PBI-Mexico calls for “urgent protection measures” following the ambush and murder of three UCIZONI members
Photo: The banner says: “No to dispossession! Long live the Indigenous resistance!”
PBI-Mexico has posted:
“From PBI Mexico we join in the expressions of concern about the violence faced by the communities of the Isthmus, especially against @UCIZONI [the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus].
We remind the Mexican State of its duty to protect communities and human rights defenders.”
Their social media post links to this statement signed by multiple organizations including Educa Oaxaca, Red TDT, UCIZONI, Front Line Defenders, Article 19, SERAPAZ, Peace Brigades International Mexico (PBI) and Espacio OSC.
That statement demands: “Implement urgent protection measures immediately to protect the integrity of the members of UCIZONI, the community of El Platanillo, and other communities at risk. It is essential to establish precautionary measures for the community of El Platanillo, which continues to be at risk.”
Three UCIZONI members killed
On February 14, Proceso reported: “Relatives of the members of the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus (Ucizoni) ambushed and murdered by an armed group from Santo Domingo Petapa urgently requested the intervention of the government of Salomón Jara Cruz to hand over the bodies of Wilfrido Atanacio Cristóbal, Victoriano Quirino Jiménez and Abraham Quirino.”
That article adds: “They recalled that this Thursday, February 13, around 2:00 p.m., at the checkpoint located in Zapote Santo Domingo Petapa, Wilfrido Atanacio Cristóbal, 64 years old; Victoriano Quirino Jiménez, 37, and Abraham Quirino, 84, when they were traveling in a gray Nissan Frontier pickup truck model 2022.”
La Jornada further notes: “According to Ucizoni, the attack occurred at the height of the Río del Sol in Santo Domingo Petapa, when Wilfrido Atanacio, delegate of the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus in the area, was traveling with two other people in a truck, losing his life on the spot.”
A second letter signed by multiple organizations
Yesterday, a civil society letter was posted that is addressed to “the Presidency of Mexico” as well as “national and international public opinion”, “human, social and resistance rights organizations” and “indigenous peoples of Mexico and the world”.
“The undersigned organizations condemn and denounce the ambush that occurred in the border area between Santo Domingo Petapa and San Juan Mazatlán, Oaxaca, in which three comrades from the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus (UCIZONI) were murdered and where the community of El Platanillo continues to be under serious threat.
The megaprojects of death, such as the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the misnamed Mayan Train and the Morelos Integral Project, advance with the militarization, repression, murder and disappearance of those who resist. We will not allow the blood of our peoples to continue to be the cost of corruption and the incapacity of those who govern. In Oaxaca, the power vacuum and the indifference of the authorities have turned the state into a territory of impunity.”
The letter was signed by the People’s Front in Defense of Land and Water, Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala (FPDTA-MPT), Services for an Alternative Education A.C. (EDUCA), the Mexican Network of Action against Free Trade, the Union of Peoples and Subdivisions Against the Garbage Dump and in Defense of Water of the Cholulteca Region, the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Center, and many others.
We continue to follow this.
Further reading: Ayuuk environmental defender Arnoldo Nicolás Romero, an opponent of the Interoceanic megaproject, killed in Mexico (February 6, 2025) and Union of Indigenous Communities from the North of the Isthmus (UCIZONI) opposes TC Energy gas pipeline in Mexico (August 29, 2023).
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