Indigenous Council in Michoacán Protests for the Freedom of Detained Forest Defender

Por

25 June, 2024

^{Cover image: Members of the Supreme Indigenous Council of Michoacán mobilize to demand the freedom of María Cruz Paz, who has been detained for two weeks on what they say are fabricated charges.}

On Monday, June 17, hundreds of Indigenous Purépechas, members of the Supreme Indigenous Council of Michoacán (CSIM), blockaded highways in different parts of the state to demand the freedom of María Cruz Paz Zamora, who they say is a political prisoner.

Paz Zamora, delegate of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), was detained on June 5 by ministerial police of Michoacán, and taken to prison in Uruapan.

^{Members of the Supreme Indigenous Council of Michoacán mobilize to demand the freedom of María Cruz Paz, who has been detained for two weeks on what they say are fabricated charges.}

The CSIM—made up of civil, communal, and traditional authorities of 70 Purépecha, Nahua, Otomí, and Mazahua communities—says that the Michoacán State Public Prosecutor’s Office has held her in custody for the crime of forced disappearance. The Indigenous organization says that she is a victim of criminalization due to her work as a defender of the environment, territory, and Indigenous autonomy.

According to the Indigenous council, Paz Zamora wasn’t offered any explanation for her detention, which occurred while she was traveling to the city of Morelia to attend a meeting with state officials.

^{María Cruz Paz Zamora, resident of the Purépecha community of Ocumicho.}

Paz Zamora is a member of the community of Ocumicho, in the municipality of Cherapan, where she is recognized for her work in defense of Purépecha culture, and for the autonomy of the community. Furthermore, the Supreme Indigenous Council of Michoacan points out that she was working on extensive reforestation projects in her community, which has brought her face to face with illegal loggers and agro-industrial avocado producers in the region.

The National indigenous Congress (CNI) explains that the Mexican State and the Michoacán State Public Prosecutor’s Office repress and criminalize those who oppose the irritational depredation of the forests and the sale of ancestral lands. They too demand the immediate freedom of Paz Zamora.

Antecedents of Violence

According to the CSIM spokesperson, Pavel Guzmán Ulianov, the imprisonment of the Purépecha organizer can only be understood by reviewing the history and context of the Indigenous community of Ocumicho—a community that has defended their ancestral territory, and which, during the last 40 years, has suffered a series of aggressions.

During a press conference carried out in the capital city of Morelia, Ulianov listed several violent acts committed against the Indigenous community, including the assassination of the communal lands secretary, Prudencio Ortíz Alonso, on May 31, 2020, during an attack where the communal lands representative was also injured.

Also noteworthy is the disappearance of the coordinator of the communal governance council and the director of Radio Indígena Ocumicho, Esteban Cruz Rosas, on April 28, 2022, as he was leaving the radio station. According to the CSIM, thanks to the timely mobilization, Cruz was found alive.

In addition, he explained that on November 11, 2022, the community was attacked by an armed group, and on December 10 of that same year, Pedro Pascual Cruz was assassinated, who was the coordinator of the communal guard of Ocumicho.

“All these cases have been denounced in time and form in the Michoacan Public Prosecutor’s Office. However, in this institution the paradox of impunity prevails, the guilty go free and the innocent are imprisoned,” explained the spokesperson.

^{Paz Zamora’s mother, who was also present in the demand for the release of her daughter, says that she is accused on fabricated evidence.}

^{Press conference carried out in Morelia to demand the immediate freedom of María Cruz Paz Zamora.}

Cruz Rosas, who also participated in the press conference, says that the aggressions against Ocumicho have occurred in spite of having officially asked for assistance from state and federal authorities. “We are marginalized, we have never been attended to,” accused the coordinator.

Cruz says that the detention of Paz Zamora is the consequence of the fabrication of crimes on part of the Michoacán Public Prosecutor’s Office, to “find a scapegoat” to blame in the case of the disappearance of two community members of Santa Cruz Tanaco, Israel Vargas Jerónimo and Oscar Vargas Campos, which occurred on January 3, 2024.

