been record numbers of children and women deported, after being detained in Mexico. Did these people have guarantees against forced return?
–What we see is that to the extent that a person does demonstrate to the Mexican authority the need for protection in the face of these situations of violence, of persecution, the person must automatically be channeled to the Comar. Effectively, we’re seeking that the people that are indeed at risk be listened to in a confidential manner within the context of an interview, and that they express the reasons for which they no longer want to return to their country of origin and to decide if this person is going to be considered as a refugee.
–Then what happened with these deportees of recent weeks, or that are being deported right now?
–As is known, Mexico is familiar with this migratory flow, which is not new. There is a situation where high numbers enter its territory for the purpose of reaching the United States. In two cases, migrants or refugees, they use the same ways. We must be careful because not all are refugees. Therefore, we insist on the challenge of identifying who is really a refugee.
–What is the situation in the United States, in the detention centers on its southern border, where there are still tens of thousands of children, some with their mothers, trapped in a legal proceeding? President Barack Obama has asked his Congress for discretionary ability to deport them. How does Acnur intervene in those cases?
–It is the same challenge: the identification of cases that do merit protection of the right to refuge. It’s the same for all countries. We’re talking about international refugee law. There are two other principles of international law: one is the prevalence, the observance of the superior interest of childhood, and the second is the right of the child, of the adolescent, to be consulted, to participate in the decision, to have their voice heard in the hearings and proceedings.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Thursday, July 10, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/07/10/politica/013n1pol
Moisés Reports on Zapatista Reconstruction Account
RECONSTRUCTION ACCOUNT
ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY
MEXICO
July 2014.
To the compas of the Sixth in Mexico and the World:
To all those who have cooperated or contributed to the reconstruction of the clinic and school in La Realidad:
The Zapatistas send you greetings.
We want to let you know how things are going with the collection of funds for rebuilding the school and clinic destroyed by paramilitaries in our Zapatista Reality.
As of today, July 3, nearly a month after we announced the request for support for this construction, we have received:
From collectives: the total generated by various collectives is $344,612.50 [Mexican pesos].
From individuals: the total generated from various individuals is $20,724.00 [Mexican pesos].
Here you can see clearly, as we already know, that things are better done collectively because what results is bigger, better, and happier.
The overall total is $365,336.50 (three hundred seventy-five thousand three hundred thirty-six pesos and fifty cents).
This is the report of the total amount generated through the task of acquiring the funds for construction, in accordance with the budget laid out by the Zapatista compañer@s of the community of La Realidad.
More was generated than had been budgeted; we had said we would need $200,209.00 and $365,336.50 was collected. Do the math and you will see the difference. The extra amount we will use to buy equipment and medicine.
So we want to thank all of you for your efforts. We know that you organized yourselves and put on events to raise money, that you even made tacos and held dance parties and concerts and sold things to generate funds.
To all of you, those who organized events and those who participated, we send many thanks for your support.
Right now the compañer@s bases of support are looking for the expert carpenters who will build and finish the construction in order to see which and how many materials they need to buy.
I see that there is already movement stirring around the construction.
And this is in fact a time of movement. I am told that the compañer@s here are already hard at work readying the place where they will meet with the compañer@s from the National Indigenous Congress [CNI].
There is already news coming in about the work being done to support the travel of the compañer@s from the CNI to and from the exchange they will have here.
We have been asking ourselves: How many exchanges will we have with the compañer@s of the CNI? How will we support them with their travel costs? These are the questions we ask ourselves; I see the compañer@s scratching their heads and pulling out their hair from so much thinking. But we know that all of you will support the CNI from your own realities so that they can get to CIDECI in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. From there our Zapatista chauffer-ologists will take over in order to bring them here to La Realidad; that part will be up to us.
So compañer@s of the Sixth, scratch your heads also and be careful not to pull your hair out, but above all send us your ideas for how you can help the compañer@s from the National Indigenous Congress travel to the exchange that we will have with them and the EZLN compas and bases of support. The first round of this exchange will be August 4-8.
We are going to ask the compas who work on the Enlace Zapatista webpage to make a special section called something like, “Exchange to support the exchange of the CNI.” There you can send your ideas and share the efforts that you are making or planning to help the CNI communities who are invited to this first exchange get here. This is how we are going to remember and cherish the memory of our CNI compa, DAVID RUIZ GARCIA, whose name we have given to this first exchange.
This way you can get ideas from each other on what to do, because there is little time left. This section will also serve to show us who is acting the fool, because we remember that some said that they didn’t support the Zapatista communities because they didn’t like the now defunct SupMarcos. Now that he is gone we can see that it wasn’t really about him at all, but that it was and is because those who made those comments do not like that the people, the communities, rule themselves; they want the people to obey them. They want to give the people orders to vote for this or that soccer team or political party, which is really the same thing when both are bought and paid. Here we can see clearly that educated people also harbor racism. That is, racism exists in the heart, even when the head is highly educated.
Oh, and another thing: compas of the independent, alternative, free, or whatever-you-call-it media, remember that you are invited to come after the exchange ends, on Saturday August 9, 2014, to hear and carry far and wide the word of the indigenous people who are participating. And perhaps this time we can do the press conference or whatever-you-call-it that we left pending last time. All of the Sixth is invited also.
That is all we wanted to tell you, compañer@s.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés. Mexico, July of 2014. In the twentieth year since the beginning of the war against oblivion.
