This communique comes from the 22 Indigenous communities that make up the municipality of Chilapa, Guerrero. It is a call for peace and life in the face of the recent assassinations carried out against community organizers in the municipality. The original in Spanish was published on the Enlace Zapatista site and can be found here.
We, the 22 indigenous communities of the municipality of Chilapa, Guerrero which are part of the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ) are in mourning because in May we buried our four murdered brothers. We are grieving and in pain as our community honors and pays our respect to José Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastián. They were both ambushed on May 4 when they returned to their homes after participating in a meeting in the state capital; days later, on May 23 and 24, Bartolo Hilario Morales and Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote, were kidnapped and executed when they returned from buying food for their communities. Their bodies were dismembered and put into bags to provoke terror in our communities.
You should also know that our brothers who are now absent in their families and our communities, were members of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) who last year supported the independent candidacy of María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, whom we affectionately call Marichuy. Our comrades who defend nature, forests, rivers and mountains from plundering by mining companies continue to be murdered: Samir Flores in Morelos, Gustavo Cruz Mendoza in Oaxaca and many others.
We live in an area rich in natural resources and minerals; studies show there exists oil, mines, and logging in our mountains. Large national and transnational companies plunder the natural resources that belong to all Mexicans. They have turned the entire state of Guerrero into a war zone. The Indigenous peoples who are the spiritual guardians of these wild lands are a hindrance to their greed. We resist as people because we will not allow our lands to be looted, privatized and uprooted one by one.
We are being permanently monitored by criminal groups which are the armed component for rich landowners. The municipal, state and federal government continue to protect, finance and direct these groups. Very few things have changed since the night of Iguala. The same economic, political and criminal groups that took our young students from Ayotzinapa, continue to take the lives of good people from the countryside.
Criminal groups have taken over the roads that we use to go to the city to buy groceries, threatening to kill us if we drive by. We have not been able to harvest our lands and all the schools are closed. We need your solidarity and all your strength; peasants, workers, housewives, students, unionists from all over the country. We need to stop this war and to break the paramilitary siege that surrounds our communities. We call on national and international organizations to show solidarity with our communities and the people of this region of Guerrero. We also inform you that the federal authorities headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador have disregarded our demand for justice. Only the brothers and sisters of the National Indigenous Congress CNI and the networks of social and cultural organizations have shown their solidarity in the struggle for peace, justice and life.
We urgently ask you to show your support. We call on our brothers and sisters to stop the war against our peoples. We ask you to do whatever political action is necessary to demand peace and justice, as well as the defense of our land and territory. We ask you to set up food collection centers for our communities. Despite being hungry and cold, we resist and will continue to resist as we have been doing for 500 years. For the good of our peoples we fight for peace and dignity. We live in harmony with nature without harming anyone, and we will continue to live like this.
Yours sincerely,
Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ)