Chiapas: Monthly commemoración by Las Abejas de Acteal

(Acteal @SIPAZ)

As on every other 22^nd of each month, the Las Abejas Civil Society of Acteal commemorated the Acteal massacre together with relatives of the victims, people from the region, as well as civil national and international organizations. “Memory will never die. Our memory is our hope. Hope is memory. The memory and hope of Las Abejas of Acteal will never die.” With these words they concluded their communique. Beforehand they had announced that they would “continue the struggle, the path toward Another Justice,” because in contrast to the attitude of the Mexican government it is important “to articulate and walk together without concern for our different languages, cultures, and means of being.” Within this context they thanked the People’s Permanent Tribunal (TPP), as “this Tribunal listened to us and actually respected our word. That gives us more strength for our hearts, as well as our memories and struggles. In the TPP we found joy and life, because that is where respect lies.”

With regard to the first anniversary of the forcible disappearance of 43 student-teachers in the state of Guerrero, Las Abejas assured that “We guardians of memory and hope will not forget that on 26 September a year will have passed since the State forcibly disappeared 43 students from Ayotzinapa, besides killing 3 others and leaving one other in a persistent vegetative state. In light of this infamous act, we will unite ourselves to the non-violent actions and mobilizations to denounce this crime of State.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Cómo vamos caminando y trabajando en La Otra Justicia. (Las Abejas de Acteal, 22 de septiembre de 2015)

Preaudiencia Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos en Acteal (16 de abril de 2012)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: Las Abejas of Acteal denounce 6 years of release of paramilitaries (10 September 2015)

Chiapas: A member of the Las Abejas Civil Society is murdered (2 July 2015)

Chiapas: TPP pre-audience judges Mexican State for crimes against humanity (27 July 2014)

National: Final audience of the Mexican Chapter of the People’s Permanent Tribunal

Survivors of the Viejo Velasco massacre during the TPP session in El Limonar, Chiapas, July 2014. Photo @ SIPAZ

From 12 to 15 November, the final audience of the People’s Permanent Tribunal (TPP) was held, after having begun in October 2011.  After 3 years of collecting information and analyzing the totality of testimonies provided by victims, organizations, and experts regarding 10 thematic questions, the sentence “Free Trade, Violence, Impunity, and Rights of the People in Mexico (2011-2014)” was published.  This sentence concludes that juridical responsibilities exist among four actors: the Mexican State, transnational corporations, other countries (such as the US and Canada, among others), and international institutions (like the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, and so on).  The four tiers are assigned varying degrees of responsibility.

The sentence is the culmination of 10 thematic and multidisciplinary audiences, themselves the fruit of 40 preaudiences, as well as the participation of nearly a thousands organizations of diverse character that involved thousands of individuals.  The cases that were presented showed the open violations of individual and collective human rights resulting from economic and commercial treaties.  It was also decided that the Mexican State is the party that “has objective international responsibility for the violation of rights, civil and political, social and cultural, as for the creation of a healthy environment and access to justice.  Such changes presuppose the observance of numerous international laws and of the Mexican Constitution.”

In this way, with regard to the normalist students who were disappeared and murdered in September 2014 in Iguala, it was mentioned “the events in Ayotzinapa constitute yet another chapter in the long list of violations of the rights to dignity and to life among the Mexican people: they are the dramatic expression, both real and symbolic, of present reality, and of the significance of the proposals for the TPP […].  All this that has been meticulously documented for three years was condensed in Iguala in a number of hours of barbarism.  And in this reign of impunity that is Mexico today, there are murders without murderers, torture without torturers, and sexual abuse without rapists.  This is a permanent deviation from social responsibility that has led to thousands of massacres, murders, and systematic violations of collective rights.  [For the State] these are crimes that are always isolated or marginal, rather than true crimes for which the State is responsible.”

The sentence specifies the gravest crimes, including crimes against humanity, that have been committed during the six-year terms of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, Vicente Fox Quesada, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, and Enrique Peña Nieto.  It concludes with a battery of recommendations directed to international groups, Mexican civil society, and international media, calling for a “refoundation of Mexico” to accord with the 20 lines of recommendations, so as to bring the country back from the “deviation of power” it has experienced.

