The forced displacement of indigenous communities as a result of the crisis of violence in Chiapas does not cease, as in recent weeks there has been an increase in the number of families abandoning their homes in the municipalities that make up the region of Los Altos.
Just on August 4, 200 members of the community of San José El Carmen, in the municipality of Pantelhó, abandoned their homes due to the violence generated by confrontations between armed civilian groups. Days before, almost 200 people fled from their community La Esperanza, in the neighboring municipality of San Pedro Chenalhó, where there was also an exodus of more than 100 inhabitants of the Tsotsil community of Tzanembolom, which occurred on July 20.
On Monday the 12th, local media reported that inhabitants of both municipalities were still registering shots of high caliber weapons. “The inhabitants have remained inside their houses, they have not been able to go out to work their fields or carry firewood for several months now, because they fear they could be killed,” said one of the interviewees.
According to testimonies, the scuffles continue in the vicinity of Tzanembolóm, a place where, they say, one of the armed groups is carrying out a strategy of forced recruitment, which is why people are fleeing their communities.
On Monday the 12th, the organization Las Abejas de Acteal, who continue their struggle for justice in the case of the massacre that took place in their community in 1997, warned that the violence in the region of Los Altos “is now unstoppable.” During a press conference in San Pedro Chenalhó, members of Las Abejas pointed out that the situation of violence that prevails in the area is similar to what they experienced in the days prior to the massacre perpetrated at the end of the 1990s.
Although the press conference held by the Tsotsil organization was part of the demand for justice on the 15th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) releasing the perpetrators of the massacre of the indigenous people, the denunciations also focused on the current violence.
“It gives us great sadness, our heart cries for the violence that is already unstoppable and has become a monster that devours everyone in its path. For example, in this area where we live, the municipality of Pantelhó and the communities of Chenalhó that live in the vicinity of Pantelhó have been forcibly displaced by the constant gunfire of armed groups. As is already known, the Mexican Army and the National Guard allow such acts to occur under their noses,” they stated in a communiqué.
Due to the increase in violence in the region, Las Abejas reactivated the Civilian Peace Camp, a shelter built in the Nuevo Yibeljoj community in October 2000 to house families displaced by paramilitaries in 1997.
During a ceremony on August 6, members of Las Abejas resumed work at the shelter through fasting and prayer and announced that the reactivation of the camp will allow them to keep their memory and hope alive. “With this action we intend to send a message to the three levels of government to address our demands for peace and justice,” they said.
Violence on the rise
For the organization Las Abejas, violence is becoming more frequent, which causes fear and pain at the memory of the 1997 massacre. “We could say that we are reliving what we have already lived through,” declared Guadalupe Vázquez Luna, a survivor of that violent attack.
They claimed that the release of the material authors of the massacre was the product of a campaign undertaken, since 2006, which involved the Centro de Investigaciones y Docencias Económicas (CIDE), Confraternice, Hugo Eric Flores Cervantes, Héctor Aguilar Camín, Manuel Anzaldo Meneses and the then president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa.
“They have made it so that the fruit of their collaboration in impunity has led Chiapas to a civil war, as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation warned in one of its communiqués last year,” they maintained.
Faced with this situation, the Tsotsil indigenous people claim that, instead of creating guarantees of non-repetition of a crime like Acteal, impunity allows organized crime groups to keep the population terrorized, “thus promoting the oblivion of the Acteal Massacre, as well as Ayotzinapa, Tlatlaya, Pasta de Conchos, Aguas Blancas and other State crimes committed throughout the country,” they denounced in the statement.
Elections postponed
It should be noted that the municipality of Pantelhó is one of three localities in which extraordinary elections are planned for August 25. This is due to the fact that during the elections of June 2, due to the occurrence of violent acts, there were no conditions for the installation of polling places in the municipality of Los Altos, as well as in the municipality of Chicomuselo, in the border region. In the third municipality, Capitan Luis Angel Vidal, the State Electoral Tribunal invalidated the process due to irregularities such as the burning of polling places.
In this context, residents of the municipality of Pantelhó have sent messages through social networks to warn about the increase in violence in recent days, for which they claim there are no conditions to safely conduct the elections.
Origina article by Sare Frabes published in Avispa Midia on August 14th, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.