Shadows and Lights
Morelos Integral Project
“If Mother Earth feeds you, why do you want to poison her?” is the recurring question of Samir Flores Soberanes that remained etched in the memory of Amira, his eldest daughter, who today follows in her father’s footsteps while mothering Ivanna, the granddaughter Samir never knew, as he was murdered six years before she was born.
In a busy café in downtown Puebla, Amira Flores shares how she feels when people from the towns her father defended recognize her as she walks through the streets: “I am happy that they still remember him, that they are following in his footsteps and continuing the struggle. It makes me very proud that, even though many of my colleagues never got to meet him in person or spend time with him, I know they respect him, admire him, and still support him today.”
Liliana Velázquez says that her daughter Amira grew up amid marches and organizational meetings, handing out flyers at demonstrations against the Morelos Integral Project (PIM). Little Amira also helped with the organic farming work that Samir enjoyed so much. “It was a big influence on me. It’s the same struggle I’m involved in and will continue to be involved in,” says Amira, who is currently studying for degrees in law and social psychology, disciplines she complements with her motherhood and political activism in defense of the territory.
Amira responds with a resounding “no” to the question of whether justice has been served in her father’s murder and explains that the authorities have found nothing in any of the seven lines of investigation pursued to solve the crime against Samir, committed on February 20, 2019, just days before the public consultation on the megaproject he fought against. At just 36 years of age, Samir became one of the most visible faces of the opposition to the PIM thanks to his work as a broadcaster on Radio Amilcingo and his active participation in the People’s Front in Defense of the Land and Water of Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala (FPDTA-MPT).
The process of clarifying who ended Flores Soberanes’ life and why has been fraught with political obstacles and irregularities. Juan Carlos Flores, legal representative of the People’s Front, points out that the authorities tried to deny that Samir’s murder was linked to his work as a defender of the territory and community communicator: “At first, the Morelos prosecutor’s narrative was that it had been a settling of scores by organized crime,” he explains in an interview outside the municipal landfill in San Pedro Cholula, Puebla, where the communities that organized to shut it down are maintaining a sit-in to prevent it from operating.
On September 30, 2021, the now former prosecutor Uriel Carmona announced the arrest of one of the alleged perpetrators who, along with three other people, had supposedly participated in Samir’s murder. This information was denied days later by the Frente de Pueblos, an organization that denounced the fabrication of a setup in the investigation, as the alleged perpetrator had already been in prison since 2020 on kidnapping charges and was therefore not captured during the alleged special operation claimed by Carmona, who they demanded resign.
Juan Carlos Flores explains that, despite the authorities identifying this person as a likely participant in the crime that ended Samir’s life, the trial against him has not even begun, as the hearings have been repeatedly postponed. Regarding the other three alleged suspects, Flores specified that one of them has not been identified, another remains at large, and the third was killed in a confrontation.
And although the case was taken up by the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Freedom of Expression (Feadle) by order of a federal judge in August 2023, the ruling did not extend the time for investigation and evidence gathering, so the trial, which could finally begin at the end of 2025, will be conducted with what Juan Carlos called “the completely biased line of investigation” of the Morelos State Attorney General’s Office (FGEM).
The involvement of FEADLE, far from being a ray of hope in the search for justice for Samir, is a bad omen, as 84.77 percent of cases of attacks on journalists reported to this agency in 2024 remain unpunished, according to the organization Article 19 in its report “Information Barriers: Challenges to Freedom of Expression and Access to Information.”
The Frente de Pueblos itself conducted and released its own investigations in 2024, in which it warns of the existence of a network of complicity in the murder of its colleague. A map of actors includes former governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco Bravo, Hugo Erick Flores, former head of the Secretariat of Social Welfare and former representative of the federal government in Morelos, and former state prosecutor Uriel Carmona, in addition to the CJNG and the Los Aparicio cell, the latter identified by the Prosecutor’s Office as the perpetrator of Samir’s murder.
At the time of writing (October 2025), there have been no developments that provide answers to Liliana Velázquez’s questions about who masterminded her husband’s murder: “Where did the order come from and who gave it?”
And although everything in Amilcingo, Samir’s hometown, changed after his murder, Liliana remembers the words of her life partner: “Even though I am no longer here, you must continue, you must continue the struggle, you must continue to defend.”
AMALCINGO WITHOUT SAMIR
During the years when the inhabitants of Amilcingo fought against the Morelos Integral Project, assemblies were held in the town’s central square, in the shade of large trees that softened the powerful rays of the Morelos sun. Today, those trees are no longer there. In their place, a small kiosk and colorful letters spelling out the name of the town, in keeping with the aesthetics of the “Magical Towns,” decorate what was once the political heart of this town.
“Many things began to change in the community, even before the famous renovation of the town center,” explains Liliana. “The place they renovated wasn’t just a space, it was a symbol.” The old public buildings in downtown Amilcingo were demolished by municipal authorities without consulting the residents, leaving the Vinh Flores Laureano Community Health Brigade—named in honor of Samir’s uncle—without a suitable place to provide care to the people in their community. Although the remodeling work has been completed, the Health Brigade, of which Liliana Velázquez was a member, is still unable to operate because it has not been assigned a new location.
“The space where people gathered to organize was destroyed and replaced with a hideous park. The aim is to destroy the people’s capacity to organize,” denounces Jaime Domínguez, an activist from Jantetelco, another community in Morelos that stood up to the PIM during those years of resistance, when he became Samir’s friend and comrade in the struggle.
