Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Report from Chiapas, Mexico INDIGENOUS PEOPLE VS. DIRTY WAR By Gloria La Riva San Crist"bal, Chiapas, Mexico While the Mexican government talks peace, its actions speak otherwise. The Salinas government is at war with the indigenous people of Chiapas. And the war is widening. The Salinas government's Commission for Peace and Reconciliation, headed by Manuel Camacho Solis, spent several days traveling to small villages in Chiapas with well-publicized "caravans of peace." But as the "peace caravan" was winding its way to Las Margaritas Jan. 13, a column of 20,000 Mexican troops--the most ever assembled in Chiapas--advanced toward the region of Guadalupe Tepeyac near the Guatemalan border. The column was preparing for what the Mexican military calls a "final offensive" against the Zapatistas in its Bulletin No. 13. During the so-called cease-fire, combat between the Mexican army and Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) was reported in the Tzetzal villages of San Miguel Patathe, Cuvi, Celicias, Patihitz, Rio Blanco, Balaxle and Bamalha. Guadalupe Tepeyac is a jungle area southeast of San Crist"bal. It is mainly populated by Tojolabal people, one of nine major Mayan peoples. DANGER OF A MASSIVE ATTACK BY ARMY Although the army offensive appears to be postponed, the danger of a massive attack exists as long as the deployment remains. Since Jan. 2, the Zapatistas have held Absalon Castellanos Dominguez captive in that area. Castellanos is a notorious landlord and former governor of Chiapas. As military commander of Chiapas for 12 years, Castellanos conducted brutal campaigns whenever Indians tried to organize. Mexican army troops sow fear in the villages they occupy and pass through. In the Chilin neighborhood of Chanal, a village 30 miles east of San Crist"bal, the Mexican army arrested and tortured 21 Indian villagers on Jan. 8. Soldiers then took them 90 miles from their homes before releasing them several days later. The Zapatistas are calling for the removal of army troops from Chiapas as one of the conditions to consider peace talks. Many indigenous and Mestizo activists have little reason to believe the government's claims it seeks peace. People who would not give their names for fear of reprisal talked about a long history of government forces grossly violating basic human rights with severe beatings, killings and disappearances. Roger Maldonado, a Mexican human-rights activist with the organization CONPAZ in San Crist"bal, said: "The government is now waging a dirty war, repression against the indigenous people of Chiapas. This is why they are using heavy force from the start." Marta Figueroa, an attorney with a women's rights group in San Crist"bal, said that the federal government refuses to allow the International Red Cross to provide medical aid or food. Down a winding road from San Crist"bal de las Casas to Ocosingo 50 miles away, two cars stopped to get directions from three Indian men. Asked if they had been affected by the war, one man spoke with obvious fear. He whispered, "We can't gather here, we can't talk." Mexican army soldiers were visible along the road. Camacho's government "Peace Caravan" had just passed by five minutes before, but it provided little comfort to him. The Mexican army is carrying out a systematic operation of search, arrest and intimidation. This operation follows the campaign of bombing in the mountains during the early days of the war, which caused many casualties. The government denies bombing deaths and repression of civilians. But conversations with villagers contradict the government. Helicopters constantly fly overhead. They are U.S. helicopters, many purchased supposedly for the so-called drug war. CLASS STRUGGLE IN OCOSINGO The town of Ocosingo was the scene of the heaviest combat between the Zapatistas and Mexican army. One woman there said 150 people died from government bombings in her neighborhood of San Sebastian, more than the government admits died in the whole uprising. Ocosingo residents courageously denounced the army's repression against them. Some openly sympathize with the Zapatista demands. One man said, "The guerrillas, the compa$eros, never mistreated anyone in the village." In Chiapas, the class struggle is clearly divided between the campesinos--mostly Indians--and the large landlord growers of corn and coffee. The right-wing forces are now mobilizing to support the occupying army and to help intimidate the campesinos. In Ocosingo, these right wingers--mostly landlords and middle-class residents--marched through the streets shouting "down with human rights." They also pressured people to sign a paper calling for the continued presence of the Mexican army. Those refusing to sign face reprisals. PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE The government claims it wants peace--but it apparently really means to impose "pacification" at the hands of the army, peace without justice, without improvement in the desperate economic conditions. One man said, "We are only paid 5,000 pesos [$1.70] by the ranchers, and they even try to lower our wages to 3,000 or 4,000 pesos [$1 to $1.33] a day." The minimum wage in Mexico is about $4 a day, hardly enough to survive. Everywhere, the poverty is intense and widespread. The struggle in Chiapas is clearly not over. The Zapatistas, the thousands of peasants who took up arms, even with wooden rifles and spears, did so because they have no other alternative. The Zapatistas also speak for tens of millions of indigenous and poor people throughout Mexico and Latin America. Oswaldo Guayasamin, famed Ecuadoran painter, said that because of the Zapatista uprising "a strong response could arise among indigenous peoples throughout Latin America, Guatemala, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador." -30- (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 West 17 St., New York, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@blythe.org.) +----------------------------------------------------------------+ + 212-675-9690 NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE 212-675-9663 + + Since 1985: Information for the Rest of Us + + e-mail: nyt@blythe.org info: info@blythe.org +