The coordinator of the communal government of Ocumicho assures that Paz Zamora remains imprisoned for the accusation from a protected witness, of which, says the coordinator, is an illegal logger who accuses the forest defender of being behind the kidnapping of the community members.

“How is a criminal going to have more voice and vote than a person that has been in charge of 20 men who guard the forest?”, Cruz emphatically asked in front of the media. “Maybe that is why she is being attacked, because here in Michoacán, there is nobody to defend the forests,” he said.

Michoacán: Indigenous Communities Under Siege from Organized Crime

Por

Sare Frabes

24 June, 2024

Cover image: Residents of the Nahua community of Santa María Ostula. Photo: Regina López

Through a statement released Saturday, June 15, Indigenous Nahuas of Santa María Ostula denounced new attacks against their community, taking place within a context of escalating violence including armed invasions and assassinations occurring since 2023. These attacks have continued without any response from state or federal authorities.

On June 13, a group of 30 heavily armed members of Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), attacked a community member of the Encargatura de la Cofradia—one of the 23 populations that make up Ostula—in the municipality of Aquila, on the Michoacán sierra coast.

On this occasion, the armed group shot at a community member who was working in the fields, who was only able to survive by seeking refuge in the security checkpoint set up by the Communal Guard of Ostula due to the constant attacks from the CJNG.

This checkpoint was installed after February 6 when the same population suffered a violent attack from the criminal group, forcing residents to suspend work and school activities for weeks due to the seriousness of the armed aggressions.

There were also attacks at the end of March and beginning of April carried out against the neighboring communities of Coahuayana and Chinicuila. At that time, hundreds of men from Colima used high caliber guns, as well as explosives and drones, in an attempt to take control of the territories.

With the response from self-defense groups and communal guards of the municipalities of Cuahuayana and Aquila, they were able to stop the advance of the criminal group. However, local journalists report that the CJNG has retaken control in the localities of Palos Marías, El Órgano and Zapotan, “causing terror in the communities and displacement,” shares local media.

Assassinations, Disappearances

The armed aggressions don’t stop there. In the month of May, residents of Ostula denounced the assassination of the community member Antonio Regis Nicolás, while he was traveling with his family to the Encargatura de la Mina of La Providencia.

^{Antonio Regis Nicolás, community member of Ostula, assassinated in May. Photos: Comunicación Ostula}

At that moment, the community denounced that the government, both state and federal, knows about the violence in the region and the aggressions that the community of Ostula is facing. “However, they have refused to take active measures to provide protection to the populations of the region and particularly to the families of our community in the face of the worsening violence of the CJNG,” they sustained in a communique.

The community had demanded the dismantling of the CJNG, as well as the “end of the protection that corrupt police officers and sergeants provide to the cartel.” They also remember the assassination of Lorenzo Forylán de la Cruz Ríos, Isaul Nemesio Zambrano, Miguel Estrada Reyes, and Rolando Magno Zambrano, members of the Communal Guard assassinated in 2023.

The Nahua community members also demand the return of Antonio Díaz and Ricardo Lagunes. Díaz, a professor and community leader of San Miguel de Aquila, and Lagunes, a lawyer and human rights defender, have been missing since January 15, 2023, when they were traveling between Michoacán and Colima after participating in a community assembly.

Both were in charge of the legal defense of the population of Aquila, to guarantee free elections of communal authorities and the fulfillment of agreements with the mining company Las Encinas, property of Ternium.

The violent events took place just days before the Nahua community celebrated the 15^th anniversary of the recuperation of more than 1,000 hectares of communal lands in what is now the Encargatura de San Diego Xayacalán.

In 2009, the Indigenous Nahuas organized to recuperate the lands that had been taken from them by landowners from Colima, who are linked to the Knights Templar Cartel. Due to their struggle, between the years of 2008 and 2014 alone, 32 community members were assassinated and another six forcefully disappeared.

