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'Boca en Boca' means 'by word of mouth' in English; it is an independent news sheet that aims to spread word of what is happening in the organised communities of Chiapas. It aims to provide a direct counterpunch to the Government's strategy of misinformation, and create solidarity amongst the communities by providing news summaries and extracts.

Front of Ejidos in Resistance Other Campaign

Resisting paramilitary attacks from OPDDIC, on 31/12/11, "El Frente de Ejidos en Resistencia Genaro Vzquez Rojas" [ejidatarios and adherents to the Other Campaign from the ejidos Busilj and Cintalapa, Ocosingo] reported the following: Since 14/12/11 we have been in a plantn (camped) in the Cathedral Square [San Cristbal] to demand from the state government the immediate: -Presentation alive of the female child Gabriela Sanchez Morales who was disappeared by the paramilitaries on 17/07/11. -Freedom for the compaeros: Elias Sanchez Gomez, arrested on 07/12/11 and Amilcar Mndez Nez detained since 16/12/08 -Punishment for the paramilitaries for the crimes of kidnapping, rape, making death threats, extortion, detention, torture and fabrication of charges ... As of 31/12/11, we have not received any serious concrete response from the government... The Government Secretary states that the government is attending to the three main demands we are making, and that it does not sanction pressure as the way to solve problems. In response, we, as an organization, want the people to know what inquiries and demands they are talking about. We have had no proposal from them from which they could claim to be responding to our demands.

Voices from prison...

8/01, compaera Rosa Lpez Daz, from Solidarios de La Voz del Amate, who is unjustly imprisoned, shared, during the sixth anniversary of La Voz del Amate, "a short history and at the same time the experience which, during the 39 days of fasting, was the hardest and most difficult ... First: it is hard to take the decision, especially here in prison, to resist injustice; you have to be aware, and being aware means to love life, to love yourself, and that is why, on Wednesday 28 September 2011, the organization La Voz del Amate, together with Solidarios de La Voz del Amate, all adherents to the EZLN's Other Campaign, took the decision that it was time to raise our voices to society about the injustice that we are living through our unjust imprisonment ... "

districts, so as to exercise the control of our territory from our organization ... - we have decided to put chains and signs on the strategic entrances and exits of the municipal centre, and in the ejidos where there are natural resources and minerals, to prevent clandestine looting ... -by order of the people, ejidos and organized communities we have closed more than 18 cantinas in the municipal centre of Siltepec and, at the same time, we have put our guards and surveillance in the centre and the five barrios, as well as in the ejidos and ranches of the municipality which have become part of our organization ... we ask that our guards in the community be respected because they act on the orders of the people and under acts of agreement". -On 31/12 "the compaero Solomon Ventura Morales was shot dead in his home in the neighborhood of Las Cruces in the municipal centre, by people who 38 municipalities in the Sierra Madre are fully identified ... the Public Prosecutor has refused to receive a complaint from those who have been organize against violence threatened, so ... our organization will arrest them [those making threats], together with the Public ProOn 12/01, members of Luz y Fuerza del Pueblo, secutor, regardless of the consequences, because we from the Other Campaign, Siltepec, Sierra Region, have had enough of corruption, injustice and comdenounced: "Our municipality suffers severe propromises between the criminals and the authorities. blems from alcoholism and too many bars (cantinas), -we warn the beer companies, bartenders and dealers the proliferation of drugs and prostitution, the felling in alcohol and drugs, that we will not permit the entry of trees and the commercialization of the environof any type of alcohol and drugs, or of those who are ment, the clandestine looting of minerals and the atarrested by our guards ... tempt to intervene in other [municipalities]; the high -we warn the large Canadian mining and logging charges for electricity; the arrogance with which they companies that we will not allow them to continue receive us and the lack of justice and corruption looting or stealing our natural resources which are characteristic of the state prosecutor; the -our decision to organize ourselves independently lack of medical services and above all the lack of hu- from the government and political parties was taken manity among the health personnel attending to paafter many years of deception and lies ...the situation tients, the famous popular insurance is compromised, of our people does not change, or gets worse, despite given the seriousness of the problems being experien- radio and TV campaigns about the expenditure the ced in the municipality, there have been many letters, government says it has made in Chiapas ... now the writings and complaints made to state authorities to Sierra de Chiapas, which has always remained aswhich we have not had a favourable response, so, leep, has begun to wake up together with other comfaced with such a situation and protected by Article paeros and our brothers from the municipalities of 39 of our Mexican political Constitution, we have de- Motozintla, El Porvenir, Bella Vista, La Grandeza, cided the following: and Comalapa, among others". - to organize ourselves as a municipal centre, in coordination with the ejidos, ranches, neighborhoods and 13/01 Inmates of CERSS 17 de Playas Catazaj (El Bambo) who were on strike, denounced the prison conditions of harassment and of sexual violence against the families who visit them. "We went on hunger strike in a peaceful manner because we fear that the director will transfer us, and our request is that the director is removed ... Because we are always threatened that we will be moved to different prisons because we are a group, we are indigenous prisoners and we are striking peacefully". On receiving the Jcanam jTatic Lum recognition, the Political Prisoner Alberto Patishtan Gmez of La Voz del Amate, adherent to the Other Campaign, held as a hostage, stated from Guasabe, Sinaloa, "for those seeking justice, now is the time to say Enough (Ya Basta). It is necessary to have a vocation to encourage more active promoters of the defence of Human Rights, the inheritance left to us as a testament to Jtatik Samuel".

In Brief
04/01- Community members in Tila agree to reject FANAR programmes, and denounce to the Procuradura Agraria: "In Chiapas there continues a strategy of the dispossession of the lands and territories of indigenous peoples and the permanent violation of the human rights of the people of Chiapas" 15/01- "Call for the creation of a Student Body in Chiapas to oppose the privatization taking place in our state in all sectors of society and education".

