INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE AND ACCOMPANIMENT

CHIAPAS

Lacandon Jungle

• In May, we attended the celebration in which the community positions of the men and women who will make up the Councils of the Community Government formed for the municipality of Chilon were “sown”, a ceremony that took place in Bachajon.
• On August 8th and 9th, we were present at the forum on “Free Determination and Defense of Territory: the Construction of Autonomy is Done Collectively” that took place in the Bachajon ejido, municipality of Chilon.

Highlands

• In August, we visited displaced persons from Colonia Puebla, municipality of Chenalho, in the place where they are temporarily relocated in San Cristobal de Las Casas, in order to see possible progress in their demands for humanitarian aid, justice, and return (see Focus).

Caracoles/EZLN/CNI

• During the period covered by this report, we visited four of the five Zapatista Caracoles (autonomous regions) at least once.
• In August, we attended the Morelia Caracol, a part of the activities carried out within the framework of the “Comparte 2018” event and the 15th anniversary of the creation of the five Zapatista caracoles.

Women

• In May, we accompanied the march organized in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas to demand the end of femicide and gender violence.
• In June, we attended the International Seminar “Women’s Struggle for Land and Territory against Capitalism”, an event organized by the Women’s Rights Center of Chiapas.
• In August, we were present at the Assembly of the Diocesan Coordination of Women (CODIMUJ in its Spanish acronym) in San Cristobal de Las Casas.

Events

• In June, we attended a press conference organized by the Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Center for Human Rights one year after the approval of the General Law on Torture. The press conference denouced torture, stating that to date it is still a “widespread practice and a systemic reality in Mexico”.
• In June, we were present at the IV Social Forum on other democracies, electoral geography and processes of self-government in Chiapas and Mexico, convened by the Center for Higher Studies of Mexico and Central America and the Observatory of Democracies: southern Mexico and Central America.
• We participated in the Assembly of representatives of the Believing People in August.
• In July, we attended activities organized in the framework of the Twentieth National Meeting of Basic Ecclesial Communities (CEBs), to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its creation.

OAXACA

• In July, we attended a press conference in which members of the Committee for the Defense of Indigenous Peoples (CODEDI in its Spanish acronym) denounced new threats and attacks against them, as well as the assassination of the Regional Coordinator of their organization in the Sierra Sur, a few weeks previously.

INFORMATION AND FORMATION TOWARDS ACTION

PUBLICATIONS

• In this period, we signed the following pronouncements and Urgent Actions:
• in May, the Urgent Action facing the threats received by members of the Community Development Workshop (TADECO in its Spanish acronym) in the state of Guerrero.
• in May, the pronouncement before the sentence to be given in the case of Valentina Rosendo Cantu, an indigenous Me’phaa woman raped by soldiers in Guerrero in 2002.
• in August, the Urgent Action on the threats and aggressions against CODEDI in Oaxaca.

VISITS, DELEGATIONS and TOURS

• We received delegations, students, journalists, and members of our coalition interested in knowing or deepening their knowledge about the situation of Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero, as well as the work of SIPAZ.
• In August, we had meetings with Mensen met enn Missie and Missionary Week, in The Hague, Holland.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

• In May, we met with the State Electoral and Citizen Participation Institute (IEPC in its Spanish acronym) in Chiapas in order to raise awarness of the possible dangers in the electoral context at that time, as well as on the organized processes that seek to hold municipal elections through customary law.
• In June, we had a meeting with members of the Embassy of Canada.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE

• In June, we conducted a workshop on democracy with a dozen high school students at the Balearic Technical Baccalaureate Bartolome de Las Casas, in Guaquitepec, municipality of Chilon.
• In July, we attended an analysis meeting organized by Services and Consultancies for Peace (Serapaz in its Spanish acronym), on the post-electoral situation. Also in attendence were some 30 community leaders from the Jungle. During the meeting we provided a section on international perceptions.
• In May and June, we followed and completed a facilitation process with the Commission for Reconciliation and Community Unity (CORECO in its Spanish acronym), in which their team was finalizing their next three yearly planning.
• In August, we provided a space for analyzing reality with more than 20 artisan women who collaborate with the Ixim Antsetik project (Women of Corn).

INTERNAL TRAINING

• We continue working on digital security issues with the Sursiendo collective.
• We participated in three modules of the training process “Empowerment from the psychosocial approach to defenders of human rights” that was convened in Chiapas Aluna Psychosocial Accompaniment in collaboration with the National Network of Human Rights Defenders in Mexico.
• In June, we had another training process on social media.

NETWORKING

• 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. Several meetings were held to analyze the conflicts in the Chiapas Highlands area.
• In May, we co-convened and co-coordinated with Pax Christi to hold a meeting called “Exchange of Community Experiences in Nonviolent Resistance against Extractivism” in San Cristobal de Las Casas. The event, whose objective was to exchange tools and methodologies of non-violent actions, in order to confront this type of model. Participants came from six Latin America countries.
• In June, we participated in a meeting with partners of Mensen met een Missie (MM) that took place in San Cristobal de Las Casas and in which topics of fundraising and use of social media were discussed.
• In July, we had a post-election analysis meeting with organizations that work with international accompaniment in Chiapas: the Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Center for Human Rights (through the Civilian Observation Brigades) and the Swedish Movement for Reconciliation (SweFOR) .
• In July, we attended the partnership conference of the Weltwärts German project, which was held in El Salvador.