In its most recent communiqué, the Zapatista Good-Government Council (JBG) El camino del futuro, from the caracol La Garrucha, denounced armed attacks on the part of members of the Regional Organization of Coffee-cultivators of Ocosingo (Orcao), whom it describes as “paramilitaries” who are supported by state and municipal police. The denunciation affirms that the aggressors originate from the ejidos Guadalupe Victoria and Las Conchitas (Ocosingo), as well as from Pojcol (Chilón), who have attempted to invade the lands of EZLN support-bases in the autonomous municipality of Francisco Villa.
They detail that on 12 August, groups organized and armed from Orcao fired on support-bases who were going to carry out communal labor in recovered territory. “Orcao men and women from Guadalupe Victoria impeded the pass of a Zapatista comrade, threatening to burn his vehicle with all the possessions he was carrying inside,” claimed the JBG. Another person sought to take film but had his camera taken by the Orcao group. When other Zapatistas approached, the JBG notes that the Orcao member José Alfredo Peñate Gómez too out a .22 caliber pistol and began firing, injuring Manuel Hernández López. At that moment, the Zapatistas chose to retreat. The communiqué notes that a bit later, another vehicle from the autonomous municipality that was carrying more Zapatistas toward their communal plots was also fired upon “by an armed group of Pojco”; the vehicle was hit with two bullets of .22 caliber.
According to the JBG, “On 12 August it was clearly seen that this has been prepared, directed, and supported by the bad governments, because on that day as night fell a state and municipal police car entered with two ambulances that went to Guadalupe Vistoria. We believe that they went to provide more bullets and to support them so that they continue with their death-threats by firing.” The JBG concludes its communiqué by stating that “this is our denunciation and we will be alert and ready for whatever the bad governments want.”
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