Joint Statement: Demand for Peace, Guarantees, and Respect for Life in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico

San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
April 21, 2023

JOINT STATEMENT

Faced with the overwhelming violence in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, we express our concern and demand that the right to Peace, Guarantees and respect for life, integrity and security of the population at imminent risk be guaranteed.

Those of us who sign this statement express our deep concern about the increase and excessive violence of armed groups in the municipality of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, with a population of more than 200,000 inhabitants, who act with the acquiescence, tolerance and protection of State officials, affecting To the population in general. We demand that the obligation of the Mexican State to protect the right of peoples to peace be fulfilled.

On April 17, 2023, at around 11:40 a.m., violence in the municipality of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, increased after the murder of Jerónimo Ruiz, one of the leaders of the organization known as the Association of Tenants of Traditional Markets of Chiapas (ALMETRACH). For more than eight hours, people with high-caliber weapons detonated bursts of shots at various points in the city, burning at least three houses and killing two other people, in addition to spreading various threats and rumors on social networks. The climate of violence caused terror among the population, which led to the fact that on the afternoon of that day and the following day, schools of all levels suspended classes, various businesses closed after the events, and a high percentage of inhabitants took refuge in their homes. .

The Municipal President of San Cristóbal de Las Casas himself, Mariano Díaz Ochoa, publicly referred to the escalation of violence, with a discriminatory message against indigenous people and youth from the peripheries whom he blamed for the violence, thereby promoting stigmatization and criminalization of these people and communities, and legitimizes the violence against them.[1]

Despite the constant interpellations to the Mexican State for the current crisis of violence in Chiapas, there has been no effective response. On the contrary, there are various signs of collusion, minimization, or inaction, which increase the risk and defenselessness for the victims and society in general, particularly girls, boys, adolescents, women, the elderly, indigenous peoples, human rights defenders, and journalists.

It is clear that the security strategy implemented by the Mexican State in all its levels of government has not resolved the problem but has generated a spiral of greater violence, which is why it is necessary to generate alternatives from society with a view of building peace. durable.

Context

In the City of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, clientele organizations have proliferated that irregularly administer markets, public transportation, sale of occupied land, and other legal and illegal economic activities. During the last few years, the link of some of these organizations with State officials and organized crime has been evident, since they are in charge of controlling the trafficking and sale of drugs, high caliber weapons, human trafficking, the exploitation of wood and stone materials, car theft, pornography, etc. During the last few years, these organizations have used high-caliber weapons to impose themselves, increasing violence and collusion between companies, organized crime, and politicians.

This phenomenon is part of a well-known current dispute between drug cartels in the territory of Chiapas, increasing the risk for the inhabitants and human rights defenders in the region.

It is evident that in the case of San Cristóbal de Las Casas factual powers use criminal groups that, through acts of terror, seek to control the population and strategic territory for the legal and illegal economies of organized crime.

Demands to the Mexican State

We call on the Mexican State to guarantee full conditions for peace and the effective enjoyment of all human rights through measures that transform the structural causes of violence in Chiapas.

The Mexican State must investigate all these facts promptly and effectively, punish the perpetrators and masterminds, as well as make reparation to the victims and their families for all the damage that has been caused to them.

Called to build life projects

We call on the population to build, from our different realities, life alternatives that represent a barrier to violence in our different territories. From the signatories, we believe that it is still possible to walk and weave an alternate world, in Chiapas there are referential processes, especially within the native peoples who for more than 500 years have struggled to maintain and strengthen good living from social harmony, spiritual and relationship with the territory.

We recognize the plurality of our State, which, far from fueling intolerance, represents great potential to devise, from different thoughts, alternatives for peace where girls, boys and adolescents can dream of a future of life.

signatories

Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba)

Services and Advisory for Peace (SERAPAZ)

Community Unity and Reconciliation Support Commission (CORECO)

Economic and Social Development of Indigenous Mexicans AC (Desmi)

Eutopia and Strategy

Mexican Institute for Community Development AC (IMDEC)

Space for the Fight Against Oblivion and Repression (ELCOR)

Melel Xojobal A.C.

Mesoamerican Voices, Action with Migrant Peoples AC

Antsetik Ts’unun

Working Group We Are Not All

Free and Chosen Mobilities AC

Training and AC Training

Healing Wounds AC

Network of Resistances and Rebellions Ajmaq

Cántaro Azul Foundation, AC

Pro Community Media AC

Association for Peace and Human Rights Taula Per Mèxic

Slamail Kinal

The National Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations «All Rights for All and All (Red TDT) is an association of organizations defending human rights in Mexico. It brings together 84 organizations in 23 states of your country.

Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas

Médicos del Mundo Switzerland in Mexico

Democracies Observatory: Southern Mexico and Central America (ODEMCA)

Towns from Lumal