Mireles: “I am a political prisoner”
“I AM A POLITICAL PRISONER,” MIRELES VALVERDE MAINTAINS
José Manuel Mireles behind bars with head shaved
By: Sanjuana Martínez, Special to La Jornada
Doctor José Manuel Mireles Valverde laughs, cries, gets emotional when his lawyer Talía Vázquez Alatorre tells him about the shows of support that he is receiving because of his arrest, and laughs loudly when he finds out that people are shaving their heads as a sign of solidarity. Next, with firmness and conviction, recognizes that prison, was a foreseen scenario in his activity as an autodefensa and puts out the definition of his situation: “I am a political prisoner.”
Prisoner number 5557 of the Federal Center for Social Re-adaptation (Cefereso, its acronym in Spanish) 11 located in Hermosillo, Sonora, after federal judge Armando Wong dictated an order of formal prison against him in criminal cause of action 137/2014, together with his three escorts Javier Reyes Magaña, Salvador Mendoza García and Gerardo López Casillas, for the alleged crimes of “carrying firearms for the exclusive use of the Army and (crimes) against health, in its category of narcomenudeo with the specific charge of simple possession of marijuana and cocaine.”
Crimes that, according to his defense, are false: “We are against the order for formal prison for two things: one, for grave due process violations and other, because of the declarations of the public officials that place him as a political prisoner,” Talía Vázquez Alatorre says in an interview with La Jornada, who tells the details of her one-hour visit to her defendant in prison.
Doctor Mireles’ defense team prepares the amparo [1], the appeal and, at the same time, a complaint to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR): “We have 15 working days to go against the order of formal prison, while the case continues, but we seek to arrive at international instances like the IACHR, where we already initiated the necessary steps.”
Alfredo Castillo did not comply
According to the papers of statements for resolving the legal situation of Doctor Mireles, to which La Jornada has had access, the lawyer Salvador Molina Navarro makes an allegation about obedience to the law and the justification for the autodefensas based on an analysis presented by the el academic Jaime Cárdenas, where they argue the “non-chargeability” against those processed due to the fact that they belong to a known “social movement” like the autodefensas of Michoacán.
The defense considers that the doctor and his three escorts are victims of as “illegal arrest,” realized without an arrest warrant and without being treated as a case of being caught in the act or of urgency, which contravenes Article 16 of the Constitution. They argue that Doctor Mireles Valverde suffered “acts of torture” and a judge’s omission exists by not investigating the facts, besides he was not permitted to make an allowed call to a defender inside then time limit set by law and the evidence the authorities presented was “planted,” which makes them false and illegal.
They point out that “torture, like that of which the accused were victims, including since their detention, is aggravated even more on the person of José Manuel Mireles Valverde, because he was blindfolded for no reason or justification, making him believe that they would throw him into the, even impeding his immediate communication as is his inalienable right, annuls each and every piece of evidence that the Public Ministry (district attorney’s office) would be able to gather in the investigation stage,” says the text of allegations in favor of Doctor Mireles, which consists of 55 pages.
Among the arguments presented, is the “legitimate defense,” personal and collective, due to the fact that the government has not guaranteed security in Michoacán.
“From here the state of necessity in which society is found to lack legal security on the part of State forces. The lack of legal security in which the inhabitants of different sectors of the population are found is evident; they are found unprotected before attempts against their integrity, as much physical as patrimonial, because of the of organized crime organizations. As a consequence of that and as a reaction to an attack on their physical and patrimonial integrity, they find themselves in complete necessity of defending themselves and their property collectively. From there, one can infer the result of the conduct that is employed to safeguard the property of the population, by seizing control of any means of defense that may be feasible, to repel the aggressions of their transgressors.”
The defense insists that Doctor Mireles is a “political prisoner” due to the fact that it has been officials like the Commissioner for Security in Michoacán, Alfredo Castillo, and the Secretary of Governance, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, who have declared that the detainee is a prisoner for not having complied with the May accords.
The lawyer Talía Vázquez specifies: “The one who did not comply with any of the accords was Castillo. He did not release the 517 prisoners from the self-defense groups, in Michoacán alone; nor did he free Hipólito Mora before May 10. And, above all, he did not comply with the arrest of La Tuta and neither did he re-establish the state of law. Nothing happened. The one who broke the pact was Alfredo Castillo and not Doctor Mireles. That also shows that he is a political prisoner.”
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[1] According to Wikipedia, a recurso de amparo in Mexico is a legal procedure to protect a person’s human rights.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Monday, July 7, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/07/07/politica/015n1pol
Javier Sicilia on Mireles’ Arrest
THE CAPTURE OF MIRELES SHOWS THAT THE GOVERNMENT SEEKS CONTROL OF THE NARCO: SICILIA
José Mireles (left) and Javier Sicilia (right)
[The disaster that Michoacán experiences is because the government has not even investigated punishing the authorities that are in collusion with organized crime, the poet Javier Sicilia (right) points out. In left image on the left, José Manuel Mireles during his visit to the Autonomous University of Mexico City, last May 29. Photo: María Meléndrez Parada and María Luisa Severiano]
By: Rubicela Morelos Cruz y Ulises Gutiérrez Ruelas, Correspondents
The arrest of José Manuel Mireles, ex spokesperson of the Michoacán self-defense groups (autodefensas), demonstrates that the federal government the PRI member Enrique Peña Nieto heads, is on the side of the criminals and that the only thing that it seeks with the alleged combat against organized crime “is to harmonize and again control the drug trafficking networks” in the country, asserted Javier Sicilia, leader of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity.
