*The communities, peoples and organizations denounced the direct participation of the National Guard in the imposition of infrastructure and extractivism projects, which increases the militarization of daily life in many regions and indigenous peoples.
The Tsijilba bij Collective from the Palenque region belonging to the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), joined the global mobilization against all that affects the land and territories.
For this same reason, they demanded a total halt to the war against the Zapatista and native peoples, as well as organizations that are against megaprojects and the fourth transformation, paramilitaries and organized crime.
“As indigenous peoples we express our disagreement with the militarization (National Guard), where they carry out arbitrary detentions of our brothers and sisters from different communities in the region of Palenque, Salto de Agua, and Ocosingo, detentions that have occurred on the Puente Nututùn highway, said the Collective.”
In addition, they are against human trafficking targeting migrants transiting these border highways and kidnappings. They are also against megaprojects that will only bring death, destruction, divisions and dispossession to the people.
In addition to this, the extraction of gravel mines that are being used for the construction of the Mayan Train, the felling of trees such as pine, cedar, mahogany, and gum that come from the communities of Nuevo Tumbala in Palenque, Nueva Palestina in Ocosingo, and Agua Clara in Salto de Agua. Pine comes from sawmills in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Comitán, Altamirano and Chanal.
For its part, the Network of Resistance and Rebellion AJMAQ also joined the commemoration of the resistance and rebellion of the peoples who, from organized dignity, confront the war of extermination in the face of the pandemic of the patriarchal capitalist system of death.
That is why today, they spoke out for life, because the government has not been able to stop the violence, and on the contrary, it has fueled it. This is shown by the official figures on homicides, extrajudicial executions, disappearances of people, thus placing them in a deep crisis of human rights.
Adding to this, is the destruction of the land through megaprojects, which impacts all aspects of the peoples that inhabit Mexico. It is the continuation of a total war against the peoples and their territories, expressed in repressive actions against migrants, youth, women, workers, activists, rights defenders and journalists.
“Today the landscape looks increasingly sinister with the construction of a totalitarian government. This was demonstrated by the aberrant approval, before the Congress of the Union, to place the National Guard under the total command of the Secretary of National Defense,” the Network stated.
“On this date of resistance we declare ourselves against the militaristic nature of the Mexican State and its actions of counterinsurgency, as well as as the growing violence in the territories instigated by organized crime, which are linked to government agents to spread death through megaprojects, and patriarchal violence against women and our Mother Earth,” the Network concluded.
This October 12th, the CNI, along with organizations, collectives and networks that accompany it, carried out a global action against militarization, as well as the capitalist and patriarchal war against the native peoples of Mexico and the world, as well as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and its communities.
This article was published on October 12, 2022 in Chiapas Paralelo. https://www.chiapasparalelo.com/noticias/chiapas/2022/10/hoy-el-paisaje-es-mas-siniestro-con-la-construccion-de-un-gobierno-totalitario-comunidades-indigenas/ English translation by Schools for Chiapas.