Chiapas: Frayba Denounces Intensification of Attacks against Indigenous Peoples since December 2018

On May 27th, the Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Center for Human Rights published a bulletin warning that, “aggressions against peoples, communities and organizations have intensified as part of a strategy to contain civil and peaceful resistance in defense of territory.” Two years after the Constituent Assembly of the Indigenous Council of Government (CIG in its Spanish acronym), of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI in its Spanish acronym).

It illustrated the statement by referring to the six indigenous defenders who have been murdered so far in 2019, as well as mentioning the CNI’s own denunciations since December 2018 with situations of “dispossession, forced displacement, arbitrary detention, forced disappearances, threats, harassment, criminalization and attempts of executions.”

Frayba denounced that “this logic of war against the peoples that build autonomy, is reproduced in the increase of militarization of Zapatista territories, especially the incursions, flights and espionage of the Mexican Army to the headquarters of the Junta de Buen Government Toward Hope, in La Realidad Caracol (Official Municipality of Las Margaritas). This containment is deepened by the presence of the National Guard in the region, which increases risks to the integrity and security of the population.”

In this context, Frayba demanded that the Mexican State: “Cease the attacks against peoples, communities and organizations that make up the National Indigenous Congress; justice for the defenders and communicators murdered in the country; and high militarization in Chiapas and Mexico.”

For more information in Spanish:

Contrainsurgencia a Pueblos Originarios que construyen la vida digna (CDH Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, a 27 de mayo de 2019)

Las agresiones contra pueblos originarios se intensifican: Frayba (La Jornada, 29 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: Two Members of CRAC-PF and CIPOG-EZ Murdered (May 28, 2019)

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

Chiapas: denuncian dos comunidades choles de Salto de Agua amenazas, persecución y hostigamientos (El 22 de abril de 2019)

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

Chiapas : CNI denuncia amenazas y agresiones en la zona Norte (El 16 de agosto de 2018)

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Guerrero: CNI Denounces Kidnapping and Murder of Two Members

@Aristegui Noticias

On May 5th, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), the Indigenous Council of Government (CIG) and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) denounced “the kidnapping and murder of the Nahua council member of the Indigenous Council of Government Jose Lucio Bartolo Faustino and of the delegate of the National Indigenous Congress Modesto Verales Sebastian, of the Nahua indigenous communities of Xicotlan and Buenavista respectively.” The two victims participated on May 4 in a meeting with the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ) in the city of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, at approximately 3 pm. On their return trip they were attacked “by narco-paramilitary groups that operate in the region with the complicity and protection of the three levels of bad government, which with contempt and lies pretend to meet the demands of security and justice of the indigenous communities.”

The identities of the deceased were confirmed by the Prosecutor’s Office that initiated an investigation into the murder by firearm as the vehicle of Jose Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastian was found with bullet entry holes.

Both participated in the collection of signatures for the CNI presidency candidate, Maria de Jesus Patricio, Marichuy, as well as in mobilizations and meetings of the CNI/EZLN. In addition, they organized the Community Police in their communities “to resist violence, extortion and the imposition of the poppy cultivation by two criminal groups, Los Ardillos and Los Rojos, who control the municipal presidencies of the region with the complicity of the Mexican Army and the state and municipal police and even succeeded in imposing, at some point, one of its leaders as president of the Congress of the state of Guerrero.”

“We denounce the intensification of neoliberal repression against the peoples, nations and indigenous tribes that do not agree with their death plans in Guerrero and throughout Mexico, nor with the violence they use to impose them and repress, kidnap, disappear and assassinate those of us who decide to plant a new world from the indigenous geographies that we are”, the statement concluded.

