URGENT COMMUNIQUÉ FROM THE AUTONOMOUS INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY OF SAN LORENZO DE AZQUELTÁN, IN THE FACE OF COMPLICITY, STRUCTURAL IMPUNITY, AND THE OBJECTIVES BEHIND THE ASSASSINATION OF MARCOS AGUILAR ROJAS.
MARCOS LIVES, THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!
The community recovered the disputed territory El Caracol Marcos was murdered under orders of regional “bosses” (caciques) to strip us of our territory.
To the peoples and governments of the world
To the free and honest media
To the organizations in solidarity with Indigenous peoples
Our autonomous Indigenous community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán, in the municipality of Villa Guerrero, Jalisco, has publicly denounced the assassination of our brother and indigenous agrarian authority, Marcos Aguilar Rojas, as well as the grave injury of community and CNI member Gabriel Aguilar Rojas, which occurred on November 26, 2025, in the communal territory of El Caracol.
We address the peoples and governments of the world, with profound pain at the death of one of the most honest and committed defenders of the land our community has ever had.
To identify by name and by deeds the complicity, the interests, and the power structure that enabled and continues to enable this crime, and therefore we state, with humility, dignity, and respect, that:
1. This is a political and territorial crime, not an isolated incident
The assassination of Marcos Aguilar Rojas was the logical consequence of decades of armed attacks, agrarian invasions, death threats, and harassment against the indigenous traditional and communal authorities of Azqueltán.
The attack on November 26 was not improvised:
It was planned, agreed upon, and executed by local bosses and their gunmen, sheltered by the omission, silence, or direct participation of municipal and state authorities, judicial operators, and ministerial agents.
To deny this as the Jalisco State Prosecutor attempted, reducing everything to “problems between neighbors” is to participate in the crime, echoing the rhetoric wielded by those in power in the face of paramilitary attacks against Indigenous peoples in our country, such as in the territories of our Zapatista brothers and sisters in other geographies, to carry out dispossession and destroy Indigenous organization through terror.
According to the community’s own investigation and evidence exposing the powerful figures in the region, we denounce that on Tuesday, November 25, 2025, at the home of Juan Aguilar, the group of gunmen we have long reported met with local boss Refugio Raygoza to plan the dispossession of the communal lands El Sabino Quemado and El Caracol. In that same meeting they agreed on the execution of our compañero Marcos, for which the complicity of Favio Flores Sánchez “La Polla” and various government and police officials —who had participated in prior acts of harassment against community members— was essential. These meetings continue taking place in the locality of Izolta, where new attacks against our community are being plotted.
2. There is a network of complicity involving prosecutors, police, local bosses, and judicial operators
The accumulated investigation files over the years show the same pattern and the same group of aggressors, who have acted with firearms and extreme violence for at least seven documented years of attacks.
During the formation of file 468/2025 5-J originating from the recent events, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Judiciary again acted to cover for aggressors Esteban and Manuel Aguilar Herrera, who have repeatedly attacked our community members. The most recent act of cover-up was carried out by Jorge Alonso Arellano Gándara, District Administrator of the Court for Control, Trial, Comprehensive Juvenile Justice and Criminal Enforcement of the Eleventh Judicial District of the State of Jalisco, based in Colotlán. After the events of November 26 of the current year, the Public Prosecutor requested gunshot residue testing for detainee Manuel Aguilar Herrera, but the public defender blocked it claiming he was “unconscious.” And when the request was formally presented to the Court, this District Administrator —illegally, without legal authority and acting as protector of the aggressors— rejected the request with false arguments, delaying the investigation and preventing the test from being carried out, violating the right to justice and eliminating a fundamental piece of evidence that required swift and legal action from authorities.
This action directly favored gunman Manuel Aguilar Herrera, once again guaranteeing him impunity despite the numerous known and documented incidents: beating elders to take their land, breaking into homes to issue threats, terrorizing a child by invoking organized crime to force her to abandon her territory, and participating in armed dispossession —as part of the same impunity network that has also protected Favio Flores Sánchez “La Polla”. His armed attack against autonomous authorities was downgraded by the same Colotlán Court to mere “injuries” with a ridiculous settlement, twisting the law to guarantee impunity for those who seek to exterminate us and steal our territory.
This most recent cover-up —proven by the illegal actions of the District Administrator who blocked the evidence— demonstrates that the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office and parts of the Judiciary have been active gears in the machinery of impunity.
Everything is documented,
Everything is in the investigation files,
Everything is in the testimonies.
3. The real objective is to take our territory, not a “neighbor dispute”
What they want is not only to eliminate agrarian authorities but to dismantle our land and our Indigenous organization. The bosses and supposed small landowners —wealthy in the region have invaded thousands of hectares of communal land, and now, with this crime, they have made it clear that they intend to exterminate the community to seize what has belonged to us for centuries.
We stated this on November 13, 2025, when we publicly denounced harassment against our community members by alleged investigative police from the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Villa Guerrero, Jalisco, who stated:
that they “don’t give a damn about the agrarian lawsuit,” that if we run “they’ll put us down,” that they will come in with police and guns.
The assassination of Marcos is just another step in that plan.
4. Historical responsibility lies with the Mexican State
The Mexican State is responsible —by action, by omission, and by historical negligence.
It is responsible because:
It has not guaranteed the community’s safety despite repeated formal complaints.
It allowed judicial operators to obstruct the investigation.
For decades it has denied full legal recognition of Tepecano territory, opening the door to invaders, bosses, and armed violence.
The negligence of municipal, state, and federal governments has cost lives —and if they do not act, it will continue to cost more.
5. In the face of the gravity of the situation, in the face of the danger we live in, we demand from the Federal Government:
The immediate issuance of a PRESIDENTIAL DECREE recognizing, delimiting, and titling the ancestral territory of the Indigenous Community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán, municipality of Villa Guerrero, Jalisco.
Without this full legal recognition, the community will remain exposed to armed attacks, criminalization, invasions, institutional neglect, and further deaths.
The Federal Government must understand that its responsibility is direct.
It cannot continue ignoring that the life of an Indigenous people depends on decisions that only the Executive can take.
If the government wants to stop the bloodshed, it must begin by recognizing the territory of those who have inhabited and defended these lands since time immemorial.
6. To eliminate any doubt
We, as the autonomous Indigenous community, even if they kill us, will not abandon our land, we will not renounce our Tepehuano and Wixárika identity, and we will not yield to murderers nor to local bosses.
We announce to the peoples and governments of Mexico and beyond these borders that today, following the cowardly armed attack, the community has recovered —through mobilization— El Caracol, coveted by outsiders and the site where compañero Marcos Aguilar Rojas was murdered.
We are prepared to continue defending life and the land, so for the first time, listen well those who govern:
On you will fall every drop of blood that is shed due to incapacity, negligence, or complicity.
The Mexican State has in its hands the possibility to stop this war or to deepen it —and it will be their decision which side of history they choose. We will not forget this, not in a thousand years.
7. We call upon the peoples and consciences of humanity
We call upon the peoples of the world to remain alert; upon human rights organizations to monitor and accompany the community, echoing our demands; upon honest media to break the wall of silence that protects those responsible.
We, as a people, have resisted hundreds of years and will resist hundreds more if necessary.
But let it be clear:
We will not surrender
We will not sell out
We will not give up