13 and 14 January: The first Meeting of National Members of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) is held in Mexico City. Among those present were victims, citizens in solidarity, human-rights defenders, representatives of the movement from 14 states of the Republic, including Chiapas.

1 February: Six persons who had been sentenced for the massacre of 45 persons in the Acteal massacre (1997) are released. The Human Rights Center Fray Bartolome de Las Casas indicates that “so far, the Supreme Court has ordered the release of 50 persons, leaving only 28 in jail. There were six others acquitted since the beginning of the federal process, two that were released for humanitarian reasons and one died during the process”.

14 February: The Chiapas Congress unanimously approves the Law for the Prevention and Attention on Internal Displacement, which seeks to protect the rights of some 6000 families evicted from their community by religious or armed conflicts, natural phenomena and other factors.

7 and 8 March: The Chiapas chapter of the People’s Permanent Tribunal (TPP) holds in San Cristóbal de Las Casas its first audience regarding the questions of gender violence and feminicide.

8 March: In observance of International Women’s Day, some 500 indigenous female members of the Las Abejas Civil Society march in the Chenalhó municipality. They demand among other things the withdrawal of the military camp at Majomut.

16 March: The Good-Government Council (JGB) of Oventic denounces the unjust incarceration of Francisco Sántiz López, EZLN support base member, as well as of Lorenzo López Girón, who lacks any political affiliations. Both are from the Tenejapa official municipality and are accused of a crime that occurred in December 2011.

17 March: More than a thousand people in the community of El Bosque organize an assembly to demand Patishtán’s return to Chiapas and his unconditional release.

19 March: Members of the National Front of Struggle for Socialism (FNLS) start an indefinite sit-in in San Cristóbal de Las Casas to demand a solution to its demands.

22 March: Francisco Santiz Lopez and Lorenzo Lopez Girón, from the Banavil ejido, municipality of Tenejapa are informed that they were to be released. However, a new federal crime is raised against Sántiz Lopez for the possession of a firearm of exclusive use of the Army.

28 March: The Digna Ochoa Center for Human Rights denounces that its director, Nataniel Hernández Núñez, received death-threats and was subjected to intimidation via telephone by state-government officials of Chiapas.

12 April: In Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Caralampio Gómez Hernández, leader of the Emiliano Zapata Proletarian Organization (OPEZ-MLN), is detained following his participation in a negotiation-table with the Secretary of Governance of the Chiapas state government, Noé Castañón.

16 April: the Las Abejas Civil Society holds a preaudience of the People’s Permanent Tribunal (TPP) in Acteal, Chenalhó, Chiapas. The TPP has indicated that the 1997 Acteal massacre is to be one of the emblematic cases of processes involving state violence, as well as to structural and systemic violence.

22 April: The Las Abejas Civil Society calls to the attention “the existence of hidden arms in the communities of Chenalhó. which has been denied by the government of Chiapas. It may indicate the reactivation of paramilitary action“.

24 April: The Good-Government Council (JBG) of La Garrucha caracol denounces invasions and aggressions against the autonomous community of Nuevo Paraíso, where residents from the Ocosingo and Chilón municipalities have on several occasions aggressively entered the recuperated lands of said community between October 2011 and April 2012.

29 April to 4 May: A Civil Mission of Observation and Solidarity visits the communities of Salvador Allende, Ranchería Corozal, and San Gregorio in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve (RIBMA), all of them threatened with possible eviction.

7 May: Relatives and human-rights defenders demand justice for the death of Itzel Méndez Pérez, a 17-year old Tzotzil student whose body was found on April 15 in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, with indications of having been raped and beaten.

10 May: Ejidatarios from San Sebastián Bachajón who are adherents to the “Other Campaign” denounce that on 6 May, members of the Indigenous Campesino and Forest Union (Uciaf) who are affiliated with the Green Ecologist (PVEM) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) used firearms in an ambush of two residents of the ejido.

11 May: Around 400 persons, a majority of them women, carry out a march from the Teopisca municipality to Amatenango del Valle to protest against militarization, high electricity-prices charged by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), and mineral exploitation.

14 May: In observation of the day against feminicide and violence against women, some 1200 persons in San Cristóbal de Las Casas and more than a hundred in Tuxtla Gutiérrez mobilize in a simultaneous protest with banners denouncing feminicide and violence against women in Chiapas.

