In defense of life, autonomy, and those who defend them

DEFEND LIFE, THE PEOPLE AND THOSE WHO DEFEND THEM.

As researchers committed to critical thinking, the defense of peoples and the rigorous documentation of contemporary emancipatory processes, we share this reflection on the communiqués issued by the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), in the first days of November 2025.

Point 1. Systematic violence and continuity of the war against the peoples. 

The joint statement from the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) denounces the armed attack of October 31 of this year against members of the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero–Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ) and the Regional Coordinating Committee of Community Authorities–Community Police–Founding Peoples (CRAC-PC-PF). This act, perpetrated by the criminal group Los Ardillos, is part of a prolonged strategy of narco-paramilitary violence and territorial dispossession affecting communities in the Lower Mountain region of Guerrero. The statement holds all three levels of government responsible for their complicity and impunity, alluding to the continuation of the war against Indigenous peoples, now under the guise of the Fourth Transformation. Over the past decade, 66 members of the CIPOG-EZ have been murdered and 23 are missing, demonstrating a systematic offensive aimed at destroying Indigenous autonomy and punishing community organizing that defends life.

Point 2. Criminalization of defenders and institutional delegitimization. 

The second statement, published by the newspaper Desinformémonos and endorsed by the National Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations 'All Rights for All' (Red TDT) and the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), denounces the statements made by Congresswoman Judith Vanegas Tapia (of the Morena party) against lawyer and land defender Carlos González García, legal advisor to the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), whom she labeled a 'historical enemy'. Frayba points out that such expressions, uttered from an institutional platform, constitute a form of discursive criminalization that jeopardizes the safety of those who uphold the collective defense of Indigenous peoples. The statement reaffirms González's career as a jurist committed to self-determination and community justice, and demands an immediate end to the rhetoric of harassment and delegitimization against human rights defenders.

Both statements reveal the same structural pattern: physical and paramilitary violence against organized communities, institutional and media stigmatization of their defenders, and territorial dispossession as part of a neoliberal reorganization of space. In response, the communities and organizations reaffirm their ethical commitment to life and autonomy, maintaining that dignity and their voices will not be silenced.

From the CLACSO Working Group Bodies, Territories, Resistances We recognize in these struggles the continuity of the Latin American emancipatory horizon that seeks to reconstitute the common in the face of the violence of capital and the destruction of territories.

We express our strong rejection of the threats, defamation and criminalization acts committed against the lawyer and defender of the peoples Carlos González García, founding member of the National Indigenous Congress–Indigenous Governing Council (CNI-CIG).

Carlos González García has supported agrarian, autonomous, and legal processes in Milpa Alta, Tláhuac, Xochimilco, Oaxaca, and Chiapas; he has defended water, land, community education, and autonomous organization. His practice of law is not driven by power, but by leading by obeying, walking alongside the communities that choose autonomy and life.

We stand in solidarity with Carlos González García and with all the peoples who defend their territories against extractive capital and policies that, under progressive and humanist discourses, deepen dispossession and militarization.

We demand:

• Guarantees of security and full freedom for Carlos González García.
• Immediate cessation of the criminalization of defenders of collective rights.
• Unrestricted respect for the autonomy of indigenous peoples and their decisions regarding their territories.
• We demand that state institutions investigate and punish the threatening statements made by Representative Judith Vanegas Tapia.

Latin American history reminds us that defending territory is defending life. In Brazil, Palestine, Sudan, or Mexico, necrocapitalism manifests itself in different guises: massacres, dispossession, harassment. But everywhere, the people resist.

We reaffirm that the right to life and territory is not begged for: it is exercised and defended.

All our support and solidarity with Carlos González García!

Stop the persecution of those who defend the land and life!

Against necrocapitalism and criminalization, the people continue to march in dignity!

Planet Earth
November 10th 2025
CLACSO Working Group Bodies, Territories, Resistances

This text expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.