Chiapas Support Committee
Home of the Compañero Manuel blog on zapatistas & mexico
Paramilitaries ambush march in Tila, Chiapas; at least two dead
Arch at the entrance to the Tila ejido in Chiapas, Mexico.
By: Hermann Bellinghausen and Elio Henríquez
Violence broke out this Friday in the Chol municipality of Tila, in the northern zone of Chiapas, with at least two dead (other sources talk about three) and an undetermined number of injured. The events were unleashed when an apparently large march was ambushed. In the march were ejido owners from the municipal seat of Tila and sympathizers of neighboring populations that sought to open the fence that followers of the City Council, opposed to the autonomy of the urban and rural Tila ejido, established in mid-August.
Through several blockades on the access road, workers and sympathizers of the City Council and of the Paz y Justicia [1] group prevented the ejido owners from leaving. The first, located at the exit to El Limar, and the last at the first entrance to the urban area. They also requested the presence of the National Guard to evict the ejido owners and re-establish the City Council in the old seat, which has been in El Limar since 2015. In the last two weeks, shootings from these blockades were recurrent to intimidate the ejido owners.
The ejido owners’ march was attacked this morning after liberating the blockade at the site of the hospital on the exit for El Limar and a second blockade at the Tila entrance. According to sources from the general assembly of ejido owners, before the third entrance the march was attacked with shots from a curve by what turned out to be a small group of City Council supporters. The march unexpectedly responded to the shots, a point on which the assembly has not commented. According to the version of those who sympathize with the City Council, the march was what initiated the aggression.
However, the first to fall was one of the marchers. It was his death that inflamed the ejido owners’ march and sparked a confrontation in which the initial aggressors got the worst of it. At the close, the situation is tense.
The events are the new outcome of a legitimacy problem in the Tila ejido, which also served as the seat of the constitutional city hall until the ejido assembly won recognition from the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) about ownership of the lands in 2015, including the political seat. That has caused various differences among ejido owners of the vast ejido and those who have moved into the urban area but don’t own lands or plots.
Problems of legitimacy in the ejido
The city council, headed for the third time by Limberg Gregorio Gutiérrez, of the PVEM (and his wife held the mayor’s office for another period), is historically supported through the strength of the group formerly known as Paz y Justicia. Francisco Arturo Sánchez, nephew and son of the founders of Paz y Justicia, heads the opposition to the ejido.
Another factor that made the problem tenser was the attempt, on the municipal government’s part, to carry out public works inside the ejido without its authorization.
In a prudent communiqué, the official City Council of Tila reproached “confrontation as a way to resolve differences or demand a solution to social problems,” and called to the groups involved for “prudence in the events that occurred in recent hours.” It referred to the “longstanding agrarian dispute whose solution depends solely on the SCJN,” and committed to respecting indigenous rights and realizing “a policy of conciliation and zero provocation.”
Today, residents of Tila told the La Jornada correspondent: “A group of ejido owners went to remove the blockade and were received with bullets. We have one compañero dead and several injured. The compañero ejido owners defended themselves. That’s what the city council and that damn family of paramilitaries provoke.”
State government sources reported three deaths, although they did not provide names, as well as six injured from bullets who are being cared for in Yajalón and Palenque hospitals and several beaten.
The State’s Attorney General reported that according to the investigation folder, “the events were recorded at approximately 12 noon this Friday at the Tila entrance arch, where residents and autonomous ejido owners attacked each other.” He added that: “a special group from this Prosecutor’s office, made up of police, experts and specialized employees from the Ministerio Pública (district attorney), was sent to the place for the purpose of initiating the investigative work, whose results will be announced in the next few hours.”
The Vicarage for Justice and Peace of the Diocese of San Cristóbal said that: “we are aware that almost three weeks ago a group of Tila ejido residents carried out blockades at the main entrance and at other stretches near the town. We know that there was the intention of a dialogue and negotiation process to seek a solution to the conflict, but apparently the situation got out of control and therefore it is suggested investigating the true causes of the events.”
[1] For more about the Paz y Justicia paramilitary group see: https://chiapas-support.org/2020/09/12/vandalism-and-the-return-of-paz-y-justicia-in-the-tila-ejido-in-chiapas/
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Saturday, September 12, 2020
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/09/12/politica/010n1pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Vandalism and the return of Paz y Justicia in the Tila ejido, Chiapas
Members of the National Indigenous Congress (Congreso Nacional Indígena, CNI) in Tila.
By: Hermann Bellinghausen
The Tila ejido, in the northern zone of Chiapas, denounced acts that have altered the fragile stability of its urban core and mark the return of the Paz y Justicia [1] organization (that never really went away), for “acts of vandalism of disgruntled neighbors, not in their entirety,” this Tuesday, August 25. “Between six and seven am they started to tear down the security gates that the general assembly of ejido owners agreed to construct for the population’s security and as a Covid-19 health filter.”
