Mexico
Chiapas on the Verge of Civil War
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Communique from the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation
September 19, 2021
To the people of Mexico:
To the peoples of the world:
To the Sixth in Mexico and abroad:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
First: On September 11, 2021, in the early morning, while the Zapatista air delegation was in Mexico City, members of ORCAO – a paramilitary organization serving the Chiapas state government – kidnapped the compañeros Sebastián Nuñez Pérez and José Antonio Sánchez Juárez, autonomous authorities from the Good Government Council of Patria Nueva [New Homeland], Chiapas.
The ORCAO is a political-military organization with paramilitary characteristics: they have uniforms, equipment, weapons, and ammunition purchased with money they receive from [government-sponsored] “social programs”. They keep part of the money for themselves and use part of it to pay off government officials for reporting that they [the ORCAO] are complying with the terms of the social programs. They fire on the Zapatista community of Moisés y Gandhi every night with these weapons.
The EZLN has waited patiently as all avenues toward a solution were attempted and exhausted. While the Chiapas state government tried to sabotage and impede freedom for our compañeros, it was human rights organizations and the progressive Catholic church who made an objective assessment of what might happen.
Second: The compañeros were deprived of their liberty for eight days and then freed today, September 19, 2021, thanks to the parish priests of San Cristóbal de las Casas and Oxchuc, of the San Cristóbal diocese. The compañeros were robbed of a walkie-talkie and six thousand pesos in cash belonging to the Good Government Council.
Third: Kidnapping is a crime under both the bad government’s laws and Zapatista law. While the Chiapas state government has supported and covered up these crimes, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation took the necessary steps to free those who were kidnapped and to detain and sanction those who committed the crime.
Fourth: The only reason the conflict did not escalate into a tragedy was due to the intervention of the parishes mentioned above, human rights organizations, and the mobilizations and denunciations carried out in Mexico and, above all, Europe.
Fifth: The misgovernment of Rutilio Escandón is doing everything possible to destabilize the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas:
It violently represses the normalistas [1].
It sabotages the agreements made between the organized teachers and the federal government, forcing the teachers to take more radical action to demand the agreements be complied with.
Its alliance with narcotraffickers forces indigenous communities to create their own self-defense groups, as the government does nothing to protect the life, liberty, and property of the population. It not only protects the narcotrafficking gangs, but also encourages, promotes, and finances paramilitary groups like those that are constantly attacking communities in Aldama and Santa Martha.
Its vaccination campaign is purposefully slow and disorganized, creating unrest in rural communities that it will no doubt exploit. Meanwhile, the rising covid deaths in these communities are ignored.
Its officials are stealing everything they can from the state treasury, perhaps preparing for a federal government collapse or betting on a new party coming into power.
And now they want to sabotage the departure of the Zapatista delegation participating in the European chapter of the Journey for Life. They ordered their ORCAO paramilitaries to kidnap our compañeros, leaving the crime unpunished, and trying to provoke a reaction from the EZLN, all in a state where governability hangs by a thread.
Sixth: If what the Ecologist Green Party of Mexico (PVEM) wants is to provoke a crisis with international repercussions so that it can destabilize the regime currently in power, they should call a referendum to revoke the presidential mandate.
The PVEM is one of the names used around here by the same old PRI. Sometimes they say it’s the PAN, sometimes the PRD, and now it’s the PVEM badly disguised as the Movement for National Regeneration [MORENA]. But it’s the same criminals as ever, and now they’re part of the misnamed “opposition” movement, a “fifth column” within the 4T [2].
Those responsible are: Rutilio Escandón and Victoria Cecilia Flores Pérez.
If what they want is to topple the federal government, or to cause problems in retaliation for the current federal criminal investigations against them, or to support one of the factions competing for power in 2024, then they should use the available legal channels and stop playing with the life, liberty, and property of the people of Chiapas. They should call for a vote to revoke the presidential mandate and stop playing with fire because they’re going to get burned.
Seventh: We call on Europe below and to the left and on the Sixth in Mexico and abroad to protest in front of Mexican embassies and consulates and at the government offices of the state of Chiapas, demanding an end their provocations and renunciation of their death cult. The date is Friday, September 24, 2021.
Given the actions and omissions of the state and federal governments regarding these crimes and previous ones, we will take the necessary measures to bring justice to the criminals in the ORCAO and the government officials who sponsor them.
That is all. Next time there won’t be a communique. That is, there won’t be words, only actions.
