Chiapas/National: CNI- CIG “We Are Living through the War of Capital against the Peoples of the World”, Convenes Fourth Assembly

In a communiqué published on November 7th, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Indigenous Government Council (CIG) convened its Fourth Assembly.

This occurs in the midst of the “war that comes from above and that aims to destroy Mother Earth to make millions of profits from selling minerals, water, forests, rivers, fracking hydrocarbons, building industrial corridors, destroying the territory with supposed clean energy projects, putting volcano villages at risk with the Huexca thermoelectric plant, building the infrastructure that accompanies the dispossession in the south-southeast of the country with its megaprojects, negotiating with death in all its forms.” Added to this “the violence and repression that comes from bad government at all levels and the growing presence of narco-paramilitary groups that serve it.”

The objectives of the assembly include “making the struggle for life great and dismantling this system of death”, “weaving our web of resistance and rebellion” and “taking collective criteria in our commitment that life is for our Mother Earth and for the peoples of the world.”

The event will take place at Caracol Jacinto Canek – CIDECI Unitierra of San Cristobal de Las Casas from December 18th to 20th, another activity in the “Combo for Life: December of Resistance and Rebellion” convened by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) throughout that month. Apart from December 19th, the date on which a plenary open to observers and the media is scheduled, the event “will be of a closed nature and access will only be allowed to delegates, councilors and representatives of the towns of the CNI- CIG and special guests. The latter will be contacted by the CNI-CIG Coordination and Monitoring Commission.”

For more information in Spanish:

CONVOCATORIA A LA CUARTA ASAMBLEA NACIONAL ENTRE EL CONGRESO NACIONAL INDÍGENA Y EL CONCEJO INDÍGENA DE GOBIERNO (CNI CIG, 7 de noviembre de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas/National/International: EZLN Invitation to “Celebration of Life: December of Resistance and Rebellion” (November 10, 2019)

National/International: CNI Mobilizations for Global Day of Struggle in Defense of Life and our Territories – “SAMIR FLORES LIVES” (October 17, 2019)

National: CNI Invitation to “SAMIR FLORES LIVES” Global Day of Struggle, October 12, 2019

(September 29, 2019)

 

Oaxaca: CNI Holds “The Isthmus is Ours” National Assembley in Juchitan (September 22, 2019)

Guerrero: CNI Denounces Kidnapping and Murder of Two Members (May 11, 2019)

National: Third Assembly of National Indigenous Congress and Indigenous Council of Government (CNI-CIG) in Mexico City (March 14, 2019)

Guerrero: CRAC-PC marches in Chilpancingo demanding the reform of the Law 701

@sipaz

On November 7, more than 1,000 members of the 5 Houses of Justice of the Regional Coordination of Community Authorities-Community Police (CRAC-PC) marched in Chilpancingo to demand the repeal of Article 14 of Law 701, which was modified a year ago. They denounced that it violates the rights of indigenous peoples, in particular, the validity of their own system of security and community justice.

The aim of the reform was to harmonize the States legal system and the indigenous and afro-mexican regulatory systems for public security as well as the dispensing of justice by regulating the procedures for the validation of community decisions by competent judges and courts. The CRAC-PC denounced that “the last legislature demolished the figure of the CRAC as a legitimate justice system”, when the reform led delinquents arrested by community members to file injunctions against the community justice system.

In the local Congress, the demonstrators were attended by a commission of deputies of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), to whom they delivered a document with the request for the repeal of the reforms of Law 701. Abel Barrera, director of the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for the Defense of Human Rights, was also present. He declared that the march seeks “to make visible what is happening and not to take steps backwards to the rights of the people as the last legislature did”. He also stated that there was willingness on the part of the congressmen to review the petition and that there is hope that a meeting can be held by the end of this month.

