CIPOG-EZ Calls for Continued Indigenous Resistance Against Dispossession and State Violence

Call out from the Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ) for continued Indigenous resistance against dispossession and state violence.

To the Zapatista Army of National Liberation

To the National Indigenous Congress

To the Indigenous Governing Council

To the People of Guerrero

To the People of Mexico

To the Women in Struggle

To the National and International Sixth

To the CNI-CIG Support Networks

Since the arrival of the Spanish to our lands, and the beginning of the war of extermination against Indigenous peoples, we have been dispossessed of our territories. With violence, we have been forced to leave our valleys, seeking refuge in the mountains which today shelter us, and which have become our home. The mountains house and feed us. We have learned to cultivate them, care for them, speak with them and learn from them. Now, just like 100 years ago, just like 200 years ago, the new governments arrive together with their businessmen bosses—the richest people in the country and world—to tell us that we also have to leave our mountains. They tell us that they are going to construct a highway, mine, industry, trans-isthmus corridor, thermoelectric plant.

Now they say that progress is coming. As Indigenous peoples, they must sacrifice us because we are worth nothing. It doesn’t matter. We have no rights. As the Spaniards said, we have no soul. Now the self-named fourth transformation says that we are in its way; that our sacrifice is necessary for their progress. This history we already know. Just as it happened 528 years ago, it repeats itself now.

Just as before, we resist and we will continue resisting. We will struggle against dispossession, against violence, and against the bad governments wherever they come from. They seek to pass over us, our ancestors, our culture, our history, our dignity and our life. López Obrador talks a lot about how everything should be legal, but his government violates constitutional laws, human rights, and is violating Indigenous peoples.

The Toluca-Naucalpan highway was imposed upon our Otomí brothers and sisters in the State of Mexico this past October, violating an appeal which ordered the definite suspension of the project. But with violent groups, the buying of consciousnesses, construction during the pandemic, and the political negotiation between PRI and MORENA, the will of business was imposed. They do not care about the well-being of Indigenous peoples.

Our Otomí brothers and sisters, residents of Mexico City, have been denied access to dignified housing and the government only mocks them. They were forced to take over the offices of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) in October to demonstrate publicly what Adelfo Regino does with all Indigenous peoples. Nothing more than pure lies, mockery and a bunch of talk, while the problems of Indigenous peoples remain unresolved.

Our Nahua brothers and sisters of Morelos were attacked on Monday November 23rd. They suffered an eviction from the protest encampment maintained by ejido members since 2016 on the shores of the Cuautla river. The National Guard arrived to attack them and finish the remaining stretch of an aqueduct to impose their “progress” at the cost of the lives of Indigenous peoples. How many lies did Obrador tell? All of them have been exposed with the imposition of the Integral Project of Morelos. He said that this project should not be constructed and now he imposes it. He said that he would never use armed forces against the people and now he uses them. They are not only lies. Here he ignores the laws and legal appeals that are active in favor of Indigenous peoples.

Our Zapatista brothers and sisters, Mayans in the state of Chiapas who make up the Zapatista support bases, other Indigenous peoples who aren’t part of the CNI-CIG, and others who are there just trying to live in peace, they are all being surrounded. They are suffering armed aggressions and violence from unconventional warfare. They are suffering forced displacement, kidnappings and torture. The state and federal governments of MORENA know all about this. The only thing they do is provide more impunity to the paramilitaries and further criminalize Indigenous peoples.

Our compañeros of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), who have supported us and did not abandon us when the paramilitaries began to assassinate us in May of 2019; the National Guard attacked them, imprisoned them, and evicted them from the Huauchinango sub-station, which has been reclaimed by the SME as a work space that can be utilized for labor reinsertion.

As NaSavi, Me’Pháá, Nahua, Ñamnkué, mestizos and Afro-Mexicans of the CIPOG-EZ, we have 18 compañeros and compañeras assassinated. Their assassins remain in complete impunity. We had to break the narco-paramilitary siege with our own forces, because the state and federal governments have abandoned us to die at the hands of organized crime. The AMLO government lies to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, saying that narco-paramilitary groups do not exist. We had to organize ourselves in order to free ourselves from narco slavery, to live as free people. The government isn’t capable of helping us. On the contrary, they support organized crime forces, giving them impunity. What a beautiful transformation.

As Indigenous communities, organized in the Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ), together with our brothers of the Campesino Organization of the Southern Sierra (O.C.S.S.), in our assemblies in different regions of the State of Guerrero, we have decided to set up highway blockades in diverse regions of the State of Guerrero on November 30th, 2020. We are convinced that only through mobilization, organization and unifying our struggles, will we be able to defend our territories.

We make a call out to the Indigenous peoples of Mexico, to the social organizations, to those who see the destruction that we see—the destruction that is being committed again in the name of “progress.” We call on you to organize yourselves. Have no fear that you will be called “conservatives.” This isn’t the first government that criminalizes and attacks us with repression. Together we have to strengthen our resistance to defend our lands and territories, and so that Mexico listens clearly: Never more a Mexico without us! Never more a Mexico above us! Never more progress over the lives of the Indigenous peoples!

Compañeras and compañeros, we ask that you are attentive to what might happen to us. The encampments of the narco-paramilitary group “Los Ardillos” continue intact. Their gunmen continue intact. Their military and political structures continue intact. In spite of the federal government knowing who and where they are. We have had to break with the fear, and break the siege, because we want to live. We cannot continue hiding like animals in fear of being hunted. We have rights and we want to live in peace.

Sincerely,

Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ)

Regions: Costa Chica, Costa Montaña, Montaña Alta and Montaña Baja of Guerrero

Campesino Organization of the Southern Sierra (O.C.S.S.)

End the paramilitary war against the Zapatista communities of the EZLN!

End the narco-paramilitary war against the Indigenous communities of the CNI-CIG!

Justice for all our prisoners, assassinated and disappeared of the CNI-CIG!

Never more a Mexico with us!