November 26, 2025
We denounce with indignation, rage, and deep concern the murder of our comrade Marcos Aguilar Rojas, agrarian representative of the community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán, as well as the gunshot wounds inflicted on his brother Gabriel Aguilar Rojas, delegate of the National Indigenous Congress.
The attack was carried out on November 26, 2025, by the assailants Esteban Aguilar Herrera, Manuel Aguilar Herrera, José Aguilar Herrera, Victor Hugo Pérez, Favio Flores Sánchez, and Abraham Pérez, all of whom are linked to the local caciques–or political bosses–and small landowners of the municipality of Villa Guerrero, Jalisco. They fled in a gray car toward either Villa Guerrero or Mezquitic.
The cowardly attack occurred on the communal land of El Caracol, a territory that the Azqueltán community has collectively defended against previous attempts at dispossession by these same individuals, who have acted under the protection of the systematic impunity granted to them by the Jalisco State Judiciary and Prosecutor’s Office. These institutions have repeatedly protected those who violate, threaten, and attack the Indigenous community, deepening the violence through their omission, silence, and complicity.
We hold the federal government responsible for denying agrarian recognition to the Indigenous community of Azqueltán; the government of the state of Jalisco for the impunity it guarantees to the criminals who have historically attacked the community; and we hold directly responsible the murderers Manuel and Esteban Aguilar Herrera and Victor Hugo Pérez, whose acts form part of a permanent strategy of dispossession and aggression against native peoples.
Today, as the National Indigenous Congress, we declare loud and clear: the violence against Azqueltán is not an isolated incident, but part of a national pattern in which power—whether governmental, economic, or criminal—attacks Indigenous communities when they defend their territory and their lives. We will not accept that the murder of our comrade goes unpunished, nor will we allow the dignity of Azqueltán to be trampled upon by the interests of local bosses, corporations, governments, or organized crime.
We demand full justice, immediate punishment for those materially and intellectually responsible, and a real guarantee of security for the community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán.
From the rage and pain that we make our own, we embrace the community and its family.
Never again a Mexico without us!
National Indigenous Congress