For more information:

Marcha la Crac; exige derogar el artículo 14 de la Ley 701 (La Jornada de Guerrero, November 7, 2019)

Marcha la CRAC-PC en Chilpancingo en rechazo a reforma a la Ley 701 (Quadratin, November 7, 2019 )
Marcha la CRAC en Chilpancingo contra reformas a la Ley 701 y la Constitución (Ahora Guerrero, November 7, 2019)

CRAC marcha para recuperar derechos de Casas de Justicia (Bajo Palabra, November 7, 2019)

Marcha De Autodefensas De El CRAC-PC en chilpancingo guerrero mexico defiendes sistema normativo (Vídeo, November 7, 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: 16 CRAC PC and CECOP Prisoners Released (June 17, 2019)

Guerrero: Urgent Action “No Dam, No Prisoners”, Demands Release of 16 Indigenous CECOP Members (March 14, 2019)

Guerrero/International: MEPs and International Organizations Express Concern over Criminalization of CECOP Members (February 13, 2019)

Guerrero: national and international organizations visit prisoners of the CECOP and the CRAC-PC (October 10, 2018)

 

Guerrero: Disappearance of Activist in Tlapa de Comonfort Reported. Member of Regional Council of Agrarian Authorities in Malinaltepec

Photo @ Tlachinollan

In the afternoon of October 11th, a member of the Popular Front of La Montaña (FPM in its Spanish acronym) and the Movement for the Freedom of Political Prisoners of the State of Guerrero (MOLPEG in its Spanish acronym), Arnulfo Ceron Soriano, was reported missing in Tlapa de Comonfort.

According to a public complaint from the La Montaña Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, relatives reported that the last information they had about him was when Ceron Soriano “left his home to go to talk at a recovery center for Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), located in the Caltitlan neighborhood Tlapa de Comonfort city, Guerrero, where he never arrived.”

On October 12th, the van in which “the activist Ceron Soriano was traveling in the Magisterio neighborhood was found abandoned, even with the keys in it, without any further indication of him. Due to these facts, a complaint was lodged with the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Enforced Disappearance and Search for Missing Persons in the city of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, to which the investigation file number 12022510400165121019 was assigned.”

According to different newspapers 11 social organizations have stressed “that Cerón Soriano accused the mayor of Tlapa of having threatened him because of the defense he made so that street traders were not evicted.”

On October 13th, social and family organizations “took over the town hall of Tlapa to demand the mayor’s presentation of the indigenous leader and demanded that the Ministerial Police, the State, the National Guard begin an operation” to find the missing activist.

For its part, the State of Guerrero Human Rights Commission (CDHEG in its Spanish acronym), urged the corresponding agencies of the state and federal government, to speed up investigations.

During the same weekend, on Friday, Isaias “N”, president of the Commissariat of Paraje Montero Communal Assets, in the municipality of Malinaltepec, was killed, El Sol de Acapulco reported. The victim “had attended meetings in the morning that Friday and in the afternoon on his return he was murdered near the police station.” He was “member of the Regional Council of Agricultural Authorities in Defense of the Territory (CRAADT in its Spanish acronym), which opposes the mining exploitation of the region.”

For more information in Spanish:

ACCIÓN URGENTE: DESAPARECEN AL LUCHADOR SOCIAL DE LA MONTAÑA: ARNULFO CERÓN SORIANO (Tlachinollan, 13 de octubre de 2019)

Exhorta la CDHEG agilizar investigaciones por desaparición de Arnulfo Cerón Soriano (El Sol de Acapulco, 13 de octubre de 2019)

Un defensor de la montaña de Guerrero es asesinado y otro es reportado desaparecido el fin de semana (Sin Embargo, 14 de octubre de 2019)

Identifican a tres hombres asesinados en distintos hechos (El Sol de Acapulco, 14 de octubre de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: Declaran libres de minería los municipios de Malinaltepec y San Luis Acatlán. (October 8, 2019)

Guerrero: Denuncian una “campaña de desprestigio” en contra de una abogada de Tlachinollan y una reportera del El Sur de Acapulco (11 de julio de 2019)

Chiapas: Delimitation Conflict in Lacandon Jungle

Photo @ Marcela Gonzalez

At a press conference that was held on October 7th, the authorities of Bienes Comunales Zona Lacandona “asked the federal government to resume the work of delimitation so that it is known how many of the 614,321 hectares established in the original decree of 1971 remain,” they said, with the aim of preserving the Lacandon Jungle.

