The gunmen stormed into the city and announced that from that moment on they were the law. They attacked the rural police, surrounded the commissioner’s house to leave no doubt about who was in charge, and as they left they left a message: “From now on we take control of the city and the region. “They said they were members of the Sinaloa Cartel, killers of Ismael el Mayo Zambada. Despite the threats, the New Palestine community revolted. On September 6, he sent a public letter to the president of the government, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, asking for military intervention so that the state could defend it from the commandos. The pulse is in the air and one thing is clear: drug trafficking has increased sharply in the Lacandona jungle, the symbolic heart of Chiapas.
The clichés, the platitudes are wildcards that help, but are not enough. For example: Chiapas is a time bomb, a pressure cooker, a glass about to overflow, a spiral of violence, a powder keg – “on the verge of civil war,” says the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) -. Formulas that have been used ad nauseam over the last three decades, but which are still true. The reality is that Mexico’s poorest state is all that and much more: an armed conflict that has been latent for 30 years, a coalition of paramilitaries, soldiers, guerrillas and self-defense groups that has recently seen the situation worsen with the entry of the scene of organized crime. To understand it: it is an arsenal filled to the brim with a thousand and one types of gunpowder, surrounded by a fire that, instead of going out, is increasingly fanned. The explosion seems inevitable. And it’s getting closer.
People march in Mexico City on June 8 in solidarity with the Zapatista movement in Chiapas. Inaki Malvido
The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel have found a new vein to exploit in the border region: a porous area fertile for illegal business, with three main drug trafficking arteries crossing Lacandona, Frontera Comalapa and the Pacific Coast. The opportunity to do business is immense given the heat of mega-projects like the Mayan Train, tourism and the speculation that comes with it. The breeding ground is served. The destruction of the social fabric caused by the maelstrom of weapons that is engulfing the region is becoming more and more urgent and, as always, it is civil society that is paying the most, according to all reports, analyzes and testimonies, in particular women and indigenous communities of specialists and people who themselves suffer from it . Massacres, femicides, kidnappings, sexual violence, disappearances, forced relocations. The horror repertoire is extensive.
The escalation of a covert war
Diana Iztu Gutiérrez has lived in Chiapas for 12 years and studies these dynamics. He is currently doing a stay at the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology: “We have seen an intensification of organized crime in the last three years: from the arrival of armed commandos in armored vehicles, to kidnappings, car thefts, and housing costs. . At the same time, femicides are increasing, there are many depressions and suicides, the deaths and disappearances of young people every day. There is an increase in the communities [consumo de] Alcohol, drugs, weapons and prostitution.”
Experts point out that the arrival of the Maya train, mining, tourism and exploitation projects for the region’s natural resources coincide with the rise of the mafia. “All this will lead to more consumption and this is where organized crime comes into play,” says Iztu Gutiérrez. “There is of course control over the areas where there is water, oil and minerals, but we also have to understand how the political class becomes part of organized crime. “Here we see no difference between politicians and drug traffickers,” he adds added.
As Mario Ortega Gutiérrez, coordinator of the systematization and advocacy sector of the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (Frayba) human rights center, says, it is very difficult to prove with evidence that megaprojects like the Mayan offer opportunities to get rich trains lure organized crime “But it always comes together.” “We don’t want to think that it’s the only thing either. We understand that there is still an antitrust dispute at the national level and we do not know what ruptures there have been, so Chiapas, which historically had not entered into the situation of the rest of the country, now is.
Tzotzil, Chol and Tojolabal Mayan indigenous people march against the growing armed conflict in San Cristóbal on June 5. Carlos Lopez (EFE)
Chiapas has a long history of peasant organizations, gatherings and protests. A strong associative movement that, for the expert, explains the resistance that existed against the penetration of organized crime in the region: “It may have a lot to do with the fact that the cartels did not know how to penetrate, the strong reluctance and the articulated society, and now they have managed to overcome social control.”
