On July 1, 2024, members of the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG) began armed attacks against the indigenous Nahua community of Santa María Ostula, in Michoacán. Despite emergency calls from the community and accompanying social organizations, the attacks intensified without state and federal authorities doing anything about it. On the morning of July 3, the criminal group CJNG attacked using drones that launched explosives and high caliber weapons. The community, which has maintained a process of community resistance since 2009 that led it to rebuild its communal guard, took the necessary measures in these cases: it reported the attacks and protected the entire population under its care.
What followed were more attacks and total impunity. The CJNG’s aggressions were against the civilian population, mainly women, children and the elderly. The community authorities themselves tell it like this: The CJNG threw an explosive against the central court of the community, which fortunately has a roof. Immediately began the scuffle against houses and school, and from then on, an explosion every 40 minutes caused by drones.
The resistance of the Nahua community of Ostula marked a turning point in 2009 when, together with other native peoples of the country, they launched the Ostula Manifesto (https://acortar.link/yZggDU), a programmatic document that placed the right to autonomy and self-determination at the center of their resistance. That moment was the prelude to a process of recovery of more than 1,300 hectares of land in a strategic zone. With the recovery of the territory, later came the self-managed and community economic projects, the organization of an alternative project of security and justice, education and communication. Among people and scholars at national and international level, Ostula quickly became a reference point for the construction of alternatives to predatory capitalism.
Soon the Nahua people of Ostula learned that their adversaries were many and very powerful. Among them was the Ternium mining company and its iron ore extraction in the area. In their records they also found the alliances between the mining company and the criminal gangs that have served as paramilitary groups to displace the population or try to eliminate the resistance. This surrogate police work has been done by the Michoacan family, the Knights Templar and today the CJNG. To this alliance between mining and organized crime we must add the tolerance and impunity of the different federal and state governments towards legal and illegal companies that attack the community members, as well as the co-optation of municipal and state police, or the inaction against organized crime by the Army and the Marines. As if this dangerous mix of actors were not enough, we must not forget to add the role of agrarian and judicial bodies that repeatedly block the right to self-determination of the people.
As with other struggles for autonomy in the country, Ostula has paid dearly for daring to show that another world is possible. On July 26, 2008, when land recuperation was still a plan, the teacher and community member Diego Ramírez Domínguez was assassinated. Professor Diego was key to the community organization process. For his important work he had been appointed coordinator of the special commission of the general assembly of community members. From then until today, the attacks have not stopped. To date, at least 40 community members have been murdered and five have disappeared as a result of the repression against Ostula.
The brutality of the war against the people of Santa María Ostula has now transcended all political parties. At the federal level, not even the governments of Calderón, Peña Nieto and López Obrador have been able to pacify the area, stop the violence and keep those defending the territory safe. At the state level, neither have the governments of the Institutional Revolutionary and the Democratic Revolution.
The Nahua people of Ostula are doing nothing more than defending the territory that rightfully belongs to them, the place that their ancestors inhabited and that they protect at the cost of their own lives.
Let it be heard loud and clear: cease fire against Ostula!
Original text by Raúl Romero in La Jornada on July 12th, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.