They reported that “there have been three resolutions to date: the one obtained by the Lacandon community on November 26th, 1971, the second on November 23rd, 1982 with 558,037 hectares and the third on July 9th, 1988 where the agrarian body delivered only 501,106 hectares to the Lacandon community.”

The delimitation of the Lacandon Jungle, inside which is the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, “began in 2008, has advanced 444 kilometers and still to be delimited, 34 to close the polygon. More than 40 years have passed and the area has not been defined.”

They also mentioned that “there is also an agreement with the 52 ejidos that border with Bienes Comunales Zona Lacandona so that the lands are delimited, given that “if we do not have a common agreement, the forest cannot be conserved. That is why we seek dialogue with our neighbors, to take care of the interior and exterior (…), so that there is no conflict with the neighbors” and with members of organizations based in the surroundings,” La Jornada reported.

It should be remembered that the Lacandon Area is inhabited by Mayan Lacandones, Tzeltals and Choles and is made up of six locations: Naha, Metzaboc, Lacanja, Ojo de Agua Chankin, Palestine and Corozal Border.

In recent days through another press conference in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Lacandones indigenous people denounced that “there are serious tensions in the Lacandon Jungle, so the government’s intervention is urgently required to avoid a confrontation (…) rights of the Lacandon ethnic minority are at risk; its territory and the conservation of its jungle too.”

They mentioned that the new authorities of communal property are unknown “because, they said they were promoted and imposed with the advice of old corrupt leaders and voted only by the Chol and Tzeltal ethnic community members, without the participation of the Lacandon ethnic group (…) and now intend to draw a new polygon different from that recognized by the community, thus affecting the territorial rights of the Lacandons, without being consulted for such purposes and jeopardizing, by deforestation, the integrity of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve” Proceso magazine reported..

For more information in Spanish:

Lacandones piden intervención de AMLO para rescatar la Reserva de la Biosfera Montes Azules (Proceso, 8 de octubre de 2019)

Autoridades comunales de Zona Lacandona solicitan respeto a DH (La Jornada, 11 de octubre de 2019)

Piden que se delimite área para preservar Selva Lacandona en Chiapas (La Jornada, 7 de octubre de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: Pemex to Provide Resources in Perpetuity to Preserve the Lacandon Jungle (September 16, 2017)

Chiapas: Peace Network calls for “inclusive processes in the use, conservation and management of the Biosphere Reserve of Montes Azules” in the face of the increasing problematic in the Lacandon Jungle (June 10, 2014)

Chiapas: Federal and state governments announce imposition of territorial order in Lacandon Jungle (June 2, 2014)

Chiapas: historic accord in the Lacandon Zone (May 3, 2014)

Chiapas: Residents of the Lacandona Jungle on alert in light of advancing delimitation work (March 16, 2014)

Chiapas: Second Suspected Leader of Armed Gang in Santa Martha, Chenalho Arrested

Photo @ Gaby Coutinho

After the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE in its Spanish acronym) arrested Mr. Efrain Ruiz Alvarez last month, another alleged leader of an armed group of the Santa Martha community, Chenalho was arrested by ministerial policemen, Enrique Lopez Perez, in recent days.

The arrests are related to the old agrarian conflict between residents of the Santa Martha community and the municipality of Aldama. Both alleged leaders are accused “of firing heavy caliber guns against residents of villages in Aldama.” In the case of Lopez Perez, he is accused “of the crime of attacks on peace (…) in October 2015 shooting with a firearm towards the community of Tselejopotoptic, which caused the displacement of families from Aldama.”

It should be remembered that on June 4th, in Tuxtla Gutierrez, constitutional and traditional authorities of Aldama and Chenalho, accompanied by Governor Rutilio Escandon Cadenas and the federal undersecretary for Human Rights, Alejandro Encinas Rodriguez, signed a non-aggression pact that they expected would put an end to an initially agrarian conflict over 60 hectares of territory between both municipalities that has lasted more than four decades, which has caused dozens of deaths and hundreds of displaced families.

Despite signing of the pact, different sources reported that attacks followed by both parties.

