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From Enlace Zapatista

Translated by Dorset Chiapas Solidarity

April 13, 2016

TO THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD

TO THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA

Faced with the cowardly betrayal of the Natho indigenous community of San Francisco Xochicuautla, municipality of Lerma in the State of Mexico, in order to impose the project of the highway from Toluca to Naucalpan, and the attack suffered by Community police of Ostula, municipality of Aquila, Michoacan, we, the Indigenous National Congress declare ourselves on maximum alert and call on the people, organizations and those in solidarity to be vigilant and respond to the call made by the community of Xochicuautla.

We denounce that:

On Monday April 11, at around 9 in the morning, more than 1,000 state police of the State Commission of Public Safety (CES) and the Forces of Action and Reaction (FAR), began arriving, entering the community on 3 sides, the colonia Buenavista, down Cuauhtemoc street to get to the place known as “Lampeni,” and in the place called “Lapondishi” where the Camp of Peace and Dignified Resistance was situated, which was destroyed by the police.

In the place “Lampeni,” Comrade Armando Garcia Salazar, uncle of David Ruiz García, delegate of the Indian National Congress who attended the sharing between the CNI and the EZLN in August 2014, held in the Zapatista La Realidad, had his house and the heritage of their children. Inside the house about 25 people were gathered to defend the property, mostly women, they were very violently evicted, pushing and pulling the compañera Isabel Hernandez, aged 64, who is part of the Indian Supreme Council and at that time was holding a female child in her arms.

Accompanied by police, a letter was handed to compañero Armando informing him that his house was on federal property and had to be destroyed; they also showed him the decree of expropriation against which they had won an injunction.

Without further words, those inside the house were pushed out, also throwing out the possessions that were on the first floor, leaving inside documents, clothing and tools.

Once again the bad government demonstrates that the laws it claims to represent and the supposed rule of law are nothing more than tools for dispossession which are used as long as and only when they are against the people. Dispossession and repression violate the suspension granted in injunctions (amparo) 1123/2015 and 771/2015 that were granted on February 18, 2016 and notified by the court to most authorities on 23 February, including SAASCAEM, which is the institution to which the territory of Xochicuautla was granted in the decree of expropriation.

Meanwhile, on the night of Sunday 10th April, compañeros members of the community police of Santa Maria Ostula were attacked, near the town of San Juan de Alima, Michoacan, when, from a moving car, comunero Francisco Grajeda was killed and comunero Abraham Giron was wounded, he is also commissioner of the community to the Indigenous National Congress and a participant in the sharing held in the Zapatista La Realidad.

We denounce the attempt of the bad government to minimize this crime with which it seeks to encourage the return of violence to the region of the coastal sierra of Michoacan, and to put the territory, natural resources, dignity and peace of the region back into the hands of the narcopoliticians, their paramilitaries, hitmen and businesses.

We call on the people of Mexico and the world to show solidarity urgently with the actions in defense of the rights of San Francisco Xochicuautla, by physically being present in the community, and mobilizing wherever they are to denounce and demand the cessation of attacks against community, its territory and peoples.

We hold Eruviel Ávila and his boss Enrique Peña Nieto responsible for the integrity of our colleagues and of all those who give solidarity to the dignified struggle.

FOR THE INTEGRAL REVINDICATION OF OUR PEOPLES

NEVER AGAIN A MEXICO WITHOUT US

A 12 APRIL 2016

INDIGENOUS NATIONAL CONGRESS

ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION