The community Nuevo Poblado San Gregorio (Nuevo San Gregorio), municipality of Huixtán, is a territory recovered in 1994 by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), and is located in the Highlands region of Chiapas, vulnerable to violence and under continuous siege by an aggressive group, who have divided the lands and dispossessed 95% of the lands that form part of the collective territory of the Autonomous Rebel Zapatista Rebel Municipality Lucio Cabañas, of Caracol 10 “Floreciendo la Semilla Rebelde”, of the Junta de Buen Gobierno “Nuevo Amanecer en Resistencia y RebeldÃa por la Vida y la Humanidad” in Chiapas, Mexico.
At the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), we have documented once again how this group acts with total impunity, looting houses and the autonomous school where they destroy and dispossess, all of which confirms the negligence and acquiescence of the federal and state governments, where criminal groups act with complete normality in increasing violence and attacking Zapatista autonomy.
The acts of continued violence perpetrated on September 8, 2022, in which we confirmed the robbery of a house and autonomous school, which occurred around 2:11 p.m., the looting began by a group of people who stole goods from both the house and the Zapatista school where they took supplies for work in the fields, for school, and in daily life. The looting lasted about 4 hours.
On September 10, when we went to document the assault, robbery and looting of the Zapatista house and school, our stay was surveilled; when we left the community, when we took the dirt road to Rancho Alegre, we were the targets of aggressions by people who launched verbal attacks. In addition they tried to block the road with a log of wood and cars parked on the road. The aforementioned is part of an escalation in violence, along with an attempt to prevent the work of observation and documentation of human rights and solidarity in the face of acts of counterinsurgency against Zapatista autonomy, which puts this situation into a complex context that could lead to forced internal displacement, as well as other serious events and losses that are difficult or impossible to redress.
We are concerned about the facts that foreshadow a territory violated by the desire for accumulation and hatred towards the Zapatista peoples who are building a dignified life based on autonomy. We urgently call for national and international solidarity to express our repudiation of the aggressions against the peoples in struggle and resistance, specifically those in Nuevo San Gregorio, in the face of the persistent stubbornness in continuing to infringe upon the Zapatista territories.
This post was published by Frayba Human Rights Center on September 15, 2022. https://frayba.org.mx/amenazas-y-agresion-durante-documentacion-en-el-poblado-de-nuevo-san-gregorio. English translation by Schools for Chiapas.