Supreme Court to Rule on the Freedom of Indigenous Mazatec Community Organizer Miguel Peralta

Por

Nolan Peltz

18 June, 2024

On Wednesday, June 19, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation will rule on the amparo in the case of Miguel Peralta, community organizer and ex-political prisoner from the community of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, Oaxaca. The Supreme Court will decide whether or not to put a definite end to the nearly ten years of political imprisonment and persecution faced by Miguel Peralta.

Miguel is one of 35 members of the community assembly of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón criminalized in case number 02/2015, following a socio-political conflict in December 2014. The conflict was a consequence of mounting tension between the community assembly and the interests of a cacique group, backed by political party power, who’ve sought to maintain control of the municipal government, municipal funds, and the exploitation of natural resources in the community.

On December 14, 2014, the assembly was violently attacked by the cacique group led by Manuel Zepeda Cortés as they gathered in the town plaza to elect a community authority. The ensuing violence left two dead, including the son of Manuel Zepeda. Zepeda’s daughter, Elisa Zepeda Lagunas, would lead the criminalization efforts, fabricating crimes and using positions of political power in the municipal and then state government to influence the legal processes.

Miguel Peralta was arrested in April 2015 on charges related to the events on December 14. Over two years later, on October 26, 2018, he was sentenced to fifty years in prison for homicide and attempted homicide. Following an appeal from his legal team, his fifty-year sentence was absolved and his case returned to the final hearing, for the fact that he was denied his right to be at his first final hearing. Prison authorities had used the excuse that they didn't have gas money to transport him from prison in Cuicatlán to the court in Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca. In October 2019, he was acquitted of the charges and released after spending almost 4.5 years in prison.

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Following an appeal from the accusing party, on March 4, 2022, the fifty-year sentence was reaffirmed and a warrant put out for his arrest after less than two years of freedom. Following an appeal to that decision, the collegiate court in Oaxaca returned his legal process back eight years, to the testimony stage, seeking again for Miguel to face this process from inside prison. In the face of this decision, his legal team filed a request to the Supreme Court of the Nation for a review. Miguel Peralta is currently free, but with a warrant out for his arrest.

Photo: Anti-prison activity in Oaxaca in January 2023

All Eyes on the Supreme Court

In January 2024, the Supreme Court of the Nation took up the amparo with case number 6535/2023. And on June 19, they will discuss and release their decision. The lead opinion has been presented by Justice Loretta Ortiz Ahlf. The other justices—Juan Luis González Alcántara Carrancá, Jorge Mario Pardo Rebolledo, Ana Margarita Ríos Farjat, and Alfredo Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena—will debate that opinion on June 19. The final decision must be made by a majority of the five justices.

“The court has a historic opportunity” explained Miguel Peralta’s lawyer, Araceli Olivos, in a press conference in Mexico City. The court has the opportunity to set a different precedent in the relation between Indigenous peoples and the Mexican state; a relation that has historically been stained by oppression, exploitation, discrimination, and marginalization against Indigenous peoples. With this decision, the court has the opportunity to begin undoing these historical wrongs perpetrated against Indigenous peoples.

Photo: Resistance art made of plasticine and other materials created by Valentin Peralta and David Peralta.

For Miguel’s legal team, there are two legal protocols they are encouraging the court to consider when analyzing the amparo in Miguel’s case. Firstly, the protocol for an intercultural perspective in cases related to Indigenous communities. What does this mean? That Miguel’s case must be contextualized in the political, social, and cultural context of the Mazatec people of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón.

“Inculturality invites us to dialogue, to see the other, to see this other community,” says Olivos, Miguel’s lawyer. “What we want to say to the court is that they look at the Mazatec people, that they look at Eloxochitlán, that they listen to the people of Eloxochitlán.” This isn’t a simple case of perpetrator and victim, but a complicated conflict which involves an entire community, and is directly related to a strained historical relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Mexican nation-state.

The second legal protocol Miguel’s lawyers are encouraging the Supreme Court to consider is that of minimum intervention. Rather than responding with criminalization, the state has the opportunity to “attend to the causes, promote dialogue, promote alternative mechanisms…the answer isn’t always prison, fines, legal processes, etc,” explains Olivos. This protocol can be applied in various circumstances, and has been applied previously by the court in cases related to community conflicts and Indigenous peoples.