For more information in Spanish:

COMUNICADO DEL CNI-CIG Y EL EZLN ANTE EL COBARDE SECUESTRO Y ASESINATO DE LOS COMPAÑEROS DEL CONCEJO INDÍGENA Y POPULAR DE GUERRERO – EMILIANO ZAPATA (Enlace Zapatista el 5 de mayo de 2019)

Dos activistas indígenas son asesinados en Guerrero; el CNI, vinculado al EZLN, culpa a AMLO (Sin Embargo el 5 de mayo de 2019)

“Narcomilitares” emboscan y asesinan a líderes del CNI en Guerrero (Grupo Fórmula el 6 de mayo de 2019)

Asesinan a dos activistas indígenas del CNI en Chilpancingo, Guerrero (Político el 5 de mayo de 2019)

Matan a dos integrantes del Congreso Nacional Indígena en Guerrero (Aristegui Noticias el 5 de mayo de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: denuncian dos comunidades choles de Salto de Agua amenazas, persecución y hostigamientos (El 22 de abril de 2019)

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

Chiapas : CNI denuncia amenazas y agresiones en la zona Norte (El 16 de agosto de 2018)

Chiapas: denuncia aumenta de violencia en los municipios de Sitalá y Chilón (El 6 de marzo de 2018)

Chiapas: A year since the “unjust” incarceration of communal defender from Salto de Agua: Chiapas Denuncia Pública (October 8, 2015)

Guerrero: CRAC-PC Coordinator of San Luis Acatlan Murdered

Photo @ Irza Agency

On April 12th, Julian Cortes Flores, coordinator of the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities-Community Police (CRAC-PC in its Spanish acronym) of San Luis Acatlan, was murdered.

La Jornada reported that “according to official reports, around 3:20 pm Cortes left the San Luis Acatlan House of Justice in his car, and when he was walking down Emiliano Zapata Street, about 200 meters from the House of Justice, he was attacked.”

In a statement, the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center said that the attack “is an attack on the system of security and community justice of the peoples of the Costa-Montaña.”

For more information in Spanish:

Asesinan a coordinador de la CRAC en Guerrero (La Jornada, 12 de abril de 2019)

Pronunciamiento | Sobre el asesinato de Julián Cortés Flores coordinador de la CRAC de san Luis Acatlán (CDH Tlachinollan, 13 de abril de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Guerrero: posible desaparición de Gonzalo Molina de la CRAC PC de Tixtla y de 3 miembros de su familias en Ciudad de México (28 de marzo de 2019)

Guerrero: Gonzalo Molina, Tixtla CRAC PC, Released (March 7th, 2019)

Guerrero: 19 aniversario de la CRAC-Policía Comunitaria (11 de noviembre de 2014)

Guerrero: demand for release of political prisoners in observance of the eleventh anniversary of CECOP (September 2nd, 2014)

Guerrero: Police operation provokes confrontations and new arrest of member of CRAC-PC in Tixtla (March 30th, 2014)

Guerrero: Ministerial Police detain Gonzalo Molina, CRAC promoter, in Tixtla (November 14th, 2013)

International: Trial Against German Company for Illegal Sale of Arms to Mexico Ends

@n-tv

On February 21st, the trial against the German arms company Heckler & Koch in Stuttgart, for the illegal sale of arms to Mexico ended with sentences for a former head of sales and a member of the administrative staff. Between 2006 and 2009, Heckler & Koch delivered thousands of weapons to Mexico, including 4,219 semi-automatic G-36 rifles, two submachine guns and 1,759 gun barrels that arrived in Jalisco, Chiapas, Chihuahua and Guerrero, states where the export of weapons is prohibited by German law. The company itself will have to return all the profits of these sales amounting to 3.7 million euros (approximately 4.2 million dollars). The two individuals mentioned were sentenced to probation for 22 and 17 months with a fine of 80 thousand euros and 250 hours of social work. Three other employees, two former export managers and a sales assistant manager, were acquitted. The culprits obtained the export permit fraudulently, using false information from the Mexican government regarding the destination of the weapons.

During the sessions not only were there accusations against the German company, but also against politicians and members of the Armed Forces of Mexico, including the director of the Direction of Commercialization of Armament and Ammunition (DCAM in its Spanish acronym), Guillermo Aguilar, who received 117 thousand pesos as an accomplice to the events.

Jürgen Grässlin, activist and initiator of the trial, said that in this way thousands of German weapons were made available to state forces designated as co-opted by organized crime and responsible for serious human rights violations. Human rights organizations stressed that even legally imported weapons will end up in the hands of drug trafficking groups. A serious case of human rights violations in which a link with Heckler & Koch’s weapons was established is that of the 43 missing students of the Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa. It has been shown that these weapons were used in the violent events of September 27th, 2014.