At the same time, he called on intellectuals and organizations to demand his liberation, and demanded the removal of Alfredo Castillo, federal commissioner for the peace and development of Michoacán, “who has betrayed the citizens.”
He asserted that: “the disaster that Michoacán lives” is because the federal government has not even investigated punishing the authorities that are in collusion with organized crime; as of now it has not arrested La Tuta, leader of Los caballeros templarios, nor has it investigated ex governor Fausto Vallejo.
“Castillo has lied, has betrayed and has played against the citizens of that state, and is no longer functioning; it seems that he is on the criminals’ side. If Peña Nieto is really working for the people he ought to remove him (Castillo) and do deep investigations, starting with Vallejo.
In Cuernavaca, Morelos, Sicilia called on the intellectual class, organizations and the country’s social strugglers to jointly demand the liberation of Mireles, because “the only crime that he has committed, just like other social strugglers, has been to demonstrate against the State’s inefficiencies and corruptions.” He reiterated that the government criminalizes Mireles and treats him as a criminal, but in the future it can be any other social struggler or any Mexican that criticizes corruption.
Michoacán, he said, represents what the whole country is suffering: insecurity, violence and the operation of drug cartels with or without support from the authorities, because of which he requested coherence from the federal government, concretely the Attorney General of the Republic. “One cannot put Pancho Villa in prison and leave Vallejo without facing charges.”
Meanwhile, in Hermosillo, Sonora, Tomás Rojo Valencia, spokesperson for members of the Yaqui tribe that oppose the operation of the Independencia Aqueduct, visited Hermosillo to report on the conditions of Mireles’ seclusion in Federal Prison Number 11 (Cefereso), on the outskirts of the Sonoran capital.
He said that as social strugglers, many members of the Yaqui tribe identify with him (Mireles), because he confronts an attack from the spheres of power similar to what they have confronted for years: “a constant struggle to defend the rights of the population.”
He said that after gathering information about the case of the leader of the autodefensas, he will take the data to the government organs of the Yaqui people, and in a few days it will announce the position of that ethnicity about the criminal case that he confronts, for the alleged possession of weapons for the exclusive use of the Army.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Thursday, July 3, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/07/03/politica/004n1pol
Zapatista News Summary for June 2014
JUNE 2014 ZAPATISTA NEWS SUMMARY
Migrants Boarding The Beast in Chiapas
In Chiapas
1. Sup Moisés Describes What Is Needed to Rebuild the Autonomous School and Clinic in La Realidad – In this communiqué Subcomandante Moisés describes in detail the materials and equipment necessary to rebuild the autonomous school and clinic in La Realidad that the CIOAC-H members destroyed in the May 2 attack in which Compañero Galeano was murdered. The communiqué is entitled A meeting in La Realidad a few days ago. Instructions for sending donations can be found here.
2. More CIOAC-H Attacks – Primero de Agosto, a pro-Zapatista Tojolabal community in the same region as La Realidad, denounced aggressions from the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers-Historic (CIOAC-H, its initials in Spanish) and another organization called the ASSI. The aggressions include provocations, threats, attempted murders, robbery and a land invasion. Those who murdered Compañero Galeano belonged to the CIOAC-H and the Zapatistas classified the organization as paramilitary. According to the denunciation, the paramilitary behavior continues.
3. Militarizing Mexico’s Southern Border: Chiapas – The Chiapas border with Guatemala has suddenly become an important issue! According to the Frayba Human Rights Center, complaints of human rights abuse have doubled since implementation of the new “security” program for Mexico’s southern border. Chiapas is Mexico’s southernmost state, bordering the Central American country of Guatemala. Militarization of this international border is the latest phase of the US-backed Drug War, allegedly designed to deter drug trafficking from Central America into Mexico. However, it is also aimed directly at deterring migration from Central America and officials report a sharp rise in the number of unaccompanied migrant minors and entire families fleeing the violence. Chiapas NGOs report that militarization has increased in Chiapas municipalities along the border, and there are Zapatista communities in those border municipalities. (See more below.)
4. US Ambassador Anthony Wayne Inspects Chiapas Border with Guatemala – For two days during the last week of June, the US Ambassador to Mexico, Anthony Wayne, flew over portions of the Chiapas border with Guatemala and met with commanders of the Mexican Army and Navy regarding security on that border. He also visited the large migrant detention center (capacity 2,500 per day) and learned that Mexico has detained and deported 10,505 minors in the past year. The ambassador’s visit dramatizes the importance this issue has taken on and the importance of Mexico’s southern border.
In other parts of Mexico
1. Jose Manuel Mireles, Self-Defense Leader, Arrested – In April, we reported that leaders of the various self-defense groups from 20 Michoacán municipalities signed an agreement with the federal commissioner for Michoacán, Alfredo Castillo, and other government officials to “demobilize” and register their weapons. The deadline set for the demobilization was May 10. Not all of the self-defense leaders supported this agreement. In other words, the federal government divided the leadership. So, some of the self-defense members have registered their weapons and joined the rural police; while others have not. One of the self-defense leaders that did not register his weapons or join the rural police is Doctor Jose Manuel Mireles. Instead, he criticized the government’s role in Michoacán. Soon after he led a group of armed autodefensas into the small town of La Mira, federal police and members of the Mexican Army and Navy arrested Mireles and 69 others (later reports say 82) accompanying him for carrying their unregistered weapons.