Miguel’s lawyers argue that the previous resolution from the court in Oaxaca was insufficient in that it didn’t consider these different factors. It didn’t contextualize Miguel’s case within a much larger and much more complicated political, social, and cultural context in Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón.

Political and Cultural Context

The need for an intercultural perspective and minimum intervention is evident in Miguel Peralta’s case. The Mazatec people of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón are one of 68 ethnic groups that inhabit the territory now dominated by the Mexican state. They have their own language, spirituality, cosmovision, their own forms of internal organization and decision-making. Their self-determination is protected in the Mexican constitution as well as various international agreements signed by the Mexican government in relation to Indigenous peoples.

Miguel’s case is directly related to this fraught relationship between the Mexican nation-state and Indigenous peoples. His criminalization, and that of his compañeros, is a consequence of attempts to impose political party and cacique interests against the internal forms of community organization of the community, including the community assembly, collective work, and territorial defense. Relatedly, Miguel’s case is a question of Indigenous self-determination and autonomy, and the capacity for a community to resolve conflicts through their own internal processes.

The negative effects on the community of Eloxochitlán as a consequence of the conflict and the criminalization have been extensive. “My community has lost all of its customs following what happened in December of 2014,” explains Miguel’s mother, Martha Betanzos, in a press conference. “Since 2014 our community has declined, our schools are empty, our teachers have abandoned their classes because of everything that has happened in Eloxochitlán. All the medical services have decayed. There is no longer good healthcare.”

Slow Walk Toward Freedom

Even while their legal processes have been filled with irregularities and judicial delays, the politically imprisoned and persecuted of Eloxochitlán have slowly regained their freedom, little by little, over the past ten years.

On September 29, 2023, the court in District Court in Huautla de Jiménez changed the pretrial detention orders, releasing Jaime Betanzos and Herminio Monfil, two community members from Eloxochitlán who had been in prison since December 2014 without a conviction or a sentence. They were released not in complete freedom, but to continue their legal processes on the outside.

More recently, on June 12, 2024, the tribunal in Huautla de Jiménez ordered the release of Francisco Duran, Alfredo Bolaños, and Fernando Gavito, changing their pre-trial detention orders, allowing them to continue their legal cases outside of prison form inside their communities.

Photo: Miguel’s final hearing in the Mixed District Court of Huautla de Jiménez in 2019.

Miguel’s family and support crew hope that Miguel’s definite freedom follows these recent court victories, so that the community can continue to walk toward freedom, to continue to heal from the wounds of cacique and state repression.

“We want to live in peace, we want to be free,” says Marth Betanzos, Miguel’s mother. “We want to see Miguel Ángel Betanzos free. So that he can walk in his territory, so that he can listen to the birds, so that he can feel the mud on his feet, so that he can be amongst the mountains and coffee fields.”

Residents of the Choluteca Region of Puebla Demand Definite Closure of Landfill

Por

Aldo Santiago

18 June, 2024

^{Cover image: Members of the Union de Pueblos y Fraccionamientos contra el Basurero blocked main avenues in the south of Mexico City to denounce the irregular operation of a landfill in the Choluteca region of Puebla. Photo: Noticias de abajo ML}

Inhabitants of 27 communities of the volcanos region of Puebla, protested this Tuesday, June 11, in front of the offices of the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA), located in Mexico City, to demand the definite closure of the intermunicipal landfill in San Pedro Cholula.

With banners and loudspeakers, members of the Union de Pueblos y Fraccionamientos contra el Basurero blockaded the main avenues in the south of Mexico City to denounce the operation of the landfill which for sixteen years has contaminated the air, land, and water of the region.

The protestors point out that there is an increase in diseases such as leukemia in the municipalities of Puebla, including Ocoyucan, San Andrés Cholula, San Gregorio Atzompa, San Pedro Cholula, Juan C. Bonilla, Coronango, Papalotla de Xicohténcatl and Tenancingo. Furthermore, through scientific studies, its been shown that there are “brutal” levels of contamination in water sources near the landfill.

