FNLS Press Conference (Photo: @Sipaz)

On March 6, the National Front for Struggle for Socialism (FNLS) began its National Day of Struggle in Chiapas.

The first event was a press conference along with the ‘Committee of Relatives of Missing until Found Persons’. The conference remembered the anniversaries of the forced disappearance of Fidencio Gomez Santiz, who disappeared in Ocosingo on March 5, 2016, as well as Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sanchez, arrested and disappeared in May 2007 in Oaxaca.

During the conference, they also reported on the latest developments against members of the FNLS: “With deep regret we inform you that on Tuesday, February 28, our compañero Humberto Morales Santiz, who was only 13 years old and who was in the first grade of a telesecundaria in the town of Cuxul-ja was cruelly and cowardly murdered by the paramilitaries known as “Los Petules”, in coordination with police and other state bodies who are invading the ejidal lands of the compañeros in El Carrizal.”

At the end of the conference, the FNLS and the ‘Committee of Relatives of Missing until Found Persons’ demanded that the state government of Chiapas and the federal government investigate and punish those responsible for the extrajudicial execution of Humberto Morales Santis and the presentation of compañeros Fidencio Gomez Santiz, Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sanchez and Edmundo Reyes Amaya.

On March 7, the FNLS organized the “Victims of State Terrorism in Mexico” forum in the Aula Magna of the Campus III UNACH Law School. Speakers shared their experiences of the impact of forced disappearances on the victims’ families and on the relationship between forced disappearances and migration.

The following day, the FNLS participated in the Women’s March in the context of International Women’s Day in San Cristobal de Las Casas: “In the Context of the National Day: The Victims of State Terrorism are of the People, We will not Stop until We Find Them! The National Front for Struggle for Socialism (FNLS) commemorates this March 8: International Day of Proletarian Women, as a day of struggle and protest against the current conditions of misery, economic exploitation and political oppression, to which is added the grim reality that leaves the wave of institutional violence emanating from the policy of state terrorism.”

On the same afternoon, the FNLS occupied the offices of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH in its Spanish acronym) in San Cristobal de Las Casas to demand justice and a response to the aforementioned lawsuits and to urge the CNDH to speak out about the constant violations of human rights and police-military harassment against the communities organized in the FNLS.

They demanded that they “resume these cases” denouncing that “although it [theCNDH] has information, it is not doing its job as it should be.”

For more information in Spanish:

Miembros del FNLS toman oficinas de la CNDH en San Cristóbal de las Casas (Proceso, 8 de Marzo de 2017)

‘Toman’ oficinas de CNDH en Chiapas (La Jordana, 8 de Marzo de 2017)

DÍA INTERNACIONAL DE LA MUJER PROLETARIA (FNLS, 9 de Marzo de 2017)

Video. El FNLS y el Comité Hasta Encontrarlos toman oficinas de la CNDH para exigir investigue desapariciones (FNLS, 9 de Marzo de 2017)

Acción Urgente – Ejecución Extrajudicial del niño Humberto Morales Sántiz de 13 años de edad, integrante del Frente Nacional de Lucha por el Socialismo en Chiapas. (Comité Cerezo, 4 de Marzo de 2017)

For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas: “Jornada nacional contra el terrorismo del estado en Chiapas” del FNLS (2 de Mayo de 2016)

Nacional/Oaxaca/Chiapas: Gira nacional: desaparición forzada en México (6 de Marzo de 2015)

Nacional: Comisión Civil de Seguimiento y Búsqueda de dos miembros del Ejército Popular Revolucionario (EPR) desaparecidos desde 2007 denuncia falta de avances (19 de Septiembre de 2014)