Filed under: Indigenous, Repression, Southern Mexico
Communique on recent paramilitary attack on Zapatista support bases in Chiapas, which has resulted in the kidnapping and torturing of Zapatista, Felix López Hernández.
To the Human Rights Organizations
To the National and International Sixth
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion
Today, we inform everyone of the kidnapping and torture of a compañero from the Zapatista support base community of San Isidro, annex of Moisés Gandhi. The kidnapping and torture was carried out by the paramilitary organization, ORCAO, on November 8th, 2020.
For more than a year, those of ORCAO have been causing damage to our homes. Different human rights organizations such as FRAYBA, CORECO, SERAPAZ and others are witnesses to these evil paramilitary actions.
Day and night, those of ORCAO attack the community of Moisés Gandhi with high caliber weaponry. The bad government knows it and does nothing to control its goons. On the contrary, they protect and help them.
All of these aggressions are known by the three levels of bad government. They know their employees like Josefina Bravo and Ramón Martínez. The bosses of the bad government manipulate reality saying that we Zapatistas are the provocateurs and that “poor little ORCAO paramilitaries.”
They have been told to investigate, but they are accomplices because this government is the same as past governments. Nothing changes in their actions. There is a role change, but the attacks continue. And they use the same lies as before, from government functionaries who only sit in their offices, receiving good pay to do nothing.
The latest act in this criminal alliance between paramilitaries and the federal government of López Obrador, state government of Rutilio Escandón and the municipal officials of Ocosingo and Altamirano, took place on November 8th, 2020. It took place a few meters from where before they burned and looted our cooperative store in Cuxuljá. Until now the bad government has done nothing.
On November 8th, 2020, around 3:30pm, twenty paramilitaries of ORCAO, kidnapped and beat our compañero, Felix López Hernández. Those of ORCAO took him to an unknown location where they have kept him tied and locked up, without water and food.
This was denounced that same day and the bad government, rather than resolving this case of kidnapping, justified the actions of the ORCAO paramilitaries repeating the lies that the Zapatistas went to provoke those of ORCAO.
This is completely false. The compañero was coming back from the official municipal seat of Ocosingo and was headed home to be with his family.
#México
Un grupo de 20 paramilitares de la Organización Regional de Cafeticultores de Ocosingo (ORCAO) secuestró a Felix López Hernández, base de apoyo zapatista de la comunidad de San Isidro, y lo mantiene "amarrado, encerrado, sin agua y sin alimentos".https://t.co/xHKLUKNTU6— Desinformémonos (@Desinformemonos) November 11, 2020
Among the identified kidnappers of ORCAO were: Andrés Santis López, Nicolás Santis López, Santiago Sánchez López and Oscar Santis López. They are from the community of San Antonio.
Instead of ending the kidnapping, those of ORCAO have demanded that there be no more flooding due to the rains, which have made the pipes useless. They also demand that the electricity be turned on again–the electricity that ORCAO themselves cut in order to harm the community of Moisés Gandhi, harming other communities as well.
Our compañero Felix has not mistreated anyone. He doesn’t owe anything to anyone, nor is he stealing or shooting at people and communities. Perhaps our compañero is god and can give the order to stop the rain, or to give a little understanding to the stupid people of ORCAO that cut the electricity, effecting other communities that are not Zapatista nor ORCAO. Now those of ORCAO are acting as victims to cover up their crime.
We have information that those of ORCAO from the community of San Antonio have received funds from the bad government that were supposed to be used for the construction of an elementary school. However, the 300,000 pesos were used to buy high caliber weapons. Is this what the bad government of the fourth transformation does, reporting that it builds schools, when in reality it finances the arming of paramilitaries? Is this what their counter-insurgency plan looks like?
Félix López Hernández venía de regreso de la cabecera municipal oficial de Ocosingo y se dirigía a su casa con su familia cuando fue detenido de manera arbitraria.https://t.co/T1p7m5Szc0 pic.twitter.com/nvGEEIj3NA
— Chiapas Paralelo (@ChiapasParalelo) November 11, 2020
Lastly, we say to Mr. López, Mr. Escandón and his functionaries, that we hold them responsible for whatever might happen to the Zapatista men, women, children and elders of the communities of Moisés Gandhi.
Their pain, their blood, their suffering are the government’s fault. And it is also the government’s fault for whatever might happen next.
The compañero Felix should be freed immediately. The ORCAO kidnappers should be detained and tried. ORCAO should replace what they looted and destroyed in our cooperative store. ORCAO should understand that those who play with fire, sooner or later, get burned. And the bad government should stop playing their counter-insurgency tactics and remember that eventually it all comes to an end, even if they are loudmouthed and authoritarian. Just go ask Trump.
Junta de Buen Gobierno “Nuevo Amanecer en Resistencia y Rebeldia por la Vida y la Humanidad”
Caracol Floreciendo la semilla rebelde, Patria Nueva
Chiapas, México
November 10th, 2020
Update:
La Junta de Buen Gobierno Zapatista Nuevo Amanecer en Resistencia y Rebeldia por la Vida y la Humanidad report that last night, November 10th, ORCAO paramilitaries attacked the community of Moisés Gandhi, from 9pm to 2am, with high caliber weaponry.
The attack was carried out because people not affiliated with ORCAO reconnected the electricity. The paramilitaries blamed the Zapatistas for having reconnected the electricity, and attacked the community in response.