Las Abejas de Acteal Civil Society Organization
Sacred Land of the Martyrs of Acteal
Acteal, Chenalhó, Chiapas, Mexico
August 12, 2024
To the National Indigenous Congress
To the Indigenous Council of Government
To the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights
To Human Rights Defenders
To the Vicariate of Justice and Peace of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
To Free and Alternative Media
To National and International Media
To National and International Civil Society
Sisters and brothers:
Fifteen years after the mass liberation of the paramilitaries by the so-called Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), we are still here, because we are a people who do not forget. We, the survivors, are still here, walking hand in hand with our Board of Directors of Las Abejas de Acteal; we have not allowed ourselves to be sold out or manipulated by the governments responsible for the Acteal Massacre or by the current governments that, with their indifference and lack of political will, have decided to keep the intellectual authors of the Acteal massacre in impunity.
Las Abejas de Acteal are an organization with memory that, over the course of almost 27 years since the massacre of 45 of our sisters and brothers, plus the four unborn babies on December 22nd, 1997, has seen how this state crime has been the object of a policy of attrition and oblivion by the same governments, who seek to leave their own crime unpunished. Under these policies, they govern and continue to govern Mexico, regardless of the color of the party to which they belong; and they do not care about the political, social and economic costs they cause, as long as they remain in power to satisfy their ambitions and greed.
We are very sad, our hearts are crying over the violence that is now unstoppable and has become a monster that devours every person 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 the former have been forcibly displaced by the constant shooting of the armed groups. As is well known, the Mexican Army and the National Guard allow such acts to occur under their very noses.
The survivors of Acteal, especially the women who lived the terror of the paramilitary attack for approximately six hours and who saw their relatives, children and pregnant women killed without mercy, have become ill from panic and psychological crisis. With this violence, the government in power, instead of creating guarantees of non-repetition of a crime like the one in Acteal, allows organized crime groups to keep the population terrorized, thus promoting the forgetting of the Acteal Massacre, as well as Ayotzinapa, Tlatlaya, Pasta de Conchos, Aguas Blancas and other state crimes committed throughout the country.
The decision of the badly named SCJN to release the perpetrators of the Acteal Massacre, as well as the campaign launched by the friends of the paramilitaries in 2006, involving the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE), Confraternice, Hugo Eric Flores Cervantes, Héctor Aguilar Camín, Manuel Anzaldo Meneses and with the pact of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, president of Mexico at that time, have made the fruit of their collaboration in impunity lead Chiapas to a civil war, as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation warned in one of its communiqués last year.
Under the context of darkness and death that reigns in Chiapas, we, the guardians of Memory and builders of Justice and Peace, will always opt for Hope and Life in spite of death. However, as long as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) does not issue a report on the merits, the violence, deaths, forced displacement and terror are getting worse every day. We are not exaggerating. In this regard, we insist on behalf of the 45 sisters and brothers, plus the four unborn children massacred in Acteal, and on behalf of the blood that continues to be absurdly shed throughout Chiapas and Mexico, we request:
URGENTLY, the IACHR must issue the MERITS REPORT on Case 12.790 Manuel Santiz Culebra and Others (Acteal Massacre), which will hold the Mexican State responsible for the Acteal Massacre and thus begin the investigation and trial of the intellectual authors of said massacre, headed by Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León.
Finally, we reiterate the invitation to all people who are also hurt and outraged by impunity and violence to act by raising our voices and carrying out non-violent actions to demand that the three levels of government remember that there is a Constitution in our country that obliges them to provide security and protect all Mexicans. Likewise, there are international treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which stipulate the rights to enjoy peace and life for all humanity.
From Acteal, House of Memory and Hope.
Sincerely,
The Voice of the Civil Society Organization Las Abejas de Acteal.
Victorio Pérez Paciencia
President
Juan Pérez Santiz
Treasurer
Alfredo Jiménez Pérez
Vice-President
Original article from Las Abejas de Acteal, August 12th, 2024.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.