2. Guerrero’s Community Police Suffer Internal Division – On June 21, one community police agent died in a confrontation between the two opposing factions in a struggle for control of the San Luis Acatlán House of Justice. The Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities-Community Police (CRAC-PC, its initials in Spanish) suffered a serious internal division this year, which some attribute to the government’s interference in this autonomous project. Details here.
3. The FPDT in San Salvador Struggling to Defend its Land Again! – The People’s Front in Defense of Land (FPDT, its initials in Spanish) is once again facing the threat of losing some of its farmland to urban development and a new airport in Mexico City. On June 1, the ejido assembly approved a measure that would permit converting agricultural lands into private property, thus opening the door to a new Mexico City Airport and the Ciudad Futura (Future City) Project. The ejido Commissioner is a PRI member and the FPDT emphasized the “irregular and illegal” nature of the assembly and said it would take legal action as well as engage in social protests. The FPDT is remembered for the valiant defense of its land and marches with machetes raised from 2001 to 2002, after the federal government’s first effort to construct the new airport on Atenco’s land.
In the United States
1. 52,000 Unaccompanied Migrant Minors – The tragedy of children attempting to migrate without a parent or other adult relative has overwhelmed US immigration facilities; and those are only the children that get caught! The Pew Research Institute reports the following percentages for the countries of origin of unaccompanied children apprehended between October 1, 2013 and May 31, 2014: 25 percent are Mexican, an equal percentage are Guatemalan, 29 percent are Honduran and 21 percent are Salvadoran. This is a dramatic increase of Central American children. The United States has agreements with Mexico for returning the Mexican minors promptly. That is not the case for the Central American minors. The US government must find housing for them while their immigration cases are processed. Many of the Mexican and Central American children are fleeing the violence of criminal gangs and drug traffickers, trying to reunite with parents that are working in the United States. Many have asylum claims. Immigration reform would grant relief to others, but the US government seems incapable of reforming that obsolete system.
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Compiled monthly by the Chiapas Support Committee.The primary sources for our information are: La Jornada, Enlace Zapatista and the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba).
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Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas
P.O. Box 3421, Oakland, CA 94609
Tel: (510) 654-9587
Email: cezmat@igc.org
http://www.chiapas-support.org
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Dr. Jose Manuel Mireles and 69 more arrested
[On Friday, June 27 around 5:30 PM, members of the federal police and the Mexican Army arrested Doctor José Manuel Mireles and 69 other autodefensas that were accompanying him, in the administrative district (tenencia) of La Mira. Around 30 federal trucks arrived in the place. Mireles was transported to the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas, 15 kilometers from La Mira. The day before, Mireles led a hundred armed men that entered La Mira, just 15 kilometers from Port Lázaro Cárdenas, a strategic place for Los caballeros templarios. Below is an editorial that appeared in La Jornada regarding the hypocrisy of his arrest. And the United States government continues giving beaucoup bucks to Mexico to fight the Drug War in Michoacán and elsewhere in Mexico when it’s obvious that the Mexican government is fighting the people instead of the drug traffickers!]
Mireles arrested! Photo: La Jornada
MIRELES: PARTISAN JUSTICE
The arrest of José Manuel Mireles, ex member of the Council of Autodefensas of Michoacán, occurred yesterday at the hands of federal forces, constitutes a clear example of the partisan application of justice and distortion of the state of law that state has endured in recent months and that has sharpened beginning with the federal government’s intervention in the Michoacán scenario and the virtual annulment of state sovereignty.
It’s noteworthy, in the first place, the lack of consequence of a federal government that announces zero tolerance to armed civilian groups just weeks after it used them to pursue and abate the alleged ringleaders of criminal organizations. With respect to that, it’s appropriate to remember the participation of self-defense groups –according to what Mireles himself related– in the operation that led to the death of Nazario Moreno, El Chayo, supposed founder of the Knights Templar (Los caballeros templarios).
It is significant that, a little before his capture, Mireles and his men had advanced and taken control of La Mira, located in Lázaro Cárdenas municipality.
To start, it is certainly undesirable that the State permits the uncontrolled presence of armed groups of citizens, even less in such an explosive and violent atmosphere as Michoacán. But in this case the official discourse ignores –because it thus appears to suit its interests– that the presence of those groups is a consequence, not the cause, of an annulment of the legality originally provoked by the tolerance and passivity of the very same authority faced with the behavior of the criminal organizations that operate in the referenced state, which obliged diverse sectors of the Michoacán population to take up arms to defender themselves. That omission was aggravated by a governmental strategy that, far from restoring the peace and the state of law, it multiplied the factors for tension and rancor in the territories in conflict, first by permitting the proliferation of self-defense groups and later undertaking a campaign of criminalization and persecution against some of them, which began with the unjust incarceration of Hipólito Mora and now continues with the capture of Mireles Valverde.
In that sense, the accusations against the leader of Tepalcatepec –violations of the Federal Firearms and Explosives Law– appear as a masquerade of justice to give formal support to the capture of a personage whose true “fault,” according to what one can see, has been to maintain a posture less complacent towards the government than the other self-defense leaders, and to systematically reject the Enrique Peña Nieto administration’s actions of registering and disarming of civilian guards implanted in Michoacán.
