Communique from the CNI-CIG and the EZLN in Response to the Recent Violence Against Originary Peoples

To the peoples of the world:
To the CIG support networks:
To the national and international Sixth:
To the media:

Neoliberal capitalism is marking its steps with the blood of our peoples as war is intensified against us wherever we refuse to cede our land, our culture, our peace and our collective organization, and because we refuse to give up our resistance or resign ourselves to dying off.

We denounce the cowardly attack on May 31 against the indigenous Nahua community of Zacualpan, which is part of the CNI, in the municipality of Comala, Colima, where narco-paramilitaries fired high-caliber weapons at a group of young people, killing one and critically injuring three more.

We hold all three levels of bad government responsible for this event, in particular the head of public security, Javier Montes García, as it is the bad government that allows these narco-paramilitary groups to operate in the region. We demand full respect for the traditions and customs of the Nahua indigenous community of Zacualpan.

We condemn the aggression and destruction carried out in the early morning hours of May 31 against the Rebollero and Río Minas communities, part of the Binizza community of San Pablo Cuatro Venados in the municipality of Zachila, Oaxaca. There, a group armed with high-caliber weapons and heavy equipment came in firing on the community, destroying dozens of homes and forcing the population, including children, to flee. In all, 24 homes were demolished in the attack and the communities’ corn and other food supplies set on fire, including seeds saved for planting. The group also burned the families’ personal items such as clothing and shoes and stole their livestock, power generators, and water pumps.

We condemn the repression and displacement of our compañeros and compañeras of the Otomí indigenous community who have maintained a temporary encampment at #7 Londres Street in the Juárez neighborhood in Mexico City since the September 19, 2017 earthquake. At 11 am on May 30, they were violently evicted by shock troops sent by the bad government and real estate companies, working alongside hundreds of riot police at the service of Néstor Núñez, mayor of the Cuauhtémoc district.
We condemn the narco-paramilitary siege sustained by criminal groups—supported and protected by the bad government and all of the political parties—against the communities of the Emiliano Zapata Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero (CIPOG-EZ) in the municipalities of Chilapa and José Joaquín de Herrera, who struggle peacefully to build their autonomy.

We call on all the peoples of Mexico and the world to be attentive to and in solidarity with the struggle of the Guerrero communities and to break the violent siege against them which limits their access to food and medicine and is waged in the interests of the capitalist appropriation of indigenous territory. We urge support for the collection of provisions to be sent to the affected communities, including corn, rice, beans, canned chili peppers, sugar, sardines, tuna, toilet paper, diapers, and medicine, to be collected at the UNIOS headquarters in Mexico City, #32 Carmona y Valle Street, Colonia Doctores.

We reiterate that our Mother Earth is not for sale to big capital or to anybody, that our existence is not up for negotiation and thus neither is the resistance of our peoples.

Attentively,
June 2019
For the Full Reconstitution of our Peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us
National Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista Army for National Liberation