The change of government in Chiapas has not guaranteed peace for the citizenry and especially for the indigenous peoples and communities within a framework of respect for their rights. Let’s just take a look at the events that took place last June 8. On that day, the Pakal Immediate Reaction Force (FRIP) raided Guatemalan territory in pursuit of alleged criminals and four of them were killed.
The government of the neighboring country soon rejected the unofficial versions from the Mexican side accusing them of defense and complicity for the persecuted. The matter prompted a diplomatic note from the Guatemalan government, in which it described as a “serious incident” the entry of Chiapas state police into Guatemalan soil. It also called on the Mexican government to investigate this event within the framework of international law in order to maintain security and reciprocal respect on the shared border.
In response to this came the inevitable apology from the President of the Republic, Claudia Sheinbaum, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with the visit of an official commission to reiterate it directly to President Bernardo Arévalo.
On the same June 8, the governor of Chiapas, Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar, gave the starting signal for the construction of the Palenque-Ocosingo highway called La Ruta de las Culturas Mayas (The Route of the Mayan Cultures). Immediately, the Movement in Defense of Life and Territory (Modevite), the community government of Chilón and various localities in the area demanded the cancellation of the project and argued that they do not approve of it and that the government carried out a rigged consultation with a small group and highlighted the destruction of jungles, rivers, springs and sacred territories, in addition to altering community ways of life, facilitating territorial dispossession and opening the way for extractivist interests. They described the dispossession of their ejido lands.
On the same afternoon of June 8, the organization Las Abejas de Acteal denounced the aggressions perpetrated by armed individuals against its members and inhabitants of the community of Tzajalch’en, Chiapas, as well as the intimidation and criminalization of community defenders by groups linked to organized crime in complicity with governmental structures. Gunshots were fired. The shots were fired from a hill located about 400 meters from the school and Catholic church of the community. Meanwhile, at around 8:00 pm, armed persons arrived near the Tzajalch’en community and cut down trees to block the road that connects the communities of Tzajalch’en, Tzanembolom and Cruzton. This was denounced to the municipal authorities and elements of the National Guard and the Army arrived and asked to accompany a member of Las Abejas de Acteal and the rural municipal agent of the community to a meeting. They held them both incommunicado for a few hours in the official truck, while they intimidated them and accused them of kidnapping a woman who had been detained in the community for illegal activities.
The strange coincidence of the date of June 8 is far from being an isolated event. Today there is a continuous atmosphere of tension and violence that the communities relate to that which was present at the time of the massacre of 45 indigenous people on December 22, 1997 in the community of Acteal, an event that has yet to receive full justice. For this reason, residents of the community of Tzajalch’en, municipality of Chenalhó, held a day of ecumenical prayer because “there is a latent danger, since the authorities are being threatened with death via telephone and verbal threats”.
However, the official reality, as usual, has other data, to show the recognition of the achievements of the current government in the state of Chiapas. Last June 14, three days ago, Omar Garcia Harfuch boasted a decrease in crime in the state. He affirmed that Chiapas is among the 25 states with the best results and that there is a decrease in intentional homicides.
Pure gold for the ears of the governor of the state who proudly supports his creation, the pakales, affirming that they are the best public security strategy to add without any evidence: “we live in peace”.
The other side of the coin is that of the hundreds of organizations in the country and abroad that demand true justice and bet on the conviction that another world is possible. In this context, right in that state, the Zapatista communities are committed to the construction of the common good. Good news: the EZLN is calling for the Encounter of Resistance and Rebellion, Some Parts of the Whole, to be held next August, from the 2nd to the 17th, in the Comandanta Ramona Seedbed, in the Morelia caracol.
Original text by Mágdalena Gómez published by La Jornada on June 17th, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.