The Government “Administers Conflicts” Between Indigenous to Control Their Territories

** Official offensive generates “ecological depredation and privatization of natural resources”

** Attempt to plunder the Chol people from a ceremonial center, Other Campaign adherents accuse

By: Hermann Bellinghausen, Envoy

San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, January 22, 2012

Communities and collectives, adherents to the Other Campaign demanded stopping plunder, repression and harassment against the Zapatista communities. “The government wants to break the autonomous processes of the indigenous peoples.” The federal and state governments federal “carry out in the country and in the state a war of plunder that generates ecological depredation, privatization of natural resources, over-exploitation of work, territorial plunder and extermination of the peoples, repression, persecution, incarceration and murders to contain the social struggles of resistance to its policies.”

In San Patricio, a community in the autonomous municipality La Dignidad (and the official municipality of Sabanilla), “despite the fact that the government of Juan Sabines relocated in Rancho La Josefina (Palenque) the paramilitary group of the Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights (Opddic), this group continues its hostilities, backed up by police, in trucks that make rounds and watch the Zapatista bases.

Offensive against recuperated lands

The pronouncement asserts that: “the bad government creates and administer conflicts between the communities to control their territories.” It is the case with the Tzeltal ejido members of San Sebastián Bachajón (Chilón), “who resist the privatization of the ticket booth they installed on lands that belong to them, at the entrance to the Agua Azul Cascades (Tumbalá)

In the municipal headquarters of Tila, “the State attempts to take away 5 thousand 405 hectares from the Chol people” to convert its cult center –the sanctuary of the Lord of Tila– “into a big tourist center.” The Agrarian Prosecutor has attempted “to substitute” the general assembly of ejido owners for determining the use of their communal lands, which have a presidential resolution and definitive plan.

In 24 de Mayo colonia, inside the “lands recuperated” in 1999 on the property where the National Indigenous Institute once was in San Cristóbal de las Casas, the board of directors of Chiapas Solidario, headed by Juana López López, “has promoted aggressions, death threats, plunder of housing and repeated cuts in electric service” against those who resist “the multiple abuses of the directors and the high rates imposed by them, even when no meters exist and the Federal Electricity Commission doesn’t send out bills.”

In this municipality “a policy of plundering recuperated lands exists” to favor tourism businesses and housing developers. In the Utrilla and Los Arcos mills “the sale of property is promoted at all cost.” The pronouncement also denounces the continuous pursuit of the Other Campaign artisans in the Santo Domingo Plaza, “for resisting the blackmail and corruption of the unions related to the municipal presidency that promote forced affiliation with the CROM and favor the repression of the indigenous artisans.”

It points out that “due to the criminalization of struggles and human rights defense,” persecution persists against Nataniel Hernández Núñez, of the Digna Ochoa Human Rights Center, as well as harassment of his relatives and members in communities of the Regional Autonomous Council of the Coast.

The Other Campaign demands the freedom of their “political prisoners” Alberto Patishtán Gómez (sent to Guasave, Sinaloa) and Rosario Díaz Méndez, of the Voice of El Amate, as well as Pedro López Jiménez, Alfredo López Jiménez, Rosa López Díaz, Alejandro Díaz Santis, Juan Díaz López, Juan Collazo Jiménez, Enrique Gómez Hernández, Amílcar Méndez Núñez and Elías Sánchez Gómez.