Paramilitary Organization Violently Attacks Zapatista Support Bases

Communique from the National Indigenous Congress denouncing the recent attack carried out by the paramilitary organization, ORCAO, against Zapatista support bases in the community of Cuxuljá, Ocosingo, Chiapas

 

To the People of Mexico and the World

As the Indigenous Governing Council- National Indigenous Congress, we denounce the cowardly attack carried out by members of the paramilitary group, the Regional Organization of Ocosingo Coffee Growers (ORCAO). On Saturday, August 22, around 11:00 am, members of ORCAO robbed and burned the buildings of the New Rainbow Dawn Trading Center, which is located at the Cuxuljá intersection, in the Autonomous Municipality Lucio Cabañas, inside the official municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas.

The paramilitary organization ORCAO has for years maintained constant pressure and violence against Zapatista communities. This is the case in the Autonomous Municipality of Moisés Gandhi where violence has sought to repress autonomous organization, privatize the land recuperated through the struggle and organization of the Indigenous peoples of the Zapatista support bases, and intimidate and threaten the compañerxs who from below are betting on hope. We can also point to the different aggressions carried out against compañerxs of the National Indigenous Congress, who were abused and kidnapped by ORCAO paramilitaries, the chinchulines, and people from the MORENA political party.

We denounce the war from above that is being waged against the organization of the Zapatista communities. At the same time, the bad governments from above seek to impose megaprojects of death throughout the country—projects that we oppose and will oppose, because we are not willing to give up our territories to allow the destruction promised by the powerful.

We hold the paramilitary organization, ORCAO, the MORENA political party, along with the state and federal governments, responsible for these acts. They continue sowing violence in the region with the intention of not only striking at our brothers and sisters of the EZLN community support bases, but to strike against all those who dream of the struggle for life and the healing of our mother earth, of not letting her be privatized. They want to strike against those who dream that the capitalist bosses and the bad government never return to the autonomous Zapatista territories; those who dream that this light continues to flourish in the territories of the Indigenous peoples of the CNI-CIG and all of humanity.

We call on our compañerxs of the networks of support, resistance and rebellion to speak out and mobilize against the war of extermination, which is dangerously intensifying against our brothers and sisters of the Zapatista communities, who have taught us to never stop sowing rebellion and hope.

Sincerely,

For the Integral Reconstitution of Our Communities

Never More a Mexico Without Us

National Indigenous Congress- Indigenous Governing Council