TO THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD
TO THE ALTERNATIVE PRESS

The National Indigenous Congress (CNI) declares itself in maximum alert following the cowardly betrayal of the indigenous Ñatho community of San Francisco Xochicuautla, municipality of Lerma in the State of Mexico, in order to implement the highway project Toluca Naucalpan, as well as after the assault on community police in Ostula. We call upon all peoples, organizations, and individuals in solidarity to be attentive and to heed the call made by the community of Xochicuautla.

We denounce that:

On Monday, April 11, at 9am, over 1000 state police from the State Commission for Citizen Security (CES) and the Action and Reaction Forces (FAR) began to enter the community from three directions: through the Buenavista neighborhood; via Cuauhtémoc street to the “Lampeni” location; and to “Lapondishi,” the site of the Encampment for Peace and Dignified Resistance, which was then destroyed by the police forces.

Located in “Lampeni” was the house and patrimony of compañero Armando García Salazar, the uncle of David Ruíz García, a National Indigenous Congress delegate who attended the exchange between the CNI and the EZLN in August of 2014 in the Zapatista community of La Realidad. Some 25 people, majority women, gathered inside that house to defend the property. As they were evicted by police using excessive violence, the 64-year-old compañera Isabel Hernández, part of the Supreme Indigenous Council, was pushed and thrown to the ground. She had a little girl in her arms at the time.

Officials accompanied by police delivered a paper to compañero Armando informing him that his house was on federal property and that it would be destroyed. They also showed him the expropriation order, for which he had already won a legal reprieve (amparo).

Without another word, they then physically pushed the people out of the house, also throwing out belongings located on the first floor, but leaving inside documents, clothing, and work tools.

Once again the bad government demonstrated that the laws that supposedly represent the so-called rule of law are mere tools of dispossession that are honored only when they can be used against the people. This eviction and repression violate the legal reprieve granted in the amparos 1123/2015 and 771/2015 on February 15, 2016. The majority of authorities were notified by the courts of these amparos on February 23, including the SAASCAEM, the institution awarded the Xochicuautla’s territory in the expropriation order.

In addition, on Sunday, April 10, compañeros of the Santa María Ostula community police were attacked in the vicinity of San Juan de Alima, Michoacán. Community member Francisco Grajeda was killed and community member Abraham Girón wounded when they were shot at from a moving vehicle. Girón is the community’s commissioner for the National Indigenous Congress and was a participant in the exchange in the Zapatista community of La Realidad.

We denounce the attempt by the bad government to minimize this crime, through which they intend to promote the return of violence to the Sierra Costa region of Michoacán and put its territory, natural resources, dignity and peace back into the hands of narco-politicians and their paramilitaries, assassins, and companies.

We make an urgent call to the peoples of Mexico and the world to express solidarity with the actions in defense of the rights of San Francisco Xochicuautla, either by physically going to the community or mobilizing wherever you are to denounce and demand the cessation of aggressions against the community, its territory, and its inhabitants.

We hold Eruviel Avila Villegas and his boss Enrique Peña Nieto responsible for the wellbeing of our compañeros and those who show solidarity with their dignified struggle.

FOR THE FULL RECOGNITION AND REVENDICATION OF OUR PEOPLES

NEVER AGAIN A MEXICO WITHOUT US

APRIL 12, 2016

NATIONAL INDIGNEOUS CONGRESS

ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONL LIBERATION