The clamor. Photo: Gabriela Coutiño
SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, Chiapas. Tsotsil Catholic parishioners from San Pedro Chenalhó made a pilgrimage on Sunday to demand justice for the murder of the priest Marcelo Pérez Pérez and to denounce that in the Highlands region of Chiapas, there are communities controlled by criminal groups.
Two and a half months after the murder of the priest, the parishioners asked that the innocence of Father Marcelo be publicly recognized, on whom there was an arrest warrant for the disappearance of 18 residents of Pantelhó that occurred on July 26, 2021.
“Without security and without justice, the communities will remain depopulated, so it is necessary that the three levels of government recognize that there are localities controlled by criminal groups that have burned their houses, stolen their food, prevented them from working their plots and have forced families to abandon them,” said the parish council when reading a statement.
They pointed out that “the security promises of the new government campaign (MORENA member Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar), have a lot of force in the news and on social networks, but not in our reality. We understand that there are operations, searches and arrests against organized crime, but without dismantling them, these actions do not guarantee the path of justice or peace.”
To these actions, they said, “is added the complicity of public officials, police and investigative agents with criminals, following the money trail, increasing impunity. To be credible we need their coherence, commitment to the truth and justice (for) their closest victims.”
They assured that the insecurity they experience in the municipality, “is fueled by the excessive sale of alcohol, drug use, prostitution and displacement; we have seen violence explode in Pantelhó – it still continues – and we see it escalate in communities of Chenalhó, which border that municipality, in front of the authorities who seem to see it as normal.”
The Tsotsils from various communities, including members of the Las Abejas de Acteal organization, who participated in the pilgrimage, recalled that on December 11th, 2024, the San Cristóbal de Las Casas City Council awarded him the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Medal. “Both (Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas and Marcelo Pérez) showed that justice is not for the poor, it is for the privileged who have the money to pay for it. Because these events have no coherence.”
They added, “We have to continue fighting against discrimination, classism and racism that hinder justice. The words of our bishop Rodrigo Aguilar Martínez and the indignation of Romeo Pérez, Father Marcelo’s brother, still resonate in our hearts when the San Cristóbal City Council awarded the posthumous medal to the priest, and both showed that justice is not for the poor, but for the privileged who have the money to pay for it.”
During the pilgrimage they also demanded the release of the former president of the municipal council of Pantelhó, Pedro Cortés López, and the former councilor, Diego Mendoza; the safe return of displaced inhabitants and the repair of damages and that criminal groups be disarmed and dismantled.
The religious march, called by the parish council of Chenalhó, left from the junction to the community of Chixiltón towards the municipal capital, where it ended with the celebration of a mass.
Original article by Gabriela Coutiño, Proceso, December 12, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.