According to information from La Jornada residents of Aldama “commented that since Ruiz Alvarez was arrested, firing of high-caliber firearms from Santa Martha to places in that municipality has reduced.” But that the situation remains tense since “after the arrest of the leader, representatives of Santa Martha have threatened to hold their neighbors from Aldama to exchange them for the detainee.”

For more information in Spanish:

Detienen a líder de grupo armado de Santa Martha en Chenalhó  (La Jornada, 6 de octubre de 2019)

Detienen a líder del grupo armado Santa Martha en Chiapas (La Jornada, 13 septiembre de 2019)

Detienen a presunto líder de grupo armado de Chenalhó (Diario de Chiapas, 8 de octubre de 2019)

Detienen a presunto dirigente de grupo armado de Chenalhó, Chiapas (El Universal, 13 de septiembre de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: Sigue la violencia entre Aldama y Chenalhó a pesar de pacto de no agresión. (8 de junio de 2019)

Chiapas: Firman pacto de no agresión autoridades de Aldama y Chenalhó (5 de junio de 2019)

Chiapas: encuentran cuerpo del síndico de Aldama quien fungía como alcalde de dicho municipio (6 de mayo de 2019)

National: Mexico Sixth Most Dangerous Country for Environmentalists According to Global Witness; 12 Activists Killed in 2019

@Cuartoscuro

According to data from the human rights organization Amnesty International, at least 12 environmental activists were killed in Mexico since the beginning of the year to date. Seven of those murders were carried out in the month of January alone. With five attacks in Oaxaca and four in Chiapas, these two states have become the most dangerous regions for environmentalists.

A similar process can be observed worldwide. After the Philippines (30 defenders killed in 2018), Colombia (24), India (23), Brazil (20) and Guatemala (16), Mexico with 12 is the sixth most dangerous country in the world for environmental defenders, according to Global Witness NGO reports. In 2017, 15 defenders were killed and in 2018 another 14.

The first victim of the year was Sinar Corzo Esquinca, a water, housing and health rights activist, who also defended the victims of the 2017 earthquake in Oaxaca and Chiapas. He died on January 3rd from gunshot wounds in Arriaga, Chiapas, after he was shot.

Among the other victims were the environmentalists Noe Jimenez Pablo, Jose Santiago Lopez, Rafael Murua Manriquez, Gustavo Cruz Mendoza, Samir Flores, Eulalia Lilia Diaz, Luis Armando Fuentes, Telosforo Santiago Enriquez, Jose Luis Alvarez Flores and the human rights lawyer Juan Quintanar Gomez, who was killed in the center of the city of Oaxaca on the way to his office.

“These attacks (against indigenous people) are almost 80% of the cases. In the case of Oaxaca, Puebla and Michoacan, 100% of those attacked are indigenous,” said Gustavo Sanchez, the director of the Mexican Network of Forest Farmers Organizations (MOCAF in its Spanish acronym).

Of the 14 activists killed in 2018, eleven were people from native villages according to Antonio Medina, representative of the Indigenous Tourism Network of Mexico (RITA in its Spanish acronym), given that 50% of Mexican territory belongs to indigenous peoples, meaning that a large part of the mines, material banks, water reserves and biodiversity of the country are part of their heritage and they are particularly affected by the megaprojects of the Mexican State.

In the face of the great aggression against environmentalists, the NGO Amnesty International recently launched the “No More Murders: Raise your Voice for Environmentalists in Mexico” campaign. According to its website, “it will be based on petitions, events and the dissemination of information and audiovisual materials through social networks, to denounce the murders of environmental defenders in Mexico.”

“This campaign is our way of highlighting the violence faced by environmental defenders in Mexico and recognizing their invaluable contribution to the health of the planet and the wellbeing of its inhabitants given the the disastrous effects of extractive exploitation, industrial pollution and climate change,” explained Erika Guevara Rosas, Director for the Americas of Amnesty International.

