ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION.
MEXICO.
May 2025.
To those who signed the Declaration for Life:
To the National and International Sexta:
To the National Indigenous Congress:
To the peoples of Mexico and the world:
Compañeras and compañeros, sisters and brothers:
We explain to you what happened to the two Zapatista support bases, José Baldemar Sántiz Sántiz and Andrés Manuel Säntiz Gómez, who were illegally detained and kidnapped by the joint forces of the federal and state governments on April 26 of this year 2025.
They were disappeared for 55 hours and were only presented before the corrupt authorities, thanks to pressure from the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center. They were accused of aggravated kidnapping against Pedro Díaz Gómez.
During the arrest, the National Guard forces, the federal army and the so-called Pakal Immediate Reaction Forces took advantage of the arrest and stole the belongings and pay of the affected people and the communities. They stole a car, a motorcycle and a large amount of cash.
While the supreme government gambled with the life, liberty and property of the two illegally detained, the autonomous Zapatista authorities carried out their own investigation under the guidance of Truth and Justice in common.
I remind you that, as organized peoples that we are, we have principles and regulations in common. It is not permissible to infringe on the life, liberty and property of other people, whatever their ideology, party, religion, sexual preference, skin color, race, language, nationality or social position. In the case of murder, kidnapping, assault, rape, forgery and robbery, these are serious offenses. Additionally, drug trafficking, its production and consumption are not allowed. As with drunkenness and other offenses that are determined in common.
Any compañero or compañera, regardless of position or rank, who is guilty of serious offenses, is excluded from being a Zapatista.
Once the arrest and serious accusations against these two comrades became known, the GALEZs investigated whether they were involved in kidnapping. The organizational structure in charge of investigating came to the conclusion that the two comrades are innocent.
This was made known to the Frayba.
Not satisfied with that, the autonomous authorities continued investigating and came to confirm the involvement of two other people in the crime. These two criminals were detained and, with respect for their human rights, were taken into custody in one of the Zapatista communities.
The two criminals confessed to the kidnapping and murder of Pedro Díaz Gómez, and indicated the precise place where they had buried the body. They indicated the complicity of other people.
This was brought to the attention of the Frayba, who informed the authorities of the bad government.
Seeing that they would once again be ridiculed, the corrupt authorities rushed to mobilize their forces and arrested one of the accused who was on the run. This person confirmed the confessions to the Zapatista authorities. This is how they arrived at the place where the body of the victim of the crime was buried.
All of this was known to the government at all three levels of government, but nothing was done. Instead of immediately releasing our innocent comrades, they dragged their feet and proposed an exchange of detainees. That way they could bribe the media and sell them the story that everything had been the merit of the state and federal justice system. And they could also keep what they stole from the poor indigenous people who had suffered their attack.
The bad government again sent its repressive forces in search of a fourth implicated person. But not only did they not detain him, they also took advantage of the situation to continue stealing belongings from the communities.
Meanwhile, the federal and state authorities pressured and threatened the human rights defenders because their denunciation would show them for what they are: repressors of the innocent and manufacturers of the guilty.
In the early morning of May 2, 2025, the two confessed criminals detained by the Zapatistas were handed over to the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center so that they could review the state of health of the detainees and certify if their rights had been violated. Frayba proceeded to hand over the culprits to the official authorities.
In the course of the morning of May 2, our comrades Baldemar and Andres were released. But the government thieves refuse to return everything they have stolen.
The governments of the so-called 4T lie in everything they say about the indigenous peoples and social movements. They are the same or worse than the previous PRI and PAN governments. Those numbers that boast of “detainees,” to please Trump, are mostly innocent. Instead of buying favorable opinions in the media and social networks, the bad governments should pay their repressive forces well so that they do not have to steal from those who have less or nothing.
What happened is not only in our territories. Throughout the geography called “Mexico,” native communities, defenders of Mother Earth, human rights defenders, social movements and organizations, migrants and even simple people, who work every day to earn an honest living, are extorted, assaulted, kidnapped, disappeared, imprisoned and murdered by a government eager to ingratiate itself to the power of money.
They are hopeless.
The capitalist system was born wrong, a product of injustice, blood and robbery. This is how it continues to this day, regardless of the flags under which it hides. Its sign is death and it will remain so until the end of its days.
As Zapatista peoples we have thought of a way to combat the empire of death. We call that way “The Common.”
And in this painful situation, it became clear that the Common walks the path of truth and justice.
This achievement of the liberation of our two innocent comrades was the fruit of a triple effort: that of human rights defenders, that of national and international solidarity and support, and that of autonomous justice.
It is a moment to not forget other sister peoples, near and far in geography, who suffer the deadly attacks of the evil system. Let us not forget the native peoples, the disappeared and those who search for them, the defenders of mother earth, the people who are only a number in the statistics of crime, the Palestinian people.
For Life: justice and truth in Common.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
Published by Enlace Zapatista on May 2nd, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas