VIDEO: The Testimony of Ana Carela Contreras Villalpando
On February 9, 2008 the Center for Political Analysis and Social and Economic Research (CAPISE, Centro de Análisis Político e Investigaciones Sociales y Económicas) and the Service for Peace and Justice (SERPAJ, Servicio Paz y Justicia en América Latina) based in Mexico held a press conference in which they presented the events that took place in Bolon Ajaw on 30 December, 2007.
Members of SERPAJ formed part of a Land and Territory Observation Brigade (BOTT, Brigada de Observación Tierra y Territorio) coordinated by CAPISE in order to visit families and communities that are threatened with the dispossession of their land.
The brigade denounced having been intimidated and threatened as well as having been illegally detained by members of an indigenous ecotourism organization (Ecoturismo Indígena Tzeltal de Cascadas Agua Azul SC de RL), who were referred to by CAPISE as supposed “dissidents of the paramilitary group OPDDIC” (Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights).
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and founder of SERPAJ, addressed a letter to the Attorney General’s Office and the [Supreme] Court of Justice in order to express his concern with those “civil [organizations] that act in practice as paramilitary forces, generating terror and suffering in local communities while reducing the work sphere of human rights defenders, in many cases with the acquiescence, direct or indirect, of some authorities.”
Esquivel asked that “the state and federal authorities, both administrative and judicial, conduct the corresponding investigations and establish those responsible for the crimes, while ensuring the right to freedom of movement and political action, and making peace possible in indigenous communities in Chiapas.”
CAPISE and SERPAJ have brought a criminal suit against the aggressors for the crimes of illegal detention and threats.
The video of the aggression, recorded by one of the members of the brigade and presented as evidence along with the criminal suit, is available here.
SERPAJ website [in Spanish]