The main Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels operating in the region, as well as dozens of regional groups, use three main arteries, explains Ortega Gutiérrez. The central one: from Frontera Comalapa to San Cristóbal de las Casas. “This has so far been the route that has been the most contentious between the two major cartels, with a red light at the border, but the conflict tends to expand.” The north, which begins in the Lacandona jungle, is one of the places where the situation is getting worse: “Historically, since the 70s, it has been documented that this is an area where there are various illegal drug trafficking routes, where most of the drugs end up.” and other organized crime resources arrive in small planes , and the route follows an entire highway that crosses the northern area of Chiapas until it reaches Palenque, Tabasco, Veracruz…” The third route goes through the Pacific coast.
Members of the Mexican Army and National Guard guard a town in the municipality of Comala. Carlos Lopez (EFE)
Remilitarization and paramilitarism
There is no simple answer to a conflict with a thousand facets. For example: The military intervention that the Lacandona community calls for in its public letter is a measure that many other sectors of the state oppose. Critics often say the presence of soldiers is part of the problem, not the solution. “We have seen that communities often face a dilemma when it comes to applying for security. The very strong psychosocial effects of the militarism of the 90s with many human rights violations are in the collective imagination. It is very respectable that communities are demanding the presence of public safety as a desperate measure against violence. We do not doubt that it can have an immediate impact, but it does not solve the problem in the long term,” explains Ortega Gutiérrez.
On January 1, 1994, the same day that the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) came into force, the EZLN, made up of thousands of farmers from Chiapas, took up arms and put the government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari in check. They wanted to end the devastating inequality faced by Mexico’s indigenous population. Over the years they gained influence, becoming the absolute black of the Mexican state, a solid opposition outside Congress and a kind of beacon of the global left. Despite pursuing a strategy of silence for years, they continue to be spied on, monitored and surrounded by military intelligence and attacked by paramilitary groups.
The Zapatista uprising was followed by the first process of militarization in Chiapas. That’s why many experts today prefer to talk about remilitarization, a reinforcement of what already exists. “Since my arrival in Chiapas, particularly due to the context of the Zapatista uprising in 1994, I have found a militarized state. This has been a constant for 30 years,” says Iztu Gutiérrez. The government launched a counterinsurgency strategy to isolate and reduce the EZLN communities, which have since lived in autonomous regions outside Mexican authorities.
In the heat of the counterinsurgency, numerous paramilitary groups with dark connections emerged. The symbolic case that remains like an open wound in the region is Acteal: on March 22, 1997, a death squad murdered 45 people, including 18 children, in cold blood in a church. Two years ago, López Obrador’s government recognized that the hand of the state was behind the massacre, declaring that the contract killers belonged to “paramilitary groups with the complacency of the authorities.”
National Guard members deploy from San Cristóbal toward the border on September 10. Carlos Lopez (EFE)
“Document Army Headquarters [en Chiapas] It always leads to paramilitary groups that are trained and armed by themselves,” says Iztu Gutiérrez. “In the 2000s, the state’s bet was on the corporatization of paramilitary organizations that later played this dirty game of war of attrition,” agrees Ortega Gutiérrez. Currently, the EZLN strongholds remain under a constant paramilitary siege. “The situation wants to tempt the Zapatistas to use weapons,” warns the researcher.
Disarmament never occurred, not even after the EZLN and the government signed a kind of symbolic but not practical peace with the 1996 San Andrés Accords. “Chiapas has not yet experienced a process of transition to peace [una comisión de] the truth about all crimes committed. The spiral of violence is obviously not new, the element of organized crime reinforces it and makes it significantly more complex,” says the Frayba researcher. The expert adds another factor: Currently, the old paramilitary groups and the new cartels are starting to join forces to maintain control.
For Frayba, remilitarization is not the solution to the problem: “Despite the presence of the military and the National Guard, criminal groups are mobilizing right under their noses.” We are clear that this is not the answer. We believe the strongest opportunity is this: communities have the opportunity to protect themselves through peaceful alternatives, understanding that this war for control is not only armed but also cultural. “We have to rebuild and strengthen the social fabric.”
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