Zapatistas denounce the kidnapping of base of support by ORCAO paramilitaries

*We are relieved to report that Compa Félix is now safe at home!!!

Zapatista communities of the region, however continue under serious threat by Orcao paramilitaries. Please stay tuned.

Denunciation from the Zapatista Good Government Council
“New Dawn in Resistance and Rebellion for Life and Humanity” 
Caracol Patria Nueva, Chiapas Zapatista

November 10, 2020

To the organizations in defense of human rights:

To National and International Sixth:

To the networks in resistance and rebellion:

Today we inform you about the kidnapping and torture of a Zapatista support base compañero from the community of San Isidro, an annex of the region of Moisés Gandhi, by the paramilitary organization, ORCAO, on November 8th, 2020. 

For more than a year, members of ORCAO have been causing damage to our homes. Various organizations in defense of human rights, such as FrayBa, Coreco, Serapaz and others are witnesses to the evil acts of these paramilitaries. 

Day and night, these members of ORCAO attack with gunfire against the community of Moíses Gandhi, and the bad government knows it and does nothing to control its thugs. On the contrary, it protects and helps them.

All of these aggressions are known by the three levels of bad government. Their employees know this, like Josefina Bravo and Ramón Martínez, and all of the bosses of the bad governments change the word and say that we Zapatistas are the provocateurs, and the “poor things the little paramilitaries of ORCAO.”

They have been told to investigate, but they become accomplices because this government is the same as the ones before. Nothing changes in the facts, and there’s all this talk of change, but they are the same attacks. And they are the same lies as before from these lying officials that just sit in their offices collecting  their good pay for doing nothing.  

The latest from this criminal alliance between the paramilitaries of ORCAO and the federal government of Lopez Obrador, the state government of Rutilio Escandón, and the official municipalities of Ocosingo and Altamirano, is what they did this past November 8th, 2020. 

A few meters from where they burned and looted our cooperative store in Cuxuljá, as was seen at the time, and to this day, the bad government has done nothing.

On November 8th, 2020, around 3:30 PM, 20 paramilitaries of ORCAO kidnapped and beat up our support base compañero, Felix López Hernández. The members of ORCAO took him off in an unknown direction, and are keeping him tied up and locked up, without water and without food.

This was reported that same day, and the bad government, instead of solving the kidnapping case, excuses the paramilitaries of ORCAO, telling the lie that we Zapatistas went to provoke the ORCAO in their workplace. 

This is completely false. The compañero was coming back from the official municipal seat in Ocosingo, and was heading home with his family. 

The following were identified among the Orcao kidnappers: Andrés Santis López, Nicolás Santis López, Santiago Sánchez López, y Oscar Sants López, who are people of the community of San Antonio. 

Instead of making reparations for the kidnapping, the members of ORCAO demand that there be no more flooding from the rains that disable the pipes, and that the light be reinstalled, that they, members of ORCAO, cut off in order to harm the community of Moisés Gandhi, and then went on to harm other communities.   

Our compañero Felix has not mistreated anyone, doesn’t owe anything to anyone, nor is he stealing from or shooting at people and communities. And what if maybe our compañero is God, to give the order for it to stop raining, or to lend a bit of understanding to the slimy members of ORCAO who cut off the lights and went on to harm other communities that are neither Zapatistas or aligned with ORCAO; and now these members of ORCAO make themselves the victims to cover up their crime.   

We have information that the members of ORCAO of the community of San Antonio received a project payment from the bad government that supposedly was for the construction of the primary school, but the 300 thousand pesos were used to buy high-caliber weapons. Is this what the bad government of the 4T does? Report that it is building schools when in reality it is financing the arming of paramilitaries? Is this its counterinsurgency plan?

Finally, we say to Don López, Don Escandón, and to their staff members that we hold you responsible for what might happen to the Zapatista men, women, children and elders of the communities of Moisés Gandhi.

Their pain, their blood, their suffering is on your account. And whatever else happens is on your account as well.

Compañero Felix should be freed immediately, the ORCAO kidnappers should be arrested and tried, ORCAO should replace what they stole and destroyed in our cooperative store, and ORCAO should understand that those who play with fire sooner or later get burned. And the bad governments should stop playing at counterinsurgency; and remember that everything comes to an end, even when you are bratty and bossy. If you don’t [believe it], go ahead and ask Trump. 

For the Good Government Council of Nuevo Amanecer en Resistencia y Rebelión por la Vida y la Humanidad.1

Caracol 2 Floreciendo La Semilla Rebelde, Patria Nueva3, Chiapas.

November 10th, 2020, Mexico

En español: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2020/11/10/los-zapatistas-denuncian-el-secuestro-de-un-base-de-apoyo-por-paramilitares-de-la-orcao/

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Footnotes

  1. “New Dawn in Resistance and Rebellion for Life and Humanity”
  2. Zapatista caracoles, or “snails” are regional centers of governance, and sites of health centers, education centers and gathering As of last year there are now 12.
  3. “Flourishing the Rebel Seed, New Homeland”
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