18 May: Some thousands of persons, the majority of them Tzotzil indigenous persons, march in the El Bosque municipality of Chiapas, the hometown of prisoner Alberto Patishtán to demand his release as well as one for Francisco Sántiz López, zapatista support base member.

26 May: The Good-Government Council (JBG) from the Morelia caracol denounces looting of lands in the autonomous Zapatista municipalities of 17 November and Lucio Cabañas by members of the Regional Organization of Coffee Cultivators of Ocosingo (ORCAO), supported by authorities.

31 May: Members of the National Front for the Struggle for Socialism (FNLS) suspend the sit-in they had maintained for more than two months in the Cathedral Plaza of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, without having received any response to their demands.

10 June: Hundreds of indigenous march in the municipality of El Bosque to demand an end to the judicial persecution of innocent people of San Pedro Nixtalucum as well as the release of Professor Alberto Patishtán Gomez and the Zapatista Francisco Santiz Lopez (from Tenejapa).

10 June: Convoked by the movement #IAm132, thousands of persons take to the streets in at least 18 Mexican cities, including the principal capitals and others, to demand more democracy and to pronounce themselves in opposition to Enrique Peña Nieto, PRI candidate for the presidency of the Republic.

14 June: State police in Tuxtla Gutiérrez detains Pablo César Gómez Alfaro, spokesperson and representative of the Emiliano Zapata Proletarian Organization-Movement for National Liberation (OPEZ-MLN), despite the fact that this organization maintained a process of dialogue and negotiation with the state government. Gómez Alfaro is the son of Caralampio Gómez Hernández, as well as leader of the OPEZ-MLN, was arrested on 12 April.

19 June: The CIDECI-Unitierra Chiapas makes public the harassments it suffered on the part of workers associated with the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and the judicial branch in recent days.

22 June: President Felipe Calderón ratifies and enacts the Law for the protection of human-rights defenders and journalists that was approved by Congress at the end of April 2011, as well as the decree of Federalization of the Crimes committed against Journalists, persons, or installations that affect the right to information or freedom of expression.

26 June: In observation of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Center for Human Rights presents in a press-conference a report on torture in Chiapas entitled “From Cruelty to Cynicism“.

30 June: Margarita Martínez, human-rights defender, finds a death-threat opening the door of her business in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.

Beginning of July: Members of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) and of various other Mexican human-rights organizations criticize the decision of the federal government not to approve the General Law on Victims (LGV), using the argument that the bill still has deficiencies.

1 July: Presidential elections takes place in Mexico ending a controversial electoral process. The Program of Preliminary Electoral Results (PREP) gives as a favorite Enrique Peña Nieto, candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Green Ecological of Mexico (PVEM).

1 July: Beyond the presidential elections, the citizens of Chiapas also vote to elect a new governor, 122 mayors, and 41 local deputies. Manuel Velasco Coello, candidate for the coalition Chiapas Unites Us (PRI-Green-PANAL), wins the gubernatorial elections with a clear majority, giving the Green Ecological Party of Mexico its first governorship in history.

3 July: Andrés Manuel López Obrador declares that he will challenge the electoral results, and that a recount should be had in more than 100,000 voting spaces, given the evidence of irregularities there. He denounces that the PRI electoral campaign exceeded the spending limits that had been established by law, and that votes had been bought as well as coerced by the PRI apparatus.

6 July: Non-governmental organizations that oppose the cultivation of transgenic crops demand that the Mexican government cancel the authorization given to MONSANTO for the release into the environment of genetically modified soy in several states of the country.

16 July: The rights-defender Margarita Martínez and her family decide to leave the state of Chiapas, given that the risk to their lives is high.

26 July: After being held for more than nine months in the Federal Center for Social Readaptation (Cefereso no. 8), in Guasave, Sinaloa, professor Alberto Patishtán Gómez is transferred back to the jail in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas.

1 August: Diego Cadenas Gordillo, Executive Secretary of the State Council on Human Rights (CEDH), requests the implementation of precautionary measures, given that he was recently threatened by Florencio Madariaga Granados, the named Councilor of the Commission of General Affairs on Human Rights, due to his refusal to fire several of his staff

1 August: Residents of Tila, Chiapas, manifest themselves simultaneously in Mexico City and in this municipal center in order to demand of the Supreme Court of Justice in the Nation (SCJN) that 130 hectares of land be returned to them – these having been expropriated for private use more than 30 years ago..

