Wixarika Community Denounces Agresiones from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and Demands Security from the State of Jalisco

Guadalajara, Jalisco. The Wixárika community of Tateikie (San Andrés Cohamiata) reported that several of its traditional leaders were assaulted by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). According to community members, this criminal organization has maintained a presence since 2020 in the area bordering Nayarit, Durango, and Zacatecas, where it instills fear among residents and restricts freedom of movement.

Consequently, Wixárika community members have been staging a sit-in in the sierra since the weekend. Meanwhile, on Monday, other members of the community—located in the municipality of Mezquitic in northwestern Jalisco—demonstrated outside the Government Palace in Guadalajara to demand justice and security.

Faced with escalating tensions and what they described as institutional abandonment, a delegation comprising the technical team of the Commission for Territorial Analysis and Defense and community representatives traveled to the state capital on Monday to protest and meet with officials from the General Secretariat of Government.

Chanting slogans such as "If fear advances, the people rise up," the protesters issued an urgent call for the three levels of government and human rights organizations to take coordinated action.

The community reported that it is currently cut off from communication and without electricity—a service they claim was intentionally cut off.

Given the gravity of the situation, residents have been forced to indefinitely suspend educational, community, and traditional activities, including the presentation of candidates for their patron saint festivals. Illegal detention of communal authorities reported

Community outrage intensified on Friday, September 4, after communal land authorities returned following their illegal detention—allegedly at the hands of members of the CJNG.

According to the complaint filed by community members, while they were being held, members of the criminal group warned the leaders that the territory belonged to the cartel and that everyone was required to work for them.

Weary of living under the control of this criminal group—whose presence they have been reporting since at least 2020—hundreds of community members decided to set up a permanent protest camp at a site known as El Bajío del Carrizal to draw attention to the insecurity they face.

Tensions rose on Sunday, September 6, during a visit by the Secretary General of the Government of Jalisco, Salvador Zamora Zamora.

The official visited the protest camp, but—according to the community members—after spending about two hours there, he left without waiting for federal and municipal authorities to arrive for a dialogue.

Local residents attempted to block his departure; amidst the resulting unrest, a State Police officer allegedly fired a gun into the air to clear a path for the official to reach the helicopter in which he left the area.

The community members, who claim to have kept the spent shell casing as evidence, demanded a full account of the incident and an effective security strategy. Furthermore, they denounced the fact that members of criminal groups move freely through the region and alleged complicity on the part of state and municipal police officers.

Agrarian disputes exacerbate the situation in Tateikie

A legal dispute over land ownership compounds the crisis of violence. Rubén Ávila, the community's lawyer, explained that they are currently pursuing two agrarian lawsuits regarding boundary disputes and land restitution against the mestizo settlements of San Juan Peyotán and Santa Rosa, both located in Nayarit.

The litigation closest to resolution before the Superior Agrarian Tribunal involves a 3,000-hectare area disputed with San Juan Peyotán; according to the lawyer, the case stems from an irregular alteration to the maps held by the then-Secretariat of Agrarian Reform.

Ávila noted that while the government of Nayarit supports its communities by dispatching police and providing resources, the government of Jalisco—in his view—leaves its indigenous peoples neglected.

At the same time, a constitutional dispute remains pending before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation to define the territorial boundaries between Jalisco and Nayarit—a situation that, according to the community, compounds the climate of tension, political pressure, and institutional neglect it faces.