For more information in Spanish:

12 ambientalistas y defensores han sido asesinados este año; Oaxaca y Chiapas, los estados más peligrosos (Animal Político el 7 de octubre de 2019)

El 80 % de los activistas ambientales asesinados en México son indígenas (Infobae el 1 de agosto de 2019)

México, el sexto país más peligroso para defensores del medio ambiente; hubo 14 asesinatos en 2018 (Animal Político el 29 de julio de 2019)

México: Amnistía Internacional lanza campaña para urgir al Estado que proteja a las personas defensoras del medio ambiente (Amnistía Internacional el 1 de octubre de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: Environmentalist Nora Lopez Murdered in Palenque (August 27, 2019)

Chiapas: denunciation of criminalization against environmental activists in San Cristóbal de Las Casas (January 4, 2019)

Chiapas/Tabasco: Ecologist Jose Luis Alvarez Flores Murdered (June 17, 2019)

Chiapas: Denuncian ataque contra defensor de los derechos humanos en San Cristóbal de las Casas (10 de junio de 2019)

National: 21 Environmental Defenders Murdered in 2018 (CEMDA) (April 1, 2019)

National: CEMDA 2017 Report Shows Increase in Vulnerability of Environmental Defenders (March 26, 2018)

National: CNI Invitation to “SAMIR FLORES LIVES” Global Day of Struggle, October 12, 2019

@samirfloresvive.wordpress.com

At the National and International Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) / Indigenous Government Council (CIG), Resistance and Rebellion Networks, Organizations and Collectives “The Isthmus Is Ours” in Juchitan, Isthmus of Tehunatepec, in Oaxaca on the 6th, 7th and 8th of September, the “SAMIR FLORES LIVES” Global Day for the Struggle in Defense of Life and Our Territories was announced, which will take place on October 12th this year.

The event that bears the name of delegate Samir Flores, environmental activist and promoter of organic agriculture for ten years and who was killed on February 20th, 2019 by unknown individuals, intends to be “a dislocated and forceful mobilization, throughout the country, against the megaprojects of death, of an anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal character.” The CNI called on the peoples, organizations and people of Mexico and the World to carry out coordinated actions that show “art, music, creativity from below.”

In the closing declaration of the assembly that took place at the beginning of September, the CNI also denounced the megaprojects planned by the Mexican government such as the Maya Train, the Dos Bocas Refinery, the Inter-Oceanic Isthmus Corridor, the Morelos Integral Project, the new airport and its associated works such as the Mexico-Tuxpan Highway as well as “a monstrous set of environmental depredation projects”, that includes, mining, hydroelectric, agro-industry, industrial corridors, gas pipelines, oil pipelines, fracking, wind farms, solar panels businesses.

In the call released in mid-September, the CNI requested that, “the activities that each organization defines must be registered no later than October 1st at the email samirflores.vive@gmail.com.”

For more information in Spanish:

Declaratoria de la Asamblea Nacional e Internacional del CNI

Samir Flores, símbolo de la resistencia antigobiernista (Proceso el 28 de febrero de 2019)

Convocatoria a la Jornada global de lucha en defensa de la vida y de nuestros territorios “SAMIR FLORES VIVE” el 12 de Octubre de 2019 (CNI, 18 de septiembre de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Oaxaca: CNI Holds “The Isthmus is Ours” National Assembley in Juchitan (September 22, 2019)

Oaxaca: Defensores comunitarios Ayuuk interponen amparo contra Corredor Interoceánico del Istmo de Theuantepec (12 de julio de 2019)

Oaxaca: Es publicado el decreto del decreto del Corredor Corredor Interoceánico del Istmo de Tehuantepec; se movilizan para detener su instrumentación (15 de junio de 2019)

Oaxaca: de gira en el estado, AMLO declara que las comunidades indígenas avalan la realización del corredor transístmico (4 de mayo de 2019)

Oaxaca : lanzan pronunciamiento « El Ismo es nuestro » en rechazo al Proyecto Transístmico (25 de abril de 2019)

Oaxaca: Consultation Takes Place in Tehuantepec Isthmus Amidst Doubts from Various Social and Civil Players in the Region (April 4, 2019)

Oaxaca: New Consultations in Tehuantepec Isthmus Questioned (March 28, 2019)