The assembly of the Women’s Movement for the Defense of Mother Earth and Our Territories reaffirmed its decision to articulate peoples, networks, collectives of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, the National Indigenous Congress and the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle against the imposition of megaprojects, violence, drug trafficking, prostitution and alcoholism.
Almost three decades later, the municipalities are today once again in the throes of violence, but now with the aggravating factor of the presence of organized crime as new actors. For two decades now, criminal violence has entered the state and progressively taken over the municipalities. Its presence as a political actor in the territories has complicated the performance of electoral processes and public administration, but also undermines the autonomy of indigenous peoples, day by day penetrating deeper.
However, he left a seed of hope, commitment, action and struggle through peaceful means…On July 5, one year after his murder, members of different parishes of the Diocese of San Cristobal and Las Abejas de Acteal held public demonstrations to vindicate the struggle for life and justice through peaceful means.
As the situation in Pantelhó becomes increasingly unclear, the State has issued a warrant for the arrest of Father Marcelo Perez Perez, who has long accompanied the communities in their struggle against organized crime. With this development, solidarity and human rights organizations express their concern for his life and well being.
I leave with a mission accomplished, in the sense that we had to be part of a process, and that we faced this time with the lessons learned by the people in their journey. I would say that it is a mission accomplished, although with many pending issues. I will continue in the trenches of both the defense of human rights and poetry and the construction of what will allow us to change this system. –Pedro Faro Navarro
