On Sept. 26, 2014, municipal police attacked a group of students from Ayotzinapa school in Mexico’s Guerrero state. Of the 43 disappeared students, eight came from Tecoanapa. Now their fellow citizens have shut down the local government buildings and set up a people’s council. It’s a movement that is gathering momentum across Guerrero.
As part of the Faces of Dispossession campaign, which focuses on forced displacement in indigenous communities in Chiapas, the displaced families of Banavil are asking people to organize screenings of this new video made by Koman Ilel and Promedios. It is mainly in Tseltal, and is available with good clear Spanish or English subtitles. It is 27 minutes long.
In a context of counterinsurgency war, the López Girón families, EZLN supporters, were attacked on December 4, 2011 in the hamlet of Banavil, Tenejapa Municipality, Chiapas. Alonso López Luna was kidnapped and disappeared, and the rest of his family were forcibly displaced. They are currently living in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, without access to their rights to land, health, education and food. This video portrays, through moving interviews, their experiences during and after the forced displacement.
To organize a screening, please contact: solidaridad@frayba.org.mx
*The Faces of Dispossession Campaign enables the indigenous peoples of Chiapas to speak out against the different Faces of Dispossession they experience on a daily basis. It also identifies and makes visible those responsible for human rights violations in order to demand that the Mexican state comply with its human rights obligations. For more information, please look at the campaign site: http://www.rostrosdeldespojo.org/
Words of the relatives of the missing and murdered students from Ayotzinapa, during the inauguration of the final session of the 1st World Festival of Resistance and Rebellion against Capitalism “Where those from above destroy, us from below rebuild,” at Cideci/Universidad de la Tierra Chiapas, January 2, 2015.
This December 3, 2014, more than 43 cities in the US will mobilize in solidarity with the 43 students dissappeared and 3 murdered from the Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa. The mobilization aims not only at expressing support and solidarity with the students from Ayotzinapa and their families and denouncing the Mexican state’s responsibility. The goal is also to demand the US government to stop the Plan Mexico or Merida Initiative, which has supplied billions of dollars in military and political support to Mexico’s security forces. For more information, visit www.ustired2.com and in facebook, twitter, instagram, and tumblr; using and followint the hashtag #UStired2.