Release of Paramilitaries Unleashes Attacks in Chenalhó: Frayba

 

Release of Paramilitaries Unleashes Attacks in Chenalhó: Frayba

 ** “They seem to be repeating the events of 1997 that ended with the Acteal Massacre”

** Parish priest affirms denunciations about the dispossession of land for a chapel in the colonia (settlement) Puebla

By: Hermann Bellinghausen

In the Tzotzil municipality of Chenalhó, Chiapas, the return of the paramilitaries responsible for the Acteal Massacre and released from prison by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation seems to be behind the recent attacks against the Catholic community, in particular in the colonia Puebla, original seat of the aggressor group.

“The release of the paramilitaries has sent a signal to those groups (never dismantled), or to some of those that have been their members, that they can act without punishment attacking those who don’t give in to their will. This could be the case with the colonia Puebla, birthplace of one of the recently released paramilitaries, originally pointed to as the leader of the group which committed the Acteal Massacre”, Frayba said today.

In recent days, the parish priest, Manuel Pérez Gómez, and the parochial council made public a detailed denunciation of recent acts that have alarmed the population. They confirmed these accusations today in San Cristóbal de las Casas.

The Catholics of San Pedro Chenalhó, through their authorities and representatives, denounced the dispossession of the land where their chapel and building material is located, carried out by authorities of the settlement, “with the silence or complicity” of the municipal, agrarian and human rights authorities. After going to them repeatedly “to denounce, first the threats, and later the fulfillment of them, the acts of dispossession continue.”

The accusers maintain: “regaring the protection of the authorities’ inaction, at the last ejidal ‘assembly’, Commissioner Agustín Cruz Gómez, principal instigator of the aggression, said that they already had the agreement of the municipal, state and agrarian authorities, and he even asserted that the state government, the National Human Rights Commission and the National Institute of Anthropology and History ‘have already told us that that land is ours and that we can begin work.’”

The invasion, carried out by 140 people with machetes and chainsaws, began on April 29th and worsened throughout May. In June, the invader group has carried out different aggressions against the Catholic minority in Puebla.

“We are victims of arbitrary dispossession,” and the justifications that they brandish are “pretexts,” the San Pedro parish priest and the parochial council assert. They say that those affected maintain a peaceful attitude “and have gone to the authorities who ought to do something to defend their right: the municipal president, the municipal judge, the Special Office of Indigenous Justice, the Agrarian Prosecutor (who has been avoiding setting a date for dealing with the problem with the parties), the national and state human rights commissions, with the only result being that the aggressors continue tranquilly perpetrating their aggression.”

The non-conformists add: “It seems that the tragic happenings of 1997 that culminated in the Acteal Massacre are being repeated. One of the places where they started was the colonia Puebla. Agustín Cruz Gómez, commissioner and Presbyterian pastor, is the same man who, in 1997, already being the pastor, headed the attack against the members of Las Abejas, several of them were beaten up and almost all of them displaced. Agustín Cruz is one of the sadly well-known pastors who blessed the paramilitaries’ weapons.”

The aggression coincides with the release from prison of those accused and sentenced for the Acteal Massacre. “If anything has been demonstrated in Chiapas, it is that impunity generates more violence. The acts in Puebla were unleashed a few days after the release from prison of Jacinto Arias Cruz’, a native of that community and ex municipal president, pointed to at that time by the PGR as the principal promoter of the armed group which executed the massacre. In the April 29 assembly, Commissioner Cruz Gómez announced that although Jacinto was not physically present ‘he is with us, how good that he’s out now and I ask applause for him.’”

Meanwhile, those affected said today that: “in other parts of Chenalhó the paramilitaries released from prison are disturbing and have threatened people who were witnesses and gave statements against them.”

 

———————————————————-

Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/06/11/politica/017n1pol

 

*****************************************************************************