On Saturday 5 March, women and men from different communities and organizations of the mountain border region of Chiapas met at the Regional Forum in Defense of the Land, Territory, and Natural Resources, held in the “Costa Rica” ejido, municipality of Comalapa. The objectives of the meeting had to do with “carrying out an exchange of experience and information with respect to the defend of the natural resources that we have undertaken from different places, as communities, organizations, and parishes that have committed themselves to the defense of life,” as well as to “strengthen the struggles both local and national, building networks and alliances that allow for solidarity before urgent situations.”
The meeting’s participants denounces to this end that “We who meet here today have seen that the life of our Mother Earth is threatened by particular interests who are uninterested in the life of the beings who on it reside; they see only economic interests [in Earth]. Within these projects of so-called development we find highways, hydroelectric dams, eco-tourist centers, mining projects, sowing of monocultures (pine, African palm, among others) that create divisions, confrontations, diseases, environmental pollution, death-threats, deaths, criminalization of social protest.”
In spite of the high costs that their struggle has suffered (they remembered in particular the murder of Mariano Abarca), they affirmed that “With this Forum we confirm that we will continue working, as we have done for many years, to promote and defend the human rights of those who have been born here, next to our people, given that we are and will be the ones who live here as long as we disallow the looting of the Earth and the land.”
For more information (in Spanish):
Boletín de prensa emitido en el marco del Foro (Comalapa, 5 March)
Se aglutinan en Foro Regional por la Tierra (Cuarto Poder, 6 March)
Determinan amenaza hacia la Madre Tierra debido a intereses (Cuarto Poder, 7 March)
En Comalapa, inicia Foro de Defensa de la Tierra (Expreso de Chiapas, 6 March)
For more information from SIPAZ (in English):
Chiapas: Death-threats directed against the Chicomuselo parish (13 October 2010)
Chiapas: the Peace Network presents report on Chiapas’ border zone (13 October 2010)
Chiapas: Canadian delegation investigates mining abuses (2 April 2010)
Chiapas: Anti-mining activist Mariano Abarca killed (1 December 2009)
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