Wixárikas walk to the National Palace to demand that AMLO keep his word

Around 200 wixárikas walk from San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán, in the western Sierra Madre, to the door of National Palace, in Mexico City. They will travel more than 900 kilometers step by step, in the darkness of the early morning or under the rays of the sun, with the purpose of proposing to the president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador the recovery of 10,500 hectares that are in the hands of ranchers from Huajimic, municipality of La Yesca, Nayarit.

The Wixaritari are walkers. Recognized is his pilgrimage to Wirikuta to visit its sacred sites. Now his feat is mundane, at the foot of the highway dodging cars, passing through ranches, towns and cities, until he reaches the center of the country in his struggle to recover the territory because there “the ancestral knowledge is protected, all that culture of our grandparents. The sacred territory that they inherited from us and that is why we fight to recover it,” says Sitlali Chino Carrillo, a young woman who walks in front of the group, takes photos and videos that she then publishes on her Facebook as a testimonial chronicle (Zitlali Xauryma). . “Will you also make it to Mexico?” she asked him. “Of course,” she replies immediately.

The issue of this disputed territory, now located on the Nayarit side, is not new. The rancher Álvaro Quintanilla Montoya, in an interview for Milenio Jalisco in September 2017, showed documents that prove his possession since 1906. For their part, the indigenous community members of San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán and Tuxpan de Bolaños, Jalisco, have viceregal titles.

The agrarian litigation has been long, around 50 years. The Commissioner for Communal Assets of San Sebastián, Óscar Hernández, comments. “Several of our leaders have died fighting for our land. To date, our community has filed more than 60 lawsuits, of which 16 rulings were favorable to us.” From these 16 sentences, the more than 10,500 hectares that the Wixaritari have not been able to take possession of, despite the fact that the Agrarian Court ruled in their favor more than 10 years ago, emerge.

Well, they have already recovered 450 hectares, not without a certain acrimony, or open tension, as when in September 2016 around two thousand Wixárikas arrived in Huajimic and on the Nayarit side the then-prosecutor Édgar Veytia arrived accompanied by 120 police officers. Fortunately, he says Santos Hernández Bautista, traditional governor of San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán, indigenous and ranchers have dialogued in recent years. Version confirmed by Óscar Hernández. “We don’t want violence, we want to live peacefully as neighbors. They are in the best position to hand over the land if they are compensated. That is where we are demanding that the government agree with the ranchers.”

And that was the problem six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto: There was no interest in seeking an agreement between the parties, where compensation plays a key role, and so far this administration has not made any progress. That is why the indigenous community is walking more than 900 kilometers to knock on the president’s door Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. “For many years we do not see follow-up to the issue. It’s stopped. The community gets tired, they say there is no answer, we don’t see that there is a will”, affirms Óscar Hernández. “We don’t want more or less. We want all the land. Receiving the land, we commit ourselves to work”, adds the traditional governor of San Sebastián, Santos Hernández.

They complete a week of walking

This Monday, May 2, the group of indigenous people from the communities of San Sebastián and Tuxpan celebrates a week of walking. From San Sebastián Teponahuastlán, Jalisco, to Santa María de la Paz, Zacatecas, where they slept on Sunday night, there are 226.9 kilometers. According to Google, that distance is traveled by car in four hours and 29 minutes. However, on foot it is another story with its days and nights. “Yes it is complicated. It’s tired. The weather, the heat. We come men and women. Several gentlemen in their 60s or 70s, but we are going to reach Mexico”, says the Commissariat of Communal Assets. The group is escorted by the Zacatecas State Police and the Third Visitor of the Jalisco State Human Rights Commission, Aldo Iván Reinoso Cervantes. In Tlaltenango, Zacatecas, they rested one day, and there they received medical care from the local municipal medical services.

The rhythm is constant, neither so slow as not to advance nor so fast as to break the group. Several have horns and are interspersed to liven up the boredom of the road and the sun’s rays that increase the temperature above 30 degrees Celsius. A tedium that is broken when they pass through small communities that come out to applaud them or through the towns. Then they start the main slogan. “What do we demand? Justice! López Obrador keeps your word! Long live the native peoples of Mexico!”.

The young Citlalli Chino Carrillo continues ahead of the group. As if she set the pace. She is a psychologist from the University of Guadalajara and on March 8 she received the “Hermila Galindo” award from the Congress of the State of Jalisco. She is president of the Agrarian Agreement of the indigenous community of Tuxpan de Bolaños and works in a CEDHJ service module in her community, Tuxpan. “Older people participate in this fight, they are more interested, but for a few years there has been more participation of young people. In joining the agrarian, cultural issues, and in the same way women “.

Why did they decide on this type of demonstration? Citlalli is asked. “We get tired of waiting for the 16 trials we have won to be carried out. The federal government has not received the attention that it should be given. Hopefully this situation is heard directly to the National Palace. May this walk, may this fight, be a turning point for other communities and encourage them to demand justice.”

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