In Aldama, they shoot at houses where they see the lights on.

This is what the people of Santa Martha Chenalho are calling a solution.

"This is what the people of Santa Martha Chenalho are calling a solution.

Where the lives of boys, girls, women, elderly, old men and men are at risk. On this day 16/06/2021.”

The daily report from the Permanent Commission of 115 Community Members and Displaced Persons of Aldama detail high caliber shots fired in the direction of their homes, at cars passing, at campesina/os who attempt to work in their fields. Day in and day out, for months and yes, years.

As the Zapatista maritime delegation lands on the shores of the other Europe, to break this very siege, these are the acts that riddle the lives of their family members back home. There is no refuge.

Paramilitary ties in the region trace to the architects of Acteal, and the "white guards" or hired guns of local caciques before that –these are not simply intercommunity or territorial conflicts,– they are perpetrated or exacerbated by the administration du jour and the most recent iteration in the project of plunder.

But even more so, this blood and daily terror is on the hands of the bad governments and transnational corporations whose vile investment drives this dispossession, megaprojects of extraction and tourist hell-holes, whose immigration policies fuel militarization, whose guns trickle south from the Rio Bravo to the Rio Suchiate.

So, how do WE break this siege? That is that question the maritime delegation poses.

For it is a siege not only against indigenous communities in Chiapas, but against life itself.

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Text by Katy Keller.

For more information, please visit:

• Aldama, and the Neoliberal Plunder, SchoolsForChiapas. May 23, 2021.

• Frayba.org

• Burguete, Cal y Mayor, Araceli. “Aldama-Santa Marta, Chenalho: Las Aristas de un Conflicto.” Chiapas Paralelo. 2019. https://www.chiapasparalelo.com/opinion/2019/01/aldama-santa-marta-chenalho-las-aristas-de-un-conflicto/

• Hernandez Navarro, Luís. “Noviembre en Aldama.” La Jornada. 2020.  https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/11/24/opinion/026a2pol

• Hernández Navarro, Luís. “Los Demonios Chiapanecos.” La Jornada. 2019. https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/06/04/opinion/016a2pol

• Mariscal, Ángeles. “Si no Hay Reconciliación, que Se Aplique La Ley Contra Civiles Armados Piden En Chiapas.” Pie de Página. 2020. https://piedepagina.mx/si-no-hay-reconciliacion-que-se-aplique-la-ley-contra-civiles-armados-piden-en-chiapas/

• Rompeviento TV. 2019. “Aldama, Chenalhó y los paramilitares: AMLO, Alejandro Encinas y Ernesto Ledesma.”