In a communique from 25 June, Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) made known the facts of a new attack on Zapatistas on recuperated lands in the El Rosario community, which belongs to the autonomous municipality of San Manuel. The Subcomandante also includes the denunciation made by the La Garrucha Good-Government Council (JBG) regarding the events.
The “Path to the Future” JBG explains that 28 “paramilitaries” from the Chiquinibal neighborhood of the Pojkol ejido arrived on 24 June to El Rosario, 8 of them openly carrying firearms. According to the JBG, in this community there live 21 “paramilitaries” who occupy lands recovered by the EZLN in 1994. According to the JGB, there was a meeting between these paramilitaries with an engineer and Guadalupe Flores, the owner of the lands in question before the 1994 uprising. The JBG claims that this group carried out measurements of the lands, supposedly to plan the subsequent construction of a church and homes. It adds that 10 gunshots were fired behind the home of a Zapatista support-base (BAEZLN) to intimidate the population, and that the aggressors entered two other homes and destroyed yet another, robbing the belongings of its inhabitants: animals, construction materials, tools, food, and cash. The JBG concludes that the engineer and the landowner are advisors to the paramilitary group.
It should be recalled that the La Garrucha JBG had in August 2014 denounced actions taken by this same group, including the killing of a stud bull, the destruction of homes and a collective store, robbery, the defoliation with pesticides of common grazing lands, shooting of live ammunition, and the writing of “Pojkol territory” on burned-out homes. In May 2015, the JBG denounced that one of them shot at a BAEZLN girl.
The JBG affirms that these events are a provocation which form part of the government’s counter-insurgent strategy. “We say clearly that we will not remain with our arms crossed while our comrades are attacked by any of the means that the bad government uses against us. We have said clearly that we will defend our lands, because on them were we born, from them we live, and on them we will die, regardless of the costs.”
The JBG holds the federal, state, and municipal governments responsible for any acts that might follow, and it calls on the public to remain attentive.
For more information (in Spanish):
Nuevo ataque de paramilitares. Caracol Resistencia Hacia un Nuevo Amanecer. La Garrucha. (Enlace Zapatista, 25 de junio de 2015)
Denuncia EZLN un ataque de paramilitares a indígenas de Ocosingo (La Jornada, 26 de junio de 2015)
For more information from SIPAZ (in English):
Chiapas: La Garrucha Good-Government Council (JBG) denounces two paramilitary attacks (17 May 2015)
Chiapas: Update regarding forced displacement of EZLN support bases belonging to the La Garrucha caracol (2 September 2014)
Chiapas: Forced displacement of EZLN support-bases belonging to La Garrucha caracol (29 August 2014)
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