Heckler & Koch reacted to the ruling with the promise of “fundamental changes to avoid unfortunate incidents in the future” such as a change in the internal compliance system and “to each potential distribution partner a rigorous compliance audit.” However, they criticized the ruling “that we should not only renounce the profits generated from the business in Mexico, but renounce the total sales price, despite the fact that none of the directors committed the offense.”

Also German pacifist organizations criticized the sentence for judging the company and its employees under the Law of Foreign Trade instead of the Law of Control of Weapons of War. The judges decided that the declaration to end use of arms is not part of the license to export arms, which is why the War Weapons Control Act cannot be applied. “If this ruling is maintained, the current controls on the export of weapons of war and military equipment do not work. You have to develop and introduce a new law to control the export of weapons that is effective”, said the German lawyer Holger Rothbauer. Other criticisms arose due to the absence of sentences against more influential employees. “This is a very clear case of two kinds of justice: the smallest are condemned and the biggest are let go,” said Jürgen Grässlin.

For more information in Spanish:

Multan a empresa alemana de armas usadas en caso de los 43 de Ayotzinapa (El Universal el 21 de febrero de 2019)

Juicio alemán por venta ilegal de armas a México concluye (El Universal el 21 de febrero de 2019)

Un tribunal alemán multa a Heckler & Koch por la exportación ilegal de armas a México (El País el 21 de febrero de 2019)

Condenas en Alemania por venta ilegal de armas a México (La Jornada el 21 de febrero de 2019)

Corte alemana condena a Heckler & Koch por exportar armas ilegalmente a México (Contra Linea el 21 de febrero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ :

International: Case against for Illegal Sale of Firearms to Mexico by Heckler and Koch Begins (June 25th, 2018)

Guerrero/National/International: New Reports on Ayotzinapa Case (March 27th, 2018)

International/National: CSOs Warn European Union about Human Rights Crisis in Mexico with Modernizing of Global Agreement (June 11th, 2017)

National/Guerrero: “No more arms sales to Mexico” – German Government (March 8th, 2015)

 

National/Guerrero: Support Plan for Victims of the Dirty War

Photo @ EllosyNosotros

On February 11th, the Plan of Attention and Reparation for the Victims of Political Violence of the Dirty War was announced in the municipality of Atoyac de Alvarez in Guerrero.

The Executive Commission of Attention to Victims (CEAV in its Spanish acronym), relatives and survivors of victims of the “dirty war”, as well as the governor Hector Astudillo Flores, the president of the CEAV, Jaime Rochin del Rincon, presented the strategy of collective reparation that is intended to be implemented.

“The Care and Reparation Plan for the victims of past political violence in Guerrero seeks to give visibility to those who disappeared, give voice to those who were silenced and recover and reconstruct the social fabric of the communities”, according to information from Proceso.

According to the Economist, Jaime Rochin del Rincon, executive commissioner of the CEAV, acknowledged that, “actions such as forced disappearance, torture and arbitrary detention in Guerrero during the period of the Dirty War, followed a State policy of repression and extermination.”

The strategy emerged from the recommendation 26/2001 endorsed by the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanisg acronym) addressed to the then president of the republic, Vicente Fox, and as well as the proposals included in the Special Report on the Disappearance of Persons and Clandestine Graves in Mexico of the CNDH, presented in 2017.

Through a statement, the CNDH announced that “in assessing the institutional progress represented by the Plan for Attention and Reparation for the Victims of the “Dirty War”, the CNDH established that the Mexican State has an outstanding debt with the victims of disappearance and their families, which will not be paid while the authorities of the three levels of government fail to comply with their basic and fundamental obligation to guarantee minimum conditions of security for peaceful coexistence between people and to put an end to the environment of violence, impunity and illegality that we face.”

