In response to attacks against the Zapatista recovered lands and their communal government
STATEMENT FROM THE CLACSO WORKING GROUP BODIES, TERRITORIES, RESISTANCES AGAINST ATTACKS AGAINST ZAPATISTA RECOVERED LANDS AND THEIR COMMON GOVERNMENT
From the GT CLACSO Bodies, Territories, Resistances We wish to express through this medium our outrage and enormous concern after learning the complaint issued by the Assembly of Zapatista Autonomous Government Collectives (ACGAZ) From the Common Government (Chiapas, Mexico), dated September 24, 2025. As the Zapatista comrades recount, the village of Belén (in the territory belonging to the Dolores Hidalgo Caracol) has suffered the invasion of its recovered lands on several occasions: 30 people from the municipality of Huixtán occupied said lands on April 22, May 12, July 12, and August 29, 2025. On this occasion, they were accompanied by members of the Federal Army and the municipal police of Ocosingo. Although the Zapatista comrades attempted to engage in dialogue, the invaders claimed these lands, arguing that the government had sold them to them and that they possessed legal documents. During the incursion, they threatened the Zapatista comrades, attempted to co-opt them, destroyed signs, and carried out land surveys.
On September 18, 20, and 22 of this year, these Zapatista lands were reoccupied by 15 people. On September 20, trucks from the Federal Army, the Ocosingo municipal police, and the state attorney general's office arrived. Although the Zapatistas again attempted to engage in dialogue, the invaders destroyed and burned Zapatista homes.
We denounce these grave acts, which constitute a violation of the collective rights of the Zapatista peoples and an attack on their communal governance. These attacks deepen community divisions and ignite unrest in a territory where organized crime, with impunity from state security forces, has generated forced displacement.
We recall that the lands recovered in 1994 by the Zapatistas are being worked collectively and in common with non-Zapatista people, within the new proposal to create "lands without papers", as the Zapatistas reported in January 2024, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Zapatista armed uprising.
In their recent statement, the Zapatistas explain that these lands have already been paid for by the Mexican government to the landowners as part of the reparations made after the armed rebellion. It's worth noting that the invasion of recovered lands by various groups is not new; rather, it has been a constant feature of a counterinsurgency war that today, once again, has become a protracted war of attrition.
While the Zapatistas have been building an autonomous organizational process for decades, from which they have sown peace in a context of militarization and permanent war against the communities, it seems that the governments at all three levels intend to unleash conflicts between indigenous organizations that could generate an escalation of violence of greater dimensions that turns the area into a powder keg.
We demand that all levels of the current government—self-proclaimed as the Fourth Transformation—respect the Zapatista exercise of autonomy and their recovered lands where they cultivate a good life and peace. At the recent Gathering of Resistances and Rebellions, held in August of this year, Subcomandante Moisés stated: “Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be us,” alluding to the
The Zapatista communities resist repeated acts of violence through many means, one of which is counterinsurgency policies such as the government program called “Sembrando Vida” (Sowing Life). This program promotes the constant division of communal lands, pushes members of the Indigenous communities that receive it to migrate, and even to join the ranks of organized crime.
In these times when we are witnessing the genocide in Gaza, the result of a policy of systematic colonization and constant dehumanization of the Palestinian people, we demand an end to the neocolonial policies that continue to violate the community life of indigenous peoples and, in particular, of our Zapatista comrades who, for more than 500 years, have resisted and for more than 30 years have laid down their weapons and focused on building a project of Life in the face of systems of death, thus seeking the common life of which we are a part as inhabitants of planet Earth.
For all the above reasons, we join in the actions of solidarity with the Zapatista peoples and in the widespread condemnation expressed by the National Indigenous Congress for the actions denounced by the Assembly of Collectives of Zapatista Autonomous Governments (ACGAZ).
We affirm that this attack on Zapatista territory and its autonomy represents an attack on all of us. We demand, unequivocally, an end to the policies of death practiced in Zapatista territory, in Ecuador, in Gaza, and in all parts of this great planet Earth.
Stop the war against the Zapatista peoples and their common governments!
Stop the repression and criminalization of our brothers and sisters in Ecuador!
Stop the genocide in Gaza!
Planet Earth, September 29, 2025
CLACSO Working Group Bodies, Territories, Resistances
This text expresses the position of the Working Group on Bodies, Territories, Resistances and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
