Chiapas: 25 years after the Acteal Massacre and Still No Justice

August 13, 2013

Acteal, photo: Bill Hackwell

Twenty five years after the Acteal Massacre where 45 women and children were murdered, violence continues in the highlands of Chiapas against the indigenous communities. 500 years after the theft of the mineral rich lands of these communities began, the struggle continues with escalating violence.

Here is the complete communiqué from Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center on the occasion:

Thirteen years after the release of those materially responsible for the Acteal Massacre in 1997, the absence of justice and recognition of the truth is a prolonged form of violence against the survivors, as well as a laceration to the dignity of the 45 murdered victims plus four unborn. Impunity brought with it a continuity of armed violence, currently used as a resource for political, economic and territorial control, executed by actors who are tolerated and accomplices of both the federal government and the state of Chiapas.

The authorities are trying to pass off this massacre as the product of an inter-community conflict, reproducing the discrimination and structural racism against the Indigenous Peoples, who are accused of being violent and underdeveloped.

As the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center, we are witnesses to the psychosocial impacts of the survivors in the face of the “historical truth” of the Mexican State that denies and disregards the truth that the victims defend based on their own experiences, which increases the pain and psycho-emotional suffering that undermines their health and quality of life.

The message of impunity issued by the Mexican government has been a determining factor in the reproduction of the current spiral of armed violence in the Highlands region, and throughout Chiapas, which far from ceasing, has been maintained and deepened, as is the case with the confrontations, murders, forced displacements and disappearances that have occurred along the border with Guatemala, or in the municipalities of Aldama, Chalchihuitán, Pantelhó, Oxchuc or Venustiano Carranza; as well as the aggressions against Zapatista autonomy in different regions of the state.

Former and current local de facto powers use arms as a resource for political, economic and territorial control inserted in regional geostrategic dynamics, in the midst of an official discourse that denies the seriousness of the situation and promotes community tensions and conflicts.

We insist that, in order to guarantee peace in Chiapas, the different levels of government must recognize the human rights crisis in the state, address the socio-political and legal factors that hinder it and judge the officials responsible for action or omission, as well as dismantle the trafficking and illicit arms trade in the region. The Mexican State must recognize the counterinsurgency and its current continuity, and arrive at truth and justice in crimes against humanity -such as the Acteal Massacre- which would represent a step towards the integral reparation of damages and advance in the construction of peace in the state.

We call on national and international solidarity to join the actions for truth, memory and justice persistently maintained by the Civil Society Organization Las Abejas de Acteal and in the framework of 25 years of struggle against impunity.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano Buenos Aires