Congress of Oaxaca approves modifying the border with Chiapas to recover territory from Los Chimalapas

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With the reform of article 28 of the Oaxacan Constitution, the sentence of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation that returns 162 thousand hectares of jungle to the Zoque communities is fulfilled

Oaxaca de Juárez.– The 65th Legislature of the Oaxaca State Congress approved a reform to the article 28 of the local Constitution in which the limits of the state are modified, in relation to the border with the state of Chiapas.

With this reform, the sentence of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) is fulfilled on the constitutional controversy filed by the government of Oaxaca, regarding the limits between both states and the possession of the communities of Los Chimalapas de 162,000 hectares of jungle that for 55 years have been invaded by Chiapas residents.

Now, the border line that should govern between the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas will start from south to north and will begin in the Tonalá bar, at 16 degrees north latitude in a northwesterly direction up to Cerro del Chilillo, from there in a northwesterly direction until the Cerro de La Jineta and from there heading northwest to the Cerro de los Martínez; each with geographic specifications.

In the transitory, the governor of Oaxaca, Salomón Jara, was also authorized to sign the friendly agreement on territorial limits between the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca with respect to the southern part of the interstate boundary, in order to recognize the current limits between the municipalities of San Pedro Tapanatepec and San Francisco del Mar in the state of Oaxaca and the municipalities of Arriaga and Tonalá in Chiapas.

The reform was approved with 34 votes in favor, after protests by inhabitants of the communities of Los Chimalapas, inhabited by the Zoque nation, considered the “defenders of the jungle”, for more than five decades of expelling invaders from their territory, including talamantes and ranchers from Chiapas.

  In these recent protests, the Zoque residents even detained the Secretary of Government, Jesús Romero López, for several hours, under the figure of “indigenous roots”, to demand that the administration of Salomón Jara Cruz comply with the SCJN sentence issued in March 2022.

It was after these actions of pressure that the visit of the Oaxacan legislators to Los Chimalapas, the promise that the Constitution would be reformed to modify the border with Chiapas and the upcoming visit of the governor to these communities in the eastern area of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec materialized.

This Monday, EL UNIVERSAL published that the Zoque residents say they are ready to carry out breaching work and place markers to delimit the new border between both entities, even without government support. This represents a risk of aggression and violence since there are currently 12 Chiapas ejidos in this territory.

In that area, which for 55 years has suffered invasions, are the ejidos Flor de Chiapas, Ramón Escobar Balboa, Rodulfo Figueroa (Belisario Domínguez), Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, as well as Cal y Mayor and Cannán, whose annulment process is already filed in the Unitary Agrarian Court (TUA), of Tuxtepec.

Source: El Universal