The ejido representation argues being in compliance with the agrarian legislation in effect, and points out as the ones responsible the former municipal president Arturo Sánchez Sánchez and his son Francisco Arturo Sánchez Martínez, “paramilitary intellectual leaders in northern Chiapas,” linked to “the killings in the low zone between 1997 and 1998.” They are the brother and nephew respectively of Samuel Sánchez Sánchez, currently a prisoner in el Amate.
The fight, which isn’t new, between two groups of residents in the municipal seat, is intertwined with conflicting political positions dating back Ernesto Zedillo’s counterinsurgency war in the Chol region, when the Army and the PRI paramilitary group Development, Peace and Justice (Desarrollo Paz y Justicia) generated an armed violence against the resistance of the Zapatista peoples and their allies that cost hundreds of deaths and displaced families, rapes and disappearances stil unresolved today.
By legal means, in recent years the original ejido owners of Tila recuperated their territorial rights, which had been eroded and even alienated by the “avecindados,” in other words residents who are not from the ejido or do not belong to the ejido assembly, but that given the urban condition of the ejido installed themselves over time, coming to control the municipal government and an important part of central Tila, a town with a lot of commerce. This has occurred without legal possession, because the town’s village is settled on ejido lands, the patrimony of 836 ejido owners.
At the end of the last century, Paz y Justicia took over the entire northern zone and with the government’s support controlled Tumbalá, Sabanilla, Salto de Agua and Tila municipalities. When their principal ringleaders fell out of favor and paid with prison for various crimes (but not for the murders that they committed directly or indirectly) the region was pacified to a certain point. Then the ejido legally recuperated its ejido rights and installed a certain autonomy inspired in Zapatismo.
The ejido owners have denounced aggressions and falsifications of the ejido register in order to impose authorities, and blame Miguel Vázquez Gutiérrez and Luciano Pérez López, members of an “alleged legal commission,” who “violate the agreements of the highest authority” and participate in “the groups that destroyed the gate.”
The ejido authority maintains that the aggressors rely on “gang members and drug addicts previously hired.” We would be talking about “young people brought in cars who are unaware of the ejido’s legalization.” They warn about “threats of kidnappings by these armed rioters.”
Civil organizations in the Tzeltal-Chol region have documented that those who “carry out damage and harm” against the ejido are advised and financed by the current municipal president Limbert Gutiérrez Gómez, of the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico, and the “regional delegate” of Paz y Justicia, and civil servant, Óscar Sánchez Alpuche.
[1] Paz y Justicia is the name of a notorious paramilitary group in the northern part of Chiapas. In an effort to cleanse its bloody reputation, it later took the name of Desarrollo Paz y Justicia (Development Peace and Justice).
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Thursday, August 27, 2020
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/08/27/politica/015n1pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Stop the war against the EZLN
Corn comes in all colors, like everyone.
By Gilberto López y Rivas
One of the characteristics of the current government of the 4T is to neither listen to, much less attend to the serious allegations related to the reactivation of paramilitary groups in Chiapas, like those that belong to the Regional Organization of Ocosingo Coffee Growers (Orcao), who, on August 22nd looted and burned the facilities of the New Dawn of the Rainbow Commercial Center in the autonomous municipality of Lucio Cabañas (Ocosingo). In addition to this provocation, several groups, also identified as paramilitary since the 90’s, like Paz y Justicia [Peace and Justice] and Chinchulines, that once again have carried out all kinds of aggression in various regions of Chiapas, and in particular, in the municipalities of Tila and Aldama. In recent weeks, through networks and various local and national media, statements of support for the EZLN have been circulated, one of which, Stop the War against the Zapatistas, has been signed by hundreds of organizations, academics, artists, and solidarity networks from 22 countries. (https://alto-a-la-guerra-contra -lxs-zapatistas.webnode.mx/). [1]
The attack of August 22nd against the Zapatista support bases forms part of a continuous strategy of counterinsurgency carried out by previous governments against the Zapatista Mayas, one that the Miguel Augustín Pro Juárez Community Action Group and Human Rights Center, two decades ago qualified as a “wholesale war of attrition,” conceived in the U.S. counterinsurgency manuals as a succession of small operations that suffocate the enemy in political, economic and military spheres, avoiding to the extent possible, spectacular actions that would draw the attention of the press and international public opinion. (Now they bet on exhaustion. Chiapas: Psychological foundations of a contemporary war, 2002.) In this type of war, the role of paramilitary groups is fundamental.
According to one of the Sedena manuals of irregular warfare, this not only has to do with taking water from the fish (support bases of the insurgency), but also to introduce more aggressive fish to the water, that is, those paramilitary groups with military organization, equipment and training, to which the State delegates the fulfillment of missions that the armed forces cannot openly carry out without implying a recognition of their existence as part of the monopoly of state violence. Paramilitary groups are illegal and unpunishable because it is convenient for the interests of the State. That which is paramilitary consists, then, of the illegal and unpunishable exercise of State violence, and the covering up of the origins of this violence. As in previous governments, which were openly neoliberal and counter-insurgent, the Fourth Transformation continues saturating the so-called “theater of war.” Zósimo Camacho maintains that today the greatest number of active military personnel can be found in Chiapas, which are, to use a metaphor, the anvil that maintains the security fence around the zone of conflict, with its barracks, garrisons, convoys, intelligence agents, aerial and terrestrial surveillance, etc. while the paramilitary groups, continuing the metaphor, are the hammer that strikes the people with actions like those of August 22nd, trying to introduce terror, creating conditions of expulsion and displacement of indigenous communities, joining up with civil authorities, both military and police, to pinpoint the internal enemy that refuses to follow the logic of capital, with its little mirrors of progress, development and precarious employment.