One of the judges at the final audience, Bishop Raúl Vera, affirmed that what took place at the TPP “is a comprehensive study of the unjust system that deliberately has been promoted by the Mexican government”; he indicated the “lack of responsibility on the part of the State” which “is judged principally for its deviation of power to favor transnational corporations; its commitments do not identify with the people in the least.”  “Social discontent prevails because the people feel abandoned,” noted Raúl Vera.

For more information (in Spanish):

Sentencia de la audiencia final del Capítulo México del TPP (TPP México, 18 de noviembre de 2014)

Desde Salinas, gobiernos son “responsables de crímenes de lesa humanidad”: TPP  (Proceso, 18 de noviembre de 2014)

El Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos: a la sombra de Ayotzinapa (La Jornada, 18 de noviembre de 2014)

Violaciones del Estado, desde Salinas hasta EPN: documento del Tribunal de Pueblos (Aristegui Noticias, 18 de noviembre de 2014)

Tribunal establece crímenes de Estado y señala “desviación del poder” en México: Vera (Aristegui Noticias, 18 de noviembre de 2014)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: TPP preaudience judges Mexican State for crimes against humanity (27 July 2014)

Chiapas: Invitation to the TPP preaudience, “With justice and peace we will find truth” (19 July 2014)

National: the Mexican government does not comply with the recommendations of the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (23 June 2014)

The Peoples’ Permanent Tribunal condemns Mexican State for crimes against humanity

Testimony from a survivor of the Viejo Velasco massacre during the TPP in El Limonar, Chiapas, July 2014. Photo@Sipaz

From 25 to 27 September in the indigenous community of Santa Fe de la Laguna, Quiroga municipality, Michoacán state, there was held the final audience on “The right to life, against violence and State terrorism” contained within the “Dirty War” Axis of the Peoples’ Permanent Tribunal (TPP), Mexico Chapter.  16 cases were presented, covering the year 1960 to present, “by means of which was shown the systematic violation of human rights as a policy of the Mexican State against social movements, the defense of human rights, and the people in general.”  The international jury was lead by Alberto León Gómez Zuluaga (Colombia) and comprised of Marcelo Ferreira (Argentina), Marusia López Cruz (JASS Mexico), Beatriz Torres Abelaira (CaMeNA-UACM), Soila Luna Pineda (Don Sergio Méndez Arceo Foundation), Jtatic Juan Méndez Gutiérrez (Center for Indigenous Rights, CEDIAC AC-Chiapas), and Carlos Núñez Ruiz (Center for Indigenous Rights, CEDIAC AC-Chiapas).

In its ruling, the TPP condemned the Mexican State “for its direct and indirect participation, for action and omission, in the commission of crimes against humanity, as seen in the following: murder; extermination; deportation or forcible transfer of population; incarceration or other grave deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental international human rights law; torture and other cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment; rape and sexual abuse; persecution of groups and collectives for political and ethnic motives; forcible disappearance of persons and attacks against human-rights and environmental defenders.”

Beyond this, the TPP formulated recommendations to the Mexican United States, international organizations, social communication media, Mexican society, social organizations, and victims.  The tribunal closed its ruling by expressing its solidarity with the people’s struggles.

For more information (in Spanish):

Fallo del TPP Audiencia Guerra sucia (29 de septiembre de 2014)

Guerra Sucia como violencia, impunidad y falta de acceso a la justicia(Subversiones – Agencia Autónoma de Comunicación, 25 de septiembre de 2014)

For more information from SIPAZ (in Englsih):

Chiapas: TPP preaudience judges Mexican State for crimes against humanity (27 July 2014)

Chiapas: Invitation to the TPP preaudience, “With justice and peace we will find truth” (19 July 2014)

Chiapas: 7 years since the Viejo Velasco massacre (7 December 2013)

Chiapas: 5 years after the Viejo Velasco massacre (26 November 2011)

Chiapas: TPP pre-audience judges Mexican State for crimes against humanity

Photo (@SIPAZ)

