To the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero (CIPOG-EZ) To the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional)
To the National Indigenous Congress
To the Indigenous Council of Government
To the National and International Sexta
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion
To the media
To all those who defend life against capitalism
Today our pain and rage join our sisters and brothers of the Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero (CIPOG-EZ) whose communities mourn the murder of three more of their compañeros.
Adán Linares, Moises Cuapipistenco and Guillermo Hilario Morales left their village to go to Chilapa and never returned. Their bullet-riddled bodies were later found on the side of the road.
We demand justice for them and for the nearly 50 murdered and 20 disappeared members of the CIPOG-EZ that have been taken from us in the last seven years.
We denounce the three levels of government for their complicity by action or omission in these crimes, which we deem serious state crimes. The municipal president of Chilapa, Aldy Esteban Román (PRI), the governor of the State of Guerrero, Evelyn Salgado (MORENA) and the president Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador know and cover up for the deputy Bernardo Ortega Jimenez (PRD), who is accused by the CIPOG-EZ of being the protector and political operator of Los Ardillos, who together with his brothers Celso and Iván lead the criminal gang founded by their father, Celso Ortega Rosas, more than 30 years ago.
Just two weeks earlier (on 21 October) they told President López Obrador on his tour of the state: “many of our compañeros go down to the municipality to sell their products and they never come back. They are killed and disappeared”.
Escorted and without getting out of his vehicle, stopped by the road blockade that the CIPOG-EZ communities had to set up in order to be heard, López Obrador recommended that in the face of “provocations” they should practise the non-violent policy of Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King.
How insensitive of Mr. President! They are killing them! How can he ask them to act peacefully in the face of this narco-paramilitary group that stalks, persecutes, disappears and murders them, when the criminals control the police and when the army and the National Guard are opposed to confronting them?
Unlike the history that Andrés Manuel preaches, the history of the people of Mexico is one of pain and death. Guillermo Hilario Morales had already survived the violence of the Ardillos, they had shot him before, in his arm and his body, but even more seriously, one of his brothers, Pablo Hilario Morales, has been disappeared since 25 January 2022 and another one of his brothers was dismembered in 2019.
Our brothers responded well to the President of Mexico: “To continue calling for non-violence in a scenario of war, without stopping those who generate it, without attacking the causes of violence – economic, political, social, cultural – is absurd”.
In fact, the CIPOG-EZ stopped López Obradors caravan when he was on tour promoting his so-called welfare programmes.
But what have the Bienestar programmes done in the state of Guerrero? For the CIPOG-EZ, the four years of programmes have done little or nothing to reduce the ancestral misery and inequality that prevails in Guerrero. Instead, these programmes have served to divide organized communities, and serve as counter-insurgency policies.
On the other hand, two days before the murder of Adán, Moisés and Guillermo, the Secretary of the Interior and close friend of the president, Adán Augusto, was also touring the state of Guerrero promoting the reform of the law to allow the armed forces to remain on the streets in “public security” duties until 2028.
But as previously stated, for the CIPOG-EZ, the presence of the armed forces has not served to reduce attacks by criminal groups. As López Obrador was told: “The army is often there, but the criminal groups continue to operate, they move around the municipality as if it were their home”. There have been shootings by Los Ardillos in communities a few metres from an army post without the army doing anything.
Organised crime does not stop even though the militarisation of the country continues to advance, because the criminals are inside the structures of power.
The CIPOG-EZ, however, continues to resist against all odds. It is resisting the history of attacks on its communities. It has resisted since 2015 the invasion of the criminal gang “Los Rojos” and now “Los Ardillos”. It resists the municipal government of Chilapa de Álvarez controlled by this gang. It has resisted and continues to resist despite so many deaths, disappearances and forced displacement of entire communities. It tenaciously resists all kinds of violations and daily aggressions against children, women, men and the elderly. Like many indigenous peoples, it resists more than 500 years of disregard for their lives and for the life of their lands and waters against the exploiters of yesterday and today who are only looking for goods they can plunder.
We say to the compañeros of the CIPOG-EZ, who are Nahua, Me’phaa, Amuzgo, Naa Savi and Afro-descendant peoples, that from our different locations and corners we embrace their dignified rage and their struggle and that we accompany them in their steps. We commit ourselves to fight against that which makes them invisible and that only shows the demagogy of the government that disguises realities.
We reaffirm to the compañeros of the CIPOG-EZ that they are not alone, that we do not forget nor forgive the contempt of the bad governments and that we are building another world where their contempt, their dispossession, their exploitation and repression have no place.
To join the statement, send your name or the name of your organisation or collective to: pronunciamientocipogeznov2022@gmail.com by Sunday 13 November.
STOP THE WAR AGAINST INDIGENOUS PEOPLES! WE WANT JUSTICE AND TRUTH FOR OUR MURDERED BROTHERS AND SISTERS! NOT ONE MORE MURDERED PERSON!
¡VIVA ADÁN LINARES!
¡VIVA MOISÉS CUAPIPISTENCO!
¡VIVA GUILLERMO HILARIO MORALES!
¡VIVA EL CIPOG-EZ!
¡VIVA EL CONGRESO NACIONAL INDIGENA!
COLLECTIVES, NETWORKS AND ORGANISATIONS THAT ENDORSE THE STATEMENT:
Raíces en Resistencia
Red de Apoyo Iztapalapa Sexta (RAIS)
Grietas en el Muro, Espacio de Coordinación
Mujeres y la Sexta
Red MyC Zapatista
Espoir Chiapas Francia
Colectiva Red de mujeres del Oriente del Edo de Méx
Organización Popular Francisco Villa De Izquierda Independiente
Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía en apoyo al CNI-CIG del Puerto de Veracruz
Grupo de Trabajo No Estamos Todxs
Pueblos Unidos de la Región Cholulteca y los Volcanes
Coordinación de Pueblos y Barrios Originarios y Colonias de Xochimilco
Colectivo CNI-Totonacapan
Red de Rebeldía y Resistencia Puebla
Vendaval – Cooperativa panadera y algo más
Colectiva de Mujeres Tejiendo Resistencias
Groupe CafeZ (Bélgica)
Coordinación Metropolitana, Anticapitalista y Antipatriarcal con el CIG
Colectivo Zapatista Neza
Café Zapata Vive
Regeneración Radio
UPREZ Benito Juárez
Colectivo Aequus.- Promoción y defensa de Derechos Humanos, Coordinación de Familiares de Estudiantes Víctimas de la Violencia
Comunidad Indígena Otomí residentes en la CDMX
Resonancias Radio
Laboratorio Popular de Medios Libres
Noticias de Abajo
Zapateando Medios Libres
Plantón por los 43
Colectivo La Ceiba
Brigada de Salud Zapatista Pantitlán
Mujeres que Luchan, Resisten y se Organizan
Bazar Rebelde
Escuelita Autónoma Otomí
SUTIEMS
Brigada Callejera de Apoyo a la Mujer, “Elisa Martinez”
Red Mexicana de Trabajo Sexual
Radio Zapote
Brigada Josué Moreno Rendón
Mujeres y disidencias de la Sexta en la Otra Europa y Abya Yala – RRR
Universidad de la Tierra en Puebla
Frente por la Autodeterminación Ernesto Guevara.
Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste, AC. y Comité Nacional para la Defensa y Conservación de Los Chimalapas
Colectivo Jóvenes Comuneras y Comuneros de Milpa Alta
Colectiva Corazón del tiempo Puelmapu Norpatagonia Argentina
Komite Internazionalitak de Ermua ( País Vasco)
Colectivo SlumilCinko, Portugal
Casa Okupa Chiapaz
Mut Vitz 13
Foro Social de Segovia
Radio Zacatepec y Pueblos Unidos de la región Cholulteca
Coordinadora de Colonias de Ecatepec, Estado de México
Colectiva Mujeres que Luchan-Xalapa
Frente Unido de los Sectores Populares
Campana Cafe Mesoamericana CCM. Frankfurt-Alemania
Colectivo Gata-Gata, Alemania
Red Sexta Grietas del Norte
Chiapas Support Committee
Individu@s:
Sara Alicia Andrade Narváez
Blanca Ibarra
Roxana Bolio
Leonel López
María de Lourdes Mejía, Madre de Carlos Sinuhé Cuevas
Roberto Rodríguez Contreras “Gato”
33
Heriberto Rodríguez, Fotoperiodista
David Villarreal Zavala
Blanca Estrella Ruiz
Martine Gerardy
Elvira Madrid Romero
Luisa Riley
Manuela Martínez de Santa Cruz Acalpixca, Xochimilco
SIlvia Resendiz
Donaji Meza de la comunidad de Milpa Alta CDMX
Lesly Yobany Mendoza Mendoza, Cooperativa Just Seeds, Cd Monstruo
Sonia Tuset
Franklin Ledezma Candanedo, Periodista y Escritor, desde el Corinto Bolivariano: Panamá.
Emmanuel Rozental desde el Cauca, lo que llaman Colombia
Vilma Almendra desde el Cauca, lo que llaman Colombia
Constanza Cuetia desde el Cauca, lo que llaman Colombia
Mauricio Acosta desde el Cauca, lo que llaman Colombia
Beni Toh
Javier Pérez Orozco
Alessandra Fernández
Caitlin Manning
Pete Hesher
Jasmine Vargas