From the mountains of southeastern Mexico,
In the name of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command of the EZLN
Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano.
Mexico, September 19, 2021.
—
[1] Students at the Escuelas Normales, or rural teachers’ colleges.
[2] The López Obrador campaign deemed its governing project the “Fourth Transformation” (4T), supposedly on par with historic events such as Mexican Independence (1810), a period of reform in the mid-19th century, and the Mexican Revolution (1910).
(Español) Zapatistas en Austria se unen a protestas ante la embajada mexicana de Viena
Viena, 17 de septiembre 2021.
Alrededor de 20 mujeres zapatistas y 30 hombres vinieron a reforzar el contingente internacionalista que se concentró frente a la embajada de México entre las 10 y las 12 horas en el lujoso centro histórico de la ex capital del imperio de los Habsburgo. Este acto de protesta inauguró una gran campaña internacional para denunciar el paramilitarismo y exigir la aparición con vida de José Antonio Sánchez Juárez y Sebastián Núñez Pérez, bases de apoyo zapatistas, integrantes de la Junta de Buen Gobierno “Nuevo Amanecer en Resistencia y Rebeldía por la Vida y la Humanidad” del Caracol 10 “Floreciendo la Semilla Rebelde” situado en Patria Nueva, cerca de Ocosingo, Chiapas. Los dos compañeros se encuentran secuestrados desde el 11 de septiembre por miembros de la organización oficialista conocida como ORCAO, la cual tiene una larga historia de violencia paramilitar e impunidad (leer artículo y llamado a acciones del Colectivo Radio Zapatista).
Frente al edificio monumental de la diplomacia mexicana, decenas de activistas de toda Europa denunciaron por micrófono, mantas y pancartas la implicación del gobierno de México en la reactivación de las violencias antizapatistas. Las tomas de palabra en español, alemán, griego, francés, portugués y gallego, así como el reciente comunicado de las organizaciones anfitrionas del EZLN y del Congreso Nacional Indígena durante el próximo otoño responsabilizan tanto al gobierno federal de López Obrador como al gobierno estatal de Escandón, debido a su complicidad en los ataques paramilitares perpetrados no solamente contra campesinos mayas zapatistas, sino también contra compañeros defensores de derechos humanos, como ocurrió en abril pasado.
De acuerdo con la denuncia de la Red AJMAQ, firmada por organizaciones sociales y colectivos de medios libres, este mes de septiembre el paramilitarismo vuelve a insistir con sus acciones delincuenciales. “Esta escala de violencia orquestada desde los altos poderes del gobierno federal se enmarca en la iniciativa del EZLN ‘Travesía por la Vida Capitulo Europa’. Iniciativa organizativa que busca expandir, de forma pacífica y creativa, la semilla de la resistencia-rebeldía por la humanidad y la Madre Tierra, es decir; por la Vida.”
“Aquí estamos y seguiremos aquí hasta la presentación con vida de los compañeros. Este viaje ya empezó y nadie lo va a parar”, dijo en alemán y en español una compañera activista por el micrófono. Estas palabras sin duda fueron escuchadas por el personal diplomático mexicano presente al interior del edificio, después de haber disfrutado ayer un descanso laboral por motivo del Día de la Independencia. La imagen de una nación mexicana supuestamente progresista se ve aún más afectada por las muchas denuncias y demandas de justicia que se multiplican en muchas geografías. ¿Acaso los zapatistas asustan más al mal gobierno cuando caminan fuera de México?
Cabe destacar que la polizei austriaca estuvo resguardando la entrada de la embajada mexicana y cuidó que los activistas no taparan la puerta del banco situado a un costado de las filas de mujeres y hombres zapatistas que asistieron en silencio, sin parar de filmar, fotografiar, ni de aplaudir y levantar el puño: “¡Vivos se los llevaron, vivos los queremos!”. Antes de marcharse rumbo al metro de StefansPlatz, al pie de la catedral vienesa, alrededor de edificios históricos y tiendas de lujo, las y los activistas entonaron el Himno zapatista y El pueblo unido, mientras el Subcomandante Moisés, vestido de negro, al cerrar la fila zapatista, se volteó hacia el edificio diplomático y, a manera de saludo, levantó dos veces su dedo más largo, el cual fue captado por medios libres, cuya imagen se publica aquí con su consentimiento.
Fotos: Compas Arriba y Colectivo de Acción Solidaria
#AparicionConVidaZapatistas #DondeEstaJoseAntonio #DondeEstaSebastian
#TravesiaPorLaVida