For more information in Spanish:

Presentan en Guerrero plan de atención a víctimas de la guerra sucia (Aristegui Noticias, 11 de febrero de 2019)

La CEAV presenta Plan de Atención y Reparación a las Víctimas de la Violencia Política del Pasado (Proceso, 11 de febrero de 2019)

CNDH EL PLAN DE REPARACIÓN A VÍCTIMAS DE LA “GUERRA SUCIA”, QUE ATIENDE LAS PROPUESTAS DE LA RECOMENDACIÓN 26/2001 Y EL INFORME ESPECIAL SOBRE DESAPARICIÓN DE PERSONAS Y FOSAS CLANDESTINAS DE ESTE ORGANISMO NACIONAL (CNDH, 11 de febrero de 2019)

Recomendación 26/2001 (CNDH, 2001)

INFORME ESPECIAL SOBRE DESAPARICIÓN DE PERSONAS Y FOSAS CLANDESTINAS EN MÉXICO. (CNDH, 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ:

National: INAI Orders SENEDA to Submit Information on Generals Linked to “Dirty War” (June 26, 2018)

International/National: IACHR presents report regarding right to truth which includes the case of the “Dirty War” in Mexico (December 14, 2014)

The Peoples’ Permanent Tribunal condemns Mexican State for crimes against humanity (October 11, 2014)

Chiapas: One Dead and Two Wounded in Latest Confrontation in Aldama – Chenalho Conflict

In the early hours of January 22nd, an attack by residents of Santa Martha, municipality of Chenalho, against their neighbors from Aldama who were going to their plots to work left one person dead and two wounded by bullets, as a result of the old conflict over the dispute of 60 hectares between the two municipalities, government sources reported.

As a consequence of this conflict, at least 2,036 people from communities bordering Santa Martha (Xuxch’en, Coco, Tabak and San Pedro Cotzilnam) are displaced in camps far from the disputed area.

According to the inhabitants of Aldama, in 2009, Santa Marta and Aldama signed an agreement to end the conflict, by which the inhabitants of the first community received from the state government one 1,300,000 thousand pesos. However, this agreement has been broken and the situation has been growing ever more violent since 2016.

In view of the most recent events, the Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Center for Human Rights urged the Mexican State to “adopt effective measures to guarantee the life and personal integrity of the population of Aldama, especially of the communities located in the territorial limits with Manuel Utrilla , Chenalho, as well as the municipal seat; investigate, sanction, disarm and dismantle the armed groups of Santa Martha, Manuel Utrilla, Chenalho; address the humanitarian emergency of the displaced population in the Chiapas Highlands region, Mexico; and cancel arrest warrants that criminalize representatives of displaced families.”

For more information in Spanish:

Un muerto y dos heridos, saldo de agresión entre Chenalhó y Aldama (La Jornada, 22 de enero de 2019)

Nuevo ataque paramilitar en Aldama, Chiapas, un muerto y dos heridos (Regeneración, 22 de enero de 2019)

Un muerto y dos heridos deja añeja disputa de tierra entre tsotsiles de Aldama y Chenalhó (Alerta Chiapas, 22 de enero de 2019)

Acción Urgente : Persiste riesgo a la vida en comunidades desplazadas, en Aldama, Chiapas (CDH Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, 22 de enero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: Se necesita atención al Desplazamiento Forzado Interno en Chenalhó y Aldama, ataque armado deja dos jóvenes heridos (14 de enero de 2019)

Chiapas: Sigue la violencia entre Aldama y Chenalhó (5 de enero de 2019)

AMLO sobre el caso de Desplazamiento Forzado Interno en el Municipio de Aldama, Chiapas. (18 de diciembre de 2018)

Chiapas: Frayba Denounces New Attacks in Aldama and Demands End to Violence
(November 19th, 2018)

Chiapas :Se mantienen amenazas y desplazamiento forzado en Aldama ; Frayba lanza acción urgente (October 14th, 2018)

Chiapas : Persiste riesgo a la vida de indígenas tsotsiles en Aldama, denuncia el Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (April 26th, 2018)

Chiapas: Violence increases in the Highlands of Chiapas, 747 displaced and 3 dead in Aldama (May 10th, 2018)

 

Chiapas: Two Members of Movement for Welfare, Peace and Common Good of Amatan and Independent Revolutionary Campesino Movement Murdered

Protest in Tuxtla Gutierrez (@Chiapas Paralelo)

Fifteen days after the human rights defender Sinar Corzo Esquinca was murdered in the municipality of Arriaga, Noe Jimenez Pablo, member of the Ayala Plan Coordinating Independent Revolutionary Campesino Movement (MOCRI-CNPA-MC in its Spanish acronym) and Jose Santiago Gomez Alvarez, of the Movement for Welfare, Peace and the Common Good of Amatan, were found dead and with signs of torture in a garbage dump near the municipality of Amatan. These events occurred after the denunciation of the disappearance of 50 members of the Movement for Welfare, Peace and the Common Good of Amatan on January 17th, after an armed commando broke up the sit-in maintained by the organisation since last November, against the caciques Wilbert and Manuel de Jesus Carpio Mayorga (the latter currently mayor for MORENA). The other 48 people have already appeared alive.

On January 19th, the Movement for Welfare, Peace and Common Good of Amatan held a protest in Amatan. The following day, MOCRI-CNPA-MN marched with the coffins of the two murdered individuals in Tuxtla Gutierrez accompanied by social organizations, displaced families from Chiapas, human rights defenders and students of the Rural Normal “Mactumatzá” School to demand justice requesting that the Federal authorities investigate the case.

Within the framework of this protest, Jesus Gutierrez Valencia, spokesman for the MOCRI-CNPA, denounced that this crime occurred despite the fact that 31 people from that municipality were already being monitored by the Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists and Human Rights Defenders of the Secretariat of Government (SEGOB in its Spanish acronym), including Noe Jimenez Pablo. “We came here to Tuxtla, to march with their bodies and show them here in front of the doors of the Palace of Government, what they denied so much, the existence of paramilitary groups and the dead that they do not want to see or that nobody sees what happens daily in Chiapas,” Gutierrez said. He denounced that “at all times the state government denied the facts and was negligent in its investigative role, since it always protected the mayor and his armed civilian groups.”

The lawyer Leonel Rivero, legal advisor of the CNPA-MN, reported that the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH in its Spanish acronym) and the Attorney General’s Office already took on the case, and that “it cannot be investigated by Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca, Attorney General of the State, because in June 2001 he himself, as public prosecutor, arrested, tortured and kept Jimenez Pablo himself aprisoner, which earned him a recommendation from the CNDH.”

The lawyer also reported that there are currently threats from the same group aggressors against defenders of the Antonio Esteban Human Rights Center and against the parish priest of the municipality of Amatan, Jose Dominguez Dominguez, who has been an intermediary for the reconciliation of the people of Amatan and has already suffered attacks on two occasions.

Francisco Jimenez Pablo, Noe’s brother, blamed Rutilio Escandon Cadenas, governor of the state, and the Secretary General of Government, Ismael Brito Mazariegos, “because to date they have not had the will to resolve social conflicts, and despite being shown evidence of the operation of armed civilian groups, protected by state and municipal police, they continue operating with impunity and killing people at ant time of the day.”

Several social and civil organizations have condemned these murders. The Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Center for Human Rights recalled that “Amatan is a strategic step for transferring drugs and weapons through its border with Tabasco, it is a corridor formed by the municipalities of Bochil, Simojovel, Pueblo Nuevo and Huitiupan, where the armed groups are linked to local caciques, who in turn are linked or protected by the municipal authorities and police, for the economic and political control of the region. The negligence that the government of Rutilio Escandon Cadenas maintains with caciques, as well as the unpunished activity of armed groups in several zones, has generated an outbreak of violence in different municipalities of Chiapas, generating fear in the population in general and high risk to the work that we exercise as journalists, communicators, social leaders and human rights defenders.”

For more information in Spanish:

Quince días después del homicidio de Sinar Corzo, otro activista es asesinado en Amatán, Chiapas (Sin Embargo, 19 de enero de 2019)

Asesinan al líder de la Coordinadora Plan de Ayala en Chiapas (La Jornada, 19 de enero de 2019)

Hallan ejecutado con huellas de tortura a líder de resistencia civil de Amatán (Proceso, 19 de enero de 2019)

Campesinos y estudiantes exigen justicia por asesinato de dos líderes sociales asesinados en Amatán (Proceso, 20 de enero de 2019)

Marcha fúnebre exige justicia para líderes campesinos y el pueblo de Amatán (Chiapas, 20 de enero de 2019)

Condenamos el asesinato de Noé Jiménez Pablo (CDH Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, 19 de enero de 2019)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: el Movimiento por el Bien Común, la Paz y Justicia de Amatán denuncia nueva agresión (18 de enero de 2019)

Chiapas: Grupo armado en Amatán intimida al párroco (17 de diciembre de 2018)