Jointly with the actions of the paramilitary groups, the campaign on social networks and communication media has intensified against the Zapatista Mayas, with grotesque infusions, like that the territory of the EZLN is controlled by a drug trafficking cartel, that supplies high-powered weapons to the insurgent group, the same that are rigorously analyzed with information and refuted in depth by Luis Hernández Navarro in an interview that Ernesto Ledesma Arronte carried out on his program RompeVientoTv (https://wwwyoutube.com/ watch?v=gdDNI9m_8).
Unfortunately, and in unison with this campaign, a very worrisome statement from the head of the federal executive branch, took place in his morning conference on August 28th, in which he tried to stigmatize and criminalize the work of advocates and defenders of human rights, journalists, academics and representatives of the indigenous communities in opposition to the so-called Maya Train, one of the signature megaprojects of the developmentalist territorial reorganization, which the Zapatista Mayas also confront. With this declaration, the government of the Fourth Transformation jumped aboard the old counterinsurgency train of its predecessors.
This piece was originally published in Spanish in La Jornada on September 4, 2020. https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/09/04/opinion/017a2pol This English interpretation has been re-published by Schools for Chiapas. Re-Published with permission by the Chiapas Support Committee.
[1] The Chiapas Support Committee is collecting signatures on a letter to the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco, as well as the Mexican Embassy in Washington DC, the presidency of Mexico and the governor of Chiapas, demanding a stop to the paramilitary violence. We urge our readers to sign the letter, which can be read here. You can send your approval to sign the letter to enapoyo1994@yahoo.com.
Two campesinos with bullet wounds in the town of Aldama, Chiapas
Paramilitary-style group shoots at Aldama communities from Chenalhó
The shooting continues and the National Guard doesn’t intervene [1]
By: Hermann Bellinghausen
After several days of incessant shooting with high-caliber weapons from different points located in the municipality of Chenalhó, Chiapas, according to reports received by La Jornada, two indigenous men in San Pedro Cotzilnam, Aldama municipality, were wounded in the back yesterday (Friday) morning while working in their parcels. The two men are Mario and Juan Pérez Gutiérrez, 22 and 27 respectively. The shooting came from T’elemax in Santa Martha, while groups of armed men “went down to the river.”
Hostilities of the civilian armed groups in Santa Martha started early against Tabak, Cotzilnam and Coco’ communities. A group of the attackers was sighted when it was crossing the river that separates Chenalhó from the lands in dispute between the two Tzotzil municipalities in the Highlands (Los Altos).
Just a day earlier, those displaced from Aldama detected “a lot of armed men dressed in black, shouting” at the Tontik Curve. Meanwhile, more armed people arrived and fired countless shots at the aforementioned communities.
The shooting coming from Chenalhó territory has been almost continuous for weeks. Just from Tuesday to yesterday armed attacks had been registered from Tijera Caridad, Vale’tik and Tontik Saclum (all near Santa Marta, Chenalhó) against the towns of Stzelejpotobtik, Yeton, Tabak, Coco’ and Cotzilnam, in Aldama, where dozens of families have been victims of forced displacement for months.
Meanwhile, in Mexico City, a dissident group of Las Abejas and an Undersecretary of the Interior, Alejandro Encinas, signed a “friendly agreement” to allegedly pay off the Mexican State’s material and moral debt for the Acteal Massacre perpetrated by Chenalhó paramilitaries in 1997. Simultaneously, since reality doesn’t know about speeches, “many armed men dressed in black” gathered on Thursday at Tontik Curve to immediately shoot at the aforementioned towns in Aldama.
As has been denounced for years, as of this date the civilian groups in Chenalhó have not been disarmed, and their aggressiveness increased when they acted against the state police in the communities of Tabak and in Santa Martha itself. The inaction of the National Guard deployed in the area stands out. The federal and state governments insist on talking about hostility between both municipalities, although the fact is that the shooting comes from only one side. Besides, the only story that the authorities seem to hear is that of the Chenalhó municipal government and the armed groups that, unsustainably, present themselves as “victims.”
Finally, after noon yesterday, the unilateral fire from Chenalhó, coming from Tijera Caridad was aimed at Ch’ayomte’ community (Aldama).
Aldama municipal authorities indicated that despite agreements signed with the three levels of government, the armed groups in Chenalhó continue attacking their communities. According to the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba): “the government continues giving contradictory messages and messages of impunity that encourage violence in the Highlands (Los Altos).”
