In the face of this long period of darkness, we want to share with you that the light of truth and memory invites us to persist in building peace and justice.
Las Abejas of Acteal
Civil Society Organization
Sacred Land of the Martyrs of Acteal
Acteal, Chenalhó, Chiapas, Mexico
December 22, 2025
To the National Indigenous Congress
To the Indigenous Governing Council
To the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
To Human Rights Defenders
To Free and Alternative Media
To National and International Media
To National and International Civil Society
Sisters and brothers:
In these times of darkness and death, the warmth of the heart of the Sacred Land of Acteal embraces us with love and peace.
Today we are in Acteal, called together by memory, hope, and life.
We are gathered here for two important events in our collective journey: one, to remember and denounce that 28 years after the Acteal Massacre there has still been no true justice; and the other, to honor and celebrate the 33rd anniversary of the birth of our organization, Las Abejas of Acteal.
On a Monday like today, December 22, 1997, at 10:00 in the morning, PRI and Cardenista paramilitaries—created by Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, then President of Mexico, and trained and armed by the Mexican Army—arrived to massacre 45 women, girls and boys, men, and elders. These killers of the Mexican State had the mission of destroying our struggle for justice and true peace. They cut open the wombs of four pregnant women with machetes and extracted the fetuses in order to destroy the seed of life and the construction of a just and humane world.
This horror—the Crime of the State committed 28 years ago—will never be forgotten. It is written in books, carved into stone, embedded in our collective memory, and will be remembered by our descendants until the end of time.
Memory speaks to us and pushes us to demand justice and to denounce the impunity surrounding the Acteal Massacre. The memory of our 45 martyrs, along with the four unborn babies, gives us strength to continue pointing to the intellectual authors of this crime: Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, Emilio Chuayffet Chemor, General Enrique Cervantes Aguirre, General Mario Renán Castillo, Julio César Ruiz Ferro, Homero Tovilla Cristiani, Uriel Jarquín Gálvez, Jorge Enrique Hernández Aguilar, David Gómez Hernández, Antonio Pérez Hernández, among others. All of them remain free and unpunished, protected by PRI, PAN, and MORENA governments.
Twenty-eight years after the Acteal Massacre, not only has justice not been served for this crime against humanity, but repression, assassinations, and massacres against social fighters, land and territory defenders, and journalists continued after the Zedillo administration. Under the PAN government of Vicente Fox Quesada, for example, there was the repression in San Salvador Atenco, the repression of the APPO in Oaxaca with excessive use of force by the Federal Preventive Police, among many other cases.
Then came the PAN administration of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and his so-called “war on drugs,” which left thousands of civilians dead as “collateral damage.” Years later, Genaro García Luna, his Secretary of Public Security, was arrested and accused of ties to drug trafficking.
Later, the PRI returned to power with Enrique Peña Nieto, whose administration was responsible for the forced disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa, the extrajudicial executions in Tlatlaya, and other atrocious crimes.
In 2018, many people across the country believed that things would improve with the so-called “Fourth Transformation.” However, during the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, human rights defenders, land and life defenders, and journalists continued to be murdered and persecuted in different parts of the country. On July 5, 2021, our brother Simón Pedro Pérez López was assassinated. So too was the massacre of catechists and their families in Chicomuselo on May 19, 2024, for opposing organized crime.
And just as the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo—also of the “Fourth Transformation”—had begun, organized crime murdered our brother, Father Marcelo Pérez Pérez, on October 20, 2024, for openly denouncing the corruption of the bad governments in Chiapas that allow the violence unleashed by organized crime. And just last month, on November 27, Marcos Aguilar Rojas, agrarian representative of the Wixárika-Tepehuano community, was assassinated in the municipality of Villa Guerrero, Jalisco, and his brother Gabriel was left seriously wounded.
This brief recounting of the atrocities committed against us by the powerful, by bad governments in alliance with organized crime, makes it clear that the color of the party in power does not matter. It is a system designed to protect political and economic interests at the cost of the blood of the poor, peasants, teachers, journalists, and defenders of human rights and territory. Governments of all parties govern for the rich and powerful, placing the Mexican Army, the National Guard, and the police at their service.
