After a series of attacks against the indigenous communities of Chiapas, in southern Mexico, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, together with human rights organizations, called for social mobilization to demand that the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador cease the the escalation of violence. One that has been promoted by paramilitaries, the drug traffickers and the Army itself, which suffers in the region and which keeps its inhabitants in anguish.
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The Zapatistas once again toured the streets of Mexico City shouting “stop the war.” With the paliacate around their necks —its emblematic red scarf—, flags, banners and harangues of the revolution, hundreds of people, related to the movement and from various regions of the country, paraded through the capital of Mexico on Thursday to demand an end to the violence against the communities of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).
The EZLN, considered a guerrilla group by the Mexican Executive, took up arms on January 1, 1994 in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, led by Subcomandante Marcos –now far from the media spotlight– in search of social justice and in rejection of the inequalities and violence suffered by the indigenous peoples of that state and of the entire country.
“The Faceless Men and Women,” as they were known because of their ski masks, became known worldwide for their leftist fight against capitalism and their revolutionary—and anarchist—ideas for the creation of “another world where many worlds fit.” The movement, its guerrillas and militants ended up imprisoned in the “caracoles”, as the Zapatista communities in Chiapas are known, increasingly hermetic from public visibility.
But an extreme situation has brought them back to the streets. “On May 22, an attack with firearms occurred in the Moisés Gandhi community and our comrade Jorge López Sántiz was seriously injured, who is still hospitalized. This aggression is part of a series of violent attacks against the Zapatista communities”, he told France 24 during the demonstration Adela, a member of the United Peoples of the Choluteca region.
The mobilization responds to an alert message from activists and some 800 humanitarian and indigenous organizations: “Chiapas is on the brink of civil war.” The warning was issued after the attack by a paramilitary group against a Zapatista community.
In recent weeks, violence between paramilitary groups, self-defense groups and drug traffickers has increased in southern Mexico, on the border with Guatemala, for control of territory and drug trafficking routes. A region that has also seen increased militarization due to megaprojects, such as the Mayan Train, since it is one of the main entry points for migration to Mexico.
“Chiapas on the brink of civil war”
The situation of violence is permeating the indigenous and peasant communities of the region, impoverished due to endemic state abandonment. “We see that organized crime and its various businesses: trafficking in women, human trafficking, drug sales, arms sales, prostitution… is already penetrating indigenous communities. A phenomenon that we had not seen before in the country,” Raúl Romero, a member of the organization Llego la hora de las pueblos, told France 24.
At the beginning of June, seven Tzotzil indigenous people were murdered in a small mountainous community in the Chiapas Highlands. One more episode of violence, added to a series of displacements of hundreds of people from various southern communities that has engulfed the residents of the region in anxiety. “The increase in this violence has left serious human rights violations, among which are situations of massive and intermittent forced displacement, disappearances, dispossession of land, murders, torture, among others,” read a statement from the rights organization Fray Bartolomé de las Casas.
In addition, since the end of May, clashes between the military and residents of the municipality of Frontera Comalapa have increased, in the midst of anti-drug operations. “We are asking for the attacks by paramilitary groups to stop. We are talking about groups allowed, financed or armed by the Mexican Army that attack Zapatista communities. At this time they are also associating with organized crime groups that keep Chiapas on the verge of a civil war,” denounced Romero.
With Reuters and local media
