by DGR News Service | Feb 12, 2020 | Colonialism & Conquest
As the following stories illustrate, land defense is dangerous. When we speak about the war being waged on the planet, we do not speak of a metaphor. With guns and machetes, with chainsaws and poisons, with nuclear waste and bulldozers, the living world is being dismembered, and those who fight to defend it often find themselves risking life and limb. We must become aware of this war in order to better participate on the side of the forests and of life. Be careful, be prepared.
Featured image: Monarch butterflies in the El Rosario reserve, home to fir forests whom monarchs visit each winter after their multi-generational migration from the north. Photo by Charlie Marchant, cc-by-2.0.
Six Murdered, Ten Kidnapped in Armed Attack on Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve
Reuters — February 3rd
About 80 armed men killed six indigenous people on an isolated Nicaraguan nature reserve in an attack linked to raging land disputes, the indigenous Mayagna community said on Thursday, with 10 other Mayagnas kidnapped in the raid.
The men stormed a Mayagna commune about 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of capital Managua, deep in the north-central Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, the second-largest rainforest the Americas after the Amazon.
The raiders were part of a group of “settlers” in the area who do not belong to the indigenous communities that make up about 14% of Nicaragua’s 6.2 million people, according to a Mayagna lawyer from the region.
Missing Mexican Monarch Butterfly Defender Homero Gómez González Found Dead
Jessica Corbett / Common Dreams — January 30th
Mexican conservationist Homero Gómez González was found dead Wednesday, about two weeks after he was reported missing, provoking a wave sorrow from allies and advocates worldwide as they honored his work running a butterfly sanctuary in the state of Michoacán.
As Common Dreams reported last week, human rights advocates have expressed fears that Gómez González may have been targeted because of his activism by those involved in the local illegal logging industry, and the 50-year-old butterfly defender’s family told the media that he had received threats from a criminal organization.
A Global Witness report from last year named Mexico the world’s sixth-deadliest country for eco-defenders, part of “a worrying global trend” of environmentalists risking their safety by facing off against “governments, companies, and criminal gangs [that] are routinely stealing land and trashing habitats in pursuit of profit.”
Human Rights Advocates Call for Investigation Into Death of Second Monarch Butterfly Defender in Mexico
Julia Conley / Common Dreams — February 3rd
The body of Raúl Hernández Romero was found at the top of a hill in the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary on Saturday, one day after the manager of the preserve, Homero Gómez González, was buried. Gómez’s body was found last Wednesday after a two-week disappearance.
El Rosario sanctuary provides a home for millions of migrating monarch butterflies each year and draws thousands of tourists annually. But the reserve has also drawn the ire of illegal loggers in Mexico, who are banned from cutting down trees in the protected area.
Before the ban, more than 1,000 acres of the woodland were lost to the industry between 2005 and 2006.
Hernández’s family told the BBC that before he disappeared on Jan. 27, he had been receiving threats warning him to stop campaigning against illegal logging. Forensic experts said the activist appeared to have been beaten with a sharp object and had a deep wound in his head.
by DGR News Service | Dec 18, 2019 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change, Mining & Drilling, The Problem: Civilization, Toxification
A series of headlines from around the world, compiled by Max Wilbert and Mark Behrend. Featured image by Max Wilbert.
2019 Was the 2nd Hottest Year on Record
Global average temperature reached the 2nd highest annual level ever recorded, according to preliminary data for 2019. While the data is not yet finalized, it’s almost certain 2019 will go down as the 2nd hottest ever. The hottest five years on record have been the last five years, and we are in the final days of the hottest decade in the record.
https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/1206608106819661826
70,000 Children Have Been Detained at the U.S. Border in 2019
As climate crisis and ecological collapse drives ever more migration, abuse at the southern border of the U.S. is escalating. One recent report finds that nearly 70,000 children have been detained in 2019:
The story lays out in excrutiating detail the emotional pain of victims of President Donald Trump’s child separation policy, focusing on, among others, a Honduran father whose three-year-old daughter can no longer look at him or connect with him after being separated at the U.S. border and abused in foster care.
“I think about this trauma staying with her too, because the trauma has remained with me and still hasn’t faded,” the father told AP.
The 3-year-old Honduran girl was taken from her father when immigration officials caught them near the border in Texas in March 2019 and sent her to government-funded foster care. The father had no idea where his daughter was for three panicked weeks. It was another month before a caregiver put her on the phone but the girl, who turned four in government custody, refused to speak, screaming in anger.
