“Dozens of Nahua towns and communities from the Lower Mountain region will take our struggle to the World Cup in June 2026, so that the world knows about the injustice, neglect, and criminalization that exists in our state of Guerrero,” warned the Union of Peoples and Organizations of the State of Guerrero (UPOEG), the Indigenous and Popular Council of the State of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ), and the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities-Founding Peoples (CRAC-PF), adding that this will happen if the three levels of government continue to ignore the security demands they have made.
Lino Ponce González, of UPOEG, and Jesús Plácido Galindo, of CIPOG-EZ, explained that the three organizations have joined forces to combat organized crime, demanded the dismantling of the criminal group Los Ardillos, and announced the formation of a community justice system among the Nahua peoples, which will include the Mountain and Costa Chica regions.
They stated that the alliance includes the municipalities of Juan R. Escudero (Tierra Colorada) and Tecoanapa, in the Central region, and the Costa Chica region, because the aforementioned criminal group operates with impunity in both municipalities, and they accuse it of being protected by officials at all three levels of government.
“In the Costa Chica region, this group is led by Benito Sánchez Millán, alias El Oso, who operates between the communities of Tlayolapa and Tierra Colorada; this group is responsible for the ambush of 13 community police officers in the community of El Cortijo on August 16 of last year, and for the 70 murders and 25 disappearances of members of the Cipogez in the Lower Mountain region,” they alleged.
“We don’t see a government that cares about what is happening in Guerrero; we demand the dismantling and disruption of Los Ardillos. We demand their arrest, as well as that of Celso Ortega Jiménez, because they are responsible for the crimes against humanity perpetrated in our communities; in that region there are displaced families in the corridor from Tierra Colorada, Tecoanapa and Ayutla de los Libres; We demand the safe return of all of them, with full guarantees of security, reparations, and non-repetition.”
They reported that they will coordinate security actions in the lower mountain region and the Costa Chica, and “we are already in communities in Tecoanapa and will soon be in Juan R. Escudero. The government shouldn’t worry about the social movement organizing; it should worry about combating organized crime and dismantling it.”
They also demanded the release of Santos Ponce González, Javier Bruno Castro, Luis Ángel Durán García, Darío Avilés Cuenca, and Wilber Hernández Vargas, arrested on May 6, 2024, in El Terrero, “for defending their town against the influx of organized crime.”
They added that on January 27, “their legal proceedings will conclude in a court in Acapulco, where they intend to receive long sentences.” “If they are not released immediately, the organized communities of the citizen police of the Costa Chica and the Montaña will mobilize and block the highways,” they concluded.
Source: jornada
