Helping Indigenous Communities Protect their Lands

This past week, CDH Frayba celebrated its 35th anniversary with a wonderful event, with the participation of the communities we accompany and walk alongside. 

We were more than 300 people from more than 40 communities of Chiapas, as well as some friends and aliados from outside.

We want to take advantage of this anniversary to shout out a big thank you to all of you who accompany us on this journey and who fight for the land and territory of the original peoples of Chiapas.

 We want to share with you the bulletin we read at the press conference for that event:

Entrelazando La Esperanza

Posicionamiento del Frayba a 35 años de su fundación

  Aniversario

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México

 19 de marzo de 2024

In Chiapas, we dwell in profound sorrow and apprehension, as assaults on life multiply, as the most fundamental human rights are trampled upon, and as popular processes are repressed. Yet, we strive to remain true to our calling, contributing values for the humanization of the earth and preferring to serve the poorest among us. We cannot remain indifferent to the events unfolding around us.

jTatik Samuel Ruiz García.

Carta Pastoral En Esta Hora de Gracia, 1993

Today we commemorate the 35th anniversary of our journey, our path hand in hand with the people, organizations, and collectives committed to the construction of a more dignified world where human rights are a tangible reality and not hollow discourses wielded by those who possess political, economic, and ideological power.

In this journey, a mere blink in the grand tapestry of peoples' resistance, we continually learn from their methods of organization, their spirit of struggle, we draw nearer to their dreams, many of which are our own, we grasp at hope, building it despite adverse days, and anchor it in the victories of the men and women of the peoples who have woven the defense and experience of their rights.

For all these reasons and more, here at Frayba, we view the path we've travelled as both a privilege and a responsibility. Therefore, we reiterate our commitment to continue seeking and building justice and truth with the organized processes we accompany, from and with those who continue to be victimized by the deathly system that seeks to obliterate the dignified causes of the peoples.

The Mexican State is in a stage of alingment with the interests of Capital and against Life. Mexico has become a territory of grave human rights violations against citizens and migrant populations who are expelled by the terror of violence and misery in their countries of origin. In this context of widespread violence and institutional crisis, it fails in its responsibility to protect, respect, and guarantee human rights.

In this electoral period, everything intensifies, and impunity strengthens. The current government stubbornly insists on maintaining its image of a self-proclaimed Fourth Transformation, which, like previous governments, only consolidates pacts of impunity and deepens the crisis of human rights and crimes against humanity.

Scenarios for the people, for the marginalized and exploited classes, do not foresee structural changes. The perversions of previous governments become an agenda for this government, triggering a spiral of violence, leaving the majority of the population abandoned and impacting on: disappearances of people, forced displacements, extrajudicial executions, tortures, and arbitrary deprivations of liberty in a framework of repression and a factory of culprits installed as a daily practice, violations of the rights to land-territory, aggressions, threats, and harassment of defenders.

Based on the documentation of grave violations and with the support of direct sources, we maintain that in Chiapas there is deep pain and indignation for the mechanisms of violence that occur daily in the territory of Chiapas: 1) In the Altos zone with a prolonged circumstance of forced displacement, unattended in its causes, by the action of successor groups of paramilitarism. 2) In the Central zone; the disappearance of people, kidnappings, and murders. 3) In the Coast zone; corruption, the vulnerability of migrants besieged by organized crime, and state repression evident in increased migratory control by the Armed Forces. 4) The Border zone; with land spoils, disappearances of people, forced recruitments, floor charges, controlled territories, and zones silenced by widespread violence and 5) the Jungle zone; with aggressions, extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, forced displacements, and threats to the territory of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, as well as other organizations and communities.

In this electoral journey, the paths are committed to an election of State continuity. Where the rules of criminal governance outline that several of the candidates will be linked to organized crime and in which others are at risk for not responding to factual interests.

It is worth noting that the widespread violence in the country is not from today, nor from the current regime of government, but comes from at least 2006, with former President Felipe Calderón and continues to date. Three six-year terms have passed, that is, 18 years in which the pacts of impunity are sustained and have submerged Chiapas and all Mexican territory in a crisis of violence and death.

The permissiveness and complicity of the political, economic, and ideological powers provide an ideal territory for the criminal factual powers to operate, thus configuring a scenario of macro-criminality, which disarms the narrative that comes from the high spheres of the state and federal governments with the intention of building a manipulated and distorted reality where nothing happens.

In these times of unease, in this Gathering of Hopes, the organizational processes and communities with which we walk challenge us, encourage us, and call us not to falter in the struggle, to continue building from immediate spaces, to strengthen our alliances and bets for life, with total respect to Mother Earth.

Being aware that it will not be easy, that the struggle is of long duration and requires the unity of all, women, men, young people, maintaining the fundamental principles of the good life, where the diversities of forms of spirituality, culture, and identity are expressed, based on collective memory, truth, and justice, which is part of the becoming of the most human manifestations that the original peoples have left us, as part of the construction of peace in a sense of integrality.

From Frayba in its 35 years, we recognize the prophetic imprint of jTatik Samuel and his commitment to walking alongside the communities. We, women and men, reaffirm our commitment to the struggle and defense of the rights of the peoples, we thank the trust and love that has embraced us during these years, we tell you that we are here rooted alongside you with your dignified struggle that encourages us and infuses hope in the walk towards freedom, to overthrow the systems of oppression.

Our hope continues to be in the struggle for the protection of indigenous lands and territories. Protecting the territory means defending the community itself, the ancestral path, the health and wellbeing of mother earth. Defending life means struggling against the logic of exploitation and the notions of capitalist expansion.

Oftentimes when we ask the communities that we accompany about their motivation, what gives them the strength to carry on, the heart of the matter is life itself. The answer “We are defending life”.  Sometimes the struggle is devastating; It seems like everything is falling apart; especially due to the situation of violence that prevails in the state of Chiapas; where human rights violations do not cease.  But when your struggle is for life, you have hope, as we continue finding alternatives, continue in the path for the horizon, with our roots we find the wisdom to carry on.

The last months of 2023 have seen more forced displacements in indigenous territories, wide-spread armed violence has been taking the toll on the abilities of many to work their lands. In the border region, in Tila, in Los Altos and deep in the Lacandon Jungle, many communities have been made victims of violence aimed at their dispossession.  

Last week, we marked 17 years since the massacre of Viejo Velsaco. While the Ch'ol, Tseltal and Tsotil families of victims continue to demand justice and an end to the state impunity, their steadfastness in the struggle and in the land, is our hope and light.

With the hardship, we have witnessed the strength that those who fight, as they wish for different horizon. This week we celebrate the liberation of Manuel Gómez Vázquez. Manuel, member of the EZLN community, has been targeted for being part of the Zapatista movement and wrongfully accused of a crime he did not commit. He was imprisoned for two years and 11 months, and we are happy he was finally gifted his freedom back this November 17. We want to share this news with you and celebrate, because you are and have been part of this fight.

We wish you a happy holiday season and hope to update you on more wins and more advances. We continue to walk with the communities in their defense of life.