19/01- The Other Campaign in Chiapas announces its support: "for: the rights of Mother Earth, the full exercise of the rights of indigenous peoples, the demilitarization of the country, an end to femicide, freedom for political prisoners, and an end to the criminalization of social struggles throughout the country!" 22/01- Las Abejas clarifies: "about the lawsuit filed earlier this year against Ernesto Zedillo, in a court in Connecticut (USA), for the Acteal Massacre....First we must remember the central facts of the Massacre". 23/01- Solidarios de La Voz del Amate, from Cereso n5, report harassment and psychological torture by prison authorities' failure to take action to repair the phone line which is constantly breaking down.

Serious attacks on Tseltal families, Tenejapa

The Fray Bartolom Human Rights Centre reports that on 4/12, "in Banavil, Tenejapa, a group of PRI members assaulted with firearms four families who are supporters of the EZLN. The attacks resulted in: the death of Sr. Pedro Mendez Lopez, the enforced disappearance of Sr. Alonso Lpez Luna, the forced displacement of four families accused of being Zapatista sympathizers, the arrest of Mr. Lorenzo Giron Lopez who was wounded by gunfire and charged with aggravated assault, the arbitrary detention of Sr. Francisco Lopez Santiz, EZLN Support Base (BAEZLN), who was elsewhere at the time, and injuries to six others". "Background: Since 2009 there has been harassment of families of EZLN sympathizers by the group of PRI caciques (chiefs), resulting from the families opposition

to the arbitrary actions committed by these caciques, such as: theft of land, illegal logging, arbitrary demands for collection of taxation and cooperative work, raids, physical assaults, and denial of the right to education, amongst others, which have been reported by the victims to the appropriate government agencies, who ignore the facts. So far they have made no effective investigation, nor punished those responsible, and the authorities have not intervened to resolve the situation and to ensure legal and social security in the ejido Banavil". "In consequence, and in accordance with the documents produced, this Human Rights Centre views with concern the continuing systematic attacks on BAEZLN and EZLN sympathizers, which result in the violation of the rights to life, integrity and personal security, liberty, freedom of movement, and residence, as well as the right not to be displaced, among others, under international instruments signed and ratified by the Mexican government".

Drawings from the exhibition, entitled "a childs view from Gaza", presented
by The Middle East Childrens Alliance (MECA) and The Museum of Childrens Art in Oakland; this exhibition was cancelled following a concerted effort by pro-Israel organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. The only winners here are those who spend millions of dollars censoring any criticism of Israel and silencing the voices of children who live every day under military siege and occupation, said Barbara Lubin, the Executive Director of MECA.

And the migrants ...are marching

At the beginning of the month, activists and migrants undertook the Walk for the Defence and Dignity of Migrants, covering more than 500km of coastline, from the river Suchiate on the border with Guatemala, to the state of Oaxaca, crossing 11 municipalities. They denounced "that in the region there was a proliferation of cases of Central American migrants . organized crime, and in some cases corrupt officials." Elvira Arellano, from the Organization of United Latino Families, "says that in the municipality of Tapachula, sexual and labour exploitation of migrant children occurs in daylight in the central square of the city of Tapachula, with indifference from the local authorities". "During the second day of the march, activists from various human rights organizations symbolically took over the offices of the Organization for International Migration, the Ministry of Development of the southern border, the municipal DIF and the prosecutor for Migrants, considering that they were not responding to the needs for which they were created". "The activists thanked the National Commission of Human Rights for the accompaniment they conducted throughout, due to the fear caused by a group of approximately 20 men dressed in black who kept watch on all the activists" "Between January and November 2011, 46,716 Central Americans who entered the country without documents were deported, half of them Guatemalans. However, there are about 140,000 Central Americans who enter Mexico illegally each year, hoping to reach the northern border and cross to the U.S. The National Human Rights Commission estimates that around 20,000 migrants are kidnapped annually by criminal groups, in order to demand the payment of a ransom, or to force them to work for them". On 15/01 "On the eve of the commemoration of the World Day for Migrants and Refugees, Leticia Gutierrez Valderrama, executive secretary for the Dimensin Pastoral de la Movilidad Humana... regretted that there is still no regulation to make operational the Migration Act passed last year, and that the draft of this law produced the government lacks the observations made by civil organizations who made up the working group on political issues". On 26/01, Amnesty International shared: "To our surprise, the migrants told us that the items they desperately needed for this trip were socks. On a journey that can be hundreds of miles, untreated blisters can be life-threatening, and a pair of socks can make a fundamental difference". A petition was launched on the website www.mandacalcetines.org (send socks). Concerning the information about displaced Guatemalans in Boca In Boca # 16, we would like to update the situation: "Mexican authorities violently evicted, unexpectedly, betraying the process of dialogue and committing acts of cruelty, the displaced people from Nueva Esperanza , Guatemala, who maintained a camp on the border next to the ejido of Nuevo Progreso in Tenosique, Tabasco ... Authorities arrested the children of the camp and put them on to lorries for the purpose of handing them over to their parents, which implies inhumane treatment and the possible commission of illegal actions by officials involved in the operation".

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Follow-up links:
29/12- Enrique Gomez Hernandez, Solidarios de la Voz del Amate sent "A memorandum to the Governor of Chiapas to demand our immediate freedom ". 05/01- "On 28 December, thanks to national and international solidarity, our David [Potenciano] was released after having spent over 7 months shut away in El Amate, for a crime he did not commit". 20/01- Solidarios de la Voz del Amate: "The government tells society that it has built more hospitals with plenty medicines and better care for the sick. But from inside prison we see it very differently".

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