To the Peoples of the Cholulteca Region
To the Peoples of Mexico and around the world who fight to defend life
To the media
Today, we express our anger at the actions of the corrupt and violent governments that serve the system that seeks to end all the resources of our mother earth.
Today, November 21, 2021, we held a meeting at the Axuliar Mayor’s Office of Santa María Zacatepec, Juan C Bonilla municipality, to discuss the reopening of the Civil Registry of Santa María Zacatepec.
The mayor’s office was closed two years ago, when the then-Auxiliary President attempted to hand over the Metlapanapa River to the corporations.
Today they show us that the political representatives are the same as always, regardless of the color they paint themselves.
Today we hold directly accountable the elected municipal president, José Cinto Bernal, who attended the Assembly with a large number of people. From the beginning of the Assembly, they did not allow respectful dialogue. They interrupted participants who expressed a different opinion, and attempted to snatch the microphone away from them.
The Assembly turned into a physical confrontation that the municipal president never tried to control or stop, resulting in several people being beaten and injured.
Although more than 50 people participated in the conflict, two popular communicators from the Santa María Zacatepec community radio station were arbitrarily detained, while none of the other people close to the municipal president were detained.
The municipal president José Cinto Bernal continued the Assembly despite the conflict and the arrests and reopened the auxiliary presidency by force.
From the House of the Peoples, to the corrupt and sold-out governments, we say: We won’t sell out, we won’t give up, and we won’t surrender. Our defense of what is most sacred, water and life, will continue.
We know that the reason why the municipal president José Cinto Bernal wanted to open the Municipal Presidency goes deeper than simply reopening a civil registry: it’s to sell the land to the companies, to contaminate all the rivers, to extinguish the community of resistance.
We also inform you that we are not alone, that we know that peoples from all over the country and from other nations support us, because this, compañeros and compañeras, is not a war against a municipal president, it is a global war that seeks to exterminate to the Peoples, exterminate Mother Earth, and exterminate all those who defend it.
We call on solidarity organizations and collectives to defend life, water and the communities that are struggling.
Until dignity prevails,
Until the last drop of water is returned
Pueblos Unidos will never be defeated.