For the rest, the continuation of the violence and deepening of the institutional and political crisis in the state, and the fact that the criminal organizations that operate there have not been dismantled or their businesses substantially affected, end up making right those who, like Mireles, have criticized the uselessness governmental actions and have pointed them out as a way of demobilizing the sectors of society that decided to rise up against organized crime.
In sum, the capture of the founder of the Michoacán autodefensas is one more exhibition of the erratic conduct, slanted and murky of the federal government in Michoacán, and could also result in a counterproductive maneuver for the government: if the federal authorities do not quickly begin a police or military operation –similar or larger than it launched against Mireles– to dismantle the criminal organizations that operate in Michoacán territory, society will have ample reason for questioning the alleged legalistic zeal of Peña in that state.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Saturday, June 28, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/06/28/opinion/002a1edi
Guerrero: the siege against the CRAC-PC
GUERRERO: THE SIEGE AGAINST THE CRAC-PC
By: Luis Hernández Navarro
Community Police of Guerrero
Relentlessly pursued by the government and internally divided, the community police and the systems of community justice of Guerrero are living through a grave crisis. Arbitrary arrests of its leaders have happened one after another, the formation of rural police sponsored by the government and grave aggressions of one group against the other.
One week ago, on June 17, Guerrero’s ministerial police detained and brutally beat the spokesperson of the Council of Ejidos and Com munities Opposed to La Parota Dam, Marco Antonio Suástegui Muñoz. He is pointed to as the one probably responsible for “the commission of different illicit acts.” Recently, Marco Antonio organized a self-defense group in the rural Acapulco zone, with the support of the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities-Community Police (CRAC-PC).
This weekend, deputies from the PRD, Citizen Movement and Heladio Aguirre, will intervene in favor of the community police leader of Olinalá, Nestora Salgado. Comandanta Salgado is unjustly detained in the Tepic women’s federal prison and has been the victim of serious violations of his rights.
On June 20, 18 communities of the Sierra received in the municipality of Leonardo Bravo, with flowers and a fiesta, the first generation of the state’s rural community police. This new armed force is a presidential initiative to stop the expansion of the authentic community police.
One day later, the CRAC-PC faction led by Eliseo Villar Castillo attempted to violently takeover the historic seat of the San Luis Acatlán House of Justice, in which its detractors participate. At least one community police agent died.
The Eliseo Villar group has the support of Governor Angel Aguirre. The relationship between the two is close. The journalist Sergio Ocampo tells that the governor declared that Eliseo supported him in his campaign, gave him a calf, is his friend and now he’s going to reciprocate. That’s how he did it. His faction, besides having open doors in different government offices, he receives around one million pesos per month.
The conflict has a historia behind it. In 2013, the CRAC suffered a strong implosion. The internal cohesion cracked and different groups and leaders disputed the leadership of the movement and interlocution with the State. The currents attacked each other furiously and launched grave accusations in each other’s faces: paramilitaries, agents of the government and traitors. The essence and direction of the original project was lost.
In its 19 years of life, the CRAC has suffered three ruptures. The first, with the group that vindicated itself as “founding peoples,” founded the Union of Peoples and Organizations of the State of Guerrero (Upoeg, its initials in Spanish) in 2010, was expelled from the Coordinator, and in June and September 2013 it unsuccessfully tried to takeover the San Luis Acatlán House of Justice. The second, also in 2013, was the product of the clash between the communities of Tixtla, Olinalá and Ayutla, which followed a more radical dynamic of social mobilization. And the third, resulted from a severe fracture inside the leadership team of the House of Justice.
The state government’s intervention has been a key factor in the development and exacerbation of the internal contradictions of the Coordinator. The authorities seek to domesticate it anyway possible, take away its autonomist edge and impose its agenda by virtue of financial cannon shots and repression. The local and federal governments desire to disappear by any means the spaces of resistance to the mining invasion in the zone. Curiously, all the parties in the fight admit that the government foments the internal quarrel.
The tragic confrontation last June 21 is the latest link of the third rupture. Originally its protagonists made up part of the same group. In fact, it was their dispute with the leadership team of the Upoeg that opened the door for Eliseo Villar to lead the CRAC. The fear that people from the Upoeg would come to the front of the Coordinator led them to promote a hard personage to confront them, overlooking their traditions. Eliseo was that figure: a police agent without a long community trajectory.
The fracture inside this group was produced when Eliseo Villar installed an agenda very pragmatic and very tied with the state’s interests, confronting a sector of majority communities in San Luis Acatlán, advised by Valentín Hernández Chapa and Pablo Guzmán.
According to Abel Barrera, Eliseo’s agenda at the front of the Coordinator is guided by the search for support to productive projects, increasing the economic resources that the state government gives them and obtaining money for the construction of the houses of justice, armament and uniforms. This orientation had as a final result that the most political theme, the theme of how to strengthen a security model of the peoples from their own cosmovision and autonomy, was blurred. Villar began to manage that resource without transparency or rendering accounts. His opponents accuse him of diverting 740,000 pesos. Additionally, he refused to struggle for the freedom of imprisoned community leaders.
His detractors removed Eliseo Villar in an assembly held on March 31, 2014. The deposed coordinator denied the validity of the act and said that his adversaries were a minority.
Those who failed to recognize Villar –Abel Barrera explains– are part of a mixed coalition of advisors, coordinators, commissioners and ex commissioners –historic leaders of the Costa-Montaña region–, who have greater clarity about the original sense of the project. Their axes of action consist of having coordinators truly subordinate to assembly decisions, naming the police in the communities, respecting and complying with internal rules, and promoting the re-education of those who commit crimes.
The governmental siege on the community police of Guerrero advances. The Eliseo Villar group’s attempt to take overthe historic San Luis Acatlán House of Justice is no more than the latest play to achieve it.
Twitter: @lhan55
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/06/24/opinion/027a1pol
The Death of SupMarcos, a blow to revolutionary pride
THE DEATH OF SUP MARCOS, A BLOW TO REVOLUTIONARY PRIDE
By: Raúl Zibechi
The illuminating farewell of Subcomandante Marcos
Artwork by Emma Gascó in Diagonal
The farewell communiqué of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, read in the early morning of 25 May in the Caracol of La Realidad, in front of thousands of bases of support and people in solidarity from around the world, in which he announced his death and reincarnation (unburying, in the words of EZLN,) is one of the strongest and most powerful texts he has released in the twenty years since his public appearance on January 1, 1994.
The murder of the teacher Galeano in La Realidad on May 2, by members of the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Campesinos – Historic (CIOAC-H), an organization that became a paramilitary group thanks to the counterinsurgent social policies that buy people and whole groups, precipitated a process of change that had been underway for some time. The massive silent march of 40,000 Zapatista supporters on December 21, 2012 in the major cities of Chiapas, and the subsequent Escuelita of ‘Freedom according to the Zapatistas’ were some of the axes of these changes that we could appreciate.
The third part of the communiqué of May 25, titled The Change of Guard, recounts very briefly the four internal changes that have been in process during these two decades. The first one mentioned is generational, the most visible change, since half of the Zapatistas are less than 20 years old and “were young or were not born at the beginning of the uprising.”
The second is that of class “from the enlightened middle class to the indigenous campesino.” And the third is that of race: “from mestizo to a purely indigenous leadership.” These two changes have been manifested for some time with the constant and increasing emergence of comandantes and comandantas at various public appearances of the EZLN. But the appearance of Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, with the same military rank as Marcos, undoubtedly marked a turning point that is now complete, leaving Moisés as the spokesperson of the movement.
Marcos’ farewell communiqué emphasized that the most important of the changes was in thinking: “from revolutionary vanguardism to ‘ruling by obeying;’ from the taking of Power from Above to the creation of power from below; from professional politics to everyday politics; from the leaders, to the peoples.”
Finally, there was the issue of gender, as women moved from marginalization to direct participation, and the whole movement passed “from mocking the other to the celebration of difference.”
As can be seen, the anti-vanguardism goes hand in hand with the set of changes that can be summarized in the fact that the bases of the movement command and the commanders obey. There isno longer any doubt over who are the subjects. Somehow, these changes reduced the visibility from outside of the preponderant role already played by Moisés, whose figure was already standing out in his communiqués linked to the escuelita, but who now takes on his full relevance.
The EZLN completes a long lasting turn towards the common people, of huge strategic depth.
Thus, at a complex juncture in which the national Mexican government and the government of Chiapas launched a major offensive against the Caracoles and Zapatismo as a whole, –as part of the recovery of state power from the autodefensas (self-defense forces) in Michoacán and the Community Police in Guerrero– the EZLN completes a shift to the common people, which is long lasting, and of huge strategic depth, showing what those from below are capable of doing.
The media figure of Marcos disappears, appealing to the middle class and the mass media, the prominent personality capable of dialogue with intellectuals from around the world and of doing so on equal terms, being supplanted by the indigenous and campesinos, common and rebellious people. It is a political and ethical challenge of enormous magnitude, which places the analysts, the old left and the whole of the academic world against the wall. From now on, there will be no illustrious speakers but rather indigenous and campesinos.
“Personally –writes Marcos– I don’t understand why thinking people, who assert that history is made by the people, get so frightened in the face of an existing government of the people where ‘specialists’ are nowhere to be seen.” The answer he gives: “Because there is also racism on the left, above all among that left which claims to be revolutionary.”
Very strong! Very wise and very necessary! Zapatismo does not dialogue with the system’s politicians, or with those on the right or the left. It speaks to those of us who want to change the world, to those of us who aspire to build a new world and, therefore, decide not to walk the path of the institutions but to work below, with those from below. And we find that one of the major difficulties in these spaces is arrogance (pride), individualism, which it defines as perfectly compatible with vanguardism. With this step, the Zapatistas set the bar very high, higher than any political force has ever set it. Finally, individualism and vanguardism are two central expressions of Western culture; ways of doing things related to Colonialism and patriarchy, both of which we need to let go of in everyday life and in politics.
Originally Published in Spanish by Diagonal (Madrid) on June 14, 2014
English Translation: UK Zapatista Solidarity Network
Editing: Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas: militarization and looting threaten Indigenous
Below is an interview with Victor Hugo López, Director of the Frayba Human Rights Center in Chiapas. It gives a good overview of the current situation the Indigenous Peoples are facing.
CHIAPAS: MILITARIZATION AND LOOTING THREATEN INDIGENOUS
By: Nancy Flores
With the “war” against drug trafficking, Chiapas was once again militarized. Tensions among the EZLN, the bases of support, civil society in general and the government have increased together with the criminalization of peaceful protest. In an interview, Victor Hugo López –director of the Frayba Human Rights Center– points out that the militarization has also increased dispossession of the state’s natural, mineral and energy resources.
During the PAN government of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, members of the Mexican Army and Navy occupied rural roads and indigenous communities of Chiapas little-by-little but overwhelmingly. Today, still with a pretext of drug trafficking, military personnel have zones under their control that had been liberated during the presidency of Vicente Fox Quesada as an example of the “governmental will” to pacify the region.
Thus, the maximum achievement of the “Calderón War” in that state of Southeast Mexico was not exterminating organized crime, but repositioning military personnel to the point that the current situation is comparable to that which it lived in two decades ago, when the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) rose up.
In an interview with Contralinea, the director of the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), Victor Hugo López, explains that, although “spectacular scenes of violence” and confrontations in the streets have not been seen in Chiapas, the strategy of the “war” against drug trafficking did have serious repercussions in the communities. In principle, because it achieved a repositioning of the Mexican Army and Navy in different indigenous territories and at all the border points of the state, characterized by its misery and marginalization.
The young human rights defender remembers that one of the conditions that the Fox administration attended to in order to maintain dialogue with the EZLN was demilitarization: some of the most important military zones were eliminated, he says. Nevertheless, “this situation was lost with the Calderón strategy: while members of the Army patrol and put up checkpoints throughout the territory, members of the Navy take custody of the border points, including that of Guatemala.”
Currently, he exposes, members of the Mexican Army are present in different rural communities and roads in which they had not previously been seen. “They are making rounds again; they are even making operations of disarming. Sudden, they say, discreet [operations], but they are just touching the border or the line of fire here in Chiapas. This is serious, because it seems to me that they are not measuring the possibility of once again registering an [armed] confrontation.”
Victor Hugo López observes that the anti-drug strategy had other grave repercussions in Chiapas. One of these refers to the state security policy, because now the state police are at the command of the soldiers.
He also refers to the criminalization towards society as a whole. He gives as an example the operations of mixed units (military personnel accompanied by state and municipal police). These, he indicates, are the ones that have been committing the greatest number of arbitrary detentions of young people (men and women) in the streets simply for their appearance; they also commit abuses and torture.
In that same sense, the laws were hardened and forms of violence and mechanisms for human rights violations were legalized: “for example, although arraigo was eliminated in Chiapas and it was publicized as an achievement of the previous government, the Attorney General’s [security] houses, where people are disappeared, tortured and illegally detained, have increased.”
And despite the fact that the police-military operations as much as the legal modifications have been justified as a strategy against drug trafficking, the human rights defender observes that the sale and consumption of all kinds of drugs and alcohol are not regulated.
“In contradiction of the discourse of combatting drug trafficking g and organized crime, we have seen the exponential proliferation of cantinas where indiscriminate consumption of drugs and even human trafficking has been authorized and is even being promoted in different communities, because in some cases the owners are the mayors.”
Victor Hugo López warns that the conditions to maintain a state of insecurity are being created. An example of that is the alliance between the governments of Mexico, the United States and Guatemala: “the argument is that the organized crime and drug trafficking groups do not operate between Chiapas and Guatemala; but these policies have hardened the measures not against crime, but against the population.” Particularly, he points out, against the migrants.
To us, the protection of the border, the reinforcement of security and the combat against organized crime have meant greater social control and a greater index of repression against the population as a whole. And that has impacted in a way to appear invisible, but present. It is very present here in the cases that we receive every day of arbitrary detentions.
“In the Frayba we are receiving today an average of between 900 to 1000 cases in general; but 3 years ago we received from 400 to 500 cases. Now, of those 900 to 1,000 cases, some 400, in other words 40 percent, have to do with themes of criminalization, access to justice, arbitrary detention, arbitrary deprivation of life, torture and legalization. In our analysis, we see that they are effects of the strategy of the war against drug trafficking and organized crime: we could say that 40 percent of those cases are derived from that strategy.”
Megaprojects, the other threat
Despite the evidence Frayba gathered with respect to the increase in human rights violations, the federal and state governments assure that those rights are respected in Chiapas. Those discourses not only seek to conceal the situation the communities confront, but also to promote foreign investment in the region.
Victor Hugo López explains that: “the Mexican State has done an impressive lobbying job at the international level of being a guarantor, promoter and of respecting human rights in Mexico, and concretely in Chiapas, in the indigenous populations; for that it has ratified, signed and proposed all kinds of laws, regulations, conventions and protocols that can generate protection of that discourse. Mexico is a promoter of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and once again began saying that it had to legislate and approve the San Andrés Accords. In Chiapas we have local laws like the indigenous law, a law for the protection of woman, etcetera. Then they have created all the legal-judicial scaffolding to be able to maintain in front of world governments and foreign agencies that they are guarantying conditions of respect, promotion and protection of human rights and that, therefore, the levels of life, social security, tranquility and peace are guarantied in our state.”
He adds that recently 12 members of the European parliament have visited Chiapas wanting to know the human rights situation, but, above all, to ascertain the security conditions the zone offers for investment.
“What they are saying is that the Mexican government is impelling or re-impelling projects for investment, ecotourist projects, for the companies that extract minerals and petroleum resources, saying that in Chiapas it is all the scaffolding of respect and promotion of human rights that guarantee security in their in vestment.”