[1] The Chiapas Support Committee is collecting signatures on a letter to the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco, demanding a stop to the paramilitary violence. The letter will also be sent to the Mexican Embassy in Washington DC, the presidency of Mexico and the governor of Chiapas. We urge our readers to sign the letter, which can be read here. You can send your approval to sign the letter to enapoyo1994@yahoo.com.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Saturday, September 5, 2020
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/09/05/politica/012n1pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Stop the paramilitary violence in Chiapas!
Recent events in Chiapas require an international solidarity response. Armed attacks are being directed at unarmed forcibly displaced persons in the Highlands (los Altos) of Chiapas. Those doing the shooting are a group of paramilitaries in Chenalhó municipality that also patrol and block access to crops and fields. The “targets” of the shooting and roadblocks are a mix of Civil Society Las Abejas members, civilian Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas that are members of various political parties. The attacks against Aldama municipality are especially frequent and dangerous. The paramilitaries use a dispute over a piece of land that was officially granted to Aldama as their excuse for the armed attacks. These attacks and patrols have resulted in deaths, injuries and hunger in Aldama.
The Chiapas Support Committee is urging our friends and supporters to join us in signing the letter below, which will be delivered to the Mexican consulate in San Francisco and mailed to the Mexican Embassy in Washington DC. We will also email it to the president of Mexico and the governor of Chiapas.
Please read the letter below and send an email to the Chiapas Support Committee’s email: enapoyo1994@yahoo.com saying that you agree to sign on by close of business (5pm) on Friday, September 11, 2020. Thank you!
Stop the war against the Zapatista peoples!
Dear Consul General Gómez Arnau,
We write to express our alarm over the growing violence in the Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico; specifically, in the municipalities of Aldama, Chenalhó and Chalchihuitán, where paramilitaries have violently attacked and forcibly displaced thousands of indigenous people from their homes, fields and communities. We are demanding that the Mexican government stop the paramilitary violence, stop any support being given to the paramilitaries and dismantle them.
According to the internationally respected Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), paramilitary-style civilian armed groups in Chenalhó municipality perpetrate the violence, shooting indiscriminately into the civilian communities where displaced persons are sheltered, often causing them to flee for safety in the mountains, thus leaving them outdoors without shelter and food. In Aldama, for example, bullets fired from Chenalhó injured13-year-old María Luciana Lunes Pérez in the face and shoulder while she was working on her loom inside her home in Koko’, Aldama.
These paramilitary groups also patrol roads and block access to fields so that those displaced cannot grow or harvest their food, creating hunger and the threat of famine in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic, as well as preventing the harvesting and sale of cash crops that provide the only income these subsistence farmers have. Meanwhile, deaths and injuries are claimed on both sides.
A troubling photo apparently taken from a video in the local press shows heavily armed men in Chenalhó, dressed in camouflage uniforms, wearing ski masks and sporting high-powered rifles. The video’s release, in which the paramilitaries introduce themselves to society, would seem to assert: “We have impunity!” Further evidence of impunity appeared on social media with the news that 80 residents of Santa Martha (Chenalhó) took weapons and munitions away from a detachment of police in that town and continued to retain the weapons.
Another report from those displaced in Aldama indicated that there have been 30 armed attacks in three days against the people of Aldama, with the gunfire coming from Chenalhó. This shocked readers in Mexico and abroad. These egregious human rights violations must be stopped now to avoid further loss of life and serious bodily injury. Human rights defenders and those displaced are seeking such intervention.
This is a crisis situation that requires the Mexican government’s immediate intervention to dismantle these paramilitaries and repair the damage done to all victims. Mexico’s federal and state governments failed to do this before and after the December 22, 1997 Acteal Massacre in which paramilitaries attacked and murdered 45 women, men and children. Paramilitary violence forcibly displaced thousands in the months before that massacre, as is happening now. Additionally, there is evidence that the current paramilitary group is related to the one involved in that massacre.
The growing paramilitary attacks on Aldama feel eerily reminiscent of the conditions that preceded the Acteal Massacre. And the present reminds us all too painfully of the past. The Mexican government can prevent a greater calamity from taking place by stopping and dismantling the paramilitary violence now.
We, therefore, urge Mexico’s federal and state governments to stop the paramilitary attacks, dismantle the paramilitary group(s) in Chenalhó and begin repairing the damage done to all the victims.
Sincerely,
[We’ll add the signatures as they come in and then send to the Consulate]
CNI-CIG Condemns aggression against Zapatista community and calls for solidarity
To the people of Mexico and the world.
The Indigenous Government Council-National Indigenous Congress condemns the cowardly attack by members of the paramilitary group called the Regional Organization of Ocosingo Coffee Growers (ORCAO), who last Saturday, August 22, around 11:00 a.m., robbed and burned facilities of the New Dawn of the Rainbow Commercial Center, which is located at the site known as the Cuxuljá crossroads, in Lucio Cabañas Autonomous Municipality, within the official municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas.