“She said that I had left her alone and she was crying,” said her father during an interview with the AP and Frontline at their home in Honduras. “‘I don’t love you Daddy, you left me alone,'” she told him.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/12/causing-profound-trauma-trump-administration-detained-record-breaking-70000-children
Koalas Declared “Functionally Extinct” After Fires Destroy 80% of Remaining Habitat
Experts believe the long-term outlook for the species is bleak, after centuries of habitat destruction, overhunting, and culling.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/11/23/koalas-functionally-extinct-after-australia-bushfires-destroy-80-of-their-habitat/#4dfb62fc7bad
Light Pollution is Key ‘Bringer of Insect Apocalypse’
Light pollution is a significant but overlooked driver of the rapid decline of insect populations, according to the most comprehensive review of the scientific evidence to date.
Artificial light at night can affect every aspect of insects’ lives, the researchers said, from luring moths to their deaths around bulbs, to spotlighting insect prey for rats and toads, to obscuring the mating signals of fireflies.
“We strongly believe artificial light at night – in combination with habitat loss, chemical pollution, invasive species, and climate change – is driving insect declines,” the scientists concluded after assessing more than 150 studies. “We posit here that artificial light at night is another important – but often overlooked – bringer of the insect apocalypse.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/22/light-pollution-insect-apocalypse
Sea Ice Update:
Arctic sea ice extent for November 2019 ended up at second lowest in the 41-year satellite record. Regionally, extent remains well below average in the Chukchi Sea, Hudson Bay, and Davis Strait.
October daily sea ice extent went from third lowest in the satellite record at the beginning of the month to lowest on record starting on October 13 through October 30. Daily extent finished second lowest, just above 2016, at month’s end. Average sea ice extent for the month was the lowest on record. While freeze-up has been rapid along the coastal seas of Siberia, extensive open water remains in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, resulting in unusually high air temperatures in the region. Extent also remains low in Baffin Bay.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Gemeni Solar Project Threatens Important Habitat in Nevada
The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently released a document identifying the severe impacts that would be inflicted on the Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) from the Gemini Solar Project, located in southern Nevada. The agency, tasked with recovering rare species headed for extinction, wrote a Biological Opinion for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the agency in charge of permitting the 7,100 acre Gemini Solar Project which will be located on public lands near Valley of Fire State Park, as part of its consultation process. BLM is reviewing an Environmental Impact Statement for the project.
Although the document claims that mitigation measures will make up for the impacts, the FWS claims that the Gemini Solar Project could kill or injure as many as 1,825 federally threatened desert tortoises in its 30-year operational lifespan. While the Biological Opinion assures us that the project would be heavily mitigated, it still raises dire concerns about these impacts.
The Mojave desert tortoise had declined so drastically decades ago that in 1990 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the species as federally threatened. In the year 2000 the FWS began systematically surveying desert tortoise population numbers across its range using the latest scientific methods. What they saw was continuing declines of tortoise numbers, and even population crashes. Based on these surveys the Desert Tortoise Council has recently recommended up-listing the status of the Mojave desert tortoise from a threatened status to a higher endangered status–which means an emergency to stave off extinction.
The vegetation would be mowed using 23,000 pound Heavy Duty mulchers. Because not all individual tortoises will be detected by biologists or project staff, the agency is concerned that death and injury of desert tortoises could result from excavation activities such as clearing of vegetation, and entrapment in trenches and pipes during construction. Tortoises could be crushed by heavy vehicles. The FWS claims tortoise burrows would be avoided during all this constriction and maintenance activity with equipment and vehicles over years, but we have seen tortoise home burrows crushed and caved in by such activities on other development projects.
After solar project construction is complete and hundreds of tortoises are dug up and raided out of their burrows, the agencies are proposing to then release them back on to this disturbed habitat. The presence of re-occupied desert tortoises on the solar site, with vehicle traffic, may result in injuries or death during routine maintenance of facilities such as vegetation trimming. Tortoises outside of the fenced solar site may also be injured or killed due to truck traffic along the transmission lines and associated access roads.
Capture and translocation (moving) of desert tortoises may result in death and injury from stress or disease transmission associated with handling tortoises, stress associated with moving individuals outside of their established home range, stress associated with artificially increasing the density of tortoises in an area and thereby increasing competition for resources, and disease transmission between and among translocated and resident desert tortoises.
