February 20, 2025 marks 6 years since our brother Samir Flores Soberanes was assassinated, 6 years since another bullet was fired at the forces of rebellion and autonomy. The cowardly bullets that are aimed and fired at the struggle for life that rises with dignity in thousands of places on planet earth are not few, and when the bullet touches a compañero like Samir, that death becomes a seed, an example, a dignified memory, and it is there that justice from below for our compañero, begins to blossom.
Because in the face of the storm, the organization, the flower, the song and the memory will be our guiding vessel to attain collective justice for our brother Samir Flores Soberanes and the struggle for life.
This year marks 13 years of attempts to impose the Integral Morelos Project (PIM), 6 years of the bloody betrayal by López Obrador and the Fourth Transformation (4T) of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico and the Popocatépetl volcano, 6 years since February 10th where Samir along with representatives of dozens of peoples affected by the PIM saw the change of heart of the President who in his campaign declared himself against the PIM, and when he came to power, now supported it. Samir and the people shouted to Obrador: “Water yes, thermos no! Life yes, gas pipeline no! We demand that you keep your word and cancel the PIM!”
An irate López Obrador pointed out to them: “even if they shout, even if there is shouting and hat-waving,” “leftist radicals, who for me are nothing more than conservatives…And so they did not vote or they have already forgotten it, those so-called radicals, who are nothing more than conservatives, in not voting.» We did not know that this day was the battle cry, the death sentence for our compañero Samir, assassinated 10 days later.
The Peoples’ Front in Defense of Land and Water (El Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra y el Agua) has denounced the network of power and relationships that exist between the intellectual and material authors of the murder of Samir. Obrador’s battle cry was given from above, so that the federal superdelegate Hugo Erik Flores (lawyer for the murderers of Acteal and leader of the PES) would handle it, along with the commitments made by the ex-governor of Morelos Cuauhtémoc Blanco with the Jalisco Cartel New Generation, “in exchange for pacification,” ordering the criminal group «Los Aparicio» to execute Samir.
Hugo Erik Flores was Obrador’s envoy to operate the PIM consultation in Morelos. Samir confronted him and exposed his lies in front of hundreds of attendees who attended the forum of the Federal Government in Jonacatepec on February 19, 2019 and drew applause from the audience.
From Radio Amiltzinko, Samir informed the eastern part of Morelos and part of Puebla about the consequences of the PIM and Obrador’s betrayal when in 2014 he said, “we do not want a gas pipeline in Morelos, installing a thermoelectric plant in the land of Zapata is like installing a landfill in Jerusalem, what is wrong with them, they are crazy,” in so many words. His amplified words against the PIM and his conviction cost Samir his life.
Why Samir? Because he committed the gravest of sins that power cannot tolerate: to continue fighting when the circumstances seem hopeless, and to overcome… to build autonomy, to continue fighting. The construction of the gas pipeline was imposed in Amilcingo in 2014 by means of public force and gunfire on the population, five members of the community were wounded by bullets and dozens of police officers were injured by the stones hurled at them in waves by the community. The people defended themselves with everything, but the power of the government-capital was too great against a single community and they buried the gas pipeline. But the people did not stay still, nor were they defeated, on the contrary, they woke up more, they continued to fight, to celebrate and to rebel, building more radio, community health, solidarity, government with traditional customs (usos y costumbres), the defense of their educational spaces and the promotion of new educational spaces, as was the last demand that Samir left unfinished in Amilcingo, (besides the cancellation of the PIM), a high school for the community.
The violence, illegality, racism and arbitrariness with which the Morelos Integral Project has been imposed has reached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), so in the coming months the peoples of the volcano and the Mexican State will deliver to the IACHR the evidence and arguments about the problematic installation of the PIM in an area of eruptive risk and without the consent of the peoples. We demand justice for Samir and the peoples of the Popocatepetl volcano!
Hundreds of communities and cities are immersed in a narco-state that is displacing our peoples, instilling terror and disorganization. Murdering and disappearing journalists and defenders of Mother Earth and human rights, but also thousands of sisters and brothers in the country who have been affected by organized crime and bad government. Yes, there is a narco-state, Samir is proof of this, of the murder of a defender by the narco-state in the interests of gringo, European and multinational capitalism, who benefit from the PIM.
Claudia Sheinbaum claims that there is no narco-government in Mexico, but the criminal network behind the murder of Samir says otherwise. We see that in the municipal authorities of this narco-government, there are criminal groups, that the middle managers (state government) are multi-tagged in narco-banners and their photos expose them with leaders of the drug cartels. Cuauhtémoc Blanco, ex-governor of Morelos and Hugo Erik Flores, ex-federal superdelegate in Morelos sent by López Obrador, are examples of this and so are hundreds of politicians- deputies, congressmen, senators, all levels of government, in the 3 branches in the country, there is the narco-state. What are we going to do relatives, we ask ourselves? The only answer is to organize ourselves, to imagine, to build ties, and to not let go.
We demand progress in the investigations, prosecution, capture and punishment of the material and intellectual murderers of Samir, we DEMAND:
1. Dismantling and capturing of the criminal group of “Los Aparicio” and punishment for their participation in the murder of Samir;
2.Investigation, prosecution and punishment of the intellectual authors of Samir’s murder, such as Hugo Erik Flores, Cuauhtémoc Blanco and Andrés Manuel López Obrador;
3. Cancellation of the Morelos Integral Project.
Here we are the rebellious dignity, the forgotten heart of the land.
Samir lives, the struggle continues! Water yes, thermo no! Stop the war on the Zapatista communities! Stop the genocide and displacement of Palestine! Death to the narco-state and the bad government! Death to capitalism, long live Life! Long live the peoples of Mexico and the world!
Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land and Water Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala
National Indigenous Congress