On September 28, the assembly of Zapatista autonomous government collectives and joint governments denounced that, with the support of elements of the Mexican Army, the National Guard, the Chiapas State Attorney General’s Office, and the Ocosingo municipal police, residents of Huixtán burned and destroyed houses belonging to support bases of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), which are responsible for collective work in the region and for common milpa work carried out with non-Zapatista brothers and sisters, and took over a property that was recuperated by the Zapatistas in 1994. The State Attorney General’s Office acknowledged these events, calling them an inter-institutional operation aimed at executing the restitution of a property located in the municipality of Ocosingo, adding that “during the proceedings, wooden houses were destroyed, with no arrests made.” It should be noted that 47 hectares of the property known as Copropiedad Huixtán were formally handed over to their respective owners, in the presence of law enforcement officers and with the Ocosingo government delegation as witnesses.”
The attacks took place in the village of Belén, in the rural region of Caracol Dolores Hidalgo, officially part of the municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas. In its communiqué, the assembly stated that on April 22, May 12, July 12, and August 29, with similar police and military protection, 30 people from Huixtán arrived in the town, led by Emilio Bolom Álvarez, Miguel Bolom Palé, Miguel Vázquez Sántiz, and David Seferino Gómez. On September 18, 20, and 22, 15 people took up positions on the property. On September 20, two trucks from the federal army, three from the Ocosingo police, and four from the state prosecutor’s office arrived again. The aggressors said that through an injunction, the judge granted them recognition as internally displaced persons and ruled in accordance with international agreements because the government authorities were negligent and did not accompany them from the beginning of the displacement. They revealed their true objective by pointing out that the injunction stated that “if we cannot enter our lands with guarantees of life and free transit and of our properties and our goods, the federal government is responsible for compensating us.”
The Zapatistas explained that “we tried to talk to them, but, of course, they told us that the government had already given them the land and that they had the legal documents. At that time, they threatened and harassed our compañerxs, telling them that they had to leave the land willingly or by force. Our attempt to seek dialogue was in vain.”
In their complaint, they also pointed out: “We did not lie to the people of Mexico and the world that these lands had already been paid for by the bad government since 1996.” The Zapatistas have been in possession of these lands for decades and have worked and cultivated them peacefully, continuously, and publicly, thus proving their legal possession. And they ask themselves, why is the land, which has already been paid for, being handed over again? What the Fourth Transformation is seeking here is conflict, confrontation, and war, and they reiterate: “We have said many times that we do not want war, what we want is to live together, but they are forcing us to defend ourselves.” Remember that thing about “Let’s not wake up the rough Mexico”?
I would like to clarify that the silence of the Chiapas state government and the federal government at the highest level does not exempt them from responsibility. The facts speak for themselves: in the absence of a statement from the governor of Chiapas, the state prosecutor’s office and the Ocosingo municipal police have already spoken, and the National Guard has spoken on behalf of the federal government. The judiciary has spoken through the judge or judges who allegedly protected the supposed owners of the lands recovered in Chiapas by the Zapatistas in 1994. It is now up to the state to publicly show evidence of such payments and the people who benefited from them. This should happen before it is too late, in order to offer a well-founded and categorical political demarcation against the aggressors who claim to be the owners. The complaint is being echoed by numerous collectives organizing rallies in vast regions and personal signatures in the country and in so-called Zapatista Europe, demanding respect for the EZLN, its organizational process for the common good, and its struggle for life, a project that finds no common ground with the electoral path of the so-called Fourth Transformation. For the Morenista political class, only the other political parties are in opposition.
The EZLN has social power, and the Mexican government has effectively repealed the law on dialogue, negotiation, and a free peace in Chiapas. Since 2001, it has been applying the Salinas principle of “I neither see nor hear them.” In reality, there is an undeclared war against the peoples that neo-indigenism cannot hide. The escalation against Zapatismo does not seem coincidental, however much supposed landowners, backed by olive-green, are being used as spokespeople.
Original text by Magdalena Gómez published in La Jornada on October 7th, 2025.
Photo by José Carlo González.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.