Translocation has the potential to increase the prevalence of diseases, such as Upper Respiratory Tract Disease (URTD), a major mortality factor for desert tortoises. Stresses associated with handling and movement could exacerbate this risk in translocated individuals that carry diseases. Equally, desert tortoises in quarantine pens could increase their exposure and vulnerability to stress, dehydration, and inadequate food resources.
The Gemini Solar Project represents an unacceptably large threat to tortoise populations, connectivity, and high-quality habitat in the northeastern Mojave Desert. FWS appears to us to be minimizing the threat of this project and recommending mitigation measures that will fail to halt tortoise mortality and further cumulative habitat degradation.
http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/
Australia Bushfires Rage
3900 square miles of Australia (an area more than 3 times the size of Yosemite National Park) were burned during a single week of November. – New York Post, 11/26/2019
Rice Farming is Major Source of Methane Emissions
Rice farming, long believed responsible for 2.5% of carbon emissions, is now believed to emit up to twice as much — due to new farming methods that only burn the fields intermittently, rather than annually. Leaving the fields in standing water has been found to stimulate bacterial growth that adds the equivalent of 1200 coal-fired power plants in carbon emissions. – Independent (online news magazine), 09/10/2018
The Plastic Pollution Explosion
A deer found dead in rural Thailand recently had 18 pounds of plastic in its stomach. – CNN, 11/26/2019
Consumer Culture Metastasizing Across the Globe
France says that Black Friday is the worst ever American import, topping Halloween and McDonald’s. The one-day shopping frenzy is said to produce the equivalent of a truckload of textiles being dumped every second, across France. – France 24, 11/30/2019
E-Waste is Growing Fast
Electronic waste worldwide is expected to exceed 50 million tons annually by 2020. Before it becomes e-waste, producing a single computer and monitor requires 1.5 tons of water, 48 lbs. of chemicals, and 530 lbs. of fossil fuels. – “The Balance SMB (balancesmb.com), 10/15/2019
Amazon Deforestation Accelerating Under Bolsonaro
Amazon deforestation in 2019 (so far) is estimated at more than 1130 square miles, an area equal to 97% of Yosemite. – CNN, 11/14/2019
Another estimate puts Amazon deforestation at 3700 square miles thus far this year.
Sea of Okhotsk Warming Rapidly
Parts of the Sea of Okhotsk, between Siberia and Japan, are now 3° C. warmer than in pre-industrial times. Oxygen levels in the sea are down, and the Okhotsk salmon population has declined 70%, just since 2004. With colder areas of the planet reacting fastest to climate change, scientists fear that what is happening around Okhotsk is a warning for seas and sea life globally. – Washington Post, 11/12/2019
Air Pollution in India
Forty percent of school children in four of India’s largest cities have lung capacity described as “poor” or “bad,” following breathing tests. Air quality in Indian cities is consistently rated among the worst in the world. – India Times.com, 05/05/2015
Niger is Desertifying Rapidly
In Niger, an area of grasslands equal to 110,000 football fields is lost every year to desertification and erosion. Nomadic herdsmen, who have followed this lifestyle for centuries, blame climate change. Some report losing half of their herds in recent years, and say they are now being driven into cities to look for work. – France 24, 12/05/2019
30-40% of Food is Wasted for “Cosmetic Reasons”
Thirty to forty percent of American farm produce never makes it to market, due to inefficient distribution, and to discarding for cosmetic reasons. – France 24, 11/30/2019
Alaska Temperatures Caused Salmon to Have Heart Attacks
Record high temperatures across portions of Alaska caused thousands of salmon to have heart attacks and die last summer.
by DGR News Service | Oct 11, 2019 | The Solution: Resistance
Editors note: this material is excerpted from a Deep Green Resistance database called “Resistance Profiles,” which explores various movements, their strategies and tactics, and their effectiveness. We encourage you to study all social movements to learn from their successes and failures.
Goal
To protect indigenous autonomy, their connection with their hereditary land, and combat forces of globalization. In addition, they are working to build participatory models of government, following indigenous traditions as well as uniting anti-capitalist forces behind “Zapatismo”.
Strategy
They initially used an armed uprising with a heavy military focus to win some autonomous space. They now work mostly aboveground to create institutions parallel to and in replacement of the Mexican government. They network with other indigenous groups to support autonomy, while interacting as little as possible with the “bad government.”
