© SIPAZ
On 18 September 2012, an observation caravan in which are participating many civil society organizations and alternative media left to investigate the prevailing situation in the Zapatista community of Comandante Abel, official municipality of Sabanilla, in the northern zone of Chiapas.
In its most recent communiqué, the Roberto Barrios Good-Government Council (JBG) denounced that on 6 September at approximately 7am, a group of about 55 persons carrying firearms and wearing military-type uniforms in masks forcibly displaced Zapatista support-bases from the community using gunfire. According to this same source, on 8 September, in light of the constant harassment and immediate risk to their lvies and personal security, 70 Zapatista families fled, taking refuge in the neighboring mountains under precarious conditions of health and nutrition. Presently the whereabouts of 14 persons, including two children, are unknown.
It should be remembered that a year ago several aggressions were committed in the San Patricio community, reason for which the Zapatistas of that community decided to move themselves to a different set of lands recovered by the EZLN in 1994. This was the founding of Comandante Abel.
For more information (in Spanish):
Continúan agresiones paramilitares a comunidad zapatista Comandante Abel, La Jornada, 14 de septiembre de 2012
La JBG Nueva Semilla Que Va a Producir denuncia que continúan las agresiones de paramilitares y la grave situación de bases de apoyo zapatistas en la Comunidad Comandante Abel, 12 de septiembre de 2012
La JBG Nueva Semilla Que Va a Producir denuncia ataque armado de paramilitares en la comunidad autónoma Comandante Abel, 8 de septiembre de 2012
Ante agresión paramilitar, zapatistas fundan el poblado Comandante Abel, La Jornada, 6 de agosto de 2012
For more information from SIPAZ (in English):
Chiapas: Roberto Barrios JBG denounces attack on Comandante Abel community (19 September 2012)
Chiapas: visit by governor to San Patricio, northern zone; challenge to official strategy by OSC (4 November 2011)
Chiapas: Update regarding the situation in San Patricio, northern zone (27 October 2011)
Chiapas: MPJD arrives once again to Chiapas, there to express solidarity with Las Abejas, prisoners on hunger strike, and Zapatistas (10 de octubre de 2011)
Chiapas: harassment and risk of forced displacement in autonomous community of San Patricio in the northern zone (26 September 2011)
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