The Wixárika community of Tateikie (San Andrés Cohamiata) reported that several of its traditional leaders were assaulted by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a criminal organization that, according to community members, has maintained a presence since 2020 in the area bordering Nayarit, Durango, and Zacatecas, where it causes fear among residents and restricts freedom of movement.
For this reason, Wixárika community members have maintained a protest camp in the mountains since the weekend, while this Monday other members of the community, located in the municipality of Mezquitic, in northwestern Jalisco, demonstrated outside the Government Palace in Guadalajara to demand justice and security.
Amid the escalating tension and what they described as institutional abandonment, a delegation made up of the technical committee of the Commission for Territorial Analysis and Defense and community representatives traveled to the state capital this Monday to demonstrate and meet with authorities from the Secretariat General of Government.
With chants such as “If fear advances, the people rise up,” the demonstrators issued an urgent call to the three levels of government and human rights organizations to act in a coordinated manner.
The community reported that it is currently cut off from communication and without electricity, a service that, it claimed, was intentionally cut off.
Given the seriousness of the situation, residents have been forced to indefinitely suspend educational, community, and traditional activities, including the presentation of candidates for their patron-saint festivities.
They Report Illegal Detention of Community Authorities
Community outrage increased last Friday, September 4, after authorities responsible for communal lands returned after allegedly being illegally detained by members of the CJNG.
According to the community members’ complaint, during the detention, members of the criminal group warned the leaders that the territory belonged to the cartel and that everyone had to work for them.
Tired of living under the control of this criminal group, whose presence they have reported since at least 2020, hundreds of community members decided to establish a permanent protest camp at the site known as El Bajío del Carrizal to draw attention to the insecurity they are facing.
Tensions increased on Sunday, September 6, during a visit by Jalisco Secretary General of Government Salvador Zamora Zamora.
The official went to the protest camp, but according to the community members’ account, after remaining there for approximately two hours, he left without waiting for the arrival of federal and municipal authorities to establish a dialogue.
Residents attempted to prevent his departure and, amid the unrest, a State Police officer allegedly fired a firearm into the air to clear a path for the official toward the helicopter in which he left the area.
The community members, who say they have preserved the spent cartridge casing as evidence, demanded clarification of what happened and an effective security strategy. They also reported that members of criminal groups move freely throughout the region and alleged complicity by state and municipal police officers.
Agrarian Conflicts Worsen the Situation in Tateikie
The violence crisis is compounded by a legal dispute over land ownership.
Rubén Ávila, the community’s attorney, explained that they currently have two agrarian lawsuits involving boundary disputes and restitution against the mestizo communities of San Juan Peyotán and Santa Rosa, both in Nayarit.
The dispute closest to being resolved in the Superior Agrarian Court involves an area of 3,000 hectares contested with San Juan Peyotán and, according to the attorney, stems from an irregular modification to the maps of what was then the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform.
Ávila stated that while the Government of Nayarit supports its communities by sending police officers and resources, the Government of Jalisco, in his view, has left its Indigenous peoples abandoned.
At the same time, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation has a constitutional controversy pending to define territorial boundaries between Jalisco and Nayarit, a situation that, according to the community, adds to the climate of tension, political pressure, and institutional omissions it is facing.
Source: jornada
