What is happening in Chiapas? | "They want to do away with our collectivity. They want individualism, to parcel the land for their own interests, to commodify it. For profit – not out of necessity."
III Report of the Caravan for Solidarity and Documentation with the Zapatista Community of Nuevo San Gregorio, as published by the FRAYBA and the Network of Resistance and Rebellion AJMAQ.
Wednesday, January 12, 2022.
Jobel Valley, San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.
III Report of the Caravan of solidarity and documentation with the autonomous Zapatista community of Nuevo San Gregorio held on January 08 and 09, 2022.
Organizations, collectives and networks adhering to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle:
We present our report to communicate, disseminate and denounce the continuity of the aggressions perpetrated by the group of "Los 40" – invaders targeting girls, boys, men and women of the autonomous Zapatista community of Nuevo San Gregorio1, in the area of Patria Nueva, territory recovered in 1994 by the EZLN.
We extend this report to individuals, families, collectives, organizations, networks and the media, so that they may contribute during the month of January to the campaign for the spread of this information.
We ask you to join us from your geographies – in accordance with your ways, times and creativity – with the objective of denouncing these crimes, and of letting the Zapatista families know that they are not alone. Also, to collectively demonstrate our connectednes in the face of the war against life which targets the autonomy of the Zapatista peoples.
Introduction. Context of the Integral War of Attrition against the Zapatista communities and peoples belonging to the EZLN.
In this third report we release the documentation that we were able to collect from testimonies and evidence of tangible facts, that the participation of the three levels of bad government: federal, state and municipal, has been one of inaction and omission in the face of the acts carried out with total impunity by the criminal group known as "The 40"2.
The bad government continues to be negligent in the face of an overwhelming number of complaints, disregarding all convincing evidence of the offenses committed by these individuals.
It is clear that these groups work with the consent and approval of the State.
For this reason, on January 8 and 9, 2022, a third Caravan was held, called by the Network of Resistance and Rebellion AJMAQ to redouble the commitment to life, and insist on denouncing the continuation of this war against the Zapatista autonomous communities.
In this case, specifically in the community of Nuevo San Gregorio.
It is worth mentioning that these violations have been followed up and the cases have been evaluated3.
Our reports
In our reports, we have insisted on highlighting the founding event of the uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) on January 1, 1994.
Thousands of hectares of land usurped by landowners were recovered by their legitimate owners: the indigenous people.
Since these events, the bad government has insisted on executing a war to once again steal and control the territory where the Zapatista peoples are building a collective and independent way of life.
We reiterate that the path of the EZLN has not been easy.
The 1994 war, and its continuation in counterinsurgency, began to be implemented in different ways with the intent of wearing down and fragmenting the Zapatista families, communities and peoples.
Today
Today, in times of the IV Transformation4, we continue to identify several fronts of attrition such as: agricultural warfare.
This agricultural warfare aims to generate confusion about the ownership of land to immediately provoke disputes. It is focused on inducing permanent harassment towards the Zapatista peoples settled in the recovered Lands.
This harassment has also been encouraged by government assistance5 programs through which the State continues to deceive – with supposed legal certainty – to accomplish the distribution, acquisition and use of land.
In reality, they are forms of dispossession allowed through legal trickery to perpetrate the plundering of natural common goods, and thus deprive the communities of their agrarian rights.
Similarly, the threats and intimidation come from the military, with the imposition of a militarized encirclement, in coordination with paramilitary groups.
These groups are financed and trained with the complicity and logistical support of the State and the Mexican Army, designed to besiege and intimidate the Zapatista communities.
Another front is that which aims to undermine the Zapatista economic system through welfare programs implemented by the different political parties allied with paramilitary groups that are in charge of invading, stealing and destroying the agricultural production of the Zapatista families, in addition to the use of the media to misinform, delegitimize, criminalize or slander the political-ethical proposal of the EZLN.
The constant attacks on the Zapatista self-governing territory – and on the original indigenous peoples of Chiapas and Mexico as a whole – are a continuation of the policies of previous political parties of the PRI, PAN, now disguised as MORENA.
It is the incessant and criminal actions of "those from above" to put an end to the Zapatista autonomy project of the EZLN, to continue converting the land and the territory into commodities – regardless of the consequences to which they are pushing humankind: to a point of collapse in all spheres.
Nevertheless, in the face of all these violent acts over 28 years, the autonomous communities of the EZLN continue to nourish hope by fighting for life: by caring for and defending Mother Earth, by promoting communal efforts, by appealing to a sense of solidarity in order to provide a non-violent solution to the assaults on their territories.
Today, and from the example of the Zapatista community of Nuevo San Gregorio, we can confirm that the political commitment is for life and through autonomy.
We see families organizing themselves to create and sustain the communal production of corn, beans and wheat, as well as the women's pottery cooperatives, the artisan’s co-op, the communal market and the woodworking workshop. These are their initiatives of resistance.