On 18 July in El Limonar, Ocosingo municipality, there was held the pre-audience for the People’s Permanent Tribunal (TPP), “With Justice and Peace We Shall Find Truth.”  As part of the work on “Dirty War as violence, impunity, and lack of access to justice” covered by the Mexican chapter of the TPP,  the Viejo Velasco massacre was addressed.  This atrocity, which took place on 13 November 2006, resulted in the execution of four persons and the disappearance of four others.  Two of the disappeared were found dead some months later.  Furthermore, 37 residents of the community were forcibly displace, seeking refuge in the neighboring community of Nuevo Tila.

After having reviewed the relevant documents and the declarations of victims and witnesses, the judges declared that the “The fact that these acts of violence from the State did not solely target combatants but also the civilian, non-combatant population–including boys and girls–shows that the only common factor among the victims was that they pertained to certain ethnic groups and social organizations.  It also shows that said acts were committed ‘with the intention of destroying’ these groups ‘totally or in part,’ thus qualifying these as crimes against humanity.”  For this reason, they judged the Mexican State to be culpable of having violated the rights to life and personal integrity as well as the right not to experience forced disappearance in the cases of Viejo Velasco and Acteal in the Northern Zone of Chiapas.

In conclusion, the tribunal declared that “the State must use the appropriate means to observe its obligation to investigate the acts that have been denouned, as well as to identify, judge, and sanction those responsible and the beneficiaries of these crimes.”  It stressed that “the Mexican State is obliged to comprehensively compensate the damages caused by these crimes against humanity.”  Lastly, it recalled that the cycle of the Mexican chapter of the TPP will end in November 2014, a time in which the “grave human-rights violations committed by the Mexican State that to date enjoy impunity” will be denounced and made visible before the national and international public.

For more information (in Spanish):

Dictamen Preaudiencia “Con Justicia y Paz encontramos la Verdad” (TPP blogspot capítulo México, 19 de julio de 2014)

Estado mexicano, culpable en masacre de Viejo Velasco: TPP (Chiapas Paralelo, 21 de julio de 2014)

BOLETIN DE PRENSA “Con Justicia y Paz encontramos la Verdad”(Chiapas Denuncia Pública, 16 de julio de 2014)

Ante la falta de justicia del Estado familiares de víctimas de la masacre de Viejo Velasco exigen verdad (Chiapas Denuncia Pública, 16 de julio de 2014)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: Invitation to the TPP preaudience, “With justice and peace we will find truth” (19 July 2014)

Chiapas: 7 years since the Viejo Velasco massacre (7 December 2013)

Chiapas: 5 years after the Viejo Velasco massacre (26 November 2011)

Chiapas: Mexican government hides remains of Viejo Velasco massacre (25 de marzo de 2011)

Chiapas: The Viejo Velasco massacre three years later (19 November 2009)

Chiapas: Invitation to the TPP preaudience, “With justice and peace, we will find truth”

On 18 July will be held the pre-audience of the People’s Permanent Tribunal (TPP) “With justice and peace, we will find truth” in the El Limonar community, Ocosingo municipality.  The invitation made to “all popular, social, political, and human-rights organizations, as well as all families, friends, and persons in solidarity with the victims of the counterinsurgent war in the state of Chiapas” was made within the Dirty War, impunity, and lack of access to justice track covered by the TPP’s Mexico Chapter.  The idea is to address the case of Poblado Viejo Velasco which on 13 November 2006 experienced a massacre that left four executed, another four forcibly disappeared, and thirty-six displaced.