The paramilitary organization ORCAO has maintained constant pressure and violence on Zapatista communities for years, as is the case with the Autonomous Municipality of Moisés Gandhi, to prevent autonomous organization, to privatize the lands that have required the struggle and organization of the original Zapatista support bases, to intimidate and threaten the comrades who from below continue betting on hope, such as the various aggressions against comrades of the National Indigenous Congress, who were raped and kidnapped by ORCAO paramilitaries, the Chinchulines and people from the MORENA party.
We denounce the war that, from above, is being deployed against the organization of the Zapatista communities, at the same time that the bad governments seek to impose from above, throughout the country, megaprojects of death which we oppose and will oppose, because we are not willing to give up our territories and allow the destruction promised by the powerful.
We hold responsible for these events the paramilitary organization ORCAO, the MORENA party and the state and federal governments, as they have not stopped sowing violence in the region with the aim of striking not only at our sister and brother EZLN support bases in the communities, but at all the peoples who dream of the struggle for life, of healing our Mother Earth and not letting it be privatized, that the capitalist bosses and bad governments never return to the Zapatista autonomous territories, and that this light continues to flourish in the territories of the original peoples of the CNI-CIG and all of humanity.
We call on our comrades in support networks and networks of resistance and rebellion to speak out and mobilize against the war of extermination, which is dangerously intensifying against our sisters and brothers of the Zapatista communities, who teach us to never stop sowing rebellion and hope.
Sincerely,
For the complete restoration of our communities,
Never Again A Mexico Without Us
National Indigenous Congress – Indigenous Council of Government
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Originally Published in Spanish by the Congreso Nacional Indígena
Monday, August 24, 2020
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
High-powered weapons and explosives in the attacks on Tzotziles in Aldama
This photo was taken from a video released to the public in which the Chenalhó paramilitaries introduced themselves.
By: Hermann Bellinghausen
Armed attacks continue against various Tzotzil communities in Aldama municipality, in the Highlands of Chiapas, the same attacks that, being chronic, have sharpened since Friday. Civilian armed groups in Santa Martha, Chenalhó perpetrate the attacks. La Jornada receives constant reports from Aldama about the attacks, both about the origin of the shots and about the “target” populations.
An old boundary conflict over 60-hectares (roughly 148 acres) between Aldama and Chenalhó has derived into a situation where high-powered weapons are fired and explosives are thrown only from one side. However, the official versions suggest that there is a “confrontation between two gangs,” and like the local media, they only give credit to information the Chenalhó municipal government and the Santa Martha groups give, who present themselves as victims of Aldama. This Wednesday, the paramilitary group circulated an unusual video, introducing itself to society.
Nevertheless, according to all the on-site reports, there is a vast operation of harassment, siege and attack against Aldama communities, from which there is no evidence of shooting.
On Tuesday, they reported a death in the center of Santa Martha, whose residents blamed Aldama residents. Allegedly, the federal government intervened to “calm spirits,” according to what Misael Rojas expressed on social networks. Rojas is the spokesperson of the undersecretary for Human Rights, Migration and Population in the Secretariat of Governance, Alejandro Encinas, and accepted the version about a “confrontation.”
Given the real circumstances, considers Pedro Faro, director of the Frayba and an attentive observer of the conflict, it’s very improbable that the indigenous people in Aldama would be able to attack and allegedly kill a person in the center of Santa Martha, where other very disturbing things happen.
This morning, it was distributed in social networks that a group of civilians disarmed the detachment of state police in said community: “a group of 80 residents took away their weapons and munitions. There were a total of 20 weapons, between 5.56 mm long and 9 mm short arms. As of now, the comuneros of the Santa Martha sector maintain the weapons in their possession.”
Meanwhile, at 9 pm on the 18th, the state preventive police withdrew from the community of Tabac (Aldama) due to the constant attacks that the community receives, and the shooting continued at the community, according to what the displaced reported at midnight on the 19th, as well as about the concentration of armed civilians in Santa Martha, once the state police and National Guard withdrew.
According to the local media El Imparcial, confrontation would have been unleashed: “the attacks between both gangs began at midnight this Tuesday, when groups from Aldama attacked residents of Chenalhó, which generated a reaction.” That version of the facts would be from the mayor of Chenalhó, Abraham Cruz Gómez, who demands: “the disarming of Aldama.” Everything indicates that we are faced with a new case where “the ducks shoot at the shotguns.” In another video, the mayor of Aldama, Adolfo Victorio Gómez, desperately demands the presence “of the three levels of Government.”
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Thursday, August 20, 2020
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/08/20/politica/015n3pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas burns
Bodegas on fire at the Cuxuljá crossroads.
By: Luis Hernández Navarro
Chiapas burns. The masters of the paramilitaries let go of the reins and, emboldened, they do their thing. They attack indigenous rebel communities with firearms, are given the luxury, as in Santa Martha, of showing themselves with arms and uniforms and disarming state preventive police agents.
