Paramilitary Attacks against Comandante Abel Zapatista Community Continue
Hermann Bellinghausen | 15.09.2012 11:41 | Repression | Social Struggles | Zapatista | South Coast | World
** The situation of the support bases is grave, denounces the Junta New Seed that is going to Produce
** Children, women and elderly “have fled to the woods” for fear of the bullets; there are four disappeared
Paramilitary Attacks against Comandante Abel Zapatista Community Continue
** The situation of the support bases is grave, denounces the Junta New Seed that is going to Produce
** Children, women and elderly “have fled to the woods” for fear of the bullets; there are four disappeared
By: Hermann Bellinghausen
Attacks by paramilitaries from Paz y Justicia, under the initials UCIAF, continue against the Zapatista community Comandante Abel, whose residents have had to flee into the woods in order to protect themselves from the gunshots. The Good Government Junta (JBG) New Seed that is going to Produce, from Roberto Barrios Caracol, in the Northern Zone of Chiapas, classified as “grave” the situation of the support bases of this community and of Union Hidalgo, in the autonomous municipality of La Dignidad.
The violent invasion of the community began on September 6, and despite the denunciations, authorities have not intervened to stop the attacks. On September 8, “shots from high-calibre weapons fired in the direction of the community continued.” Children, women and elderly “hid under trees, trunks, rocks and dispersed into the woods and mountains for fear of being hit by the bullets.” They spent the night like this “in the cold and rain, until two days later their whereabouts was discovered when they emerged in some communities.”
The Junta reports that two displaced women and two children sick with fever, vomiting, diarrhea and cough are missing. “We have 70 [displaced] between men and women, children and elderly. Some have stayed to defend the land.” That day, “the invaders constructed two trenches and three houses,” while the Zapatista bases from neighboring Union Hidalgo were also displaced by “fierce threats of being massacred by paramilitaries from the same community.” The families “fled to the mountain for three days; there are ten displaced and a newborn. Only the young ones stayed to take care of their houses and belongings.”
On September 9, the aggressors widened “the area they have taken over.” At 4 o’clock in the afternoon they fired two shots. At 9:30PM, there were another 25 (shots) “of different calibres;” then, at midnight, there were four more. On the 10th, “three armed men arrived to reinforce the invaders; they are from de Saquijá, Sabanilla Municipality.” On the 11th, they built five houses.
The Junta accuses the ex PRI candidate Carlos Cleber González Cabello of financing “the invaders’ purchase of weapons.” For “everything that is happening and for everything that is going to happen,” the Junta places responsibility “on the three levels of the bad government” as “the intellectual author that organizes, finances, prepares, arms and orders these paramilitary and criminal groups through their armed institutions.” Seeing that the Zapatista bases “don’t fall into the great lie” of “charity,” they continue their plan to become owners of the wealth of our country.” Then, “they give orders to kill us, to steal and destroy our lands.” The government talks “about peace, about defending guarantees, about how it is doing justice in Mexico (and) asks the UN for economic support for fighting poverty,” but that money “ is only being used to finance armed groups.”
The Zapatista Junta asks: “Is it peace to organize groups to kill their own brothers? What is the grave crime that these compañeros have committed: is it that of owning a piece of land to live on and maintain their families?” The government “is an embarrassment before the world,” it says it is fighting crime “when in truth it is protecting groups and leaders who act publicly against the peoples in resistance. The bad government knows very well who they are, where they are, and does nothing because they are their highest leaders,” and the acts that they commit “are not crimes; to the contrary, they protect them.”
The Junta declares: “We are not against those that are not with us; on the contrary, we gave part of the land that belongs to us to the pro-government group that lives in San Patricio because they also have a right to life, and for this reason our bases were relocated on the La Lámpara plot to construct their new community in honour of our deceased compañero Comandante Abel”.
