Sierra De Guerrero: People from 27 Communities Hold 40 Soldiers and Policemen

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Excelsior y Proceso

                                 40 federal soldiers and state police are detained in Guerrero

Citizens held them in the municipality of Heliodoro Castillo, protesting the delay in the delivery of fertilizers by the government.

People from 27 communities of San Miguel Totolapan and Heliodoro Castillo, from the Sierra de Guerrero, held 30 soldiers of the 68th Infantry Battalion and 12 state policemen, protesting the delay in the delivery of fertilizer. They arrived with supplies to stay but unarmed.

The subsistence farmers who produce corn and poppies, from twenty seven mountain communities in the municipalities of General Heliodoro Castillo (Tlacotepec) and San Miguel Totolapan, broke into the sectorial section of the State Preventive Police (PPE), in the town of San Juan Puerto del Gallo, where soldiers and state agents are facilities are located.

The action of the nonconformists is to protest the delay in the delivery of the free fertilizer, which on this occasion is coordinated by the federal government, and the failure of promises offered by state authorities in social work.

The producers reported that federal and state officials have only cheated them, and to date there is no certainty in the fertilizer program, because the list of beneficiaries is unknown.

For his part, Governor Hector Astudillo Flores publicly denounced that the delay in the delivery of the agricultural input is due to the fact that the fertilizer register prepared by the federal government does not coincide with the lists handled by the state authorities.

In the community of San Juan Puerto del Gallo, where men and women from 27 communities claim that the federal government is cheating them, because they do not know the status of the census and conclude several of them were not counted and they do not know if they will receive their ration of fertilizer.

According to official reports, in the morning more than a hundred people arrived in the town of San Juan Puerto del Gallo, municipality of Atoyac de Álvarez, where a sectorial barracks is occupied by soldiers and state police to hold  a protest, surrounded the community and retained 30 soldiers and a dozen state police.

The protesters announced that they will not leave until the delegate of the federal government, Pablo Amílcar Sandoval Ballesteros, goes up to the mountains to resolve the conflict.

The peasants, among which there are women, denounced that they were deceived by the federal government that they were going to deliver the fertilizer and there is delay, so they demand the presence of the delegate Sandoval Ballesteros, otherwise, they warned that they will not move .

In addition, they denounced that they are marginalized, because there are communities without electric power and the roads are in poor condition, so they warned that they will not move until they are given fertilizer and their demands are met.

The peasants carry in their vehicles food supplies, firewood, blankets and clothes, to stay in that place as long as necessary, retaining the military personnel and the state police.

At the beginning of last April, at least 40 soldiers were detained by peasants from the town of Campo Morado, municipality of Tlacotepec, who oppose the destruction of poppy fields in the mountains.

They even broadcast a video to demand that the governor fulfill his promise to take productive projects as an alternative to development in that area, where poppy cultivation is his means of subsistence.

In contrast,  Sedena announced on Twitter account that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met with the soldiers attacked in La Huacana, whom he recognized and thanked them for their  strength to avoid a confrontation.