Given the “desperate” situation of violence that the Mexican state of Chiapas is experiencing “due to the permanent presence of drug cartels,” the Catholic Church made an urgent call to the authorities: “protect our people.”
Bishop Jaime Calderón Calderon, bishop of Tapachula, a diocese located on the southern border of Mexico and Guatemala, denounced in a statement shared on July 24 the situation that people face daily in the region.
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The prelate pointed out that families are being “kidnapped in their own home, forced to do what they should not” in the face of the incomprehensible reality in which they live, where “the cartels have the population at their whim.”
He indicated that families are being forced to “pay the housing fee to the cartel depending on where they live,” and forced to “participate in checkpoints that prevent free movement.” He also mentioned that they must “pay very high prices for scarce merchandise,” from whose profits fees are extracted to maintain their jobs.
He also specified that on July 20 and 22, the residents were “intimidated, threatened and forced to participate as human shields in the confrontations of the drug cartels.”
According to the media Insight Crime, Control of the region—the state of Chiapas on the border with Guatemala—is disputed by criminal groups known as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS).
“The poverty and abandonment of decades, together with the ambition for easy money, has been the breeding ground that is leading to this situation of desperation, suffering and slow death of our brothers from the Foranía Sierra,” denounced the prelate.
The Foranía Sierra, The pastoral territory of the diocese of Tapachula covers 10 parishes located in the Sierra Madre of Chiapas, which extends through southeastern Mexico and reaches parts of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
“The situation is desperate, it is very complicated to live like this,” lamented Bishop Calderón Calderón.
Recently, the Guatemalan Migration Institute identified a migratory flow of people from Mexico.
According to monitoring carried out by Migration, more than 500 people, including women, men, girls, boys and older adults, “have been forcibly displaced to Guatemala due to the violence that is plaguing the south of the neighboring country.”
Call from the Catholic Church to the authorities
Mons. Calderón Calderón criticized the inaction of the security forces in charge of citizen protection, accusing them of doing “nothing for the population whom they see suffer day after day.”
The prelate denounced that in the region there is a permanent presence of cartels disputing the territory of the Foranía Sierra, “coming and going throughout the territory in the face of the indifference and apparent complicity of the National Guard and the Mexican Army with the complacency of a Federal Government. and State”.
Mons. Calderón Calderón questioned: “What do you need to get out of your indifference and defend the people who trusted you with their vote so that you would take care of them? “How long are you going to live trying to hide a sad and painful reality that we carry every day?”
“We ask you, we beg you, we beg you, do your duty and protect our people,” he added.
Furthermore, he expressed his hope that the transition time in the Federal Government will not serve as an excuse “to leave us forgotten by the next administration, but rather that the incoming government will have a good memory, keep us in mind and not forget.” of us who have already suffered too much.”
In the recent elections on July 2, Claudia Sheinbaum was elected president of Mexico and Óscar Eduardo Aguilar Ramírez as governor of Chiapas, both from the Morena party.
However, Morena’s government has faced criticism for failing to mitigate the violence.
The six-year term of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is closing as one of the most violent in the modern history of Mexico with 193,273 homicides recorded since December 2018.
Similarly, Governor Rutilio Escandón Cadenas has reported 3,386 homicides in Chiapas, according to the report MX: The War in Numbers, prepared by T-ResearchMX.
“What does God tell us in the face of this reality?”
Bishop Calderón Calderón pointed out that “the presence of God sustains, encourages and feeds the hope of those who wait for new times, times of tranquility, times of joy, times of peace.”
Bishop Calderón stressed that, despite the difficulties that communities face, such as cartel violence or the indifference of authorities, faith continues to be a source of hope.
“When the situation is most complicated, when it seems that no one cares about what we are experiencing, when we feel that we do not have the means to remove ourselves from the yoke of those who subject us, when we suffer from the indifference of those who earn money and live by protecting us, when It seems that our duty is to resign ourselves, lose hope, give up and wait for death, a light of hope must shine on the horizon, the light of God’s presence,” said the bishop.
The bishop recalled that “God will not abandon us, God our Father will have mercy on us” for which he invited us to “continue living and committing ourselves to continue building on a horizon of hope.”
Diego López Colin
I am a graduate of Journalism at the Carlos Septién García School with experience in religious institutional communication. Since 2016 he has written for digital media and, since 2018, I have reported the most important news about Catholic events in Mexico for the EWTN news channel. He has been ACI Prensa correspondent in Mexico since 2023.