6 August: The Center for Women’s Rights of Chiapas (CDMHCh) and the Group of Women of San Cristóbal (COLEM) present their joint report entitled “The situation of discrimination and lack of access to justice for women in Chiapas and Mexico.“ It was presented to the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a human-rights organization of the United Nations, in July.

9 to 11 August: In the Acteal community, the Mexican Movement for Alternatives to Environmental Effects and Climate Change (MOVIAC-Chiapas) carries out the “Meeting of Alternatives to Environmental Destruction and Climate Change.“

12 August: The Las Abejas Civil Society, accompanied by persons and organizations in solidarity from Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guatemala, El Salvador, and other countries, march from the military base of Majomut, Chenalhó municipality, to the community of Acteal as a part of the “Day against impunity“ marking the case of the 22 December 1997 massacre.

15 August: Two communiques from Zapatista Good-Government Councils (JBGs) are published. For one, the Morelia JBG denounces that on 2 August Zapatista support-bases in the Moisés Gandhi ejido, Che Guevara region, autonomous municipality of Lucio Cabañas, were violently attacked by 20 members of ORCAO (Regional Organization of Coffeegrowers of Ocosingo) while working their land. In the second communique the La Realidad JBG denounces the provocations suffered by Zapatista support bases at the hands of persons from Veracruz, San Carlos ejido, official municipality of Las Margaritas, “under the protection of the bad government and the PVEM and PRD parties.”

31 August: Enrique Peña Nieto, candidate for the coalition Commitment to Mexico which is comprised of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Green Ecological Party of Mexico (PVEM), is officially accredited president-elect. Both the Progressive Movement, led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO, candidate for the leftwing parties in the July election), and social movements (#IAm132 in particular) and civil organizations reject the failure of the magistrates. Thousands of persons take to the streets of Mexico City in protest.

4 September: More than 3,000 indigenous persons belonging to the Believing People, a process in which thousands from the San Cristóbal de Las Casas diocese participate, make a pilgrimage through this city to demand the immediate and unconditional release of professor Alberto Patishtán Gómez.

7 September: The U.S. State Department recognizes that Ernesto Zedillo enjoys diplomatic immunity, in light of the case he is faced with due to his presumed responsibility for the Acteal massacre of 1997.

11 September: The family of professor Alberto Patishtán Gómez requests that the Supreme Court for Justice in the Nation (SCJN) review his case and recognize his innocence, taking into account the numerous irregularities in the process that led to the Tzotzil indigenous man to be imprisoned 12 years ago.

12 September: The Roberto Barrios Good-Government Council (JBG) denounces that on 6 September, a group of about 55 persons carrying firearms and wearing military-type uniforms in masks forcibly displaced Zapatista support-bases from the community Nuevo Poblado Comandante Abel. In light of the constant harassment and immediate risk to their lives and personal security, 70 Zapatista families fled.

15 September: The Second Forum “For the Defense of Our Mother Earth and Land; Yes to Life, No to Mining Devastation“ is held in the Santa María ejido, Chicomuselo municipality, located in the border region with Guatemala.

21 September: The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Center for Human Rights (CDHFBC) publishes a bulletin reporting on new acts of harassment carried out by units of the Mexican Army against the CIDECI-Unitierra during the days of 17 and 19 September of this year.

30 September: The mayors that were elected on 1 July were to take office on 30 Sept, though this transition did not occur without incident in various municipalities.

3 October: The Las Abejas Civil Society publishes a new communique in which it denounces the reactivation of paramilitary groups in the Chenalhó municipality, where it has its principal presence, as well as in the northern zone of the state of Chiapas.

11 October: The La Realidad Good-Government Council (JBG) publicly denounces the repeated provocations against Zapatista support-bases in the Guadalupe Los Altos ejido, official municipality of Las Margaritas, as well as the detention of 5 Zapatistas on 30 September and another on 4 October.