Just this August 22, a group of transporters belonging to the a la Regional Organization of Ocosingo Coffee Growers [1] (Orcao, its Spanish acronym) living in the municipality of Oxchuc, headed by Tomás Santiz Gómez, shot, looted and burned two coffee warehouses belonging to Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) [2] support bases, in Cuxuljá community, Moisés Gandhi autonomous rebel municipality (Ocosingo, in official nomenclature).
Cuxuljá is a village at the foot of the highway that that connects San Cristóbal and Ocosingo. Eight autonomous Zapatista municipalities surround it and it’s the crossroads for different communities. The Army occupied it until 2001. The soldiers withdrew from that position in order to comply with the three signals that the EZLN demanded from the government of Vicente Fox to re-establish the dialogue.
The withdrawal of the troops did not “pacify” the zone. As soon as the dialogue failed, due to the approval of the constitutional reform on indigenous rights and culture that did not fulfill the San Andrés Accords, aggressions of the Orcao paramilitary group began against the rebel bases in that community. Its objective was to occupy the territory the troops vacated left.
The Orcao wasn’t always like that. For some years it had a close relationship with Zapatismo. However, it broke this tie between 1997 and 1999, and its leadership began to dispute the rebel social base, with economic support and positions in the government for its leaders. With the arrival of the state government of Pablo Salazar (2000-06), the conflict escalated. In 2002, the coffee growers aggressions against as Zapatista bases intensified dramatically, to the point of destroying an insurgent mural. It became a paramilitary force.
The Orcao formed in 1988, with 12 communities in Sibacjá, in the municipality of Ocosingo. Soon after, other towns joined until adding up to almost 90. It’s original demands consisted of both the search for better prices for coffee (in 1989 they fell drastically) and a solution to the agrarian backlog. Influenced by progressive pastoral work, in 1992, in the context of the commemoration of 500 years of indigenous, black and popular resistance, it vindicated indigenous self-determination, opposed the reform to Constitutional Article 27 and demanded liberty, justice and democracy (https://bit.ly/3goUvWS).
However, it suffered an unstoppable decomposition. It was practically expelled from Unorca in 2015. Internally divided, two groups fought over its leadership, the José Pérez group, linked to the Greens and to the control of control of passenger transport, and the Juan Vázquez group, the commissioner for reconciliation in the Juan Sabines government, more oriented to the productive. Allied with the rotating governments, its leaders have enjoyed, for their personal benefit, positions in public administration. Many of them were part of the PRD, the PVEM and now of Morena.
There is a long history of Orcao attacks against Cuxuljá. As a result of the armed uprising, the EZLN support bases (a collective group of 539 campesinos) were benefitted with 1,433 hectares expropriated from finqueros (estate owners). They have a “delivery-receipt of land certificate” from the Agrarian Reform Ministry.
The Zapatistas work the land collectively and refuse to parcel it out individually. They say that doing so would be like returning to 1994. However, a small group from the Orcao who abandoned the community and sold their houses, originally supported by the Army and police, has insisted for 19 years on subdividing the property, obtaining certificates and selling individually what is the product of a common struggle.
Orcao’s attacks against the EZLN’s support bases have been a constant. They are not limited to Cuxuljá, but rather encompass several municipalities. The last one took place last February 23 in Chilón, when Orcao, los Chinchulines and members of Morena violated and kidnapped community representatives, in retaliation for participating in the Days in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth We Are All Samir (https://bit.ly/3leg3cs).
These aggressions have been carried out regularly, within the framework of government offensives to try to weaken Zapatismo and contain its advance. They are not the product of inter-community fights, but rather the result of a strategy of the State fabricating internal conflicts. The governments in turn (even the current one) support the Orcao with economic resources, productive projects (many of them cattle projects), political cover and police impunity, to try to erode and wear down the EZLN.
Just a year ago, the rebels announced the creation of seven new Caracoles in addition to the five existing ones, giving them a total of 43 self-government bodies, unrelated to official government bodies. Additionally, they have announced their rejection of the Tren Maya and the Interoceanic Corridor. The new battle of Cuxuljá and the non-stop war of the Chenalhó paramilitaries are part of a containment strategy against that advance of Zapatismo; a strategy that doesn’t seem to worry about setting the state on fire.
[1] Organización Regional de Cafeticultores de Ocosingo (Orcao)
[2] Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/08/25/opinion/017a1pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Invitation to CompArte 2020 for the 26th
[La versión en español sigue a la en inglés]
An invitation to CompArte 2020 para el 26 | ComradesShareArt 2020 for the 26th
Shelter in Art, Solidarity & Resistance | Quédate en el arte, la solidaridad y la resistencia
Dear Compas,
We are inviting you to participate in this year’s CompArte / ComradesShareArt: A Zapatista Art Gathering by sharing your art with compas and comrades around the world. CompArte 2020 will be celebrating the 26th year of the Zapatista’s uprising for justice and autonomy.
Every year since the Zapatistas launched the first CompArte in 2016, the Chiapas Support Committee has organized a parallel CompArte gathering in Oakland. We have organized our CompArte as a space to gather in community and celebrate the art and music, the poetry and movements of justice in solidarity with the Zapatistas and indigenous justice struggles.
