On Tuesday, 2 July, the P’urhépecha community of Cherán Keri released a statement denouncing having sustained an armed attack by unknown persons who tried to enter their territory. The attack was repelled by the Community Round – the community’s autonomous security body – that managed to activate the barricades and protect the community. Nevertheless, one person was reported killed and another injured as a result of the confrontation, both members of the Round.
This was the most serious attack suffered by the community since 2011, when – faced with increasing violence and looting of natural resources – its members self-organized to expel loggers, organized crime and political parties from their territory and established an autonomous form of government based on customs and traditions. Since then, the autonomous government of Cherán has not only been legally and constitutionally recognized, but has also become a regional and international example of community organization and self-defense, with women playing a prominent role in decision-making and in sustaining autonomy and community life.
The information we obtained indicates that among the consequences of the attack and the climate of violence that it has unleashed is that women defenders working in the community have been forced to temporarily suspend their activities.
No less worrying is that, as the Cherán community denounces in its statement, this attack is not an isolated incident; it is part of an escalation of violence by organized crime in the different territories of Michoacán, with particular impacts on rural and indigenous communities that have been the target of various threats, armed incursions and land grabbing.
The National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Mexico and IM-Defensoras condemn this attack and stand in solidarity with the community of Cherán. We stand in solidarity with our sisters whose work sustains community life and, with it, a real and effective alternative to the capitalist, racist and patriarchal dispossession that threatens the territories of Abya Yala.
To defend the community of Cherán, its autonomy and self-government, is to defend hope and the web of life in the face of the policies of death and dispossession to which Capital – through organized crime groups and extractive companies, with State complicity or omission – subjects our territories. We therefore call on the international community to denounce what has happened, to remain vigilant of the situation and to stand in solidarity with Cherán and other rural and indigenous communities in the state of Michoacán.