López Obrador travels to Chiapas in the midst of the crisis of displaced people in Guatemala

Soldados guatemaltecos vigilan los alrededores de un sitio donde se refugian los mexicanos en Ampliación Nueva Reforma, Huehuetenango (Guatemala). El 25 de julio de 2024.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador will inaugurate this Friday a bridge in the heart of Chiapas, at the Angostura dam. The Governor of the State and close friend of the acting president, Rutilio Escandón, will be at his side. Predictably, there will be some kind of ceremony, speeches, congratulations for a job well done. The bridge will serve to unite two regions, the Frailesca and the Sierra Mariscal, the epicenter of the war in which the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel fight for control of the border territory: the domination of its towns, drug and human trafficking, extortion of its inhabitants, the monopoly of fear.

Chiapas suffers a war without quarter between both cartels, seasoned by an entire arsenal of local armed groups, paramilitaries, indigenous self-defense groups – some seeking to protect themselves from constant aggression, others in the orbit of organized crime. It is unlikely, however, that during the inauguration of the bridge the President of the Republic and the Governor of the State will refer directly to the “armed conflict,” as it is called by the social organizations that monitor the region. The official discourse of the authorities has not moved one iota despite the thousands of people who have had to leave their homes due to the escalation of violence.

For López Obrador, Chiapas is one of the most peaceful states in the country, one of the regions that has benefited most from the development brought by his Administration (despite being the poorest entity in Mexico), and the security problems are limited only to the Sierra Mariscal. Reality is determined to contradict the president while the cartels spread throughout the Chiapas territory. In February, a report denounced the displacement of at least 10,000 people only in the border region and the Sierra Mariscal. That was six months ago and the exodus has not stopped. The latest chapter in the conflict is the unprecedented image of Mexicans fleeing from bullets to take refuge south of the border in Guatemala.

On Wednesday, fifty NGOs and various social organizations, as well as thirty individuals, called on the federal and state governments of Mexico for “immediate intervention in the area to prevent new forced displacements and other irreparable damage to the lives, integrity and other rights of people affected by organized crime.” In a public letter with the heading “The dispute for the control of territories in Chiapas and the ineffective action of the Mexican government puts the lives and security of thousands of families at imminent risk,” the groups denounced the violence that has led to the humanitarian crisis, as well as the risk of the current narrative of the authorities “that minimizes the humanitarian situation and dumps responsibility for the events on the population.”

The main municipalities affected by the new wave of displacement, the letter states, are Frontera Comalapa, Chicomuselo, La Concordia, El Porvenir, Motozintla, Bejucal de Ocampo, Bella Vista, Siltepec, Mazapa de Madero, Amatenango de la Frontera, Monte Cristo de Guerrero, Angel Albino Corzo (Jaltenango), La Grandeza, Niquivil, Pablo L. Sidar and Las Chicharras. The towns are cut off by blockades by organized crime, with a curfew, food shortages and forced recruitment of the civilian population to participate in the “human barricades in case the rival group comes or to prevent the passage of federal forces.”

Armed conflict since 2021
The situation is not new. The complaints from organizations and the population go back three years. The report, which called the war between cartels an “armed conflict,” placed its beginning in the summer of 2021. The inactivity of the authorities, who have limited themselves to deploying the Armed Forces in Chiapas without addressing the underlying problems, has contributed to making it worse, they argue. The letter states that similar situations had already occurred in May, August and September 2023, temporarily resolved by the presence of the military. “However, when the federal forces withdrew, the groups clashed again, escalating the violence and once again leaving the population at risk.”

Over the weekend, in a joint statement, the governments of Mexico and Guatemala announced the deployment of humanitarian actions so that citizens who wish to do so can return to their homes “in conditions of dignity and security.” There is no evidence, for the moment, that anyone has taken advantage of this mechanism, or what it exactly consists of. News of clashes continue to arrive from the border: between Monday and Tuesday, around 400 inhabitants of Chicomuselo fled the town after a drone dropped a bomb on them.The Guatemalan Army monitors the entrances to its territory and the authorities have provided certificates of humanitarian stay, which are valid for 30 days and can be extended.

There are no official data and the numbers are inexact, but most organizations on the ground and the local press that covers it agree that at this time between 400 and 600 Mexicans have taken refuge in Guatemala, a country that is far from safe (even more so on the jungle border), but which seems to be a better option for the displaced than Chiapas. The opposite is usually the case: Guatemalans crossing Mexico to reach the United States.

Not only social organizations, even the Catholic Church has positioned itself on numerous occasions during the last few months to demand urgent measures against the spiral of violence unleashed by the cartels. The latest, this Thursday, when the parishes of Santa Catarina and San Pedro Apóstol, in Pantelhó and Chenalhó, two towns in the Highlands of Chiapas, demanded measures to guarantee “security and peace”: “From our Faith in Jesus Christ, the pain of the suffering people, and the indignation, for the ungovernability that we live in the state, the minimization that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has made in the face of the violence that has gone viral in said municipalities, and without understanding in whose hands the fight against organized crime is, since we see that criminals are growing stronger every day in the presence of the military and the National Guard, or are they protected by them? [sic]”. There are many eyes that this Friday will look at the La Angostura dam and its new bridge.

Source: elpais