PBI-Mexico has posted on social media: “Today we are accompanying the FPDTA-MPT [People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala] as part of the activities commemorating Samir Flores.”
PBI-Canada participated alongside PBI-Mexico in the accompaniment of this protest.
The People’s Front is an organization of Indigenous Nahuatl communities in the states of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala, that has been working since 2012 to defend their territory and exercise their self-determination.
Samir Flores Soberanes was a member of the People’s Front, one of the founders of Amiltzinko community radio, and a land and environmental defender opposed to the Morelos Integral Project (PIM).
Flores was murdered outside his home in Amilcingo, Morelos on February 20, 2019 because of his opposition to the PIM.
Pie de Pagina explains: “The PIM is an infrastructure project designed to generate electric energy through thermoelectric plans, a gas pipeline, an aqueduct, and a network of energy transmission via high tension towers.”
La Jornada posted a video of the protest and noted: “With a political-cultural rally on #Bucareli street, they remember the territory defender #SamirFlores, as part of the National and International Days Justice for Samir Flores and the self-determination of the peoples, called by various groups, among them the #EZLN.”
Once Noticias also reports: “Seven years after the murder of social leader Samir Flores, members of the National Indigenous Congress, including his daughter Amira, described as a farce the trial that began a few days ago, against Javier N., the only one arrested for this crime. …During a rally in front of the Ministry of the Interior (Segob), in Mexico City, they asked the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) to continue with the investigation that is suspended and find the intellectual authors.”
And Somoselmedio reports: “At the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior (Segob), the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), the People’s Front in Defense of Land and Water Morelos-Puebla-Tlaxcala and groups of relatives of the disappeared, announced the start of the National and International Day ‘Justice for Samir and self-determination for the peoples’, seven years after the murder of community communicator and defender of the territory Samir Flores Soberanes.”
That article adds: “Amira Flores Vázquez, daughter of Samir Flores, said: ‘Samir did not die, the government killed him.’ In his speech, he framed the murder within a context of militarization, forced displacement and structural violence that, he said, has turned the country into ‘a great mass grave.’”
Photo: Amira Flores Vázquez. Photo by PBI-Canada.
The Somoselmedio also highlights: “Members of the Committee of Parents of the 43 Disappeared Normalistas of Ayotzinapa participated in the table, who denounced the continuity of impunity in their own case and reiterated that ‘in Mexico there is no justice for the poor’.”
Photo: Parents of missing Ayotzinapa students.
We also note that the National Indigenous Congress posted on social media this “Statement of the Press Conference of the National and International Day ‘Justice for Samir and Self-Determination of the Peoples’” that included: “WE REPORT, that 7 years after the murder of our brother, Samir Flores Soberanes, IMPUNITY, COMPLICITY and COVER-UP have become GOVERNMENT in this bad-called FOURTH TRANSFORMATION. They are, the owners of power and money, responsible for the fact that seven years later there is no TRUTH or JUSTICE for our brother Samir Flores Soberanes. They are: Valentín Lavin, Angelina ‘N’, Hugo Erick Flores, Humberto Sandoval, Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Uriel Carmona, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador and the organized crime (as their guarantor), who first drew him as an opponent, ‘radical left and conservative’ and, afterwards, ended up ripping his life, for sublegitimate opposition to the Integral Morelos Project, and especially for opposing the Thermoelectrica of Huexca.”
Accompaniment
At PBI-Canada we continue to highlight that the FPDTA-MPT has linked the PIM megaproject to Toronto-based Alamos Gold and its Esperanza mine. In November 2020, they posted: “[Mexican president] Lopez Obrador’s [support for the PIM] betrays the peasant and the promise of change of his government, to favour transnational corporations [including] Canadian miners like Alamos Gold.”
Peace Brigades International has accompanied the People’s Front since early 2020.
