Chiapas Support Committee
Home of the Compañero Manuel blog on zapatistas & mexico
Threat of mining activities without prior consultation in Chicomuselo, Chiapas
By: Chiapas Paralelo
The Movement in Defense of Life and Territory (Modevite), expresses its concern faced with the context of insecurity and violence given the latent threat of reactivating mining activities in the municipality of Chicomuselo, Chiapas, originating from the lack of intervention from the three levels of government.
In recent months, we have learned of the presence of companies and people interested in restarting mining exploitation in the following locations of this municipality: El Naranjo, Nueva Morelia, Santa María, Ricardo Flores Magón, Grecia and Benito Juárez. They are promoting mining activities without prior and informed consultation, without the consent of the ejidos and communities that will be affected by these activities.
“This situation puts at risk the stability of the communities that have decided to reject these extractive projects and have been in resistance by maintaining peace and harmony from the defense of human and collective rights.” The response of these groups with personal, economic and political interests has been intimidation, harassment and death threats against our compañera and compañero human rights defenders as a resource for stopping the struggle in defense of life and territory, that’s why we worry about the integrity and life of each one of those who daily confront different situations for denouncing these actions.
In 2009, residents of Chicomuselo municipality were witness to the environmental effects, damage to health, community division and social conflicts, among others, caused by the Canadian mining company Blackfire Exploration Ltd in the Grecia ejido of Chicomuselo municipality, mainly affecting groundwater, rivers, streams, forests, the health of the population and the community fabric that characterizes the communities of our region, situation that culminated in the murder of Mariano Abarca Roblero.
Mining and illegal activities
Since November 2021, members of this movement have presented the current municipal president, Jorge Martin Sepúlveda Morales, with the municipality’s social situation and the struggles and resistances against mining exploitation, the MOSCAMED project, the re-municipalization project, the illegal sale of alcoholic beverages, which are a mass problem, as they all violate the human rights and collective rights of communities. They take into consideration that in his campaign the stated that he was against the mining project and would support the people in their struggles and resistances, we see no results during the time of his administration.
The Government Delegation in this municipality has minimized this social problem by not attending to them with responsibility and commitment, since on several occasions people have been arrested who were carrying out mining activity illegally in the municipality and where they have committed not to continue carrying out these activities by presenting the resistance of the people, the government delegate of this municipality has not taken any action taking into account that at the state and municipal level there is no permit for mining activity in Chicomuselo.
Environmental complaints have been formally presented to the Federal Prosecutor for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) about the Chicomuselo case. However, the response has been a lack of interest wounding the legal foundations spelled out in the national and international legal framework.
Currently, we’re still waiting for a dialogue table with state and federal government officials to address this social problem without any response to date.
Re-municipalization under threat
With respect to the re-municipalization project in the Unión Buena Vista and Pablo L. Sidar ejidos, the conditions don’t exist and don’t meet the legal requirements for becoming a municipality; however, those who have their interests in this project are pressuring neighboring ejidos to accept the project, violating their ejido rights.
The MOSCAMED program in our municipality is becoming an imposed program, although the ejidos have not accepted it, the insistence to enter remains against the people and fracturing the social fabric.
We realize that those who have their interests in our territory are combining these three projects and insisting on deception, intimidation and threats in order to pressure the communities and accept out of fear.
The lack of timely response from the state puts at risk those of us who defend life and territory with peaceful actions within the legal framework.
Therefore, we call on the different levels of government to fulfill their duty to promote, respect, protect and guarantee the individual and collective human rights of the population in general that seeks by peaceful means to generate spaces of unity to build peace among peoples and communities in an environment of respect and harmony.
We hold the Mexican state responsible for any act that puts at risk the integrity and very life of those who defend the territory and human rights that are currently threatened by the economic and political interests of a few people.
Finally, we invite the different social movements of the state and the country, as well as the population in general to strengthen unity and remain attentive to the new social events that violate our rights in order to respond in an articulate, organized conscious way, in adherence to the legal framework.
Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas Paralelo, Monday, September 26, 2022, https://www.chiapasparalelo.com/noticias/chiapas/2022/09/amenaza-de-actividades-mineras-sin-consulta-previa-en-chicomuselo/ and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Autonomy and dignity don’t depend on numbers
By: Raúl Zibechi
In the cities, when we go to demonstrations, one of the usual comments is about the number of people that attended. This attitude is part of our traditional white and urban traditional left political culture, which has been assumed by almost all the organizations. We believe that the movement will be stronger and there will be a better possibility that our demands will be addressed the more people who attend.
In some measure, that’s how things are. When it comes to complaints to authorities, the more powerful the pressure, the greater the chances of having them addressed. However, the question of numbers leaves a couple of central questions blank.
The first is that attending a demonstration is not directly related to one’s attitude in everyday life. Many people, upon returning to their chores, continue doing exaqctly the same thing as before, hoping that their representatives resolve the demands, returning to the role of spectators that they interrupted for a few hours.
The second is that this mode of collective action, in which all the “urbanite” movements are involved, does not achieve profound transformations, since it continues to place at the center the state institutions that, in this political culture, are the subject of collective action.
It’s evident that constructing autonomy is not achieved with demonstrations, nor are territories recuperated through militarism and extractive industries, which are destroying our countries and the social relations below. Since demonstrations are legitimate and necessary, we need something more, particularly in urban movements.
Days ago, I shared a few hours with the Zapatista support bases in Nuevo San Gregorio, and would like to highlight some questions that I learned from them and how challenged I felt by their stubborn resistance.
First, there are very few families that remain in resistance. Just four. Two families left in recent months. Their adversaries in the zone number many more and are armed. Being few individuals and families does not prevent them from persisting, nor sustaining autonomy nor resistance. They are not overwhelmed by that reason.
Secondly, in the dialogue in which the Ajmaq Network and the Frayba participated, they insisted on something very notable: “We’re more united now, we feel stronger than when we were a lot more (un chingo),” they told us.
This point seems central to me. The strength of a struggle doesn’t depend on how many people there may be, but rather that each one of them has the necessary commitment and firmness to persist in ant condition, even when everything is against us, when there is no perspective that our resistance can win in the short or medium term.
In the cities we observe that a lot of people withdraw when their demands are not addressed, when repression increases, or simply when they get tired. Some organizations that seemed to be solid and powerful, weaken rapidly when difficulties enter.
Third, I think that real power appears with setbacks. When we are attacked or isolated, demoralization often appears. That’s why I wondered, after the visit to the village, how do they continue when everything is against them: the State, its National Guards and Armies, the para-state “organizations,” organized crime and even their friends and families, including sometimes former comrades in struggle.
That’s the point. Many movements seem solid when thousands are in the streets. But here is a clear example that “yes we can,” even if there are few, in the most absolute solitude, when a simple visit is harassed and it’s not known when people in solidarity will return. It’s an example of human and political dignity and integrity.
Finally, EZLN’s support bases in Nuevo San Gregorio showed us that resistance is not for one day or for a year. It’s a way of living life. You don’t fight to get something material, or to gain personal or collective advantages. Even less to have immediate results. The struggle is to remain peoples different from hegemonic capitalism. And for dignity.
It’s about a different political culture, in development, but that is still not comprehended or assumed by the immense majority of organizations and people. It will demand time in order to produce a change of such dimensions, which leads us to assume this other way of understanding the ways of organizing, resisting and changing the world, transforming ourselves.
These are just a few ideas about what we learned from the support bases and concretely from Nuevo San Gregorio. We cannot learn, neither individually nor collectively, if we don’t share, if we are not where the events take place, but especially if we don’t have sufficient humility to recognize that we need to learn from those below who resist.
Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada, Friday, September 23, 2022, https://www.jornada.com.mx/2022/09/23/opinion/015a1pol and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Tseltal march demands the freedom of imprisoned and persecuted leaders
By: Isaín Mandujano
More than a thousand Catholic men and women from the Tseltal region of Chilón held a march-procession to demand the freedom of nine community leaders, two from that region, five from San Juan Cancuc and two from Pantelhó, as well as the parish priest Marcelo Pérez Pérez.
Convinced, they said that they were marching for peace and the construction of justice, as the Mexican Episcopate, the Conference of Major Superiors of the Religious of Mexico, the National Council of the Laity and the Mexican Province of the Society of Jesus have called on them to do; that’s why they took to the streets in Bachajón, municipality of Chilón, to demand justice for the imprisoned and persecuted community leaders.
On September 27, a judge at the Ocosingo prison will sentence two community leaders, José Luis Gutiérrez Hernández and César Hernández Feliciano, who were arrested on October 15, 2020 for participating in a protest.
They also marched and demanded justice for the prisoners from San Juan Cancuc and Pantelhó, as well as for the cancellation of the arrest warrant against Father Marcelo.
Although José Luis and César were conditionally released after being indicted, they face criminal proceedings and trial, but they are afraid that the sentence will harm them: “On October 15, 2020, these brothers, legitimately and in full exercise of their right to demonstrate, went out to protest peacefully, along with other residents, finding as a response, a brutal repression and the loss of their freedom.”
On that occasion, thanks to the solidarity of the human rights defense organizations that intervened, they were released from prison on November 1, 2020, but with the condition of continuing their criminal case and presenting themselves periodically to the Ocosingo Control Court. They face so much injustice. That’s why they demonstrated today to demand their absolute freedom.
Similarly, as Believing People of the Chab team from the Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, five more community leaders from San Juan Cancuc denounced the arbitrary deprivation of freedom. They are: Manuel Santis Cruz, Agustín Pérrez Domínguez, Juan Velasco Aguilar, Agustín Pérez Velasco and Martín Pérez Domínguez.
They also demanded a just review of the case of two other community leaders from Pantelhó being held in El Amate Prison: Pedro Cortés López and Diego Mendoza Cruz. They also demanded the definitive cancellation of the arrest warrant for the parish priest Marcelo Pérez Pérez, “whose innocence is evident,” they alleged.
“These arrests try to repress the just complaints of our peoples and place obstacles in the way of peace in our territories. The criminalization of these brothers of ours has been due to defending the rights of the Native peoples, as well as their territory and their customs, a vital sustenance of our communities,” the indigenous people said at a rally at the end of the march.
They called on all the national and international human rights organizations to be attentive and be actively in solidarity with these cases of criminalization, “which add to the persecution of those who seek peaceful paths with justice and dignity for the Native peoples.”
Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas Paralelo, Wednesday, September 21, 2022, https://chiapasparalelo.com/noticias/chiapas/2022/09/march-procesion-de-tseltales-para-exigir-la-libertad-de-lideres-comunitarios-presos-y-perseguidos/ and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Indigenous women of Chiapas close ranks against mega-projects
By: Isaín Mandujano
ASSEMBLY OF THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT FOR THE DEFENSE OF MOTHER EARTH AND OUR TERRITORIES. CHIAPAS, MEXICO
Chapultenango, September 17 and 18, 2022
We embrace the Women and Peoples who struggle and organize.
Women from the Zoque, North-Palenque, Jungle, Coast and Highlands regions of Chiapas called upon each other to meet again and to share the processes, challenges and challenges after our last Assembly held in May of this year in Rayón, Chiapas.
Today we once again thank and honor our Zoque compañeras and sisters who received us with organization, joy, respect and affection.
As women of the Zoque, Ch’ol, Tseltal, Tsotsil and mestiza peoples of Mexico and Argentina we reaffirm our will to follow our principles: 1) Political-organizational autonomy, 2. Defense of Mother Earth versus the projects of death, 3. Awareness in personal care and collective healing, 4. Women’s participation in decision-making, 5. Rejection of all types of violence towards women, 6. Articulation and political solidarity among peoples, networks, collectives of the EZLN, CNI and the Sixth, 7. The Movement is governed by non-hierarchical, non-centralized Assemblies.
We decided to share the contexts in which we are living as women from the work groups for each one of the regions and, later in the plenary:
We share that in the Tsotsil Highlands Zone there is an increase in canteens, circulation of alcohol, drugs and weapons. Constant movements in vehicles of armed groups. Increased migration by young people and those who stay in our communities no longer respect women and older people. The few men engage in sexual violence against young women.
In the Tseltal region of the Highlands women are not taken into account, they don’t respect our rights, mainly in contempt for widowed women and/or single mothers. The uses and customs of the community violate us and dispossess us of our lands without taking into account that the land gives us life and we feed ourselves from it. In the Jobel Valley we identified a before and after June 14, after the dispute of different organized crime groups: dispossessions are experienced through the invasion of land caused by armed groups; from the complicity of government officials and hotel entrepreneurs who monopolize water through the destruction of mountain wetlands and swamps. There are various groups of armed young people called scooters that make shootings a daily occurrence and put the daily lives of women and children in tension. There is more presence of the National Guard that is made that which does not see, nor hear.
North-Palenque Zone. With the construction of the misnamed Maya Train, the leveling and destruction of hills, water pollution and the dispossession/ displacement of communities have increased. The commodification of the Maya culture is present, favoring private business initiative. Prostitution is increasing and migration is visible. Groups of scooters linked to organized crime have appeared and are carrying out murders, with the National Guard simulating its function and generating fear and terror with its presence in the daily life of the population.
Coastal Zone. Threat of construction of the gas pipeline that comes from the interoceanic project of Oaxaca and that will pass through the entire Coast to Guatemala. Construction of Mega-highways in connection with the Maya Train and Interoceanic Train. Increase in mining projects. Sale of land to business speculation for hotel projects. Disappearance of girls, young people and adults who become most of the time femicides and human trafficking.
Zoque Zone. Being at the head of the basin, it’s being threatened by megaprojects related to mining, hydroelectric, geothermal and hydrocarbon projects. We are convinced of the link to corporate interests, the Federal Electricity Commission and institutions of bad government together with organized crime for the execution of projects.
An example is the “Study for the Integral Management of the Basins” that represents the dispossession and destruction of our lands. Another example is the case of the town of El Platanar [municipality of Pichucalco] as a “territory of sacrifice” where they caused an oil spill that affects the Grijalva River, this due to the negligence of Pemex and complicity of the government, causing forced displacement and that 5 thousand inhabitants do not have drinking water.
In sum; we agreed that Organized Crime is governing in all our territories, we see the increase in the sale and circulation of weapons, drug addiction, prostitution and alcoholism. In complicity with a process of militarization that permits the dispossession and control of our territories. Women are the most affected by the increase in femicides, deaths, hunger and disappearances of girls and young women.
We agreed that we will defend Our Mother Earth from the mis-named Maya Train, from Hydrocarbon Projects and geo-parks, from the gas pipeline and from pesticides, as well as from the hoarding and pollution of water.
However, in the face of this situation of death, we are happy to see young women participating in this Assembly. It is a moment of opportunity to walk and open a different course for all. We are committed to strengthening your dignifying processes to and for Life in a collective and organized way.
We will continue defending Mother Earth with organization and dignity. We will continue carrying out our jobs in our places. We close our Assembly defining the date and place of our next meeting.
Defensoras de Nasakobajk
Tsijilba Bij
Red de Mujeres de la Costa en Rebeldía
Antsetik Tz’unun
Mujeres organizadas de Acteal
Mujeres del Colectivo Jomenäs
Mujeres Productoras
Mujeres del Colectivo Kallpolli
Mujeres a título individual
Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas Paralelo, September 19, 2022, https://www.chiapasparalelo.com/noticias/chiapas/2022/09/mujeres-de-los-pueblos-originarios-de-chiapas-cierran-filas-contra-megaproyectos/ and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Letter: A visit to Chiapas
By Carolina Dutton
I finally returned to Chiapas after two and half years because of the pandemic. This has been the longest time I have spent away from this beloved land of the Mayan peoples in resistance in two decades since I lived in the highlands and worked with women in an autonomous community from 2001-2002. I first went to Chiapas in 1997 with Pastors for Peace and then with Schools for Chiapas to participate–mainly carrying cement, sand, and stones so that the skilled indigenous artisans in resistance could build the Zapatista autonomous secondary school in Oventic.
Oventic is one of twelve Caracoles, or centers of Zapatista civilian regional government, where the autonomous communities of the region come together with each other and with internationals. The Oventic caracol’s first buildings were completed two years later and after training promotores (teachers from the communities) the school opened for Zapatista young people in the highland communities to be educated in their own history and to learn skills needed by their communities. Youth are trained to be promotores of education, health, agroecology, or communications. Oventic was the first. In the past 20 years, autonomous secondary schools have opened in other caracoles. The Chiapas Support Committee raises funds for Zapatista primary and secondary education projects.
In Chiapas Summer 2022
This summer I studied in Oventic at the CELMRAZ studying Tsotsil. In 2001 the CELMRAZ (Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Center for Spanish and Maya Languages, Centro de Español y Lenguas Mayas Rebelde Autónomo Zapatista) was formed for internationals to learn Spanish and Mayan languages. The CELMRAZ center, located in Oventic, has for years supported Zapatista autonomous education with the funds people donate to study there.
My tsotsil teachers were promotores trained at the secondary school in Oventic a decade or more ago. We participated in dynamic activities with the Zapatista secondary school students acting out the Seven Zapatista principles and the wheels of capitalism as well as singing together. This is the second time I have studied Tsotsil in Oventic. Although my conversational skills are very limited, my understanding of the philosophy embedded in the language, and the way of relating to the world and each other of the Maya peoples, helps me understand how they have managed to organize themselves, plan an uprising in clandestinity, and keep working together for 28 more years despite continued paramilitary and government harassment. There are three forms of we in Tsotsil grammar, much more important in Tsotsil than I.
Our group of students at the Centro de Lenguas in Oventic this summer on a rainy day.
Entering Zapatista Territory
When I first came to Chiapas it was much easier to go to Zapatista communities, take delegations, and do projects there and connect directly with the people and meet with the autonomous councils. Now, because of ongoing paramilitary violence, security and the pandemic, the communities have been on red alert.
There has been a dramatic increase in paramilitary attacks and violence against the Zapatista communities in the past couple of years. Now one of the only ways for people who do not already have relationships to connect directly with the Zapatistas is through CELMRAZ. The Chiapas Support Committee accredits people to study at the Language Center in Oventic. Contact us if you are interested in attending the CELMRAZ school.
I found that things have gotten more difficult in the past two and a half years both in the Zapatista communities and in the city of San Cristobal. It had been hard for narcos to get a foothold in the highlands of Chiapas, largely due to the tight organization of communities in resistance.
Unfortunately because of various factors—the insecurity of the pandemic, the economic hardship it has caused, the complicity of the local and the state government of Chiapas with cartels and paramilitaries and the lack of action by the national government to stop, arrest or prosecute acts of paramilitary violence—Mexican government inaction, complicity and collusion has led to almost complete impunity for the paramilitary’s violent acts.
Mexican Government Complicity Fuels Paramilitaries
The National Guard supposedly created to increase security just stands by when the paramilitaries have attacked Zapatista and other indigenous communities. The Human Rights Center Fray Bartolome de las Casas (Frayba) sends observers to communities, often internationals, which usually helps deter violence. Because of the impunity, the paramilitaries have threatened the observers in the Zapatista community of Nuevo San Gregorio and Frayba had to withdraw them for their safety.