Unlike previous years, we will not be able to gather physically but that won’t stop us. We will connect across the distances through a virtual bridge. This year’s CompArte 2020 will be an online Zapatista Art gathering!
Please join us: Our first of three CompArte 2020 gatherings is on August 26, 2020, 6:30-8:00pm PST: Register here.
Towards a horizon of art, justice and solidarities
The virtual CompArte 2020 will have two components:
1. We will hold three monthly gatherings via zoom, August 26, September 26 and October 26 (6:30-8:00pm PST every time), where we will come together to collectively imagine, co-create and share art; and
2. We will have an Instagram account where we will share art, poetry, music and visions with compas/comrades around the world: CompArte Zapatista instagram
We will invite you to share an art piece through our CompArte Zapatista instagram. You can share a poem, a screenprint, a song, a painting, a performance, a photograph, anything to share and accompany each other in the struggles ahead.
We invite you to focus on imagining a future free of capitalism and all of its ills, and envisioning a more just world that stands in stark contrast with the collapsing capitalist world around us — a world that is leaving millions in the shadows of poverty and vulnerable to the pandemics of COVID-19, racism and militarism. Your art piece can speak to the spirit of resistance, of hope, of collective action and of solidarity with struggles for justice around the world.
CompArte | ComradeShare Art
Your art will be shared via our CompArte Zapatista Instagram page and together with artists around the world, we will create a collective of visions for a new and better world.
If you are interested in participating you can share your art in two different ways:
- You can submit your art piece by emailing it to compartecsc@gmail.com. Once we receive it we will upload it to our Instagram account
- Or, you can upload it to your own Instagram account and tag us @compartezapatista
- You can message us on Instagram
- Please use hashtags: #comparte #zapatistart
You can read more about this year’s CompArte 2020 here.
You can register here for the first CompArte 2020 gathering.
Please share your thoughts and questions with us to improve CompArte 2020.
Gracias.
In the spirit of resistance and solidarity,
The Chiapas Support Committee
Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas
Una invitación a CompArte 2020 para el 26 | ComradesShareArt 2020 for the 26th
Quéate en arte, solidaridad y resistencia | Shelter in Art, Solidarity & Resistance
Querid@s Compas,
Te invitamos a participar en el encuentro zapatista de CompArte 2020, donde podrás compartir tu arte con compas de alrededor del mundo. El CompArte 2020 celebrará el vigésimo sexto año de la rebelión zapatista por la justicia y la autonomía.
Cada año desde que las y los zapatistas lanzaron el primer CompArte en el 2016, el Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas (CSC, Chiapas Support Committee) ha organizado un encuentro paralelo al CompArte zapatista en Oakland. Organizamos nuestro CompArte como un espacio para reunirnos en comunidad y celebrar el arte, la música, la poesía y los movimientos de la solidaridad con las y los zapatistas y las luchas de los pueblos indios por la justicia.
A diferencia de años anteriores, no vamos a poder reunirnos en persona; pero eso no nos detendrá. Nos conectaremos a pesar de las distancias mediante un puente virtual. ¡El CompArte de este año será un encuentro de arte zapatista en línea!
Por favor únete a nosotras: El primero de tres encuentros del CompArte 2020 se llevará a cabo el miércoles, 26 de agosto, 2020, de 6:30 a 8:00pm PST. Matricúlate aquí,
Hacia un horizonte de arte, justicia y solidaridades
El CompArte 2020 virtual tendrá dos componentes:
- Vamos a convocar tres encuentros mensuales a través de zoom, el 26 de agosto, el 26 de septiembre y el 26 de octubre donde nos reuniremos para colectivamente imaginar, co-crear y compartir arte.
- Compartiremos arte, poesía, música y visiones con sus compas de alrededor del mundo en el CompArte Zapatista instagram
Están invitados a compartir su arte a través de nuestro CompArte Zapatista instagram. Podrás compartir un poema, una serigrafía, una canción, una pintura, un performance, una fotografía, cualquiera cosa para acompañarnos unas a las otras en las luchas.
Las y los invitamos a enfocarse en imaginar un futuro libre del capitalismo y todos sus males, e imaginándonos un mundo mejor que está en marcado contraste con el mundo capitalista que está en colapso alrededor de nosotras y nosotros — un mundo que está poniendo a millones de personas en las tinieblas de la pobreza y vulnerables a las pandemias del COVID-19, el racismo y el militarismo. Su arte puede hablar en el espíritu de la resistencia, de la esperanza, de la acción colectiva y de la solidaridad con las luchas por la justicia alrededor del mundo.
CompArte | ComradeShare Art
Su arte será compartido a través de nuestra página de Instagram CompArte Zapatista y juntos a otras artistas de alrededor del mundo, crearemos un colectivo de visiones para un mundo nuevo y mejor.
Si estás interesada en participar, puedes compartir tu arte de dos maneras:
- Mándanos tu arte enviándolo a compartecsc@gmail.com. Una vez que lo recibamos lo subiremos a nuestra cuenta de Instagram.
