Refugees abandoned in the mountains of Chiapas

For: Javier Brandoli (text and photos)
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I realized this report in February 2018, before voluntarily leaving the correspondent of El Mundo in April. The newspaper has not published yet and still receive weekly messages conflict, videos of displaced, statements of more violence and express request of groups of victims to please publish it and so a conflict that there is little information on the ground is known. When I was there, an area surrounded by paramilitaries and roadblocks, I said it was the first journalist who agreed to that place (the new wave of violence began in October). It was on my part a moral commitment to making this story of displaced persons is a cancer that rots the area for decades. I hope this publication will help give visibility to the serious problem and provide solutions, so I decided to publish it in this way which I am one of its creators.

End of February 2018.

"It is better to live here than lose your life", says Nestor Gomez. He says under a plastic tarp, with little food or medicine, surrounded by refugees, including the elderly and children, They are living in the countryside for months when the attacks began, the shots, burning of houses, land seizures, death and births amid the mountain of pregnant women who barely had time to take her other children and take them to hide in the mountains. In total silence, unwitnessed, without the authorities just do nothing, there are hundreds of hidden displaced in various parts of the mountains of the Highlands of Chiapas, between the municipalities of Chenalhó and Chalchihuitán.

In memory of them all, panic returning to their homes despite survive in poverty in the mountains, there is a damn name, Acteal, and the massacre of 22 December 1997 where in the same municipality of Chenalhó a paramilitary group entered a church and massacred 45 indígenas tzotziles. Then there was total 6.332 displaced, 62 violent deaths 42 injured in the context of that conflict relationship between the state and the attackers, also indigenous Tzotzil, who they used weapons own security forces, He overflew a trial that ended between 2009 and 2012 with the release of most of those arrested for irregularities in the process.

«There are armed civil groups that have historically acted violently and with impunity in the region. These groups originated within the framework of the counterinsurgency strategy of the Mexican government in the context of the Zapatista uprising, as indicated by the Chiapas campaign plan 94, which he raised arm sections of the population related to PRI. This situation led to the formation of paramilitary groups whose actions resulted in serious and continuing human rights violations including extrajudicial executions, disappearances, forced displacement…”, says a report by the Fray Bartolome de las Casas association to frame the current conflict.

"When they hear the children laughing they start shooting"

Chiapas maintains, therefore, a war scenario hidden with paramilitary and insurgent groups who have spent decades spreading terror in the southern state of Mexico. "When they hear the children laughing they start shooting", exemplifies María Girón, a refugee, the degree of panic which frighten the gunmen to leave their lands.

It, the Spanish speaking haltingly, It is one of the Tzotzil women living in one of the camps for displaced, outside Chenalhó, in which there 195 People. Since its plastic tarp see at night campfires paramilitaries who have taken their land and planted the corn on their land. Weeps to say. «They hung the pigs from the trees. "They took everything from us", Lorenzo Pérez bitterly recalls that "those armed men arrived, hooded, "dressed like soldiers and we ran away".

Elsewhere in the town the scene is significant. There converge the municipalities of Chenalhó and Chalchihuitán, the two sides apparently faced by more than 300 hectares of land. On one side there are houses burned, with walls filled with shots of high-caliber weapons, and the other, next door in some cases, intact homes.

The warning that the danger is constant is made with bullets. «No one sleeps here. As soon as we hear the shots we are alert in case we have to flee further into the mountains" says Javier Pérez, municipal agent armed with a radio who is always careful to give the alarm in one of the refugee camps.

They blocked roads, They cut the light in some places and houses were burned as thousands of panicked people were hiding in hills and forests

It all started, or recommenced, last 18 October, when he was shot dead by paramilitaries allegedly Chenalhó a neighbor, Moon Samuel Girón, and everyone understood that the conflict had broken out again. For days we heard shots in the air until the last 5 November attack occurred entering houses. They blocked roads, They cut the light in some places and houses were burned as thousands of panicked people were hiding in hills and forests. «My grandfather died last 10 February. "He fell while fleeing the house with the attack and finally died here from his injuries.", Nestor explains Gómez, leader of another camp where more than a hundred people live. There are twelve fatalities, many from the cold last winter, malnutrition or lack of medical care. «We cannot buy medicines at the Chenalhó pharmacy for fear of going down to town.. If we need something urgently we walk through the mountains to Chalchihuitan «, They say these refugees.

Chenalhó is for them the enemy, in the midst of a conflict where there were also people in this town who fled, and where an internal political confrontation ended up driving more fuel to the fire. «This paramilitary group has been preparing it since 2016 the mayor of Chenalhó, "Rosa Pérez", They reported in various refugee camps. Perez is a member of the Green Party, the party that now rules in Chiapas (then he is ruling), and it is involved in a constant power struggle that cost him to be expelled from the mayor for ten months by his opponents.

He returned hand 200 armed to the municipal scepter and since the controversy that accompanies this Tzotzil first governs the city policemen. His return also caused the displacement of 200 people who left their homes, They have not returned, for fear of reprisals. There have been four dead.