Residents of the region referred to a report published at the beginning of April elaborated by academics from the National Council of Humanities, Sciences, and Technologies (CONAHCYT), revealing that these municipalities in Puebla, located in the Atoyac River basin, have the highest mortality rates for acute leukemia in the country.

Due to this alarming situation, the protestors demand that environmental authorities permanently close the landfill to protect the health of the inhabitants, as well as the water sources of the region.

Resistance

Since March 21, organized residents have maintained a protest encampment at the entrance to the landfill, applying pressure to stop its operations. Due to the protest actions, they have daily prevented 680 tons of trash from being deposited in the landfill. This trash comes from places as far away as Mexico City and Oaxaca.

Operated by the company PRO-FAJ Hidro Limpieza, residents argue that that landfill continues its operations due to the political influence of Cuauhtémoc Ochoa Fernández, recently elected Senator of Hidalgo with the support of the MORENA party, to whom they point out as the owner of the facility.

On April 10, after denouncing the high levels of contamination with the results of a water analysis carried out by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, PROFEPA officials temporarily closed the landfill. However, on the night of April 30, local authorities tried to reopen the landfill. Police officers from the municipalities of Calpan, San Pedro Cholula, Chiautzingo and Domingo Arenas escorted a convoy of trash trucks seeking to enter the landfill.

However, the protestors of Pueblos Unidos managed to repel the aggression and prevent the reopening of the facility. During the operation, people were wounded by gunfire.

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With the heightened repression, and due to the inaction of the three levels of government, in May, agrarian and traditional community authorities of the 34 communities announced the “First Assembly of the Cholulteca People Against the Killer Land Fill and the Megaprojects of Death.”

Celebrated on May 14, those who attended described the landfill as “an ecocide where impunity cannot continue,” declaring its definite closure. Furthermore, they announced the prohibition of all extractivist projects in the zone, particularly related to the Integral Morelos Project “a regional energy megaproject that affects the Nahua peoples of the Popocatépetl Volcano region of the states of Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala.”

Promises

After 3:00pm on Tuesday, June 11, at the end of the meeting with the environmental authorities, the lawyer, Juan Carlos Flores of the Union de Pueblos communicated that PROFEPA promised to carry out an inspection and verification of the landfill this week.

The visit, according to the commitment made by the federal government agency, is to verify two points that the residents of the Choluteca region have denounced. First, that the landfill has not complied with measures to prevent contamination derived from their operations, and above all, that the landfill has no more space.

Flores communicated that, after PROFEPA’s visit, the residents will be waiting for them to return seals marking the definite closure of the landfill and the elaboration of a closure plan.

However, the lawyer detailed that the federal officials didn’t commit to the closure, in spite of having been shown evidence of the saturation of the landfill. As such, he called on the residents to maintain alert in the face of any possible repression.

Mining Company Uses Electoral Context to Extract Minerals in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca

Por

Santiago Navarro F

7 June, 2024

^{Cover image: Community authorities during a press conference denounce the mining exploitation. Photo: Santiago Navarro F}

On Saturday, June 1, one day before the elections in Mexico, community members of Capulálpam de Méndez, in the northern sierra mountains of Oaxaca, declared a maximum alert after identifying two dump trucks transporting minerals extracted from the bowels of those beautiful mountains. Immediately, the Zapotec community blocked the exit of the community, retaining one of the trucks while the other managed to escape.

The stopped truck contained 22 tons of ground rock. The truck was let go, but the material were retained. “This material was already processed. Studies were done and it has high levels of gold and silver,” said Francisco García López, president of the communal lands commission of the municipality.

In accordance with a decision made by the community assembly, they blocked the roads between Capulálpam and Ixtlán, as well as the federal highway that connects Oaxaca and Tuxtepec. The community also prevented the state from installing voting booths in their territory for the election. “If the government doesn’t pay attention to something legitimate and just, what’s the point of installing voting booths. So, in a decision made by the community, the voting booths were not installed,” said the commissioner.

