Frontline Report Mitziton: A road resisting community in Chiapas
March 7th, 2010By Jessica Davies
On Sunday 28 February, a major conflict took place in the Chiapan community of Mitziton, when around one hundred members of the evangelical ‘Army of God’, widely seen as a paramilitary group, attacked Other Campaign supporters in the community. Over 200 police attended, in ten police lorries, and the road between San Cristobal and Comitan was closed for many hours. Each side took three members of the other side
hostage, and several people received bullet wounds from the guns of
the Army of God or were beaten up. Huge fires were lit, and
ambulances were prevented from getting in to treat the wounded.
A statement from the community assembly tells how Other Campaign adherents were tied to poles blindfolded and left like this for twelve hours, “they were brutally beaten and tortured while they poured gasoline over them, saying ‘we are going to burn you alive’ ”. Agents of the State
Preventive Police “were already in place, but when they heard the
shots did nothing. They only approached when the aggression was
over”. Government officials who were present “did nothing, Read the rest of this entry »