They reported that heavy machinery with which the assailants destroyed part of the municipal road to besiege the town of Chalchihuitán belongs to the municipal presidency of Chenalhó

For Chalchihuitán, What is surprising is the impunity with which a conflict unfolds with thousands of refugees. «The armed civil group guilty of the widespread violence in Chalchihuitan is protected by Rosa Pérez, municipal president of Chenalhó and by the state government., as it has been denounced by community leaders Chalchihuitán. Despite these complaints, State authorities have not prosecuted those responsible for acts of violence, to the point that their actions are already public and are held in total impunity. They even denounced that the heavy machinery with which the aggressors destroyed part of the municipal highway to besiege the population of Chalchihuitán belongs to the municipal presidency of Chenalhó., civil organization says Fray Bartolome de las Casas. the mayor, meanwhile, He denies accusations of being behind the attacks.

The truth is that the cuts are evident in the way, still they mark how the road has now been filled with earth was destroyed, and thousands of people were besieged in the middle of a harsh winter for people of Chenalhó who controlled all access. «They blocked the road and charged 50 pesos for allowing passage», explains Father Sebastian, Chalchihuitán whose parish served as a refuge for hundreds of people at the beginning of the conflict.

Today the State Government, which initially denied that there were thousands of displaced people until finally recognized a humanitarian catastrophe that unfolds in any case hardly witnesses, He speaks of a still nonexistent calm. Affected denounce constant pressure for people to return to their homes, We are in an election period, and that aid was Civil Protection have stopped to encourage the abandonment of the camps. «Since the beginning of February they no longer bring us anything», reported in a camp where there 29 families and a child was born two months amid the mountains. «They even stole our clothes, we have no clothes, and they don't give us anything", and Fabiola explains Marcela, mother and daughter, tearfully. "Here it is 20 days when Civil Protection does not come», says Javier Perez.

Just below that camp there are four state police sent to prevent further clashes living in two flimsy shacks. IDPs claim that no weapons when they hear gunshots and run in terror to the mountains like the rest. «We do not carry weapons, was for a problem a year ago elsewhere it was decided that. "There is no will from the state government to fix this and here the entire population is armed.", admits one of the agents.

We are scared to death, Sleepless every time they reach the paramilitaries. We know from radio listeners will attack again

As, remains a tense wait for it to trigger new violence. «In Chenalhó they are just waiting for everything to calm down to come back for us», explains Rosa Díez. «We are scared to death, Sleepless every time they reach the paramilitaries. "We know from radio listening that they are going to attack again.", says Maria Girón on violence around them a few meters.

It is not unique in any case this territorial violence in Chiapas where displaced, deaths and conflicts over land and power are a constant. a Oxchuc, last 24 Jan., an armed group entered a church and killed three people and left more than ten wounded firing heavy weapons. Aldama is another case of displaced persons has left 52 landless people living in overcrowded barracks and the constant fear that they can repeat attacks of their neighbors in Santa Martha, a town also belonging to the large municipality of Chenalhó.

Here an agrarian conflict 60 hectares, It is crawling for decades and are managed with agreements between the parties, He led the 19 April 2016 a hundred armed men attack and an escape from neighbors who have lost everything since then. «Finally the 21 May we were taken to death. We went to a hill and watched as they took our homes. The 11 "In June they destroyed the houses and the coffee plantations.", Lucas Giménez explains that along with the other states affected the nearby place of conflict. Neighbors kill each other in the middle of a game of interests where a weapon for an end to the other.

finally, 21 May we were taken to death. We went to a hill and watched as they took our homes

The displaced people huddled in houses of clay soil in the rainy season, Waterless, where they sleep piled up. «In the earthquake of 9 September we thought we would all be crushed to death.", remember among middle crumbling walls of your home. Pagan 400 weights (19 EUR) per month for rent. Many days eating only confess omelets with nothing inside and some, when there is no work, "we don't eat anything".

Here are they, people in Aldama, which they have cut the road to Santa Martha to prevent new attacks. «They only humiliate us, nor do they work the land that they have stolen from us", says Claudia Lino crying. «The entire municipality is at risk of being invaded, "We heard the threats on the radio and their shots.", Butler says the Church, Mariano Ruiz. Misery and despair is palpable all. It is their land, the land of their parents and grandparents, and without it no one knows where to go. "Sometimes it is better to be dead than to be alive", whispers, I was looking at your home, no more than one kilometer, Lucas Giménez, one of those invisible displaced persons in Chiapas.

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Comments (4)

  • Luis

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    How hard these people and living in the mountains! Thanks for posting these issues!

    Answer

  • Daniel Landa

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    Tremendous! It is a privilege to have articles in this magazine and. After reading this drama muted, one understands even less that a newspaper like the world has not published the story. As if the newspaper would turn his back on the stories that are worth, human conflicts that should be shouted. The day this kind of news will again open information Journalism. Brandoli congratulations for having been there for contárnolso.

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  • javier Brandoli

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    There are many people telling great stories. I think today live in a time where journalists are above the media and readers (we are all). a VAP, who headed three journalists, We can afford to publish good stories, without, without calculation or pejaes. I said, a luxury.

    Answer

  • Ricardo

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    I no longer have role for these stories in the mainstream media is symptomatic of where journalism walks, increasingly political battles and trench farthest from reporterismo. Proud to be part of a project that does believe that these newspaper accounts worth. Javier congratulations and all my solidarity with these refugees

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