ORCAO paramilitaries set fire to 3 classrooms inside a Zapatista Autonomous Middle School | #AJMAQ
On Sunday, they carried out their threat to put an end to autonomous education.
In solidarity with the Ajmaq Resistance and Rebellion Network.
November 21, 2021.
San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas.
To the People of the World
To the Indigenous Council of Government
To the National Indigenous Congress
To the National and International Sexta
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
As the Ajmaq Resistance and Rebellion Network, adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, we denounce the cowardly armed attack suffered by our compañeros and compañeras Bases of Support of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (BAEZLN), of the Caracol 101, by paramilitaries of the Regional Organization of Coffee Growers of Ocosingo (ORCAO)2.
The ORCAO paramilitaries at 10:00 a.m. made a tour with the intent of checking water pipes, but only for a few moments they inspected them.
They began to shoot from different points towards the community of Moises and Gandhi.
They were shooting intermittently, several high caliber shots hit three houses, putting the community at risk.
The armed attack continued and at 4:30 in the afternoon, a group of paramilitaries approached the Zapatista Autonomous Secondary School3 of the community and set fire to three classrooms, burning instantly.
It is worth remembering that on October 144 the Autonomous School suffered an armed attack by ORCAO. Today they carried out their threat to put an end to autonomous education.
This group of paramilitaries have carried out actions under the protection of the authorities of the municipality of Ocosingo where the misnamed Green Party (an appendix of the Institutional Revolutionary Party5 ) governs, where its main leader is an official of the municipality.
They act under the protection of Governor Rutilio Escandón Cadenas in exchange for the votes that the Green Party obtained in order to become governor of Chiapas.
Favor is repaid with favor.
We demand:
Immediate cessation of aggressions against the autonomous community of Moses and Gandhi.
Enough of the counterinsurgency against the Zapatista communities initiated with the PRI, continued with the PAN6 and implemented now with MORENA7.
Respect for the Autonomies built by the EZLN in its rebellious territory.
– Ajmaq Resistance and Rebellion Network
Read the full statement (in Mexican-Castilian) here.
