On February 8, the governor of Chiapas, Eduardo Ramírez Águila, visited the municipality of Palenque, one of the gateways for tourism to the Lacandon Jungle. After holding a meeting in which the importance of having security conditions for this activity to take place was raised, residents of the Lacanjá Chansayab community called an assembly that was held on Thursday, February 12, and in which a person who they identify as the leader of an organized crime group attacked the community members and warned them that they should not allow the entry of police operations.
According to the testimony of community members of Lacanjá Chansayab – a community that is one of the most important tourist centers of the Lacandon because it is located 14 kilometers from the Bonampak archaeological zone – in the assembly they spoke about the actions that must be taken to favor the arrival of tourists during the next vacation season.
“So they said in the Assembly: Well, how can we activate tourism after everything that has happened? The Governor asks that we, as Lacandons, work quietly. But in that context, security comes first, asking for security, we do not want organized crime.”
The Lacandon community members recalled that in the last three years this place and others in the region have suffered the impact of organized crime groups, one of the events that has been documented is that of small planes dropping drugs on two clandestine runways that are on the community lands and one in the archaeological zone of Bonampak.
There is also opposition to elements of the Mexican Navy and Army, as well as personnel from the National Defense Secretariat (Defense), coming to the area.
During the assembly last Wednesday, which was attended by around 149 community members, the attendees reported that when discussing security issues, “they said they want the public force to come in so that the organized crime that is operating here is no longer there, we don’t want it anymore.”
Then a group of residents communicated by radio with a person they know as “El Cabra,” also from the Lacandon ethnic group, and whom they point to as the leader of the traffickers, who arrived at the place where the assembly was being held, in trucks, accompanied by armed people from the Guatemalan Petén.
“That’s when things got out of control, because (El Cabra) interrupted the Assembly, and grabbed those who were protesting. He grabbed them and told them, ‘I’m the one in charge here, the authority doesn’t command, I’m the one in charge. Therefore, what I say is what will be done, and at my command, not the governor’s.”
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“They began to say that here we all have to say that there is no organized crime here, that we are going to work under his orders, and whoever wants to work has to join according to the crime that Cabra manages,” they explained.
They explained that the community members tried to oppose the threats. “We can no longer rent our cabins (built to accommodate tourists), we can no longer work because he wants to force us to submit. No, no more, we no longer want that. We have been subjected for more than 2 years to try to collect the right of way,” they said.
At that moment, the armed men who accompanied “El Cabra” fired shots into the air, so most of the community members escaped from the place where the assembly was being held; however, they said that the armed group wounded and beat six community members.
The people who reported the aggression explained that the assembly was suspended. They asked to spread the word about what is happening in their community, “El Cabra is in control, because the Municipal Agent (of Lacanjá Chansayab), the Commissioner, the members of the Surveillance Council, the rural police, are part of them. And that is why people no longer have anyone to ask for help, they know that if they ask for help they will pick you up and take you to be beaten.”
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According to the complaint, “El Cabra”, in addition to drug trafficking, controls the public transportation that reaches the community; members of his criminal group prevent any tourist activity from taking place without his participation, consent and supervision.
The residents asked for the intervention of the authorities. “We can’t take it anymore, we can’t continue giving this, let crime control everything,” they said.
Source: aristeguinoticias
