Paramilitary Activities Against Indigenous Continue in Chiapas, Mexico Fernando Camacho Servín - La Jornada
go to original May 24, 2013

With the objective of “knocking out terror” and demobilizing popular organizations, the successive governments of Chiapas state have created and financed various paramilitary groups which have committed dozens of assassinations, kidnappings, and robberies. What’s more, they have facilitated the forced displacement of thousands of people, according to members of the National Front for the Fight for Socialism (FNLS).

In a press conference, the activists remarked that “the paramilitary-like activities have been observed as a policy of the State” through which government officials: “fund and organize these groups far and wide throughout the country in order to undermine the efforts of the people to defend their social rights,” while simultaneously evading their responsibility for the facts.

In the case of the ejido [indigenous community where land is owned communally] “El Carrizal” in the Chiapas municipality of Ocosingo, the member organizations of FNLS have been intimidated and assaulted by armed groups under the control of Javier Ortega Villatoro – including Los Petules and the CMPECH [the Popular Movement Coordinating Committee of the State of Chiapas] – that have terrorized local residents through assassinations and disappearances.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Shaun Twomey

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