The invitation indicates that “this massacre took place within the context of counter-insurgent war as designed and implemented by the Mexican State by means of the Chiapas Campaign Plan ’94, which had the result that the paramilitary group Peace and Justice engaged in the following crimes: 85 executions, 37 forcible disappearances, and more than 12000 people forcibly displaced in the northern Zone, and the Acteal massacre in the highlands, when PRI paramilitaries murdered 45 persons, the majority of whom were women and infants–4 of them yet to be born–as well as provoking the forced displacement of more than 6000 persons.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Con tu firma, súmate a la Preaudiencia “Con Justicia y Paz encontramos la Verdad” (Chiapas Denuncia Pública, 2 de julio de 2014)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: 7 years since the Viejo Velasco massacre (7 December 2013)

Chiapas: 5 years after the Viejo Velasco massacre (26 November 2011)

Chiapas: Mexican government hides remains of Viejo Velasco massacre (25 de marzo de 2011)

Chiapas: The Viejo Velasco massacre three years later (19 November 2009)

Chiapas: Acteal, 16 years in search of justice

22 December 2013 @ SIPAZ

On 22 December 16 years passed since the Acteal massacre in the Chenalhó municipality, an act that killed 45 indigenous Tsotsil persons (14 girls, 4 boys, 8 men, 19 women, 4 of whom were pregnant) as they were praying in the Acteal chapel.  During the massacre, units of the Police of Public Security were located 200 meters from the site.  Members of the Las Abejas Civil Society once again commemorated the anniversary of the massacre this year, beginning on 21 December by sharing their experiences of struggle and ending with a pilgrimage and mass on 22 December.  Hundreds attended the commemoration.

“This sixteenth anniversary of the Acteal massacre we recall as being illuminated by a light that emerges from the Sacred Land of Acteal, but this light shines also through the darkness which covers our country in threatening clouds,” noted Las Abejas in their communique.  “Today counterinsurgency is for all, not just the indigenous of Chiapas.  It is made up of two parts: trickery and repression–or, as some say, the carrot and the stick.  Or, as Abejas have said at times: balls of sugar and bullets […].  It is precisely what the bad governments are doing, whether run by Manuel Velasco or Peña Nieto and their programs such as the National Crusade against Hunger.  They have created programs of assistance by taking advantage of the needs of the people in communities; their objective is to ease their conscience to cover over the looting and handing-over of our country to neoliberal foreigners.  The worst thing is that, so that the people don’t lose the ‘spell,’ they do propaganda, promoting the idea that the government brings good things and supports the people.”

Las Abejas also recalled the 98 persons displaced from the Puebla Colony “over a problem that has been going on for 8 months without resolution.  Now the government says that it wants to resolve the problem so that the displaced return to their homes, but it wants to impose conditions in exchange for such a resolution.  The conditions are that paramilitaries not be mentioned, that justice not be demanded, and that we silence ourselves […].  And now after leaving the side of justice and truth, the government says that the problems will be resolved with productive support and communal programs.”

Las Abejas ended by saying that “the people now are walking on the construction of another justice, and one of those paths is with the People’s Permanent Tribunal (TPP); we must meet more often.  We want nothing more than justice for Acteal, other massacres, and cases of human-rights violations throughout Mexico.”

The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Center for Human Rights (CDHFBC) read a communique at the commemoration which indicates that “Amidst impunity, the people save their memory, reflect, and find alternatives based on truth for the construction of justice.  In this way, relatives, witnesses, and victims of State crimes perpetrated in the Northern Zone, the Jungle, and Highlands of Chiapas met on 6 and 7 December in the Susuclumil community of Tila for the pre-audience of the work-group on Dirty War as violence, impunity, and lack of access to justice with the People’s Permanent Tribunal.  The session was called ‘Meeting for justice and truth,’ in which the judges declared: ‘It is not to the institutions of the Mexican State that we are looking for justice, but rather to alternative spaces for the construction and defense of our own justice, in addition to aiding with the convergence and union of the indigenous.'”

