Woman before the Majomut military base during the pilgrimage of 8 March 2014 (@SIPAZ)
On 8 March, during the pilgrimage-march organized for International Women’s Day, women from the Las Abejas Civil Society shared a communique in which they once again stressed that in the case of the Puebla ejido, “it would seem that the bad government of Chiapas headed by Manuel Velasco has resolved the conflict with the ‘return’ of the Catholic territory on 26 February; but if we think about it a bit, we see this only as a partial solution. Yesterday in the Puebla Colony there was burned a house for catechism belonging to our Catholic brothers; we understand that this act is a message of hate and violence of the people allied with the commissioner and Evangelical pastor Agustín Cruz Gómez. We see that the return of our Catholic brothers and sisters is becoming more complicated. If the government had applied justice as it should, there would be peace and tranquility in the Puebla Colony.”
This same day the parish of San Pedro Chenalhó delved into this concern, affirming that on 7 March, “the burning of the door of the entrance to the catechismal house is the consequence of the impunity enjoyed by the aggressors against our Catholic brothers and sisters from the Puebla Colony who presently live displaced in the sacred land of Acteal. We always have insisted on the application of justice, because peace can only exist when there is also justice. However, the state government of Chiapas and the secretary for religious affairs and commissioner Agustín Cruz Gómez have on several occasions requested that we forget about the aggressions to which we were subjected; that is to say, that we be accomplices to violence.”
The bishop for the San Cristóbal de Las Casas diocese, Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, confirmed in a press conference that the 17 Catholic families displaced from the Puebla Colony, Chenalhó municipality, have suspended the plans to return on 14 March. The 98 Tsotsil persons left the Puebla ejido in August after a series of attacks from the Evangelical majority over the dispute of land for a Catholic chapel.
For more information (in Spanish):
Queman puerta del salón de catequesis,denuncian familias desplazadas de Ejido Puebla (Denuncia de la parroquia de San Pedro Chenalhó, 8 de marzo de 2014)
Comunicado de las mujeres Abejas en el Día Internacional de la Mujer (8 de marzo de 2014)
Suspenden familias tzotziles su retorno al ejido de Puebla: Arizmendi (10 de marzo de 2014)
For more information from SIPAZ (in English):
Chiapas: Those displaced from the Puebla Colony, Chenalhó return to Acteal (13 February 2014)
Chiapas: Those displaced from the Puebla ejido do not find conditions for return (3 February 2014)
Chiapas: those displaced from the Puebla ejido return to their community to harvest coffee (22 January 2014)
Chiapas: Those displaced from the Puebla Colony announce return for coffee harvest (15 January 2014)
Chiapas: Solidarity requested for those displaced from the Puebla Colony (16 September 2013)
sipazen.wordpress.com 