____________________________________________
Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Friday, September 14, 2012
En español:
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/09/14/politica/026n1pol
English translation by the Chiapas Support Committee for the:
International Zapatista Translation Service, a collaboration of the:
Chiapas Support Committee, California
Wellington Zapatista Support Group
UK Zapatista Solidarity Network
** The situation of the support bases is grave, denounces the Junta New Seed that is going to Produce
** Children, women and elderly “have fled to the woods” for fear of the bullets; there are four disappeared
By: Hermann Bellinghausen
Attacks by paramilitaries from Paz y Justicia, under the initials UCIAF, continue against the Zapatista community Comandante Abel, whose residents have had to flee into the woods in order to protect themselves from the gunshots. The Good Government Junta (JBG) New Seed that is going to Produce, from Roberto Barrios Caracol, in the Northern Zone of Chiapas, classified as “grave” the situation of the support bases of this community and of Union Hidalgo, in the autonomous municipality of La Dignidad.
The violent invasion of the community began on September 6, and despite the denunciations, authorities have not intervened to stop the attacks. On September 8, “shots from high-calibre weapons fired in the direction of the community continued.” Children, women and elderly “hid under trees, trunks, rocks and dispersed into the woods and mountains for fear of being hit by the bullets.” They spent the night like this “in the cold and rain, until two days later their whereabouts was discovered when they emerged in some communities.”
The Junta reports that two displaced women and two children sick with fever, vomiting, diarrhea and cough are missing. “We have 70 [displaced] between men and women, children and elderly. Some have stayed to defend the land.” That day, “the invaders constructed two trenches and three houses,” while the Zapatista bases from neighboring Union Hidalgo were also displaced by “fierce threats of being massacred by paramilitaries from the same community.” The families “fled to the mountain for three days; there are ten displaced and a newborn. Only the young ones stayed to take care of their houses and belongings.”
On September 9, the aggressors widened “the area they have taken over.” At 4 o’clock in the afternoon they fired two shots. At 9:30PM, there were another 25 (shots) “of different calibres;” then, at midnight, there were four more. On the 10th, “three armed men arrived to reinforce the invaders; they are from de Saquijá, Sabanilla Municipality.” On the 11th, they built five houses.
The Junta accuses the ex PRI candidate Carlos Cleber González Cabello of financing “the invaders’ purchase of weapons.” For “everything that is happening and for everything that is going to happen,” the Junta places responsibility “on the three levels of the bad government” as “the intellectual author that organizes, finances, prepares, arms and orders these paramilitary and criminal groups through their armed institutions.” Seeing that the Zapatista bases “don’t fall into the great lie” of “charity,” they continue their plan to become owners of the wealth of our country.” Then, “they give orders to kill us, to steal and destroy our lands.” The government talks “about peace, about defending guarantees, about how it is doing justice in Mexico (and) asks the UN for economic support for fighting poverty,” but that money “ is only being used to finance armed groups.”
The Zapatista Junta asks: “Is it peace to organize groups to kill their own brothers? What is the grave crime that these compañeros have committed: is it that of owning a piece of land to live on and maintain their families?” The government “is an embarrassment before the world,” it says it is fighting crime “when in truth it is protecting groups and leaders who act publicly against the peoples in resistance. The bad government knows very well who they are, where they are, and does nothing because they are their highest leaders,” and the acts that they commit “are not crimes; to the contrary, they protect them.”
The Junta declares: “We are not against those that are not with us; on the contrary, we gave part of the land that belongs to us to the pro-government group that lives in San Patricio because they also have a right to life, and for this reason our bases were relocated on the La Lámpara plot to construct their new community in honour of our deceased compañero Comandante Abel”.
____________________________________________
Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Friday, September 14, 2012
En español:
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/09/14/politica/026n1pol English translation by the Chiapas Support Committee for the:
International Zapatista Translation Service, a collaboration of the:
Chiapas Support Committee, California
Wellington Zapatista Support Group
UK Zapatista Solidarity Network
Hermann Bellinghausen