Another strategy to demobilize the people implemented after Samir’s murder to demobilize the people is, according to Domínguez, the alliance between organized crime and the municipal authorities of the communities surrounding the Huexca thermoelectric plant, where, he says, “there was very strong resistance, organized crime moved in and generated fear among the people, by hook or by crook, they created chaos and destruction.”
LILIANA, MOTHER AND WOMAN DETERMINED TO LIVE
In this climate of insecurity, Samir’s family has had to continue living behind bars and barbed wire surrounding their home, part of the measures implemented by the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists. “Living inside a cage with cameras does not guarantee your life; the danger is out there,” Liliana Velázquez shares in an interview conducted in the house that was built collectively after the defender’s murder.
Liliana is a 42-year-old woman. For more than six years, she has been traveling from place to place demanding justice for her partner, while raising her three daughters and her young son. The burden of being a single woman in a community has earned her criticism, which she has also had to fight against. You have to arm yourself, she says, “with a very large shield” to keep going.
The death of an activist like Samir affects everyone in his family, community, and organization. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life yet. It’s one thing to be a mother and another to be a woman, and I’m both. I feel that if I go on with my life, the guilt will never leave me. What I feel most is the weight of society on me. It’s awful.“ But Lily, as she is known here, is clear, brave, and strong: ”My children will fight their own battles. I will fight mine.” She is determined to live. She is a mother, a grandmother, and a working woman.
SAMIR IS FOR ALL STRUGGLES
With skillful golden brushstrokes, Alejandro Torres Chocolatl restores the mantle of the image of the Virgin Mary that protects the parish of Santa María Zacatepec, a combative community in the Puebla municipality of Juan C. Bonilla, which has fought against the installation of the Morelos gas pipeline, the pollution of the Metlapanapa River, and the Bonafont plant.
Torres Chocolatl fondly remembers Samir, his comrade in arms. Alejandro affirms that love for nature, for life, and for the people has been the legacy left by Flores Soberanes. Interviewed in his studio, Alejandro, also a member of the FPDTA-MPT, explains the connection he finds between his work as an activist and his craft as a restorer: “I believe that art is a form of expression, a way of showing love for the struggle, for life and, above all, for the defense of the land.”
Marcelina Barranco, also a member of the People’s Front, adds to what her husband Alejandro has shared. She affirms that Samir has been a strong inspiration for her community’s struggle: “He made us stand up more, defend ourselves more, and be more aware of all the damage that is being done to us.” At the foot of the leafy bougainvillea that grows in the courtyard of their home, they both smile. She holds a portrait of General Emiliano Zapata, drawn in pencil by Alejandro, who poses for the photo hugging an illustration of his friend Samir’s face.
And from Huexca, interviewed in the fields surrounding the thermoelectric plant they continue to fight against, Morelos defender Teresa Castellanos adds that “even though they murdered his body, the masses rose up.” Samir, she says, “will continue, as General Emiliano Zapata Salazar continues, to be a social activist who will always be recognized by us, the communities, and will continue to encourage us to move forward.”
Samir’s opposition to the government projects promoted by Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala led people and organizations to identify with the young Nahua defender from Amilcingo. After his assassination, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) adopted Samir’s image as an emblem of resistance.
The “sowing of Samir around the world,” as lawyer Juan Carlos Flores calls it, was one of the triumphs of the struggle against the Morelos Integral Project and has allowed “the consciousness that he always sought to sow in people and in his town to reach so many places and so many arms of solidarity.”
Samir was also commemorated in Mexico City’s Zócalo. On Friday, February 21, 2020, activists and residents of Amilcingo placed his bust in a garden bed in the capital’s main square during a demonstration calling for justice on the first anniversary of his death. Since that day, his face has been on display in front of the National Palace.
Months later, on October 12, the day commemorating the beginning of indigenous resistance, the Otomí community residing in Mexico City took over the headquarters of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) and its facilities were converted into the Casa de los Pueblos Samir Flores Soberanes, a landmark space for indigenous organization in the city, which remains despite threats of eviction it has received.
Two other busts were placed in 2025 in memory of the Amilcingo defender. In February, students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico hosted a political and cultural festival to mark the sixth anniversary of Samir’s assassination, whose bust was placed on the Islands of University City. And in Cuernavaca, Samir’s sculpture has been part of the Plaza de Armas since it was installed last March, a few meters from the Wall of Memory, dedicated to victims of forced disappearance in Morelos. Both anti-monuments constitute a permanent claim, placed in public space, to demand justice from the Morelos authorities.
“Samir did not die, the government killed him“ is the slogan firmly upheld by Vicenta Pérez Natividad, an elderly woman from Santa María Zacatepec who is actively involved in the fight against the ravages of the industries that came to her community after the imposition of the Morelos Integral Project, which, in her words, only brought ”the progress of death” to the territories she has always inhabited.
Alejandro Torres Chocolatl links Samir Flores’ legacy to current struggles. “He is present in every movement and every defense we make, because it’s not just the Morelos Integral Project, there’s also the toxic water, the Bonafont plant, the toxic landfill here in the Cholula area, and the theft of water that we are defending ourselves against.”
It is October 2025. There is a new federal government and there is still no institutional justice for Samir, his comrades agree, but his legacy, they say, “is from below,” not only in Morelos, not only in Mexico, but in many parts of the world. In Paris and Rome, for example, his bust travels through the struggles of those who seek justice.
Research and reporting by Axel Hernández.
Photos by Axel Hernández.
Video by Gerardo Magallón.
Antes de que Anochezca, Desinformémonos, October 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.