A Mexican Army convoy with trucks, hummers, jeeps and a motorized team harasses Zapatista Good Government Junta
Mexican Army patrols La Realidad
Chiapas México. March 12, 2015. “The growing harassment that the Mexican Army is carrying out in Zapatista territory
causes concern,” the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba warns, after having observed the repeated
presence of the Mexican Army, in territory of the Good Government Junta in La Realidad, in the Border Jungle Zone.
From the Civilian Observation Brigades (BriCO), the Frayba has documented since July 2014, “systematic incursions of the
Mexican Army, which is harassing the Bases of Support of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (BAEZLN, their initials
in Spanish).”
The human rights defense organization denounces low-flying airplanes and helicopters photographing and filming BriCO
members, BAEZLN and the installations of the Junta. “These actions have been in increasing since last July, as much in
the number of troops as in the frequency with which they happen,” they observe.
The military acts within the Junta’s territory, also consist of incursions in a convoy with trucks, hummers, jeeps and a
motorized team; with members of the Mexican Army that range from four to 30 persons, indicates the Frayba and demands:
“that the free determination and autonomy of the Zapatista peoples be respected; and that the harassment perpetrated by
the federal government through the Mexican Army cease.”
As background to the gravity of the harassment of the BAEZLN, the non-governmental organism no points out that on May 2,
2014, members of the Independent Central of Farm Workers and Campesinos Historic (CIOAC-H), ambushed BAEZLN within the
La Realidad Junta’s territory; during the attack the armed group extra-judicially executed José Luis Solís López,
“Maestro Galeano,” and also destroyed the Autonomous Clinic and School.
The human rights center created by Bishop Samuel Ruiz, exposes that: “the CIOAC-H, is part of the Las Margaritas
municipal government, with proven protection from the (state) government of Governor Manuel Velasco Coello, who has
permitted them to carry out attacks, forced displacements and murders in the region.”
ENDS