The city of San Cristóbal is no longer the safe place it used to be. Some neighborhoods have organized civil patrols to monitor who is on the streets. My neighborhood organized a system to warn each other with whistles when attempted robberies take place so that neighbors can come to each other’s aid. Fortunately Oventic is one of the caracoles that is still tranquil and safe.
Artesania made by compas in Nuevo San Gregorio
Take Action to Denounce the Paramilitary Violence September 26
While I was in San Cristobal I met with Frayba to help organize a forum about violence in Chiapas with Frayba and Red Ajmaq, a network of Zapatista supporters in Mexico. The Chiapas Support Committee sponsored this forum with the network, Sexta Grietas del Norte, of which we are a part. You can watch the recording with English interpretation at https://youtu.be/gCuhPTKmEpQ.
The Chiapas Support Committee has also been demonstrating at the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco to let the Mexican Government know that we are aware of their complicity with the violence and to demand that the impunity be stopped. Our next action will be on Monday September 26, 2022, the 8th anniversary of the forced disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa.
Please join us on September 26 to demand justice for Ayotzinapa and to demand the Mexican government dismantle the rightwing paramilitary. Watch our facebook page and blog for further details.
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Carolina Dutton is a member of the Chiapas Support Committee and a long-time community-based activist for justice and solidarity with Indigenous and Latin American people’s struggles for self-determination and land justice.
They ask the UN to urge Mexico to respect indigenous rights
By: Elio Henríquez
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
Organizations headed by the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) requested that Cecilia Jiménez-Damary, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Organization on the Human Rights of Internally Forced Displaced Persons, to “recommend and demand” that the Mexican State “respect the collective rights of indigenous peoples, in particular with regard to territory and autonomy.”
At the same time, they demand a mechanism that guarantees respect for the principles on forced displacements, which include measures for sanction in case of non-compliance; application of the Forced Displacement Law in Chiapas, as well as consolidating the state program with a gender perspective and in favor of childhood in order to address and prevent that situation in the state.
They called for the promotion of the functioning and strengthening of state and municipal protection prosecutors’ offices with an intersectional and gender perspective, as well as the training of their personnel and awareness on the subject, and for the Chiapas State Commission for Attention to Victims to generate a registry with a differentiated approach, which investigates and disarms armed groups, and that those responsible for the injuries, killings and forced displacements are consigned.
In the report delivered during the visit that the official made last week to the state, the organizations, including Caritas, Melel Xojobal and International Service for Peace, also suggested that she “recommend and demand” that the physical integrity and protection of defenders who accompany victims be guaranteed and that there is accountability of the prosecutor’s offices.
They assured that: “This phenomenon may have as its root old agrarian conflicts that began in the 1970s between different municipalities and /or communal assets in the Los Altos region, where armed groups with similar characteristics operate. “
They pointed out that from 2010 to date the displacement of 14,476 people from different municipalities has been documented; Likewise, recently “the presence of organized crime has increased exponentially and with it the trafficking of weapons, vehicle theft, human trafficking, planting and shipment of drugs, territorial control through the imposition of terror in the communities, which has caused hundreds of people to flee their homes.”
Rapporteur Cecilia Jiménez-Damary repeated their request to the government to create a federal registry of victims of internal displacement in order to guarantee a sufficient budget for comprehensive care, as well as to raise awareness about this problem.
After concluding her visit to the country, she stressed that this registration must also include those who have not been legally recognized, since “they are displaced de facto.”
In a statement, she clarified that the census “should not grant legal status, but facilitate protection and humanitarian assistance in accordance with individual and collective needs.”
Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada, September 13, 2022, https://www.jornada.com.mx/2022/09/13/estados/029n2est and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
AJMAQ: The government doesn’t exist in Chiapas, it doesn’t see, it doesn’t hear and it doesn’t speak
By: Yessica Morales
On multiple occasions, the Frayba has made the three levels of government aware of the constant aggressions against the EZLN support bases in Nuevo San Gregorio, who remain in resistance and defense of the territory recovered since 1994.
On September 10, 2022, the AJMAQ Network of Resistances and Rebellions and the journalist Raúl Zibechi visited the “New Dawn in Resistance and Rebellion for Life and Humanity” Good Government Junta of Caracol 10, The “Rebel Seed Flourishing,” as well as the Zapatista families in Nuevo San Gregorio community.
The visit was to bring them his compañero embrace, listening, word and view from solidarity, knowing how this war situation against the Zapatista families continues to lacerate and wear down life.
The reality that is being experienced hurts us a lot and deeply: the violence of the invaders continues, and the government in Chiapas doesn’t exist, it doesn’t see, it doesn’t hear and it doesn’t speak, the Network underscored.
To this is added the insistence to create and maintain collective work.
In that place, babies are born, there are boys and girls with looks of surprise, as well as young people creating.
Zapatista men and women caring with patience and hope for seeds so that they flourish, perhaps not there, but in another garden, asphalt, flowerpot and/or mountain.
Meanwhile, the Regional Organization of Ocosingo Coffee Growers (ORCAO, its initials in Spanish), then 40, criminal leaders and the Mexican dis-government are all trying toi raise hell to reach those flowers that continue calling for the word: For life, the Network concluded.
Attacks and Threats
Since November 2019. the Nuevo San Gregorio community, on territory recuperated by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN, Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional), has suffered constant attacks from a group of some 40 aggressors, resulting in the dispossession of 155 hectares in Lucio Cabañas Autonomous Rebel Municipality and in a situation of grave risk to the life and integrity of the inhabitants.
The Frayba and the Ajmaq Network have denounced the repeated aggressions, stealing cattle and destruction of property, water cut-offs, surveillance, obstruction, control and collection of free transit, as well as kidnapping.
The gravity of the attacks and the serious threats against human rights observers, which occurred on June 10, 15 and 19 and were documented by then BriCOs themselves, led the Frayba to suspend the observation camp on June 29. This has rarely happened in the 28 years of work of the Brigades, which left the affected families even more unprotected.
On the other hand, on February 27, 2020, representatives of the community and the Good Government Junta attempted to dialogue with the aggressors. On that occasion, they gave the aggressors three proposals, including a proposal to cede them one half of the recuperated territory.
However, the aggressors didn’t accept it, seeking to take possession of all the lands. In spite of everything, the affected families continue resisting, constructing autonomy and taking care of the land.
Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas Paralelo, Tuesday, September 13, 2022, https://www.chiapasparalelo.com/noticias/chiapas/2022/09/gobierno-en-chiapas-no-existe-no-mira-no-oye-y-no-habla-red-ajmaq/ and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Militarized security
By: Raúl Romero
The presidential initiative to incorporate the National Guard into the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena, its Spanish acronym) has generated an intense debate. Given the lack of a project that convinces big social sectors, the alliance of right-wing politicians and business owners has sought to capitalize on the discussion, to utilize it to beat up on the current governing bloc and to position themselves as the alternative. However, in the past we found evidence of how these groups promoted the country’s militarization process.
In the 1970s, as part of Operation Condor, the United States conducted a test in Mexico of “collaboration” between armies to combat the region’s new enemy, “drug trafficking.” Behind the euphemisms, this operation meant an escalation of the counterinsurgency war, as well as a renewed US interventionism in Latin America. It is no coincidence that this coincided with the dirty war or state terrorism, a period in which the Mexican state and its armed forces committed acts of barbarism against popular organizations and against many of the peoples they encountered in their path.
The participation of the Mexican Army in anti-drug trafficking tasks did not mean a reduction of the business, to the contrary, drug trafficking became a flourishing business that found other commercial branches, which gave the form to the organized crime corporations that operate today. High-ranking military men became links between military forces and organized crime, like the case of General Acosta Chaparro, who participated in the counterinsurgency in the state of Guerrero, and who would later be found to have ties to organized crime.
It’s important to frame the militarized security model in the context of the deployment of the neoliberal model in the region, a strategy that jointly with the trade agreements and the security alliances, like the Free Trade Agreement or The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, they have been translated into policies of “regional integration” and “hemispheric security. “
With this logic, during the presidency pf Ernesto Zedillo the Federal Preventive Police were created, a militarized police that had as its first intervention the taking of the UNAM’s installations, in order to end the strike in defense of the public and free character of the university that supported the General Strike Council.
Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto continued and strengthened militarized security using it also for the repression of popular movements. The six-year term of Calderón stands out for the massive open participation in joint operations of the Army with local, state and federal police and, especially, for their actions in favor of certain organized crime groups, a strategy that provoked the expansion and brutality of the war.
Ratification of the militarized security strategy by the current government mens continuing on the path walked, and turning our backs on a historic social demand to build alternatives for public, citizen and community security; a strategy distanced from the mandates of the United States and its “Americanization” of security. Nor have members of the military been brought to justice for crimes of the past and present, or for corruption, so the impunity pact remains intact. It’s the same structure and, in many cases, even the same actors.
Now, the old “mafia in power” says it is opposed to the militarization, when in reality they pointed the way and accentuated the dependency. Something similar happens with the extractive, energy and infrastructure projects that the current administration constructs, many of which were designed by previous administrations and agreed to in the context of regional commercial integration. Although the “opposition” today dresses up as environmentalist and antimilitarist, nobody believes them, we know very well that its color is that of money.
But the most serious problem is not that the right utilizes these demands, but that the current administration resumes those strategies. This certainly does not mean that nothing has changed; but inn terms of militarization, among others, there is not only continuity, but in addition, the strategy is deepened by handing over the construction and administration of different megaprojects to the military, or exalting military values such as the Army’s supposed lack of corruptibility.
