Criminal groups use Chiapas residents as “human barricades” to stop rivals from advancing, NGOs denounce

The Southern Border Monitoring Collective reported that residents of at least fifteen towns and municipalities in Chiapas are experiencing a critical moment of violence by the different criminal groups that operate in the state governed by Morena member Rutilio Escandón Cadenas.

In a statement issued on July 31, the collective warned that the population of these municipalities, which is totally unprotected and abandoned by state and federal authorities, “is being forced by criminal groups to participate in the blockades, using them as human barricades in case the rival group comes or to prevent the passage of federal forces.”

The group, made up of several organizations that work on human rights issues, reports that the municipalities and neighboring ejidos on high alert due to these clashes between the different drug cartels 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, Ángel Albino Corzo (Jaltenango), La Grandeza, Niquivil, Pablo L. Sidar and Las Chicharras.

According to the NGO, these communities “are the most affected areas and are isolated by the roadblocks set up by organized crime groups.”

In Chiapas, there are records of cells from the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS), the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) and other local organizations such as El Maíz and the Chiapas and Guatemala Cartel (CCG).

The NGO listed the different violent acts in which the inhabitants have been victims of criminal groups, highlighting that the recent reports (on July 24) of 500 Mexicans displaced by violence to Guatemala is not a new issue.

“The clashes, blockades and risks for the population are not new. In May, August and September of last year, similar situations were experienced,” reads the statement, which mentions that although on those occasions the federal government sent the Army and National Guard to dissuade the actions of criminal groups, when they withdrew, the violence escalated again.

“Although there was military action in this situation, there is no evidence of investigative and intelligence work to dismantle the criminal groups,” the 22 NGOs said.

The Southern Border Monitoring Collective criticized the statements made by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on July 26, in which he minimized the violence by saying that it was not a matter of ungovernability as his adversaries want to make it out to be.

During his morning press conference on Friday, President López Obrador was questioned about a possible failure in his security strategy in the area.

“It is not like that, it is circumstances, Mexico is a very large country, we are more than 130 million Mexicans, there are conflicts like everywhere, but it is not a matter, as our adversaries want to see it, of there being ungovernability, of violence prevailing, of chaos, of the country being destroyed, that is what the opposition said throughout the campaign,” responded the Mexican president, where he also asked the population “not to participate and become the social base of these criminal groups.”

Faced with this, the NGOs affirmed that the president of Mexico is unaware of “the impossibility that people face in the face of the threat of violence and the use of weapons,” while “violating the principle of distinction of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and generating a greater risk for the population of being

For this reason, the group asked President López Obrador to “refrain from making statements to the population that criminalize and cause secondary victimization in the terms of article 5 of the General Law of Victims.”

The NGOs also asked, among many other things, for the immediate intervention of the federal government in the area to prevent new forced displacements.

Source: infobae