Another portrait in Avispa Midia’s series, Chiapas: Disappearing on the Southern Border of Mexico.
A 45-year-old ejidal commissioner who called for a military presence to protect his town, was taken from a bus…
As part of their strategy, the drug cartels have intensified the forced recruitment of the population. According to testimonies from family members, people are being forced to demonstrate on the highways, to lead marches in support of one group or another, or to serve as hired assassins. They are forced to participate as human shields and soldiers in the war between Mexican cartels for control of the country’s southern border. They have been unable to leave the area for two weeks. On Saturday, September 23, a line of men and women were forced to stand in two lines on the …
More than 280,000 inhabitants of the border area of Chiapas trapped between drug cartels READ MORE »
Approximately 3,000 residents of the community of Nueva Palestina, municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas, marched yesterday to demand the presence of security forces because members of organized crime, who are disputing the territory, are trying to charge small businesses with “derecho de piso” (extortion to continue operating).
The territory on the border between Mexico and Guatemala has been used for decades by groups that traffic illegal merchandise and smuggle people; but the difference with the current situation, he says, is the acts of violence against the population that does not agree (with these activities); the use of arms, the control of roads and means of communication.
Many families living in the Lacandon just in the last decades fled the violence of large plantation owners to make a life for themselves in the jungle. Now they face a new threat to their well being – the dominance of the cartels in the region.
