25 years later victims still await justice in Acteal, Chiapas

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The Acteal massacre was a tragic incident in which 45 people were executed while attending a prayer meeting of [Catholic] indigenous townspeople, including a number of children and pregnant women, who were members of the pacifist group Las Abejas, in the small village of Acteal in the municipality of Chenalhó, in the Mexican state of Chiapas on December 22nd, 1997.

And today, 25 years after the Acteal massacre in Mexico, where a group of paramilitaries shot and killed 45 Tzotzil indigenous people who were critical of the government in Chiapas, survivors, and relatives of the victims continue to cry out for justice that has never come. 

“These 25 years here do not end. Our demand for justice continues, we continue to demand that the Inter-American Commission (of Human Rights) issue the merits report,” Guadalupe Vasquez Luna, a Tzotzil survivor of the massacre and who still sees bleak outlook. 

For Guadalupe and the other victims, the memory of that fateful moment where 18 women lost their lives, four of them pregnant; 16 girls, four boys, and 17 men, which left 26 seriously injured, is more alive than ever.  

“Every day that passes we remember (the massacre), we live with those memories and it has been very difficult. Every time they deny us that opportunity for justice it is as if we were hit again by the same ones from (year) 97,” reproached Vasquez Luna.  

Survivors and relatives of the victims have been waiting, since 2005, for the response of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) so that the body issues the publication on the case and can hold the Mexican State responsible for the serious violations of human rights that were committed. 

In addition, they hope that all the masterminds and material authors of the facts will be pointed out and order the actions that guarantee the non-repetition of the facts.

Source: El Sol de Chiapas

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