The following statement by the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ) announces that the organization is joining with the Union of Peoples and Organizations of the State of Guerrero (UPOEG). Shortly after this statement, the two groups, alongside the affiliated Community Police of the Regional Coordinator of Communal Authorities of the Founding Communities (CRAC-PC-PF), issued a manifesto that mirrors much of what is addressed below. The below was translated from the Spanish by Scott Campbell.

On Friday, January 30, alongside human rights observers, these groups organized a caravan to El Terrero, Guerrero, from which 300 community members were displaced six years ago by the state-backed narco-paramilitary group Los Ardillos. On the way, Los Ardillos attacked the caravan twice, with heavy weapons fire and exploding drones. The army and National Guard, both of whom were nearby, did not intervene. The caravan was forced to turn back. Fortunately, no one was injured or killed.

TO THE ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION

TO THE NATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONGRESS-INDIGENOUS GOVERNING COUNCIL

TO THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL SEXTA

TO THE NETWORKS OF RESISTANCE AND REBELLION

TO REBELLIOUS EUROPE

TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS BODIES

TO THE CIVIL OBSERVATION MISSION OF THE SEXTA

TO THE FREE AND INDEPENDENT MEDIA

TO THE PEOPLE OF GUERRERO

TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO AND THE WORLD

January 27, 2026

Brothers and sisters, the war that unfolds all over the world is the same that is experienced in Mexico. Our dead are added to the dead which are counted by the thousands. In this new partitioning of the world and territorial reconfiguration, capitalism strikes with greater violence to appropriate everything, even though to do so it must trample on the pretenses that the very same capitalism claims exist: the sovereignty of the nation-state, national and international law, human rights, minority rights, Indigenous rights, women’s rights, and children’s rights. Not sovereignty, nor law, nor respect for life in any of its forms: everything is earnings at any cost. The masks have fallen and capitalism shows itself for what it is – war and death against humanity and life.

In the state of Guerrero, murders are part of daily life, the State does not exist as a representative of the popular will, and the laws are a dead letter. For many years our state has been governed by capitalists, be they mining companies that plunder natural resources or be they criminal groups that poison our young people and terrorize the entire population. The state pretends to exist to keep up appearances of being one more part of an orderly country with progress and development – damn lies! As such we can see the photograph of President Claudia Sheinbaum with Guerrero state governor Evelyn Salgado finishing breakfast, both smiling, they hug, they pose, while the country continues filling with clandestine graves, while searching mothers keep up hope of finding their children alive, digging in hills and mountains, while the borders fill with criminals that displace entire communities, be they criminals from the cartels or criminals of the world, Donald Trump and his goons, who with satisfaction and mockery see how they have the world’s political class on its knees, including Mexico.

While above they continue with their simulation, here below we feel the effects of reality. Our people of Guerrero are controlled by organized crime. We live amidst daily violence with shakedowns, extortions, disappearances, femicides, and threats. Our people must abandon their homes and migrate; there is no work, there is much poverty, and no one protects us. Every day they murder drivers, journalists, community and territorial defenders, community police, public officials, and any random citizen. Here there is no security or justice, only violence and impunity. While above they smile as if nothing is happening, here below we have blockaded, marched, dialogued, and signed agreements that have never been fulfilled by the Guerrero state government, but everything remains the same. We continue seeing how organized crime groups like “Los Ardillos” continue operating, stealing municipal resources, controlling representatives, police, and prosecutors, and expanding their terror, displacing and subjugating more and more communities. For more than thirty years they have operated in the lower mountain and central zone of our state with complete impunity. They control the municipalities of Tixtla, Chilapa de Álvarez, Chilpancingo, Atlixtac, Jose Joaquín de Herrera, Acatepec, Quechultenango, Juan R. Escudero, Tecoanapa, and Acapulco, among others.

While above they debate over what clothes to wear for breakfast and a photo with the president, here below we wonder what is in store for us. Will we have to accept death from hunger, from the bullets of criminals, from illness due to the lack of hospitals, that our sons and daughters may be disappeared at any moment, of being displaced by violence, of being extorted or shaken down? Do we not have the right to want to live with dignity? As such, is it not correct to fight in defense of life and territory?

It is due to all of the above that we have made the decision to join with others of good hearts to defend life and territory. Because many years ago we decided to shout ENOUGH! Because we cannot tolerate the lies of bad governments who with every presidential term promise that everything will be better, but their words only contain lies. We have decided to join with the Union of Peoples and Organizations of the State of Guerrero (UPOEG), because the violence experienced today is going to triple in our state, as we have seen happening in the entire world. Although each organization will maintain its own principles and organization, this coordination is for the security and life of our communities. Today more than ever we must find one another despite the differences, because the bullets that kill don’t distinguish between what organization you belong to, what people you are a part of, or what your profession is. The bullets that the criminals fire and that the State watches as they pass by continue to steal the lives of our young people, of shopkeepers, of Indigenous peoples, of women.

That is why we call on the people of Guerrero, of the young people, women, men, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, campesinos, campesinas, fishers, students, shopkeepers, journalists, drivers, ranchers, businesspeople, teachers, artisans, workers, communal and ejidal authorities and commissioners, academics, priests, doctors, nurses, Indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities, social collectives and organizations, human rights defenders, searching mothers and fathers, the displaced, the relatives of victims, and all people to come together and walk in defense of life and our communities. To denounce this bad government that merely talks while criminal groups operate with absolute impunity throughout our state. We call on you to stand together in this common struggle for life.

We are not the generators of violence, the guilty are those who have been allowed to grow in our communities and municipalities, empowering themselves and corrupting public officials, police, and prosecutors. That is to say, violence exists in every public official, such as Francisco Rodríguez Cisneros, who when we condemn or protest, instead of acting to dismantle these criminal groups, turns to discredit us, calling us “generators of violence” and allowing criminal groups to continue expanding and multiplying.

One thing we have asked this bad government for at least the past eight years is for them to dismantle organized crime groups and demonstrate with actions that change has really arrived with the Fourth Transformation. That it show the people of Guerrero that they are not the same criminals as the PRI, PRD, or PAN. But they can’t show anything, because they are the same. Today they are more concerned about the 2026 World Cup that will be played in the country of the murderer Donald Trump, in Canada – the front yard – and in Mexico – the back yard. It worries them greatly that we would go to Mexico City to protest, leaflet, blockade, boycott or take any other action that impacts the World Cup, but don’t they care that they are killing us?

Our demands have been on their desks for many years: security, justice, dismantling criminal groups and their links to public officials, justice for our murdered, freedom for our political prisoners, and respect for the self-determination, autonomy, free organization, and normative systems of our Indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples, as well as the full recognition of our community authorities and community security mechanisms. Their response has been disdain and the backing of criminal groups. That is why we act.

For our part, we say with complete clarity: we are obliged, out of love for our people and territory, to defend our lives, the lives of our families and children, and to exercise our right as Indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples, recognized in the Mexican Constitution and international treaties, to organize ourselves through our community assemblies in defense of life, security, our mother earth, and the integral development of our peoples. But as part of the life that inhabits this planet, we have the duty to fight for life and for the defense of territory and we will do that, that is what we are, we are convinced, and we will defend it to the death.

We will not surrender, we will not sell out, we will not give in

Sincerely:

Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata