San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, November 28. The Center for Political Analysis and Social and Economic Investigations (CAPISE) has sent a brigade of observers to the community Bolon Ajaw, municipality of Tumbalá, in an attempt to restrain the “brutal repression implemented” against the support bases of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).

At the same time the group has called for a boycott campaign against visits to the Agua Azul Falls - one of the main tourist sites in the area - “until the aggressions, hostilities and eviction threats against the Zapatista support bases of Bolon Ajaw have stopped”.

CAPISE asserted in a communiqué that in the autonomous municipality community of Olga Isabel and in other zones of the indigenous territory of Chiapas, “the intention of forced displacement has raised the tension to the highest limit”. As they reiterated, “the systematic operation of counterinsurgency implemented against the Zapatista communities begins to reach extreme situations”.

The group considers Bolon Ajaw to be one of the central points of tension. For this reason today a special brigade of observers was sent off towards the community Bolón Ajaw, consisting of 12 persons who will stay with the inhabitants of Bolón Ajaw, to offer support and document the incidents perpetrated against them.

They warned that should the members of the mission or any inhabitant of the community be attacked by members of the PRI-affiliated Organization for the Defense of the Indigenous and Campesino Rights (OPDDIC), CAPISE would – for the first time – press charges against the directors of the organization and the direct aggressors.

The charges would further include José Hernández Nava, director of the National Commission for Protected Natural Areas of the South Border region, who is accused by the EZLN support bases of “colluding” with the PRIistas.

The community Bolón Ajaw comprises 339 hectares and was founded on land “recovered by Zapatista support bases in 2001”. At present it consists of 41 families, adding up to a total of 200 inhabitants including adults and children. It is located in the Ejido Agua Azul, like the waterfalls of the same name, which is being exploited by members of the OPDDIC.

CAPISE affirmed that since September 2007, the reality to which the inhabitants of the area are subjected “has become critical (...) the situation for the inhabitants of Bolón Ajaw has been alarmingly aggravated  (…) the level of aggressions has reached a critical point”.

They argued further, “the total impunity with which the members of the OPDDIC are operating, in agreement with señor Jose Hernandez Nava and the detachment of the Public Security police positioned at the highway exit to the Agua Azul Falls is blatant”.

The group called on all organizations and people in Mexico and other countries to protest publicly against “the repression to which the Zapatistas’ indigenous communities are subjected”, and at the same time summoned in the context of the Worldwide Campaign for the Defense of Land and Territory, to carry out a campaign “advising: ‘No visits to the Agua Azul Falls, until the aggressions, hostilities and eviction threats against the Zapatista support bases of the community Bolón Ajaw have stopped’”.

originally published in Spanish by La Jornada

translated by Dana