Impunity and corruption are embedded at all three levels of power—the executive, legislative, and judicial. They decide the country’s politics and economy, but they do not act alone: orders and rules are dictated by the rich, the powerful, and organized crime.
These rich and powerful actors, along with criminal mafias in complicity with whichever bad government is in office, are the architects of the crimes we have mentioned. Their goal is the dispossession of our lands and territories and the wealth beneath them—water, oil, and other natural resources. They impose their death projects, such as the so-called Maya Train, the Integral Morelos Project, and the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Added to this is the territorial dispute among drug cartels, which has left thousands dead throughout the country.
For this and many other reasons, the Acteal Massacre remains unpunished. Justice will never be applied by those who are themselves responsible for the crimes. It is clear that they protect one another; the same power structure covers up the intellectual authors of repression and massacres.
Throughout these 28 years of suffering in the search for justice for our 45 brothers and sisters and the four babies, we have endured lies, mockery, and contempt. We also see how bad governments believe they can deceive the Mexican people by changing judges and appointing an “Indigenous” person as president of the so-called Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, pretending this transforms the justice system. This is a lie. For us, the survivors of the Acteal Massacre, this false highest court of justice— which in 2009 ordered the release of the paramilitaries who carried out the massacre—remains a rotten and obsolete system, and therefore useless.
Experience and memory have taught us that true justice—justice that dignifies, humanized justice—will never come from above. It is made, it is built, and it is called The Other Justice. When judges and bad governments despised us and shut their doors, we began to understand that justice is built from memory and through community organization. What is beautiful is that many people in Mexico and around the world have chosen to walk with us in this genuine search for and construction of The Other Justice.
Twenty-eight years after the Acteal Massacre, we remind the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to finally issue the Merits Report for case 12.790, Manuel Santiz Culebra et al. (Acteal Massacre), which for years we have been told is already on the list for issuance.
Pain and death have taught us to look outward, because we know what it means to lose our children, our mothers and fathers, our sisters and brothers. That is why we once again condemn the genocide in Gaza. From Acteal, we express our solidarity with the Palestinian people. Even if our words do not perform miracles, we believe in the strength of international solidarity and in joining the thousands of voices demanding an end to the genocide and accountability for the State of Israel.
In the face of this long period of darkness, we want to share that the light of truth and memory invites us to persist in building peace and justice. Let us continue our mission in defense of human rights, in defense of Mother Earth and territory. Let us continue to be defenders of life.
Although on that Monday in 1997 the paramilitaries of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León tried to kill the seed of peace, today, on this Monday in 2025, we once again say with strength and dignity that the seed has multiplied. It has grown into a great tree with many branches, and it is bearing abundant fruit.
Yesterday, young people from Las Abejas and from other communities and peoples came together to reflect on how they see the nonviolent struggle from their youthful hearts and perspectives. They spoke of resistance, of building autonomy, and of defending land and territory. The seed of resistance and nonviolence grows deep within their hearts. They know they must continue the struggle; they know it is now their turn to build true justice for the Acteal Massacre. They are already guardians of memory, hope, and life. They know their primary mission is the construction of dignified and true peace.
Finally, we want to share that today our organization, Las Abejas of Acteal, marks 33 years since its birth, which came about due to a serious human rights violation against five of our companions from the community of Tzajalch’en, falsely accused of a crime they never committed. Through organization—and thanks to jTotik Samuel Ruiz García, who opened our eyes along with other sisters and brothers of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas—we have grown. Our consciousness has expanded; our word has blossomed. Thanks to God the Father-Mother, thanks to the women and men who believed and continue to believe in our dignified struggle and who have accompanied us through moments of hardship and joy.
May the light of memory and hope dwell in our hearts, and may the blood spilled in Acteal strengthen our persistence and conviction that only an organized, oppressed people can defend their home and live free and in peace.
From Acteal, House of Memory and Hope.
Original text published at Las Abejas de Acteal on December 22nd, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.