In Nuevo San Gregorio, they support the healthcare and autonomous education sectors with their own organizers and staff. All of these measures come from their own system of self-governance, and from the respect, devotion and care for Mother Earth.
The Crisis in Nuevo San Gregorio
The Nuevo San Gregorio autonomous community consists of 155 hectares of reclaimed land.
Since November 2019 the group of the 40 invaders began their provocations by fencing off the fields and the autonomous high school, preventing access to the fruit trees and medicinal plants found there.
On February 27, 2020, both the community of Nuevo San Gregorio and the Junta de Buen Gobierno tried to establish a dialogue with the invaders by making 3 concrete proposals:
1) That the land be worked collectively; or
2) Give them one hectare per person; or
3) Divide the 155 hectares in half.
However, these proposals were rejected by the invaders.
And from then on, the only thing that has happened on the part of this group has been assaults and threats against the Zapatista bases.
This fact demonstrates that they do not want the land out of necessity, but as a commodity to transform it into a business for-profit (which goes against the organization of the EZLN). All the invaders have their own lands in the 4 communities to which they belong.
Throughout 2020 and 2021, the invaders began with the fencing of the water storage tank that distributes water to the town – the electricity pole where the water-pumping line comes out – and the tractor of the region, preventing its movement.
They’ve taken vegetables, medicinal plants and fruit trees; they’ve threatened and harassed the Zapatista women; they’ve attacked men, surrounding them while carrying sticks, machetes, clubs and slingshots.
In addition to surveilling from a distance, they started snapping photos and video in the direction of the Zapatista people in order to harass the families.
As of January 2022, of the 155 hectares of land reclaimed, the invaders have shrunk access and production of the Zapatista families to three and a half hectares. The population center is left in half a hectare, leaving three hectares dispersed and fragmented.
The families are currently fenced in and sequestered on their own land.
In the same way, the roads, forests, springs and rivers have been fenced off and seized.
In all this time, the invaders have plundered the crops and abducted animals from the communal farms; they continue to destroy the forests, kill the animals and carry out the commodification of the land. They are trying to sell Mother Earth.
The 3 fundamental axes to undermine autonomy
The assault on the land and territory shows us that their attack focuses on three fundamental axes to undermine the Zapatista Autonomy in Nuevo San Gregorio. It targets:
a) Self-sustaining food production;
b) Autonomous education;
c) Autonomous access to medical care.
1. Axis of production
Being the land is for self-sustenance, we see that the fencing and kidnapping of bean, corn, wheat and pea fields, as well as the destruction of orchards, fruit trees and the collective of cattle and fish is causing hunger for the families and the death of the animals.
Here are some testimonies:
They want to do away with our collectives, they want individualism, they want to parcel the land out for profit, not out of necessity.
This season, the animals (cattle) are going to be screwed, we don't even have enough to gather pasture. We are struggling to find stubble.
We are not the owners of these lands, we are guardians.
These lands belong to thousands of Zapatistas.
The land is worked in common.
Our land is our life, we have no other place to live.
The invaders will not be able to pay for the damage they did to us, and the life of the fish will not return, and we don't know if our cattle will survive, they wired us and we have wounds, and we don't know where it will stop.
Lopez Obrador has it well-planned. The 3 levels of government turn a deaf ear. There is no government.
Not only we are suffering this, other Zapatista communities are also suffering and the three levels of government turn a deaf ear, they do nothing, they only take away our production and that is what they teach their people.
But the voice of the people… the people demand justice and life.
We live here, we were born here, we grew up here and we will continue to live here.
2. Education Axis: the fencing off and seizure of the high school.
We’ve collected the following testimonies:
At school we teach the girls and boys collectivism.
The children have changed, before they were happier and more lively in class, now they are rather upset. It has affected them. That's what we see, they are not doing very well.
As they already said: there is little morale left [after the attack].
– Education Promoter
3. Axis of Health: the psycho-social-emotional damage
As a war designed to harm women, girls, boys, youth and men, it is destructive to the psycho-social-emotional integrity for the families.
These are the persistent acts of cruelty that negatively impact the physical and mental health of the people:
the constant surveillance from strategic points towards the population of the Zapatista bases.
the obstruction of free transit with barbed wire fences across the community
the close presence of invaders with machetes, knives, clubs, slingshots, threatening and harassing them on the roads
the destruction of the communal fabric, instilling the discredit towards the Zapatista way of life
the forced modification of the nuclear communal fabric of those affected in their daily lives through these serious acts of violation to their right to live.
Some testimonies:
“We as compañeras are at home with fear. As compañeras we get sick a lot, we live in fear. We cannot go out alone to get firewood. We are afraid.”
Our house is outside the fence, but our chicken coop is inside the barbed wire put up by the invaders, and we have to cross it every day.”
From a community health promoter:
Health is life. It is for compañeros, compañeras and not-compañeros and not-compañeras.
We work with medicinal plants inherited from grandmothers. For us, for the community health advocates, it is an commitment, the people choose us, we have to carry out our labor.
We used to have medicinal plants, but now the invaders have fenced access to them. So we had to create a new space behind the health center. We have just started, but because of the drought, the plants are not growing.
We are trying very hard to survive because health is life.
However, in the face of this harsh reality, we have witnessed the persistence, organization and dignity with which the Zapatista families maintain themselves in spite of everything.
While the invaders spread destruction and death, the Zapatista families construct life from communal labor, through knowledge and creative initiatives such as the pottery workshop, the embroidery collective, the carpentry workshop, and the community grocery stand. In addition, they are trying to strengthen the small-scale production of chickens, fish, livestock and the communal corn, bean, pea and wheat farms while continuing to sustain the axes of autonomous health and education.
Conclusions
The organizations, collectives and individuals who participated in this III Caravan of Solidarity, organized by the Network of Resistance and Rebellions AJMAQ, give an account of the documentation collected from testimonies and evidence of concrete facts regarding the acts of harassment, threats, destruction and dispossession of the Zapatista families and community of Nuevo San Gregorio, from a mechanism of crime, death and annihilation against a project of life that builds autonomy.
We denounce that the continuous acts of violence by the group of 40 invaders.
These acts involve invading, fencing off, seizing and killing the land and territory with wire fences. This is a violation of the right to the use and enjoyment of the land and territory that the Zapatista families have, legitimately and in full exercise of their rights, to exercise autonomous forms of organization.
We emphasize the following acts of violence committed by Los 40:
The crime of fencing off the vital, elemental spaces that every person and community needs to live in dignity.
The crime of obstructing access to water and food to provoke hunger, thirst and physical and emotional exhaustion of the people.
Of murdering animals.
Of violating women, girls, and children.
In addition, violating the right to autonomous education, health and the self-sustaining economy of the Zapatista families.
The day after the Caravan of Solidarity and Documentation, members of "The 40" connected the cable from the light pole to “Casa Grande” of the ex-finca, destroying the PVC pipe that carried water to the collective cattle, and advanced one more hectare of land.
The recovered lands are legitimately reclaimed EZLN lands. It is from there that the fabric of life and autonomies are built.
It is the place of resistance, where humanity is built for humanity.
It is the place that enforces a relationship of respect, conviviality, community and care for Mother Earth6.
Ratifies:
1. México Gruppen. Foro Internacional de Dinamarca
2. Adherentes a la Sexta Internacional (Argentina)
3. Mujeres y la Sexta (Ciudad de México)
4. Red Mix Zapatista (Ciudad de México)
5. Red Universitaria Anticapitalista (Ciudad de México)
6. Desarrollo Económico y Social de los Mexicanos Indígenas (DESMI, AC)
7. Espacio de Lucha Contra el Olvido y la Represión (ELCOR)
8. Espacio de Mujeres adherentes a la Sexta (Valle de Jobel)
9. Defensoras Comunitarias (Valle de Jobel)
10. Colectivo de Familiares de Presos en Lucha
11. Adherentes individuales a la Sexta (Valle de Jobel)
12. Promedios
13. Red de Resistencias y Rebeldías AJMAQ
13. Acompañamiento del Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas.
Belonging to the Autonomous Municipality Lucio Cabañas, Caracol 10, Floreciendo la Semilla Rebelde, Junta de Buen Gobierno, Nuevo Amanecer en Resistencia, and Nuevo Amanecer en Resistencia: Nuevo Amanecer en Resistencia and Rebeldía por la Vida y la Humanidad.
“Whose main leaders are: Nicolás Pérez Pérez Pérez (ex-regidor of the Huixtán city council), his sons Roberto Pérez Huet and Alejandro Pérez Huet, Nicolás Mosan Huet, Alonso Bolom Ara and Nicolás Gómez Pérez.”
On October 28, 2020, the First Caravan of Solidarity and Documentation was held in the community of Nuevo San Gregorio and the Moises and Gandhi region.
On December 8, 2020, several human rights organizations carried out a Civil Observation Mission from the Network All Rights for All (RTDT). On January 12, 2021, a second Caravan of Solidarity and Documentation was carried out. And from March 2021 to date, the Civil Observation Brigades (BRICOS) of the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center have been carried out.
The Fourth Transformation (Spanish: Cuarta Transformación) refers to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's (commonly known as "AMLO") 2018 campaign promise to do away with privileged abuses that have plagued Mexico in recent decades. López Obrador defined the first three transformations as the Mexican War of Independence (1810–1821), the Reform War (1858–1861) and the Mexican Revolution (1910–1917).
Such as: Procede, Procecom, Fanar, Raja.
Translation by taller ahuehuete in solidarity with the cause. See original statement here, in Mexican-Castilian language.