translated from Spanish: Towns of Aldama, Chiapas, under attack by territorial conflict

At 2 pm on Wednesday 22 May, Juan Lunes Santiz, 19, was shot while he was in the backyard of his home in the community of Cocó, municipality of Aldama, in Los Altos de Chiapas. He had just returned from work in the cultivation of coffee and milpa.
“He went into his house, left his tools, as he was hungry, went through the yard to go to the kitchen to bring his food. That’s when they hit him. So it happens here in Aldama, at any time you can get a bullet, “says Abel, one of the neighbors of the young man, who asked not to put his real name.
A community of nearly 2000 people fleeing violence in Chiapas
The bullet lodged in the boy’s right foot, in the instep. Abel says that the police and military who are supposed to take care of the area, arrived nothing more to take the wounded to the Hospital of cultures in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, where it remains until now.
“Almost every day from Santa Martha (Chenalhó) to the communities of Aldama, especially to Tabak, Cocó ‘, San Pedro Cotsilnam, Stselej Potop, Xchuchte and Puente, which are in the fringe where they adjoin both municipalities,” explains Azalia Hernández, spokesperson for the Human Rights Centre Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (Fraya).
The villagers, he adds, “are victims of firearms attacks by civilian armed paramilitary groups, from the Manuel Utrilla Ejido in the municipality of Chenalhó, responsible for the massive forced displacement of 2036 people, who leave From their communities to the mountain when they start shooting and then come back. ”

☎️ alert There are still high-caliber weapons attacks, from 7:00 a.m. to the communities of Xuxchen and Cocó, in the municipality of Aldama, from Saclum, Pajaltoj and Slumka, Santa Martha, Chenalhó, Chiapas.
✋ #AltoAlFuego @rutilioescandon @A_Encinas_R @lopezobrador_ pic.twitter.com/Flj5WRj02c
— Fraying human rights (@CdhFrayba) May 22, 2019

All come and promise, but we continue in the same: the lives of the displaced in Aldama, Chiapas
The rivalry between the Santa Martha Municipal agency in Chenalhó and the communities of Aldama is historic. Only one river divides both locations. Plots on both sides are the most recent dispute factor.
Land problems between the two areas have come from the decade of the years 70 when agrarian reform was done in the country. But for a long time, they had managed to negotiate and consensus.
A government action again detonated the problem, the program of certification of Rights ejidal and titling of solar (proceeds) with which were made new planes of the communal property of which it turned out that a portion of land that apparently was of Aldama It was inside Santa Martha.
It was in the middle of 2016 when the conflicts began to rise in tone in the border area, to take to the displacement of 90 families of Cocó, 145 of Tabak and other areas of Aldama, who after a year returned to their communities, but remain under attack by par Your neighbors.
As a result of these attacks, according to data provided by villagers, from the end of 2017 to date, four people have been killed and 12 have been injured, including two minors.
“A three-year-old boy was playing near his home when a bullet hit him, another child was eating with his family and the same, he suddenly got the bullet. Other people have touched them while they cut firewood, while they are in the cornfield, while they walk on the roads. You can’t make a normal life here. Kids don’t play anymore, they’re scared, “says Abel.
The Fray has reports in the same direction. Like the one in January, when a lady was in her backyard, feeding her hens, and wounded her on the cheek.
The attacks intensify in time of the coffee cut or in festivities, but there is not an explanation of why they increased this Wednesday, when they started from 7 in the morning to various communities of Aldama, especially Cocó, Xchuchte and Tabak. At 12 of the day the bullets covered almost the entire strip where the two municipalities adjoin.
“We don’t know why anymore. There are 60 hectares of land that we have in dispute with the neighboring municipality of Chenalhó, but I think that is not even why, this is already a social conflict, rather than land. They are paramilitaries, they walk very armed, they bring weapons of high caliber, in the gusts one hears, and then they are taken. They are the heirs, the same children, of those who perpetrated the massacre of ‘ teal, ‘ says Abel.
Search the route
During his conference this Thursday, May 23, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador heard from the voice of the journalist Ernesto Ledezma the situation that the inhabitants of Aldama live, of whom the Fray and Abel clarify that they are not permanently displaced from their Communities.
They come and go. Abel says when the shots start, they run to the mountain. “If they pass fast, we go back to our houses, if not, we stay hidden where we can, and if night falls, we cover with what we can, so that we can bring family, friends.”
With the serious gesture, Obrador heard Ledezma talk about the increase in violence in the area during this week. The president asked Alejandro Encinas, under-Secretary for Human rights, population and migration, to attend the issue. “We have an obligation to intervene and ask the Government of Chiapas to have an answer,” he said.
Political Animal requested an interview with Alejandro Encinas to know what is the strategy of the Sub-Secretariat to serve the displaced of Chiapas, but its social communication office responded that he was on a trip in Nayarit and could not take the Call.
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The communication office reported that the Sub-secretariat will make a health route for the wounded who reported Ledesma and that this Friday the undersecretary will have meetings on the security issue in that area.
Questioned as to what strategy has been to address the problem, they responded that actions have been coordinated with the secretariat of Public Security and the Navy in the field of security, “from 27 and 28 December, when they went to the area.”
The Fraya accuses “that the federal government thought that with the installation of a joint operations base the problem would be solved, but the violence will not end until the perpetrators of the attacks are investigated and they are disarmed, which is the demand of the people of Aldama.”
Even though the police and the military are here, says Abel, the Santa Marthas don’t stop shooting. “On 23 January, the police base was installed in the community of Cocó, depending on how to maintain security. But the police also received the shots and they were better off. On April 9th they fled. ”
Abel says that on Wednesday, when arreciaron the bullets to the communities, they asked for support. “Seven policemen and eight soldiers arrived, with a small wagon of low tonnage. But they just took the wounded man. They don’t do anything, they say they can’t stop them, they have no order for that, and they just hide or just take the wounded. ”
Displaced community members of Chiapas live in fear of being killed or detained
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Original source in Spanish

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