- O puedes subirlo a tu propia cuenta de Instagram y etiquetarnos con @compartezapatista
- Nos puedes mandar un mensaje a Instagram
- Utiliza los hashtags: #comparte #zapatistart
Puedes leer más sobre el CompArte 2020 aquí.
Y puedes matricularte para el primer CompArte 2020 aquí.
Por favor les invitamos a compartir sus pensamientos y preguntas con nosotras y nosotros para mejorar el CompArte 2020.
Gracias.
En el espíritu de resistencia y solidaridad,
El Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas | The Chiapas Support Committee
One dead and one injured as armed attacks persist in Chiapas; they fear another Acteal
Aldama shows bullets fired from Chenalhó
There is cause for concern about what’s going on in Chiapas right now, perhaps cause for alarm! To at least some of us who vividly recall the lead-up to the Acteal Massacre, the present reminds us all too painfully of the past. Below are 2 articles from La Jornada, translated from Spanish, which detail the attacks, remind us of similarities to Acteal and report on one dead and one injured in Santa Martha. Those affected are Sociedad Civil Las Abejas of Acteal, civilian Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas belonging to various political parties. Press coverage in Mexico is widespread and daily, as if in anticipation of an even bigger story to come. (Compañero Manuel Blog Admin)
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ARMED ATTACKS PERSIST IN CHIAPAS; THEY FEAR ANOTHER ACTEAL
By: Hermann Bellinghausen
This Tuesday the armed attacks continued against the indigenous people displaced by violence and against communities in the municipality of Aldama, in the Chiapas Highlands. The shots come from Santa Martha community and other localities within Chenalhó municipality.
At 12:35pm shots were reported from Ontik and Xchuch te’, Santa Martha in the direction of Yeton, Ch’ivit and Stzelejpotobtik communities (Aldama). Meanwhile at T’ul Vits in Santa Martha, three white cars came down and shot at the community of San Pedro Cotzilnam (Aldama) to then head for Saclum (Chenalhó). The shooting at these communities occurred throughout the day, until evening.
In the vehicles, they were transporting armed men dressed in black, reported residents and the Commission of the 115 displaced from Aldama. They toured Vivero, T’elemax, Colado, T’ul Vits, Vale’tik and Ontik.
[…]
On Monday afternoon, the armed group entered Aldama territory at the territorial limits, entering through the community of Stzelejpotobtik. At the close of this edition the shooting continued at Tabac community from the Telesecundaria, Tojtik, Curva Tontik, and Volcán Santa Martha, exactly where there is a detachment of state la police that still doesn’t intervene. The state police arrived in Santa Martha Chenalhó, where they also reported shooting at Stzelejpotobtik and Cabecera Aldama.
As of this date the town of Aldama [1] has received around 350 attacks from these paramilitary groups, resulting in seven dead and 16 injured.
It’s appropriate to remember that on July 17, in one of the paramilitary attacks on Coco, one of the 11 communities under fire in Aldama, María Luciana Lunes Pérez, 13, was wounded by bullets in her shoulder and face, and had to receive surgical care in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
The families displaced from Aldama are defenseless, without food or medical care, and they have only received small food supplies from the state government, more with propagandistic ends than with real nutritional quality, denounced the Trust for the Health of the Indigenous Children of Mexico (Fideicomiso para la Salud de los Niños Indígenas de México, FISANIM) over which the actress and activist Ofelia Medina presides.
State and federal authorities only acknowledge receipt of threats from Chenalhó; in other words, from the aggressors, as if accepting the version that the shots are coming from Aldama, when the increasingly aggressive paramilitary group comes from Chenalhó and has the support of municipal authorities. The strategic attack patterns that preceded the 1997 Acteal Massacre are repeated.
[1] Aldama is the name of the municipality and also the name of the municipal seat (capital).
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Wednesday, August 19, 2020
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/08/19/politica/011n2pol
ARMED ATTACKS LEAVE ONE DEAD and ONE INJURED IN CHENALHO
By: Elio Henríquez
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
An indigenous man from the the Santa Martha ejido, Chenalhó municipality, died and another was injured from a bullet after armed attacks between residents of that place and the neighboring Aldama municipality in the dispute over 60 hectares, official sources reported.
They reported that the deceased is called Javier Jiménez Sántiz, 50, while the injured man is Aurelio Jiménez Méndez, who received a bullet in the left clavicle and was moved to Hospital of the Cultures in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
Jiménez Sántiz was killed around 3 pm and his body was moved to the municipal seat, without an agent from the Public Ministry attesting and ordering the removal of the cadaver, since there were no security conditions for it to be moved to the community.
The sources pointed out that residents of Santa Martha are holding some 10 state police agents who installed a camp more than two weeks ago to prevent violent acts.
Authorities and inhabitants of both both municipalities mutually accuse each other of carrying out armed attacks since last weekend, which intensified yesterday morning.
Yesterday afternoon, Aldama officials divulged a video in which detonations are heard that they attribute to their neighbors in Santa Martha.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2020
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/08/19/politica/016n2pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 