For more information (in Spanish):

Comunicado de Las Abejas a 16 años de la Masacre de Acteal (22 de diciembre de 2013)

Boletín de CDHFBC: La memoria histórica: un instrumento para la verdad y la construcción de justicia (22 de diciembre de 2013)

El sistema de justicia, podrido: Las Abejas (La Jornada, 22 de diciembre de 2013)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: Anniversary of the Acteal massacre (27 December 2012)

Chiapas: Commemoration of 20th anniversary of Las Abejas and coming 15th anniversary of the Acteal massacre (21 December 2012)

Chiapas: Survivor of Acteal massacre dies (16 November 2012)

Chiapas: the Las Abejas Civil Society denounces reactivation of paramilitaries in its community (12 October 2012)

National-International: Zedillo obtains immunity for the Acteal case(19 September 2012)

 

Chiapas: Invitation to attend the preaudience “Meeting for justice and truth” in Susuclumil, Tila municipality

Photo @SIPAZ

On 6 and 7 December 2013, in the community of Susuclumil, Tila municipality, popular, indigenous, human rights, and victims’ organizations together with persons who participate in the “Axle of Dirty War including Violence, Impunity, and Lack of Access to Justice” from the Permanent Tribunal of the People (TPP) Mexico chapter will meet with witnesses, survivors, and relatives of the communities of the Northern Zone, the Lacandona Jungle, and the Highlands of Chiapas to discuss the strategy of counter-insurgent war and extermination resulting from the application of the Plan for Campaign Chiapas 94.  The goal of the meeting is to denounce and give voice to the serious human-rights violations that the Mexican State has committed against the people of Mexico, especially the indigenous peoples of Chiapas.

For more information (in Spanish):

Blog: http://tppmx-guerrasucia.blogspot.mx/ Boletín 1. Boletín 2. Boletín 3 Boletín 4.

Email: tpp.guerrasucia.mx@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TppMexicoejeGuerraSucia

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TPPGuerraSucia

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: PUDEE denounces “climate of violence” generated by the CFE in the zone below Tila (11 de abril de 2013)

Chiapas: 16 years of impunity in the case of the forced disappearance of Minerva Guadalupe Pérez Torres (25 June 2012)

Chiapas: Masojá Shucjá, commemoration of the victims of the victims of the conflict of ’95 and ’96 (7 October 2011)

Chiapas: in Masojá Shucjá, memory and demand for justice for the victims of paramilitaries in 1995 and 1996 (7 October 2010)

Chiapas: 14 years after the forced disappearance of Minerva Pérez Torres by Paz y Justicia paramilitaries (30 June 2010)

Permanent Tribunal of the Peoples – Mexico Chapter

On 21 October was inaugurated the Mexican chapter of the Permanent Tribunal of the Peoples (TPP).  This international institution is the heir of the “Russell Tribunal,” which was established to judge the crimes against humanity committed int he Vietnam war and afterward Lain American dictatorships.  In the inauguration participated representatives of dozens of popular, communal, and social movements from Mexico.  the Mexico Chapter of TPP will develop its work over the next two years with the title “Free-trade agreements, dirty war, impunity, and rights of peoples.”

In its letter, the TPP defines itself in the following terms: “given its characteristics, origins, and composition, it is an expression of the ethical conscience of humanity which founds its legitimacy in its moral force.  It has as its specific mission the permanent transformation of conditions that would guaurantee a space of visibility, regard, and judgment of massive human-rights violations, both individual and collective, and of the rights of peoples that find no institutional representation at either the national or international levels.”

At its site in the Mexican capital they expand: “The call for the TPP to open a chapter in our country has as its end the visibilization of the structural violence that holds sway in Mexico due to the numerous free-trade agreements as well as to unmask the mechanisms of obfuscation and deviation of power that are systematically exercised by the Mexican State to maintain this economic policy.”  The title of the Mexico Chapter of the TPP will be that of “Free Trade, Dirty War, Impunity, and Rights of Peoples.”  The themes to be addressed will be the following: Dirty War; Migration and forced displacement; Feminicide and gender violence; Violence against workerss; Violence against maize, food sovereignty, and autonomy; Environmental devastation and rights of peoples; Dis-information, censorship, and violence against communicators; and possibly there will be added Violence against indigenous peoples.

For more infornation (in Spanish):

Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos México (website of the Mexico TPP)

Mensaje de Raúl Vera en la Sesión Inaugural del Capítulo México del Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos, D.F. 21 October

Un tribunal para los pueblos del maíz (La Jornada, 22 October 2011)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Seventh National Assembly of the Environmentally Affected; Mexico will be judged before the Permanent Tribunal of the People (18 August 2011)