Complaints against Compañia Minera de Natividad and Anexas, S.A. de C.V. for the exploitation of minerals without the permission of the community are not new. “On two occasions the governor of the state (Salomón Jara) visited the community. We let him know that the mining activities need to be suspended. However, we were told that the company wasn’t operating.”

As a result, the community agrarian authorities decided to take matters into their own hands. They decided to hand over evidence. “For that reason, the assembly retained the truck with the minerals. It is evident that they are working late at night and in the early morning hours. The government doesn’t say anything. So, we presented them with the evidence. They didn’t listen, so we blocked the roads.”

Following the measures taken by Capulálpam, with support of other communities who also began to set up blockades at the entrances to their communities, the state government promised to receive a commission of local authorities on Monday, June 3. Those who were to attend on part of the government were the Secretary of Government, Jesús Romero López, the Commission of Peace and federal authorities. “We decided to lift the highway blockade and attend the meeting,” says García. However, they decided to cancel the dialogue because “unfortunately they are once again mocking our communities, bringing 2^nd and 3^rd level officials to resolve the problem. With this, we decided to cancel the dialogue requesting instead that it be directly with federal authorities.”

The communities again installed the highway blockades. On Monday night, they were told that on Wednesday, June 5, they would be received by federal authorities from the Secretary of Economy, Secretary of Environment, and National Water Commission, the same authorities who have already received countless complaints.

The Legal Context

In February of this year, the community of Capulálpam won an injunction in relation to three mining concessions pertaining to Compañia Minera de Nativdad y Anexas, S.A. de C.V. However, they didn’t specify which concessions they are because, according to authorities, they are still in litigation.They explain that the judge ordered the mining concessions in Capulálpam be rendered invalid.

^{Photos: Santiago Navarro F}

Likewise, on Tuesday, June 4, authorities of Capulálpam, Lachatao, and other communities declared in a press conference that since 2003 they have filed multiple complaints against the company without any response from state or federal authorities. “They haven’t acted in supervising and applying the laws for the protection of the environment and the protection of the rights of our community and the communities of the Sierra Juarez that have been directly impacted by the Natividad mining operation,” they pointed out.

Among the impacts mentioned are the depletion of thirteen aquifers, contamination of the soil and water sources with mining waste, and the collapse of three toxic waste tailings deposits in 2010, which to this day have not been repaired.

^{Community of Capulálpam de Méndez, Oaxaca. Photo: Santiago Navarro F}

The communities also pointed out that the mining company is responsible for the emission of different pollutants, like Polychlorinated biphenyl from abandoned electrical transformers, that are a mix of chemical compounds which, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, cause neurological and immunological alterations in children and cancer in animals. They also denounced the contaminants such as arsenic, lead, and cadmium in the soil and bodies of water.

For this reason, the community demands that the federal government close the mine and that the company take responsibility in repairing the “damages caused by the contamination.”

More Concessions

The community authorities mention that in their territory there exists only three concessions that were suspended through a writ of amparo. The Avispa Midia team reviewed the cartographic database solicited from the Secretary of Economy, proportioned by the Unidad de Coordinación de Actividades Extractivas in February of 2024. We were able to identify that in the municipality of Capulálpam, as of 2024, there are thirteen concessions: seven concessions with exploitation titles, six with exploration permits.

Of the total concessions, at least nine belong to the Compañia Minera de Natividad y Anexas, S.A. de C.V. The others, according to official documents, are original concessions granted to Fausto Calvo Sumano and Judith Patricia Underwood, who own Sociedad Underwood and Calvo Compañía, S.N.C.

In total, the thirteen concessions—with gold, silver, copper and lead deposits—exceed 5,000 hectares. One of the mining concessions called “Providencia 1” covers part of the urban center of the community.

Likewise, another mining concession called “Providencia 2” covers three municipalities. In addition to Capulálpam, it expands into the municipalities of Natividad and Santiago Xiacuí.

The communities lack clear information regarding the location, extension, and status of the concessions which are permitted until 2050 and 2060.