15 October: The Good-Government Council (JBG) of Oventic denounces that PRI groups from the Zinacantán municipality who just previously had been affiliated with the PRD have once again come to harass the Zapatista community of Jechvó, denying them access to water by means of violent actions.

29 October: Due to the omissions on the part of the state government of Chiapas, campesinos of Candelaria El Alto, who are adherents to the Other Campaign and members of the Emiliano Zapata Campesino Organization-Carranza Region (OCEZ-RC), find themselves once again in conflict over land.

31 October: The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT), with headquarters in Geneva, opens its evaluation of the Mexican State and expresses its grave concern for the practice of torture in the country, particularly in light of the use of armed forces in tasks of public security and the “phenomenon of grave impunity” in which acts of torture remain.

22 November: The Las Abejas Civil Society denounces in a communique that the president of its directive board, Rosendo Gómez Hernández, received a death-threat in recent days.

23 November: The Good Government Council (JBG) of La Realidad denounces two acts of injustice and provocation against its support-bases. The first case involves two Zapatista prisoners for the last five months on false charges, inhabitants of the Fracción San Ramon in the official municipality of Motozintla. The other is an attempted eviction from militants of the Green Party of Mexico (PVEM) against the people of Che Guevara, also in Motozintla.

25 November: Women in Chiapas take to the streets to march in San Cristóbal de Las Casas and Tuxtla Gutierréz in observance of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. In previous days other events had been organized in which this problem had been discussed, such as the Popular Forum for the Defense of Earth, Territory, and Food Sovereignty, held from 22 to 24 November, as well as the meeting “A hundred voices of women reflecting on violence,”

28 November: More than 2000 persons from 20 municipalities of Chiapas as well as other states in the Republic and abroad protest in the Frontera Comalapa muncipality at the close of the “Chiapan Meeting in Unity against the Extractive Mining Model“.

1 December: Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN) arrives at Los Pinos, like his predecessor: challenged for lack of legitimacy as regards electoral results. The actions that were registered during his taking of power resulted in seven hours of rioting, 105 injured (29 of whom required hospitalization), and dozens of arrests.

8 December: Manuel Velasco Coello becomes governor of Chiapas, for the coming six-year term from 2012 to 2018. He details that he will present a state plan of austerity and mentions the political and cultural contributions made by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and its Good-Government Councils. He affirms that “On my part there will be a great disposition to establish the proper communication toward the end of strengthening the peace, happiness, and development of the people.”

9 December: The Good-Government Council (JBG) based in La Garrucha denounces that a support-base member faces an arrest-order against his person due to the construction of a collective artisan shop erected on recuperated lands that are located just outside the archaeological site of Toniná.

14 December: Human-rights organizations release a communique regarding the naming of Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca as Secretary of Public Security in Chiapas. They accuse him of being the “perpetrator of arbitrary detentions, disproportionate and undue use of public force, community control, death threats, torture, and other human-rights violations”.

20 December: The state government of Chiapas releases 4 prisoners, 2 of them Zapatista support-bases so as to “contribute to the reduction of tensions” and the strengthening of “tolerance and peace” in the state. Part of this determination includes the cancellation of a warrant against another Zapatista support-base member from San Antonio Toniná.

21 December: Thousands of indigenous support-bases affiliated with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) concentrate themselves at the entrances of 5 cities in Chiapas (San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Ocosingo, Altamirano, Palenque, and Las Margaritas) before carrying out silent marches through each one. Preliminary reports speak of 6,000 to 10,000 Zapatistas in each location.

22 December: 15 years after the massacre of 45 persons committed in Acteal, Chenalhó municipality, Chiapas, indigenous persons associated with the Las Abejas Civil Society–to which the victims also pertained–commemorate these acts with a pilgrimage and ceremony.

End of December: Both the federal government and the Chiapas state government express comments about the mass-mobilization of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, Secretary of the Interior, declares that “they still do not know us; we hope they do not come out too soon, given that President Enrique Peña Nieto has a great commitment to the indigenous peoples.”

30 December: Shortly before the 19^th anniversary of its 1994 insurrection, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) releases a communique and two letters, one of them directed “to whom it may concern above” and another to Luis H. Alvárez (PAN), former coordinator for the Peace Dialogue in Chiapas and former official in the Department for the Development of Indigenous People. The communique also announces a new series of actions on its part.