Tactics:
Their tactics have evolved in the last decades. The EZLN began with a full scale attack on key cities in Chiapas, Mexico, resulting in a war with the government. The war ended with a cease-fire after 12 days, leading to a 1996 peace accord with the government meant to protect indigenous autonomy. Though not actively fighting, they still maintain a formalized underground army with bases of support. The army states that it will not attack nor defend lands with weapons, but is training. If lands are taken by government, the people relocate.
The Mexican government failed to uphold the 1996 treaty, but the Zapatistas have used this period to act as if the treaty is valid, building health, educational, and governmental alternatives to those offered by the Mexican state.
They actively build an international presence to gather donations and support, and also tour Mexico and host large indigenous conferences in the hopes of supporting other indigenous groups in their mission for autonomy. They refuse offers of “aid” and other subsidies from the Mexican government.
Organization:
The territory is split into 6 “caracoles”, autonomous governments that fall under a larger Zapatista banner, with local community members continuously rotating through positions of power. The “civilian” arm of the group is technically in charge of the “Zapatistas” with the EZLN (the actual army) taking a step back, but there is some debate over how much influence the EZLN commands in reality.
Above/Underground:
Both. The Zapatistas are run by the aboveground arm, with the EZLN in control of the underground army.
Security:
Lots of secrecy around army whereabouts and activities; participants are not openly armed. Everyone wears signature “pasamontana” mask. Borders to territories are protected by unarmed guards and visitors need permission to enter.
Recruitment:
Mainly from populations of peasant farmers and indigenous communities. They are struggling to keep recruits because of economic disruption and decreasing crop yields likely resulting from climate change. In addition, the government has engaged in a long paramilitary war with US complicity, using the “drug war” as a ploy to militarize the south of Mexico and undermine autonomy.
Effectiveness:
Very effective. They have been able to protect lands for the last 20 years. Overall, there has been a resurgence in indigenous movements in Mexico and Central America, largely related to the continuing presence of the Zapatistas.
Further learning
Featured image by seven resist, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
by DGR News Service | Aug 30, 2019 | Defensive Violence, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation, Reclamation & Expropriation
Editors note: this article contains material excerpted from an August 2019 Communique from the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation, Mexico. Image by Nick Rahaim, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
August 17, 2019
We bring you our word. The same word as yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It is the word of resistance and rebellion.
In October of 2016, almost three years ago, during the 20th anniversary of the National Indigenous Congress [CNI], the sister organizations of the National Indigenous Congress and the EZLN made a commitment to go on the offensive in our defense of our Territory and Mother Earth. Persecuted by the bad government, by caciques, by foreign corporations, by criminals, and by the law, and as we accumulated insults, derision, and dead, we the originary peoples (the guardians of the earth), decided to go on the offensive and circulate the words and actions of resistance and rebellion.
…
The appearance of this new [presidential] administration has not fooled us. We know that the real boss has no other homeland than money, and that this same boss rules in the immense majority of the world’s plantations that they call “countries.” We also know that rebellion, dignity, and rage are absolutely prohibited. Despite that, all over the world, in its most forgotten and despised corners, there are human beings who resist being devoured by this machine and who refuse to give in, give up, or sell out. These people have many colors, they carry many flags, they come dressed in many languages, and their resistance and rebellion is enormous.
The big boss and his overseers build walls, borders, and sieges to try to contain these people who they claim are bad examples. But they never achieve their goal because dignity, courage, rage, and rebellion can’t be held back or incarcerated. Even if they hide behind their walls, borders, sieges, armies, police forces, laws, and executive orders, sooner or later that rebellion will come asking for its due. On that day there will be neither forgetting nor forgiveness.
We know that our freedom will only come about through our own work as originary peoples. With the appointment of the new overseer to Mexico, the same persecution and death has continued. Within only a few months [of his administration], at least a dozen of our compañeros of the CNI-CIG who were in the struggle were murdered. Among the dead was a brother much admired by our Zapatista communities—Samir Flores Soberanes.
Samir was murdered after having been singled out by Mexico’s overseer who, despite Samir’s death, marches on with the neoliberal megaprojects that will disappear entire peoples, destroy nature, and convert the blood of our originary peoples into profits for powerful capitalists.