The director of the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center says that a map is being identified of social conflict in the state provoked by the megaprojects of private investment. One of those conflicts, he details, is that of the Agua Azul zone,. In the area of the cascades, the campesinos are opposed to the governmental proposals for creating an ecotourist center.
“We see that the insult to the communities that defend their territories is being impelled again because they come in a decided manner to impel the projects that they have promised. And we have been able to corroborate it in this sense, because there is a security-investment-human rights conjoint that it is selling outside the country. They [foreign representatives] are coming to see if what they are selling is true. Then without a doubt it awaits us at this time and from her on once again processes of tension in which the communities will oppose those projects that come in a decided way to impose themselves.”
Within this context, Victor Hugo López warns that there is another actor in the territorial struggle: the National Crusade Against Hunger. This, he assures, has operated as a counterinsurgency mechanism: “the only thing that the Crusade seeks is to divide the communities, generate greater dependency and increase the conditions of extreme poverty in the state.”
Frayba: 125 years of Advocacy
On March 18, the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center turned 25 years old. Founded by the late Samuel Ruiz García – then Bishop of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas-, today is considered one of the most important Mexican organizations for the defence of the individual and collective rights.
With respect to these 2 and a half decades of work, its current director, Víctor Hugo López, reflects: “It has been 25 years of existence of the Center for human rights, but more than 500 years being influenced by indigenous peoples who have been insistent in generating proposals and alternatives to the crisis of the state and the system”.
The Frayba Center much appreciates that there are five autonomous regions, five good government juntas, which have the lowest rate of human rights violations. “They are people who have managed to cope with this system of structural violence and its consequences. “In this context is that we reach these 25 years: we recognize that the Frayba would not have had this success if it wasn’t thanks to the influence of these political actors and the subject that is the indigenous people”.
He adds that people who have known of the project and have collaborated on it are also fortunate in being in Chiapas territory. “Is a land where meaningful and highly visible contrasts arise: the undeniable wealth of energy, natural resources, but also the cultural wealth of policy proposal that we have been seeing born from the region, and that stems not only from 1994, but also from recognizing more than 500 years of history, with a major player which are the indigenous peoples.”
“We feel fortunate that our origin is essentially indigenous. The indigenous populations in Mexico are part of the population where violence and the violation of human rights come to impressive levels. In other words, if many mexicans are faced with the issues of corruption, discrimination and injustice, for indigenous peoples this type of violence is magnified, by their condition of being poor, indigenous people and peasants.
Víctor Hugo López mentions that violence in Chiapas has many fronts: Although the most visible is the image of the territory occupied by the military, there is territory occupied and cordoned off for “development” projects that are dividing communities.
However, he says, those conditions and those natural strains of the system are generating proposals and alternatives. Therefore, although for 15 years the state has been living what he calls a war against the population, there have been alternatives constructed mand of these autonomous, proposals of alternative justice models, reconstruction of the social fabric which, no doubt, can be guides in addressing the issues facing the current state of Mexico.
In Chiapas, there have been violent situations that subsequently reproduced their strategy or their effects at national level, such as the massacre of Acteal in 1997, which had a global impact: 45 people and four that were not born yet were massacred in a community. Today, the country has seen similar massacres that have occurred in different contexts and in various territories, including Michoacán, Tamaulipas and all states who are facing the strategy against organized crime.
At risk, 20 percent of the biodiversity of Mexico
Chiapas owns 20 percent of the biodiversity of Mexico and is the second nationally in biodiversity, this is accoriding to data from the state government, headed by Manuel Velasco Coello, the Green ecologist party of Mexico.
According to the official information, some of the most important natural resources are: 10 river basins and two of the largest rivers of the country: Grijalva and Usumacinta; 266 kilometers of coastline, two canyons; It has seven of the nine most representative ecosystems in the country and 46 protected areas (among these, Montes Azules biosphere, El Triunfo, La Encrucijada, La Sepultura, El Ocote and Lagunas de Montebello).
Currently, the local administration plans to exploit these resources through the “ecotourism” projects. Announcing that Chiapas will host the 2014 adventure tourism fair, this past May 12th is became known that the state administration is to “prepare a comprehensive plan of development of tourism in the region north and the jungle, having an axis starting at the city of Palenque and its archaeological zone. This plan will provide investment in infrastructure, signage, training and promotion, which will allow to consolidate tourist routes in the forest and other regions of the state.”
Four days later, the federal and state governments designated as “priority need” to carry out a formal territorial designation of the Selva Lacandona, Montes Azules biosphere reserve and protected natural areas:
“The government of the republic and of Chiapas expressed his conviction that territory is top priority to provide the necessary conditions for the full development of the Lacandona community and the adjacent towns to improve the quality of life of their inhabitants in accordance with the legal framework, favouring the consolidation of the protected natural areas and the sustainable development of these areas. Also, in accordance with the provisions of the general law of ecological balance and the protection of the environment, in its article 46, the letter says ‘in protected natural areas the foundation of new centers for populations will not be permitted’, you won’t be able to regularize the existing unauthorized settlements within the Montes Azules biosphere reserve, or any other protected area. Therefore no plan for compensation can be carried out since no resources will be allocated for those purposes.
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Originally Published in Spanish by Contralinea
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
June 17, 2014
En español:
Chiapas Support Committee 