Communique from Indigenous Organizations in the Mexican State of Guerrero Against the Government’s Decision to Further Militarize the Country

Communique from Indigenous organizations in the Mexican state of Guerrero, against the recent decision by the Mexican government to permit the use of the military in matters related to public security.

 

Guerrero, Mexico

May 14, 2020

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 and the World

To the National and International Sixth

To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion

To the Indigenous Governing Council’s Support Networks

To the Honest, Free and Autonomous Media

 

Brothers and Sisters,

We are Indigenous people that make up the organizations, Concejo Indígena y Popular de Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata, Frente Nacional de Liberación del Pueblos FNLP and Organización Campesina de la Sierra del Sur O.C.S.S. We inform you, with anger, annoyance and rejection, that president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has decided to allow the use of the military in tasks related to public security, with the supposed pretext of confronting organized crime which has caused extensive violence in our communities.

It seems that the state regime has not changed, but has rather shown its true colors, utilizing the same methods used by Felipe Calderón when he declared the war on drug cartels with the militarization of the country in 2006. In consequence, thousands of families have experienced injustice and mourning, victims of actions carried out by organized crime, which continue in impunity without being investigated. The current president promised to bring justice. However, he has resolved nothing. On the contrary, the impunity with which the Mexican state has always operated continues.

For us, Indigenous peoples, it is clear the problem will become worse with the president’s strategy of militarizing every corner of the country. They tell us the army has control of our communities, but the question is: what is the president’s intention with the militarization?

What a coincidence that the militarization is being implemented more so in the south of the country than in the north. Perhaps the idea is to stop the resistance struggles of our brothers and sisters of the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Governing Council who are defending land and territory. They have maintained an ongoing struggle against this genocidal and invasive system, against this war of extermination, which has already lasted 527 years. What a coincidence that amidst the health crisis brought by COVID-19, they have taken these militarized decisions against the people.

With the arrival of the military, it is likely that violence will increase considerably. This is what happened during the presidency of Felipe Calderón, when the number of homicides, human rights violations, innocent people in prison, fabricated guilt, forces disappearances, femicides, state corruption, extortion, and death threats, multiplied. It was a cemetery and blood bath everywhere.

Militarization brings bloody atrocities. We have observed that the methods implemented by the bad government bring no improvement. On the contrary, they increase human rights violations and extrajudicial killings, along with torture carried out against social fighters, with the complicity of the three levels of government.

The militarization being carried out by the government of the fourth transformation seeks to assist in the dispossession and theft of our territory. A clear example is the Interoceanic Corridor of the Istmo of Tehuantepec, the Mayan Train, the Integral Project of Morelos, the imposition and extraction of mining, hydroelectric dams, agribusiness, industrial corridors, gas pipelines, oil pipelines, fracking and wind farms, among others.

It is clear that these capitalist projects will affect us as Indigenous people and will cause the destruction of our forests and the contamination of our waters and mountains, destroying the autonomy of our communities and our people.

That is why the national guard of the government of the fourth transformation has pinpointed certain organizations and collectives, along with organized towns and communities in resistance, in order to fragment, confront, divide and disarticulate them, in order to carry out the government’s projects of death.

These heads of the state, who have names and last names, are not interested in the well-being of the people. Their interest is to maintain a good relationship with their multimillionaire friends. There is no hesitation in crushing the people and communities in order to take over what the Indigenous people have conserved for thousands of years. That is the reason they are in a hurry to write laws and approve them for the purpose of privatization.

Justice and punishment for the those who ordered the assassinations of our brothers of the National Indigenous Congress, killed for defending their land and territory!

End the femicides and violence against women!

Free all political prisoners!

End forced displacement!

End the war against the communities in resistance and rebellion!

Never more a Mexico without us!