ARTICLE: Earthquakes – The Admirable Mobilization of Civil Society

2017

SIPAZ Activities (From mid-August to mid-November, 2017)

11/01/2018

INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE AND ACCOMPANIMENT

From October 13^th to 19^th, we accompanied as observers the caravan organized in the framework of the tour of the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Council of Government in Chiapas.

We accompanied the activities that Las Abejas Civil Society carried out in communities of the municipality of Chenalho within the framework of its Campaign “Acteal: Roots, Memory and Hope”, 20 years after the Acteal massacre and 25 years after its establishment as an organization, in August and September.
In September, we attended the activities organized in a festival in defense of Mother Earth in Cancuc.

In August, joint and bilateral meetings were held with various civil and religious players in the area to discuss the prevailing conditions in the region.
On October 1^st, we attended the meeting that took place in the ejido of Grecia, in the municipality of Chicomuselo, to analyze the threats that the mining concessions represent for the peoples of Chiapas. The following day, we accompanied the pilgrimage called “Movement against Mining Exploitation and Pillage of the Earth” convened by the parishes of San Pedro and San Pablo and the Samuel Ruiz Committee for the Promotion and Defense of Life of Chicomuselo.

In the term covered by this report, we visited four of the five Zapatista Caracoles at least once.

In October, we were present at the Assembly of the Diocesan Coordination of Women (CODIMUJ in its Spanish acronym), at which its 25^th anniversary was celebrated.

We participated in the Assembly of representatives of the Believing People in August.
In September, we attended the homage to the French historian Andres Aubry ten years after his departure “Long live history and let forgetfulness die!”, an event that took place in CIDECI-Unitierra.
From the 19^th to the 21^st of September, we participated in the Meeting “Let’s love, Care for and Defend our Common Home, our Mother Earth” in the community of Candelaria, municipality of San Cristobal de Las Casas, in which around 300 people participated from the diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas, and guests of other dioceses, organizations and churches.
In November, we moderated the space in which the book “Solidarity Political Economy, Building Alternatives” by Jorge Santiago Santiago was presented in San Cristobal de Las Casas.

In September, we co-facilitated the analysis of the Meeting “Let’s love, Care for and Defend our Common Home, our Mother Earth” in the community of Candelaria, municipality of San Cristobal de Las Casas.
In August, as a member of the Mother Earth Support Network (RAMAT in its Spanish acronym), we co-facilitated a two-and-a-half-day workshop on analysis and planning tools for the defense of the Earth and territory with 40 representatives from six parishes of the Tsotsil zone of the diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas.
In November, we facilitated a one-day workshop on reflection on the Earth and territory with 12 students at the preparatory level of the Bartolome de Las Casas Bivalent Technical Baccalaureate, in Guaquitepec, municipality of Chilon.
Also in November, we provided a context analysis space with 10 sisters from Divino Pastor in San Cristobal de Las Casas.

We attended the bi-monthly meetings of the Network for Peace, a space for action and reflection composed of ten organizations that seek to support processes of peace and reconciliation in Chiapas.
In August, a follow-up meeting was held on the “Meeting of Peoples for the exchange of experiences in the face of threats of dispossession of our territories due to megaprojects” that was held in Chicomuselo in May and was co-convened by the Fray Bartolome Center for Human Rights de Las Casas, the Digna Ochoa Human Rights Center, International Service for Peace (SIPAZ in its Spanish acronym) and the Samuel Ruiz Committee for the Promotion and Defense of Life, under a joint project of Pax Christi International.
In November, we participated in a meeting of the organizations that work in Mexico and integrate the Global Platform for the Prevention of Conflicts (GPPAC in its English acronym) in order to plan activities for 2018.

We received the visit of delegations, students, journalists and members of our coalition interested in learning about or deepening their knowledge of the situation in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero, as well as the work of SIPAZ.
In September, we met with the head of ACAT (Action of Christians for the Abolition of Torture) Latin America in Paris, France.

In October, we participated in a series of meetings and in the preparation of materials to be shared with the United Nations Rapporteur for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples during her visit to Mexico (including Chiapas) in November.

In September, we participated in a course on electoral crimes organized by the Center for Higher Studies of Mexico and Central America (CESMECA).