Weeks after the release of members of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota dam (Cecop), the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities – Community Police (CRAC-PC), and civilians of several villages belonging to the Communal Lands of Cacahuatepec, municipality of Acapulco, a new persecution and unprecedented criminalization has been unleashed against members of the movement, reported the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center.
According to several newspapers, ministerial police maintained checkpoints at the entrances of the communal lands of Cacahuatepec such as Las Chanecas, San Pedro Cacahuatepec, Las Palmitas, Tasajeras, San Isidro Gallinero and La Concepción ; and with list in hand illegally review all the peasants that come or go. They also reported that more than 80 policemen travel through the villages of San Isidro Gallinero, Parotillas, La Concepcion, Aguas Calientes, Oaxaquillas, Salsipuedes and Amatillo.
Two weeks ago, “ministerial police illegally searched the home of Clemente Cabrera Benítez, a prominent member of CECOP in the community of Tasajeras, and took him away. On September 4, Tomás Cruz Valeriano from the community of Ilamos was arrested in San Isidro Gallinero, both of whom have an arrest warrant for the crime of damages and dispossession resulting from unfounded accusations and fabricated evidence. The Office of the Prosecutor has released more than 50 arrest warrants against the same number of CECOP members, whose crime has been to defend their lands and natural assets such as the Papagayo River, which is irrationally exploited by gravial businessmen. “
On December 12, a delegation of community members from Cecop, CRAC, from the Council of Affected Communities of La Montaña (Ccdm), from the Popular Front of Tlapa (FPT), from the Front of Communities for the Defense of Collective Rights in La Montaña (Frecoddec) and the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center for went to the State Congress where they met with a commission of deputies from Morena. According to La Jornada de Guerrero, they listed several points for urgent resolution, among them the establishment of mechanisms for the prompt release of political prisoners, the immediate expulsion of state forces from the Communal Lands and the cessation of intimidation and harassment of civil organizations.
According to Cuadratin, they also presented a proposal for an initiative to reform the Political Constitution of Guerrero, from articles 8 to 14, regarding indigenous and Afro-Mexican populations so as to guarantee their right to decide and exercise their forms of social, economic and political organization, as well as their own community justice system.
For more information (in Spanish):
Comunicado / Persecución política contra el CECOP (CDH Tlachinollan, 6 de septiembre de 2018)
Piden organizaciones la libertad de los presos del Cecop y alto al hostigamiento (Sur de Acapulco, 12 de septiembre de 2018)
Piden comunitarios que diputados exhorten al gobierno a no reprimirlos (La Jornada de Guerrero, 13 de septiembre de 2018)
Piden organizaciones reforma que garantice derechos de los pueblos (Cuadratin Guerrero, 12 de septiembre de 2018)
For more information from SIPAZ:
Guerrero: 9 of the 25 detainees for a confrontation in La Concepción in January are released September 17, 2018
Guerrero: Judge Orders Guarantees for Rights to Water, Health and Dignified Treatment for 25 CECOP Prisoners April 24, 2018
Guerrero: Extrajudicial Executions and Arrests of Community Police and Members of CECOP January 22, 2018
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