Because of this, in honor of our Brothers and Sisters who have died, been jailed, or are persecuted or disappeared, we decided to name the Zapatista campaign that ends today and that we are now making public: “SAMIR FLORES LIVES.” After years of silent work and despite the siege against our communities and the campaign of lies and defamation, despite military patrols, despite the presence of Mexico’s National Guard, despite the counterinsurgency campaigns that were dressed up as social programs, and despite having been despised and forgotten, we have grown and we have made ourselves stronger.
….
Today we present ourselves to you with new Caracoles and more autonomous Zapatista municipalities in new zones of the Mexican southeast. We will now also have Centers of Autonomous Resistance and Zapatista Rebellion. In the majority of cases, these centers will also house a caracol, a Good Government Council, and Autonomous Zapatista Municipalities in Rebellion (MAREZ). Though it took time, the five original Caracoles, as their name would imply, have reproduced themselves after 15 years of political and organizational work. Our Autonomous Municipalities and Good Government Councils also planted new seedlings and watched them grow. Now there will be 12 Caracoles, each with its Good Government Council.
This exponential growth that today allows us to move beyond the government’s attempt to encircle us is due to two things:
First and foremost, our growth is due to the political/organizational work and example set by the women, men, children and elders of the Zapatista bases of support. It is especially due to the women and youth of the EZLN. Compañeras of all ages mobilized so that they could speak with other sisters in other organizations and sisters that had no organization. Without ever abandoning their own tastes and desires, the Zapatista youth learned from the sciences and arts and through these activities transmitted their rebellion to more and more youth. The majority of these youths, especially the young women, have now taken up posts in our organization and they steep this work in their creativity, ingenuity, and intelligence. Today we can say without any shame and with much pride that the Zapatista women are out in front of us like the Pujuy bird to show us the way and keep us from losing our way, on our flanks to keep us on track, and behind us so that we will not fall behind.
The second thing that made this growth possible are government policies that destroy communities and nature, particularly those policies of the current administration which refers to itself as the “Fourth Transformation.” Communities that have traditionally supported the political parties have been hurt by the contempt, racism, and voracity of the current administration, and they have moved into either hidden or open rebellion. Those above who thought that their counter-insurgent strategy of giving out handouts would serve to divide Zapatista communities, buy off non-Zapatistas, and generate confrontations and demoralization actually provided us with the final arguments that we needed in order to convince those brothers and sisters that it is far more useful to dedicate our efforts to defending our land and nature.
The government thought, and still thinks, that what people need are cash handouts. Now, the Zapatista communities and many non-Zapatista communities, as well as our brothers and sisters in the CNI in the southeast and all over the country, have responded and are showing the government that they are wrong. We understand that the current overseer was brought up in the PRI and within its “indigenist” vision in which originary people’s deepest desire is to sell their dignity and cease to be what they are. In that vision, indigenous peoples are simply museum artifacts or colorful artisanal items through which the powerful attempt to adorn the grayness of their own hearts. That vision also explains why this administration is so set on making sure that its walls (across the Isthmus) and trains (the ones they maliciously call “Mayan”) include the ruins of a civilization as their landscape, with the added bonus that this way they can also please the tourists.
But we originary peoples are alive, rebellious, and in resistance. Meanwhile, the national overseer is trying to dress up one of his underlings, a lawyer who at one time was indigenous, so that he, as has happened throughout human history, can divide, persecute and manipulate those who were once his own people. This lawyer, who is now the head of the INPI [National Institute of Indigenous Peoples], must scrub his conscience every morning with pumice to carefully eliminate any traces of dignity. He hopes in this way to whiten his skin and take on the purpose and outlook of his real boss. His overseer congratulates him and congratulates himself because there is there nothing better for controlling a rebellious people than using one of them who has turned on his cause, who has converted himself into a puppet of the oppressor for money.
…
Here we are; we are Zapatistas. So that you could see us, we covered our face. So that we could have a name, we left our names behind. We risk our present so that we might have a future. So that we might live, we die. We are Zapatistas, the majority of us have indigenous Mayan roots, and we do not give up, we do not give in, and we will not sell out.
We are rebellion and resistance. We are only one of the many sledgehammers that will tear down their walls, one of the many winds that will sweep this earth, and one of the many seeds that will give birth to other worlds.
We are the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
From the Mountains of Southeastern Mexico.
On Behalf of the Men, Women, Children and Elders of the Zapatistas Bases of Support
For the Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee—General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés
Mexico, August of 2019
by DGR News Service | Jul 4, 2019 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Repression at Home
Communiqué from the Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ) on the recent murder of its members, Bartolo Hilario Morales and Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote.
May 2019, Lower Mountains of the State of Guerrero.
To the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
To the National Indigenous Congress
To the Indigenous Governing Council
To the People of Guerrero
To the Peoples of Mexico and the World
To the National and International Sixth
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion
To the CIG Support Networks
Twenty days after the cowardly murder of our brothers, Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastián, impunity continues at the three levels of government. We the Nahua people of the mountains of the state of Guerrero are grieving and angry. We publicly denounce the hideous murder of our brothers, Bartolo Hilario Morales and Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote, who were both Indigenous Nahuas and local promoters of the Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ). The people who carried out this atrocious assassination are professional paramilitaries. They were not satisfied to just to take their lives away; they denigrated them, showing no mercy in this extrajudicial assassination. They dismembered them and put our compañeros in bags. They thought through this vile act they would also demean their story and denigrate their lives. They are wrong.
Not only are they wrong, but the dignity of their lives stands in contrast to the cowardice acts of the murderers. The peoples of CIPOG-EZ and CNI of Guerrero, Mexico are keeping alive the memory of the men and women who have lost their lives in the struggle for the reconstitution of collective rights. We therefore ask the dignified people of Mexico and of the world to remember and spread the word about the history of our murdered brothers and their struggle to defend life; Bartolo Hilario Morales and Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote. Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastián.
We hold the three levels of government categorically responsible: the federal government headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the state government of Héctor Astudillo Flores and the municipal government of Jesús Parra García. Each level of government has held no one accountable, passing the ball to each other saying that the problems were inherited from past governments. This is the PRI attitude that has immersed our country into a bloodbath. There is no “transformation” that wants to change things and it seems that the only important changes occur in the upper spheres of government. The people in power don’t care about the lives of the people below.
The different narco-paramilitary groups have operated for more than twenty-five years in the region of Chilapa, in complicity with the Mexican State, and today is no exception. The state regime has tried over and over to divide our people and we have resisted the war of extermination for more than five hundred years. Our crime has been to defend our territory from the extraction of what they call “natural resources” which for us are sacred mountains or water springs and life. We struggle to maintain the principles that we inherited from our grandparents, which we call “uses and customs”. This world is very different than the one that the Mexican State has formed which goes against our form of community government.
Our towns are suffering systemic violence in which our women, children and men go missing or are murdered, and nothing seems to happen. Everything remains in complete impunity for this bad government, where one of the strategies of the state is to create terror in the heart of our people. Using torture, psychological warfare, death threats, and persecution against all members who promote community development.
We as Indigenous peoples ask ourselves over and over: Why is there so much dehumanization? Why is human life not worth more? Why are some lives worth less than others? And it seems that those on top see us at the bottom as commodities. We ask ourselves again and again, how would the powerful, the governments with more than 30 million votes, react if this violence were to happen to one of their relatives? Or if they were missing, were tortured and viciously murdered or are those acts only reserved for us?
As a national Indigenous movement we fight to reconstruct the social fabric of our people. We are fighting to re-establish peace in our communities, and seek to recognize and reconstruct our indigenous languages, culture and the thinking of our peoples that is interwoven with mother earth.
On May 23, 2019 around 1:30 pm, our brothers Bartolo Hilario Morales and Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote went missing near Chilapa de Álvarez, Guerrero. On the morning of May 24 we learned the terrible news; their lifeless bodies were found. Today we are making a public denunciation and asking for honest and dignified comrades from Mexico and the world; no matter how much they want to destroy us, today let us embrace the history of struggle, which is the history of struggle of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico and the world.
We demand justice for our murdered brothers: Bartolo Hilario Morales and Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote. Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastián. May the pain that overwhelms us today as relatives, friends and compañeros in struggle, not remain in impunity, nor be forgotten.
FRATERNALLY:
Justice for Bartolo Hilario Morales and Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote, CNI members!
Justice for Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastián, CIPOG-EZ member and former member of the CIG and CNI!
Justice for Gustavo Cruz Mendoza, Indigenous communicator assassinated from the CIPO-RFM!
Justice for Samir Flores Soberanes, Indigenous communicator assassinated!
Stop the counterinsurgency war against the EZLN!
Freedom for Fidencio Aldama of the Yaqui tribe!
Never again a Mexico without us!
Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ)
Regions Costa Chica, Costa Montaña, Montaña Alta and Montaña Baja de Guerrero
