enlaceZapatista

Innocent

Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Mexico

May 2025

To those who signed the Declaration for Life:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the National Indigenous Congress:
To the peoples of Mexico and the world:

Compañeras and compañeros, sisters and brothers:

We’ll explain what happened to the two compañeros bases de apoyo zapatistas, José Baldemar Sántiz Sántiz and Andrés Manuel Sántiz Gómez, who were illegally detained and kidnapped by joint federal and state government forces on April 26, 2025.

After their illegal detention they were missing for 55 hours and were only presented to the corrupt authorities thanks to pressure from the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center. They were charged with aggravated kidnapping against Pedro Díaz Gómez.

During the arrest, the National Guard, the federal army, and the so-called “Fuerzas de Reacción Inmediata Pakal” (Pakal Immediate Reaction Forces) took advantage of the situation and stole belongings and wages from those affected and the communities. They stole a car, a motorcycle, and a large amount of cash.

While the supreme government toyed with the lives, liberty, and property of the two illegally detained individuals, the Zapatista autonomous authorities carried out their own investigation under the guidance of “Verdad y Justicia en común” (Truth and Justice in Common).

I remind you that, as organized towns and peoples, we have principles and regulations. It is not permitted to attack the life, liberty, and property of others, regardless of their ideology, political party, religion, sexual orientation, skin color, race, language, nationality, or social position. Murder, kidnapping, assault, rape, forgery, and robbery are serious offenses. In addition, there are offenses against drug trafficking, its production, and consumption, as well as drunkenness and other offenses that are determined in common.

Any compañero, regardless of their position or rank, who commits serious crimes is excluded from Zapatista life.

Once the arrest and serious charges against these two compañeros were known, the GALEZ investigated whether they were involved in kidnapping. The organizational structure charged with investigating concluded that the two comrades were innocent.

This was reported to the Frayba.

Not satisfied with that, the autonomous authorities continued investigating and confirmed the involvement of two other individuals in the crime. These two criminals were arrested and, with respect for their human rights, taken into custody in one of the Zapatista communities.

The two criminals confessed to the kidnapping and murder of Pedro Díaz Gómez and indicated the exact location where they had buried the body. They also indicated the complicity of other individuals.

This was reported to Frayba, who then informed the authorities of the bad government.

Seeing that they would once again be made a fool of, the corrupt authorities rushed to mobilize their forces and arrested one of the suspects who was on the run. This person confirmed what had been confessed to the Zapatista authorities. This is how they arrived at the place where the body of the crime victim was buried.

The government at all three levels knew all this, but did nothing. Instead of immediately releasing our innocent compañeros, they stalled and proposed an exchange of detainees. This way, they could bribe the media and sell them the story that it had all been the work of state and federal justice. And they could also keep what they stole from the poor indigenous people who suffered their attack.

The bad government once again sent its repressive forces in search of a fourth suspect. But not only did they not arrest him, they also took advantage of the situation to continue stealing belongings from the communities.

Meanwhile, federal and state authorities pressured and threatened human rights defenders because their denunciation would expose them for what they really are: repressors of innocent people and manufacturers of guilty people.

In the early hours of May 2, 2025, the two confessed criminals detained by the Zapatistas were handed over to the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center to check their health status and certify whether their rights had been violated. Frayba then proceeded to hand the perpetrators over to the pro-government authorities.

During the morning of May 2, our compañeros Baldemar and Andrés were released. But the government thieves refuse to return everything they stole.

The governments of the so-called 4T lie in everything they say about Indigenous Peoples and social movements. They are equal to or worse than the previous PRI and PAN governments. Those numbers of «detainees» they boast about, to please Trump, are mostly innocent. Instead of buying favorable opinions in the media and social networks, bad governments should pay their repressive forces well so they don’t have to steal from those who have little or nothing at all.

What has happened is not limited to our territories. Throughout the geography called «Mexico,» indigenous communities, defenders of Mother Earth, human rights defenders, social movements and organizations, migrants, and even ordinary people who work day after day to earn their daily bread honestly are extorted, assaulted, kidnapped, disappeared, imprisoned, and murdered by a government eager to curry favor with the power of money.

They have no remedy.

The capitalist system was born wrong, a product of injustice, bloodshed, and theft. It remains so today, regardless of the banners it hides under. Its symbol is death, and it will remain so until the end of its days.

As Zapatista peoples, we have thought of a way to combat the empire of death. We call this path «El Común” (The Commons).

And in this painful past situation, it was seen that the Commons walks for truth and justice.

This achievement, the release of our two innocent comrades, was the result of a triple effort: that of human rights defenders, that of national and international solidarity and support, and that of autonomous justice.

It is time to remember other sister and brother peoples, near and far, who suffer the deadly attacks of the evil system. Let us not forget the indigenous peoples, the disappeared and those who search for them, the defenders of Mother Earth, the people who are only a number in the crime statistics, the Palestinian people.

For life: justice and truth in common.

From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
Mexico, May 2025.

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