More than 1,000 people who said they were former members of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) were deployed through a self-defense group in the municipality of Chenalhó, in the state of Chiapas, southeastern Mexico, to combat a group of paramilitaries that is ravaging the region.
The criminal group calls itself Los Herrera, who, in collusion with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), have caused violence and insecurity in four communities of Chenalhó that border the municipality of Pantelhó for more than 20 days.
“We who are here present are former Zapatista compas and we come to support you, we come to defend the right to life so that there is peace in our beautiful municipalities of Chenalhó,” said a spokesperson for the former Zapatistas through a video.
The document was released through social media on Thursday afternoon and this action is in response to the forced displacement of more than 2,000 people and the arrest of a young man who was tortured, murdered and dismembered in the community of Tzanembolom, last Tuesday.
The self-defense group, made up of women and men, made it clear that this action joins the effort that the self-defense group called Los Machetes is making in the face of the omission of the state and federal government to combat organized crime.
They also argued that their appearance is due to “the pain and indignation at the omission of the municipal, state and federal levels of the Government of Mexico to stop the wave of violence generated by these criminal groups that increasingly affects the population of Chenalhó and municipalities in the Mexico-Guatemala border area.
“The three levels of government have done nothing about it, they have not acted against the criminals, we know that there are many dead and they continue to kill more people and the government has not done justice for so many deaths,” they said in the video.
The self-defense forces said that they will not allow another massacre like the one that occurred in December 1997 in Acteal, where 45 people were killed by a paramilitary group and recalled that the criminal groups that are fighting over the territory of Pantelhó and Chenalhó are from the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS) and CJNG.
“This criminal group claims to be part of the CJNG and the CDS and they have people hired from other states in the country, for what? to kill us all and we are not going to allow that,” said the self-defense group.
“We are tired of these crimes, that is why today we are organizing ourselves and taking up arms to support the people of Chenaló and the self-defense groups of El Machete, because they are defenders of the people and we are here and we will be here because united we will never be defeated, we will not allow more murders.”
“We are going to take care of our territories and our people, the fight continues! Out with the hitmen of the Herreras! Out, Out with the hitmen of Fracción Tzanembolom!
In Mexico, in the state of Morelos there is the community police and the so-called “self-defense groups” are also in the states of Michoacán and Guerrero, where they were born as a result of the threat of organized crime.
In Michoacán, they emerged in 2013 to defend themselves from the “Knights Templar” cartel, a split from the “Familia Michoacana,” and have been dedicated mainly to drug production and trafficking, but also to kidnapping and extortion.
Although since 2011 there were already some armed communities in Cherán, state of Michoacán.
The emergence of self-defense forces is not exclusive to that entity.
In the southern state of Guerrero, they were born in the 1970s and new groups re-emerged from 2013 with the increase in violence.
While in the Mezquital Valley, Hidalgo, they have existed since 2008, and in towns that sympathize with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), in Chiapas, since 1994.
Source: forbes