Chimalapas in Flames

Por

Avispa

6 June, 2024

By: Josefa Sánchez Contreras

The tropical forest of the Chimalapas is burning. The election noise is drowning out the struggles of the communities fighting for life, forests, rivers, mountains, and animals.

The heat waves, fires, dried up rivers, and floods are nothing more than expressions of what in recent years has been called a climate emergency; that which has roots dating far back, associated with long centuries of colonialism, genocide, ecocide, and dispossession.

For decades Indigenous peoples have been warning of the environmental catastrophe caused by mining extraction and fossil fuels. It is undeniable that both are increasing the temperature on earth, leading us closer and closer to the dreaded 1.5 decree Celsius increase. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2019 (IPCC), the effects of such an increase will be irreversible for agriculture and for human life on earth.

However, the fossil fuel and extractivist sectors are pillars in the political and economic programs of the presidential candidates of this 2024 election. The climate emergency and the rights of Indigenous peoples, whose territories are home to between 70% and 80% of the country’s biodiversity according to data from the National Agrarian Registry, do not fit into the electoral ballot boxes.

The Zoque people of Santa María Chimalapa are currently fighting a number of fires that are destroying one of the most biodiverse regions in Mesoamerica: the tropical forest of the Chimalapas. The fires have been burning for more than a week and the state institutions haven’t provided an effective response to put them out. Community brigades led by communal land commissioners are those who are fighting the climate emergency.

At the same time, the communal assembly of San Miguel Chimalapa is demanding the federal government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the state government of Oaxaca of Salomón Jara to comply with an expert appraisal so that the Local Agrarian Court can emit a resolution on the nullity lawsuits filed by San Miguel Chimalapa to delimit their communal lands.

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The demand of the assembly of San Miguel Chimalapa makes sense when we see that the fires throughout Chimalapas are being fed by agrarian conflicts with neighboring ejidos. There are 26,000 hectares of land in dispute between San Miguel Chimalapa, Niltepec and Zanatepec. There are 160,000 hectares of communal lands in dispute between Chimalapa, Oaxaca, and Cintalapa, Chiapas. While the Supreme Court of the Nation emitted a resolution in favor of Oaxaca in 2023, it hasn’t been enforced. On the contrary, the plunder of the forests continues, as well as the fires that have been burning for weeks.

In the heat of these problems, the government of the so-called fourth transformation is more occupied with promoting its successor than attending to the demands of those who are continually being displaced from their lands: Indigenous and campesino peoples.

Agrarian conflicts throughout Mexico are not a minor issue. There are around 500 agrarian conflicts in the country. The existence of agrarian conflicts exhibits the racism with which the Agrarian Attorney General’s Office treats Indigenous and campesino peoples. Very slow paperwork, arbitrary legal processes, the hiding of information, and the disregard for communal authorities and security councils are just some of the most common characteristics.

In Chimalapas, as in other communities, agrarian conflicts are worsening as extractivist, energy, and industrial megaprojects push their infrastructure onto the lands in litigation. With this, they generate confrontations between neighboring agrarian communities.

These conflicts are often portrayed to be between communities, thus erasing the responsibility of international corporations and the Agrarian Attorney General’s Office in the unfortunate outcomes of these conflicts often resulting in violence, assassinations, and disappearances.

The fires, the agrarian conflicts, the extractivist megaprojects associated with fossil fuels, the institutional racism and the violence exercised against Indigenous peoples, are all deeply related. The challenge to solve them has nothing to do with the electoral agenda.

The struggle of the Zoque people of Chimalapa to put out the fires and resolve the agrarian conflicts is a concrete, urgent, and necessary action in times of climate catastrophe. Before the ears deafened by electoral noise, let’s listen to the cries of the tropical forest and the running water of the river. Now more than ever solidarity is necessary between communities and cities to put out the fire that is overtaking us.

Tzimalapa atzpa, bi nax atzpa, bi copaknax atzpa, dex atzpa, mix atzpa

(Chimalapa burns, the land burns, the planet burns, I burn, you burn).

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