The growing spiral of violence in southern Mexico, in Chiapas, also touches the neighborhoods of the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas. On October 20th, the Chiapas town, a destination for international tourism from all over the world, filled with anger and grief: in the Cuxtitali neighborhood, Fra Marcelo Pérez, the rebel indigenous pastor of the Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe church in San Cristóball, was shot dead by two people on a motorcycle as he finished mass. A life spent denouncing the interests of drug trafficking and the ambiguities of local government power, always on the front line for rights and supporting the struggles of indigenous communities in Chiapas and around the world. A comrade of struggle, central figure in supporting the multiple fronts of resistance from below in Chiapas.
Fra Marcelo’s murder is not an isolated incident, but is part of a growing escalation of violence against indigenous communities, particularly Zapatistas, in the Chiapaneca area. A few weeks ago, military groups attacked the Zapatista 6 de Octubre community. A war of fragmentation, a project of control of territory drawn by drug traffickers, in alliance with paramilitary groups and the tacit silence of the local government, along the entire frontera sur, with the dual objective of weakening Zapatista communities and strengthening the logistical routes for drug trafficking and the exploitation of migration flows into Mexico. A situation of extreme urgency that sees the risk of strong isolation of all those resistant and indigenous realities, from San Cristóbal de las Casas to the interior of the jungle, who struggle, and will continue to struggle, every day, for a more just and autonomous future. Experiences that need all our solidarity, that cry out with all force Stop the violence and the war against the Zapatista communities, in an extremely delicate period at the federal political level with the installation of the new President Claudia Sheinbaum and the continuation of the populist government project of the cuarta transformación of the Morena party and of the outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Source https://radioblackout.org/2024/11/una-transformacion-fatta-di-violenza-sulla-guerra-contro-le-comunita-resistenti-in-chiapas/