{"id":22819,"date":"2020-07-25T19:28:49","date_gmt":"2020-07-26T00:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schoolsforchiapas.org\/?p=22819"},"modified":"2020-07-25T19:36:18","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T00:36:18","slug":"indigenous-of-aldama-chiapas-between-famine-and-gunfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schoolsforchiapas.org\/indigenous-of-aldama-chiapas-between-famine-and-gunfire\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenous of Aldama, Chiapas, between famine and gunfire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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More than two thousand indigenous Tsotsiles from the municipality of Aldama sleep and wake amidst the fear of an ambush. In a notebook they have written down the 98 times they have been shot at, during the last three months, from a mountain adjacent to their land. In the face of the indifference of the authorities, on July 14th humanitarian organizations brought some beans and corn, because the famine is already reflected in their bodies.
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Text and Photos by \u00c1ngeles Mariscal <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ALDAMA, CHIAPAS \u2014  On Manuela S\u00e1ntiz Hern\u00e1ndez, her thinness is a product of insufficient food. You can see it in her cheekbones and her body, it looks like that of an adolescent that has barely begun to develop. She is 24 years old and responsible for eight children. Three are hers and five were  from her mother-in-law, who died and left five small children orphaned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They all lived in the community of Yet\u00f3n, one of the 11 hamlets where 60 hectares of land are located that their aggressors from the municipality of Chenalh\u00f3 try to take from them by means of armed force.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dispute for these lands, the villagers explain began 7 years ago, but in recent times escalated to the level that has led to the forced displacement of 115 families, a total of 2 thousand 36 people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne night they entered the house, put a gun to our heads and told us that we had to leave, and we left…we don\u2019t have anything, everything stayed there, absolutely everything, our belonging, our harvests, our house. We have to start over, says Manuela. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday the 14th of July, in the morning, representatives of each of the 115 displaced families arrived at the municipal seat of Aldama. There, each family received a sack with corn, a little bit of beans and salt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This food was acquired with the donation of individuals in solidarity, which were collected by the Trust for the Health of Indigenous Children (Fisanim) an organization promoted by the actress Ofelia Medina. This ration of food could last them between 15 and 20 days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The indigenous families were grateful for the solidarity, but they reiterated, \u201cWe are going to keep fighting for those 60 hectares because they are our lands. We want them to return them to us, because it is from there that we get our food, our daily sustenance,\u201d explained Rosa S\u00e1ntiz S\u00e1ntiz. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the help of another woman translator \u2014 because Rosa speaks primarily Tsotsil \u2014 she demanded that the government \u201cgive us a solution to this conflict, because we are already tired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literally tired. Rosa S\u00e1ntiz S\u00e1ntiz gets up at three in the morning to boil the beans and corn, prepare the tortillas that they will eat during the day, her husband and her four children. Before the sun rises, the whole family begins to walk the path that will take them from the community of San Pedro Cotzilnam to the village of Santiago El Pinar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Santiago El Pinar, for 80 pesos daily, they work from 7 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon in the harvest of coffee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosa has the organizational and the leadership capabilities that make her one of the representatives of the commission of displaced community members; and coordinates the distribution of food. In Aldama, the displaced have organized themselves to resist the aggressions of their neighbors of Chenalh\u00f3. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The apparent dispute is over 60 hectares of adjacent land between both municipalities; but the armed civilians of Chenalh\u00f3 have expelled inhabitants of Chalchihuit\u00e1n, and peasants within Chenalh\u00f3. All based in armed aggression. They use, according to the shots that can be seen in the walls of the homes, high-caliber weapons and assault rifles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rations of corn beans, soap, oil , and soap pictured are dispensed to the families.
Photo: \u00c1ngeles Mariscal
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\u201cDon\u2019t fall into provocation\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On January 23rd 2019, faced with the denunciation of the aggressions of armed civilians the federal government was forced to set up a detachment made up of federal and state police and the Mexican army. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aggressions did not stop with this measure. The armed civilians continued shooting and to date, the displaced account for 15 wounded by firearms and 7 of their comrades murdered, among them Ignacio P\u00e9rez Gir\u00f3n, municipal trustee of Aldama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months following their deployment, the detachment of police and military withdrew; they agreed to carry out patrols, but with the onset of the pandemic, they became sporadic, and the aggressions intensified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the group of displaced Martin S\u00e1ntiz S\u00e1ntiz is the one in charge of writing each time they are shot at from the mountains of Chenalh\u00f3. Carrying a little book where he writes the numbers, he pulls it out and counts 98 recent aggressions. The last one, a few hours before they arrived at the municipal seat to receive the food donations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explains that he carries this log to make the report that he turns into the Chiapas District Attorney\u2019s office. When it is turned in, \u201cI always ask them how the investigations are going and they always tell me that it is still yet to be complete.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the four recent months, he relates, the patrols of police and military only happen once a week. They walk around on the road, look for where the shots are coming from, and then leave. What they tell us is: you keep silent, don\u2019t fall into provocation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government of Chiapas, explains Manuel Melesio S\u00e1ntiz L\u00f3pez, another of the displaced, has offered to divide the land and relocate the affected families to a ranch in the municipality of Ixtapa, a place of infertile land where the prolonged use of agrochemicals has totally depleted the fertility of the soil. However, the same authorities have suspended the process for a possible relocation.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, at the beginning of March, the Attorney General\u2019s office detained Crist\u00f3bal S\u00e1ntiz Jim\u00e9nez, one of the spokespeople for the displaced. To date, Crist\u00f3bal es being held in the El Amate prison. With his arrest, the demand for the release of the community leader is now added to the demand for the restitution of their lands, and an end to the aggressions.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThis pandemic has complicated everything because there is a shortage of food; there is a very severe crisis economically, and of work, because in the town of Aldama we work in the countryside, we live from the countryside and we are of the countryside,\u201d asserts Silvia, an youth from the area that has had to leave her studies to take up leadership in systematizing the problems, and serving as a link to the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denunciations of the situation in Aldama have reached the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), the Inter-American Commission (IACHR), and the Subsecretariat of Human Rights of the Ministry of the Interior. No declaration or intervention by these bodies has served to stop the violence. In addition to the months of the pandemic, there has been famine, as displaced peasants have had difficulty finding work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides humanitarian organizations, specialists also worriedly watch the situation of the displaced people of the zone. Anthropologist Araceli Burguete, who knows the region well and is a member of the Center for Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), explains: “the path to peace in Aldama is very clear. First, attend to the displaced population and the humanitarian emergency.\u00a0“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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