In Wikileaks cable 06MEXICO595, it was revealed that since 2006 -before Calderon”s war-, the now President López Obrador had already announced to the Unitedb States government that he would resort to the military for security strategy in Mexico, giving them “more power and authority” in anti-drug operations, making constitutional amendments.
The crisis of violence that Mexico experiences is in part a result of the neoliberal model that, among mother things, has accompanied the militarization of security and of societies. That’s why the battle over de-militarization is fundamental if it is truly against that model and if it desires to trace a different route.
Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada, Sunday, September 11, 2022, https://www.jornada.com.mx/2022/09/11/opinion/012apol and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
US and the geopolitics of oil II
By: Carlos Fazio | Part 2 of 2
With arrogance and disdain, the Biden administration’s diplomacy of force circulates in several lanes. It’s the advantage of being an empire. After unleashing a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine to appropriate the hydrocarbon market in Europe and subordinate Germany more, it has just crossed a red line with China with the Pearl Harbor or Gulf of Tonkin-style provocation starring Nancy Pelosi with her visit to Taiwan. In an effort to preserve declining imperial hegemony in the world, the “deep state” that controls the strings of the White House has decided to intensify hostilities against the two Eurasian nuclear ballistic powers endowed with raw materials and advanced technology, which could generate a large-scale conflict.
Combining with the deliberate quasi paralysis of the world economy by the covid regimes, the war of “sanctions” of the US and NATO against Russia brought the European energy market to an alarm phase and fueled a recession and inflation in the euro zone of large proportions that could intensify next winter. The b ig winner of the European energy debacle was the United States, which for the first time in history became the world’s leading exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG), surpassing that carried by Russian pipelines. In April 2022, France,Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Poland accounted for 54.1 percent of total GLN exports. In addition to the high price of gas (six or seven time higher than the normal figure and needed to heat their homes and supply energy to companies), these five European countries must pay 40 percent more for LNG for processing and transport.
In the long term, the Biden administration’s goal is to destroy the central role of Russia in the world energy economy. In 2021, Rusia was the world’s second largest oil producer (536 million tons), behind the United States (711 million) and ahead of Saudi Arabia (515 million), which in mass means, respectively, 13, 17 and 12 percent of world production. The imposition of “secondary sanctions” that would punish foreign buyers who don’t comply with US restrictions, could block the possibility of doing business with US corporations in China, India, Turkey and other countries that buy Russian hydrocarbons.
In the short term, the main loser from coercive US and NATO sanctions to bring about regime change in the Kremlin and decouple Russia from the world economy is Germany. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and he collapse of the USSR, Germany had been constructing a block of interdependent economies that group together, on its western flank, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Holland, and on the eastern flank, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia, with different roles, with Germany as the hegemonic center. That converts Germany into the world’s third economic power, behind the US and China, a country that became Germany’s main trading partner.At the same time, Teutonic industrial circles had created synergies between China, Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, with the goal of integrating states that would bring together logistical, productive and energy-exporting zones, and importers of industrial goods from China and Germany. Russia, with its Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, served as the indispensable connector between China and Germany. In addition, Russia supplied the “German bloc” with cereals, fertilizers, nickel, uranium and “critical” metals like titanium, scandium and palladium. Subordination to the US obliged Germany to weaken its ties with China and to close its channels of communication with Russia, which will reduce its sub-imperial role in Europe.
Faced with the scarcity of hydrocarbons derived from the policy of global chaos promoted by the US, which led France, Germany, Italy and Austria to return to the use of coal, exhibiting the rhetorical scam about the “green transition.” Washington and Brussels had to resort to two producer countries that are members of the “axis of evil” in order to rescue the “civilized world:” Iran and Venezuela, which have managed to survive years of illegal coercive measures.
Within the framework of the US geopolitics of oil. the Venezuelan case is paradigmatic. Venezuela, with the world’s largest proven hydrocarbon reserves, managed to defeat a State coup by the Pentagon and the CIA in 2002 and successive forms of unconventional warfare (of fourth generation, hybrid, cognitive, cybernetic, soft coup, economic-financial, cultural and media warfare), including assassination attempts against President Maduro, the confiscation of PDVSA (the state oil company) abroad and the seizure of the physical assets of CITGO, its subsidiary.
As former National Security Adviser John Bolton and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper just cynically admitted, both participated in the Trump plans to overthrow Maduro and even assassinate him. In his book, A Sacred Oath, Esper explains: “Operation Sentinel to intercept Iranian and Venezuelan ships on the high seas was part of the Pentagon’s oil and naval blockade against both countries to prevent trade relations and the exchange of oil technology between the two nations. With the intention of destroying the Venezuelan energy structure and infrastructure, Esper reveals that during a meeting with the puppet president Juan Guaidó in Washington, in February 2020, a direct US military invasion was contemplated; the theft of Venezuelan oil in international waters; the naval blockade of Cuba and Venezuela although it was an “act of war” under international law, and an aerial or amphibious military attack with US special forces on the strategic José A. Anzoástegui Petroleum and Petrochemical Industrial Complex, in eastern Venezuela. He also exhibits the participation of the former National Security Adviser, Mauricio Claver-Carone (now head of the IDB), in the failed Operation Gideon, on May 3, 2020, with mercenaries and former US marines.
As Donald Trump said on Friday, August 5, to troll Biden, now “we are a nation that begs for oil from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and many others.”
Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada, Monday, August 8, 2022, https://www.jornada.com.mx/2022/08/08/opinion/019a2pol and Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Southeast Mexico for sale under US Embassy promotion
By: Renata Bessi
In the last six months an agenda of work and meetings between the seven governors of south-southeast Mexico, federal government agencies, representatives of the governments of the United States and Canada, as well as companies from these countries, has been set up with the aim of promoting “conservation and sustainable development” in the region that will be enhanced “through private investment,” as the US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, reported in his social networks.
In the context of the fifth meeting, headed by Salazar, held in Mexico City in mid-May, the diplomat announced that “the government of Mexico has a plan, a very
good security agenda for the Isthmus [of Tehuantepec],” a place where the construction of the Interoceanic Corridor and 10 industrial parks is planned.
Showing enthusiasm for the Mexican government’s plans, Salazar maintained, in a press conference held after the meeting with the governors, that it is there, on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, that the key to solving the migratory flow to the United States and drug trafficking lies. “It is easier to monitor the 180 miles that make up the Isthmus of Tehuantepec than the 2,000 miles of desert on Mexico’s northern border (..),” said the diplomat.
The region is a “priority” for the United States and the idea is that the megaprojects function as retaining walls. “Our focus has been the Transoceanic [Corridor],” he explained.
He announced an increase in U.S. government investment in the region, whose initiative was named PromoSur – From the people of the United States for conservation and sustainable development in southern Mexico.
Intervention in the territories
A promotional video for the program, posted on the U.S. embassy’s social networks, states that the U.S. government, through the efforts of USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development], will increase its international assistance to southeastern Mexico.
“Promosur is the name we have given to our increased investment in southeastern Mexico. With PromoSur, the U.S. government will work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by supporting nature-based solutions (…). It will also seek to leverage investments in emerging markets (…),” the video announces.
The Deputy Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mileydi Guilarte, present at the meeting with the governors of the Southeast, announced an investment of US$30 million earmarked for the region, beginning in late summer 2022. It will also include agreements between governments and private industry in the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatan.
The founder and coordinator of the Latin American Observatory of Geopolitics, Ana Esther Ceceña, warns about the historical role played by USAID in Latin America. “The idea of international development aid by the United States is the mode of intervention into the territories and social dynamics of the countries,” she points out.
To illustrate this, the expert in Latin American geopolitics recalls that throughout the 20th century all military dictatorships in Latin America were preceded by moments of intense USAID activity and budgetary support for the countries. “In Brazil, two years before the military coup took place (1964), a barbaric amount of resources were received from USAID, which provided the material conditions for the coup to take place,” she explains.
The researcher also underscores with concern the “proactive” role played by the US ambassador in the promotion of the “development” of the Mexican southeast, taking on a role as “quasi -governor of the southeast zone.”
“Now it is the U.S. ambassador who delivers the news before even the Mexican government. Now we are in the category of ‘Banana Republic,’ as has happened in other Latin American countries throughout the 20th century, when in order to know what policy a country was going to have, you would have to ask the U.S. embassy,” said the researcher.
Promoting the South
In addition to the direct investments already announced by the U.S. government, it is on PromoSur’s agenda to promote southeastern Mexico so that private companies can invest in the region.
Salazar, in his press conference, announced that in this last meeting with the governors there were companies such as Amazon, AT&T, Cisco, Google, Mercado Libre, Microsoft, Uber, Ibiza and Visa. “All committed to helping,” he said.
The governor of Oaxaca, Alejandro Murat, who was at the meeting, said that “we were able to have a broader conversation to be able to provide feedback to different companies and to be able to build an agenda for the Summit of the Americas and later a meeting with CEOs of companies in Washington, surely, in the coming months.”
According to the governor, an agenda is being built that seeks to land concrete investments. “I can say that important investments are coming in the Interoceanic Corridor, we already have more than 200 million dollars firm (…). The Corridor is destined to be Mexico’s great engine of growth.”
Originally Published in Spanish by avispa, Thursday, June 2, 2022, https://avispa.org/sureste-de-mexico-a-la-venta-bajo-promocion-de-la-embajada-de-los-eeuu/ with Translation by Schools for Chiapas and Re-Published by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 