President Andrés Manuel López Obrador maintained that there is a media ‘campaign’ against him, and accused NGOs of promoting the idea that there is confrontation in Chiapas, even though the violent situation in that state is evident and has been cnfirmed by national and international news outlets.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador denied that criminal gangs are operating in Chiapas or that there is a situation of violence in that state, despite warnings from different civil organizations and the press.
“The groups that exist in Chiapas of the so-called non-governmental organizations and civil society are still talking about the Zapatista movement,” Obrador declared on Wednesday, Feb. 28th, during his morning press conference.
On the other hand, the president compared the state of Chiapas with Guanajuato and assured that the situation of violence is worse in the Bajío region.
“For example, what is happening in Chiapas has no comparison with what is happening in Guanajuato,” Lopez stated.
Obrador maintained that there is a media “campaign”, both in Chiapas and the rest of the Mexican Republic, that lies about violence in the country.
Likewise, he argued that Chiapas “is the first place in the country” in poverty reduction. According to the governor of that state, the poverty index contracted more than 10%.
“Poverty has been reduced throughout Mexico in the time we have been in government, despite the pandemic; inequality has been reduced nationwide but in Chiapas more than in any other state of the country,” he said.
Since mid-2023, several organizations have warned about the situation of violence in Chiapas.
Even the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) announced at the end of last year a restructuring of its organization in the face of the presence of organized crime that threaten the region.
In February of this year, the Association of Evangelical Pastors of Tapachula announced that the violence of organized crime forced Christian protestant churches to close in at least 10 municipalities of Chiapas, where disputes between drug trafficking and criminal are growing.
