Stories about the defense of a dignified life on the Coast of Chiapas

Abstract

The article presents a biographical narrative experience of struggle for the defense of human rights and territory on the Southern Coast of Chiapas, Mexico. Through the reconstruction of the author’s experience of struggle, he gives an account of the birth of networks of committed professionals, assemblies and social organizations adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation; organizations that fight for the recognition of the rights of peoples and against the extractive megaprojects that the State wants to carry out in this region as in other parts of the country, such as the Autonomous Regional Council of the Coastal Zone of Chiapas and the Digna Ochoa Human Rights Center. The article also testifies to a struggle based on a commitment to the participation of women in community and organizational political decisions and in community self-organization practices aimed at promoting autonomy in the territory, against aid policies and the corrupt power of the parties even more evident in times of pandemic like those we are living through.