The Community Defenders Network of the northern Zone of Chilón denounces the recent installation of a new military camp that is harassing the Xanil population, Xanil 2º seccion, San Juan Chichnitic and Chaban of the municipality of Chilón Chiapas.

Beginning August 3, 2002 a Mexican army convoy was installed at the Sasamtic junction, made up of 40 army forces, headed by the engineer commander NICOLAS RODRIGUEZ VEDALLOS. The convoy moved from a mixed operations base (BOM) at Toniná.

Without the authorization of the community authorities and relying only on the permission of the landowner of the plot, Señor JUAN LOPEZ MORALES, the military set up camp, supposedly signing an agreement with the proprietor. For whatever motive, the common authorities brought this to the attention of the owner but he paid no attention because the soldiers told him not to be afraid now that he was backed by the military with arms, and that no one could do anything to them, since they have orders from the President of the Republic (Vicente Fox) and that 7 thousand more soldiers would arrive and set up camp in various sites like at the water falls of Agua Azul, el Mango and Sacun Cubwits.

On the 6th of the same month a woman stepped off a bus at this detour to wait for the bus that would take her to her community. The military forced her to enter the camp and remain there with them for 3 days.

In another area, in Sasamtic, there is a source of water that is used for human consumption since there is no piped water system, but now it is impossible to drink water from this source because the army contaminated it by discarding garbage in it and using it as a place to bath and wash soiled clothes.

They are also falling trees to build houses, but failed to request permission from the common authorities nor from the landowner of the plots. Also, in the near-by communities the military go from home to home offering jobs to the women as servants, but the women of the indigenous communities are not accustomed to being with the military or work as servants because the majority of the women are indigenous, in the communities men and women, children and the old are intimidated by the arrival of the military, and they feel they no longer have free transit to fulfill their daily jobs, and eventually the same could happen as in other camps: prostitution, division, fortification of the paramilitary groups that come to the zone, harassing military patrol, and military helicopters and planes passing overhead.

On August 16, 2002 a Mexican military convoy patrolling in the area of the detour of Alan Sacjun and el Mango was found interrogating a 14-year-old boy, asking if in the near-by town if they had electricity, schools, a water system, support. Then they asked how many inhabitants lived in the town and how many different religions, and ultimately they asked if Catholicism was on of the religions and to what organization the Catholic Church belonged.

For this reason the inhabitants of the communities already mentioned have denounced the efforts of the common defenders and urge the immediate departure of the Mexican military from this zone since they will not allow them to work freely or in peace and there is a fear when they go to work in the country because the women are left home alone; and the children cannot attend school because they are not accustomed to living with strangers like the military that have nothing to do in this zone because the people of these communities know how to take care of themselves.

The communities have also denounced that the federal government is far from decreasing the number of military camps in the community; instead, they are increasing, which shows that the government's speech is a lie.