Thousands of residents of the municipalities of Frontera Comalapa and Chicomuselo marched on Tuesday, September 24th, in the municipality of Comalapa to demand peace and the release of communication routes.
“This march has the purpose of calling the attention of the three levels of government so that they turn their eyes towards Frontera Comalapa and the communities in the mountains where they have threatened people; they force them to stand guard, to cut down trees and make ditches to prevent the Mexican Army from entering,” they said.
“We want Frontera Comalapa to live in peace and tranquility; enough of the disappearances of inhabitants who travel to different points of the state” and find themselves with checkpoints in Chamic, Motozintla, and Belisario Domínguez, they said.
“It is not a group of 100, 500 or a thousand people, but an entire town that is demanding peace, tranquility, and security,” said the residents, while reiterating that “we come from colonies and neighborhoods to demonstrate for peace.”
Residents of this municipality bordering Guatemala reported that the march that took place in the morning began at the detour of the town called Nuevo México and ended in the central park. The protesters, men and women, many of them dressed in white, carried a banner in front in which they asked for the intervention of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Governor Rutilio Escandón Cadenas.
“The residents of Chicomuselo and Frontera Comalapa demand the immediate release of the communication routes in the highway sections of Chicomuselo-La Concordia, Lázaro Cárdenas-Nuevo Pacayal, Cerecillo-Siltepec, Frontera Comalapa-Huixtla, Chicomuselo-Las Flores, Frontera Comalapa-Comitán,” they wrote on the banner.
The protesters also carried posters on which they wrote: “We want peace in Chiapas” and “free transit to transport on the roads,” among others.
In Frontera Comalapa, Siltepec, and other municipalities in the mountains and on the border of Chiapas, organized crime groups have been fighting over territory for three years, leading to clashes, murders, injuries, disappearances, forced displacement of hundreds of families, roadblocks, burning of vehicles, and collection of protection money.
Despite the presence of the National Guard, the Mexican Army, and the State Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection, the situation has not been brought under control.
In this context, the elected mayor of Frontera Comalapa, Aníbal Roblero Castillo, of the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico, was kidnapped on the 3rd of this month in Tuxtla Gutiérrez by an armed commando, and no information has been given to date on his appearance.
