Medical Services in Amador Hernández, Chiapas Withdrawn in Advance of REDD+ 

 

"For the indigenous peoples, who have freely and bravely decided to walk our own destiny on a different path from that of the political regime and the economic system that turns everything into merchandise and thievery, the bad government sends illness and slow death, and projects that fortify intercommunity conflicts, paid for now by the resources associated with REDD+. And all in the name of service to humanity." - Amador Hernández Community

Introduction: At the request of the community assembly of Amador Hernández, Global Justice Ecology Project is circulating their communiqué and sign-on letter, linked below.
This International Action Alert effort in support of the community of Amador Hernández is issued by the following organizations:

*       Global Justice Ecology Project (International)
*       Indigenous Environmental Network (North America)
*       Carbon Trade Watch (Europe)
*       Global Forest Coalition (International)
*       Timberwatch Coalition (South Africa)
*       Grassroots International (International)
*       Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (North America)
*       Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project (California)

We hope you will respond by signing on to their action alert, to ask that medical services and the human right to health be restored to this community, and that threats to their territorial sovereignty cease without delay.

Communiqué from Amador Hernández, Chiapas
We, the residents of the Amador Hernández region in Chiapas, which forms the core of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, well-known for its extraordinary biological richness, and is the site of historic resistance by indigenous peoples, denounce that the illegal threats by the bad government to expel us, culturally and physically, from our territories, have moved from words to deeds.

Our opposition to the theft of our territory, as decreed in May 2007; our rejection of the unilateral delimiting of the agrarian border of the Lacandona Community demanded by investors in projects associated with the REDD+ Project; our refusal to accept the conservationist programs of "payment for environmental services" and "productive land reconversion," and our decision to reinitiate a process of self-determined community health based in our traditional medicine, together have aroused the arrogance of the bad government, motivating them to advance a "new" counterinsurgency strategy to undermine our resistance.

It is a strategy that doles out sickness and death, dose by dose.

To read the entire communique and to sign on to the community's letter to high-ranking officials of the Mexican federal government, please click here