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Mexico: “They are Literally Killing Us” – Call for a National Caravan for a Dignified Life for Indigenous Peoples

Originally posted on It’s Going Down.

Via the National Indigenous Congress (CNI)
Translated by Scott Campbell

As men, women, boys, girls, grandfathers and grandmothers of the Indigenous communities that we are: Na Savi, Me´pháá, Nahua, Ñamnkué, mestizos and Afro-Mexicans from the state of Guerrero, and who are organized in the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ), together with our comradely communities in the National Front for the Liberation of the Peoples (FNLP) and the Campesino Organization of the Southern Sierra (O.C.S.S.), we have not forgotten that we are suffering a war against our peoples. A war that began 527 years ago and one that continues. Governments come, governments go, be their logos of one color, two colors or three colors, it doesn’t matter: their boss is the same.

We continue dying from hunger, from the lack of hospitals and doctors, and from poverty, but not just that: they are literally killing us. As if we were animals, as if we were something worthless, something that isn’t human. The narco-paramilitaries hunt us on the roads, in our homes, and our families have to flee. They are the ones they call the displaced, and they go, walking, uprooted from their land, entire communities without a home, with the pain of their murdered relatives, and without knowing if they will eat tomorrow or if they will sleep under a roof, worse off than animals.

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Mexico: A Reflection on the Migrant Caravan

Originally posted on It’s Going Down

Stadium in Mexico City serving as a shelter for members of the migrant caravan.

From Hey Wild
Translated by Scott Campbell

A couple of weeks ago, the mainstream media began covering the multitude of migrants who sought entry into Mexico in order to pass through it and reach the United States. Coming mainly from Honduras, with some from other Central American countries, they were able to enter the country using the caravan as a strategy, though not without first receiving a welcome from the Mexican police – an incident that Mexican society in general was highly critical of.

Now being in Mexican territory, their reception in Chiapas was contrasted between people who were in solidarity with them with others who complained of their presence. A few days after their arrival, the government sprayed them with pesticides while they slept before dawn. On their passage through Veracruz, the situation became more complicated. There is talk of a kidnapping by organized crime disappearing more than 100 migrants – mainly women and children. However, the actual figure or what really happened in unknown. The only sure thing is that the route through that state, where these types of events happen most frequently, is one of the most dangerous for migrants.

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