Ocosingo/Tuxtla Gutiérrez. An armed group displaced residents of the small Zapatista village of La Resistencia in the municipality of Ocosingo, human rights organization Red TDT announced. This attack on January 19th forced 28 people to flee, including ten children. The violent action was carried out by around 40 members of the Regional Organization of Coffee Growers of Ocosingo (Orcao), who carried firearms, machetes and sticks.
In the village of La Resistencia, located in the Zapatista autonomous region “Moisés y Gandhi”, the autonomous primary school was destroyed, 15 houses made of tin and wood were destroyed, school books were burned and a village shop was robbed. The stolen goods include animals, a coffee de-stripping machine and other work equipment. Gardens and food were destroyed.
The Mexican Red TDT (Red Nacional de Organismos Civiles de Derechos Humanos “Todos los Derechos para Todas, Todos y Todes”) documented the inauguration of an Orcao regional government building by the Ocosingo municipal council days earlier. This is located at the strategic intersection of Cuxuljá, where the Zapatistas previously held an important meeting point for their autonomous structures.
The network, which includes 87 human rights organizations in 23 Mexican states, is concerned that the Mexican state “allows or even covers” such actions. In an urgent action on February 3, it called on the authorities to carry out a thorough investigation into the events in order to “put an end to this climate of violence.”
A conflict has been simmering for years between the BAEZLN (support base for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation) and the Orcao over a piece of land that the two organizations jointly occupied during the 1994 uprising. In 2001, the Orcao accepted government programs of land privatization, while their Zapatista neighbors refused to parcel out their former large estates and continue to insist on the continuation of collective farming.
In 2020, two BAEZLN warehouses in the town of Cuxuljá were robbed and then burned down. Since then, Orcao attacks on the Zapatistas have repeatedly resulted in expulsions, kidnappings and injuries.