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Report from Chiapas
Saul Landau
Pacifica News, 22 December 1998
Chiapas is an Indian nation occupied by a foreign army.
One week ago, from the village of La Realidad, in Chiapas'
Lacondon Jungle, I watched the Mexican government wage its
war of attrition against the Zapatistas. On January 1, 1994,
almost five years ago, the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation on behalf of the Mayan people seized eight Chiapas
municipalities and declared war against the Mexican
government. The dramatic action of armed Mayans and their
demands - land, food, housing, jobs, justice and, of course,
democracy - burst the bubble of Mexico as a democratic and
worthy NAFTA ally.
In the ensuing counterinsurgency war, the Mexican
government adopted an old imperial tactic, divide and
conquer, setting one group of Indians against another,
offering rewards of land, goods, money, perks and privileges
to those Mayans who side with the ruling PRI Party. But the
government's main weapon consists of a 60,000 man occupation
army whose troops travel in armoured convoys through the
villages where hundreds of thousands of pro Zapatistas live
and farm.
Sound of Convoy
I counted 37 armoured vehicles, carrying some 250 heavily
armed soldiers, rumbling through the village of La Realidad,
reality. Heavy caliber machine guns and laser guided cannons;
soldiers with rifles, machine guns, flak jackets trespassing
on the unpaved road that runs through Indian villages in
Chiapas' Lacondon Jungle.
It is cloudy today, or else, the village chief assures
me, the army spotter planes would swoop down low to
intimidate the villagers, and frighten the children and the
animals. We watch the stoic faces of villagers as the convoy
pollutes the mountain jungle air with its exhaust fumes and
engine sound. Some of the men continue stuffing large sacks
with coffee beans as if nothing is happening. The soldiers
maintain expressionless faces as they roll by, except for two
who cannot resist my wave and smile and return my greeting.
One soldier snaps my picture with a digital camera, another
takes video photos of me and other foreigners who, in the
name of civil society, are observing the counter insurgency.
As the convoy proceeds towards the next village, women
continue sorting coffee beans. December is, of course, coffee
harvest time. The village women rise at three A.M. to collect
the beans from the trees above the village, then place them
in a primitive grinder that gets rid of the pulp; finally
they sort them for bagging. The men load the heavy bags onto
the truck, which will take them to market four hours away in
Comitan.
Coffee is the cash crop of these villagers, who use the
proceeds to buy the absolute essentials - salt, sugar and the
few factory made implements needed to continue their lives as
peasant farmers who grow and live on corn and beans.
But the harassment has taken its toll. The village of La
Realidad, once 100% Zapatista, now has some 40 families out
of 200 that have opted to side with the government. They say
they are sick of the war and want peace. Imagine the
resentment that ensues. As we chat with one group of girls,
another group wander along. The girls glare at each other.
'They're traitors', an eleven year hisses. 'We're Zapatistas.
They're Pristas'. The venom with which she declared her
allegiance illustrates the depth of the Chiapas conflict. The
government refuses to talk seriously with the Zapatistas who,
in turn, have become more isolated and sometimes less than
diplomatic in their reactions to initiatives to reopen the
dialogue with power. At a November attempt to rekindle
negotiations with a Mexican congressional delegation,
Zapatista leaders complained to the media that the officials
had made inadequate security arrangements and provided
uncomfortable living arrangements - which they attributed to
the long history of racism against Indians. One leftist
Congressman who had openly expressed sympathy with the
Zapatista cause lashed out at their childishness as the talks
fizzled.
But even most Zapatista critics acknowledge that the
government has used its power to place the Zapatistas in a
very awkward position. Should the Zapatistas surrender their
weapons as the government demands, they would have no
protection. The land-hungry ranchers and growers that
surround them would almost certainly employ paramilitary
squads to remove them from their village land. If the
Zapatistas keep their weapons, they cannot use them except at
great peril, either against the technologically overwhelming
force of the army, or against the paramilitary gangs created
by the army in league with the land barons to harass and pick
off Zapatista leaders almost at will - and occasionally
conduct massacres, like the one carried out last year at
Acteal.
Should the Zapatistas retaliate against the goon squads,
the army would spin such an act into a pretext to launch a
full-scale invasion of the villages and the nearby hills
where the Zapatistas stay hidden. As if to remind everyone of
their power, the convoy comes through again, on its back to
base, with the same laser-guided cannons, heavy caliber
machine guns and the ubiquitous photographers. If hate could
take shape, I felt I could have actually put my hand on it as
I watched the faces of the children, women and men staring at
the ugly humvees and other armoured personnel carriers.
Made in USA
On my second night in La Realidad I receive a note.
Subcomandante Marcos, the Zapatista leader, cannot come down
to meet me, it says, because of security concerns in the
area. Major Moises will come in his place. I wait in the
pitch darkness of jungle night without stars and moon. We
light a few candles in the shack to which we have been
assigned. A shadow moves suddenly and the miniature Major
enters with his body guard. Both carry rifles and side arms.
We sit and talk. His Spanish is halting and he searches for
vocabulary s if translating from his Tztotsil language into
Spanish.
'The government wants to misinform the people, you know.
They say we do not represent all the indigenous people of the
country, you know. The government creates counter insurgency
programs so it can go back to the old days when they would
find ways to buy off the people. But that doesn't work now
because its like putting a bandage over the wound, you know,
and if you bandage something that's already bandaged, you
know, the wound will be reopened. This is a life and death
situation, you know. The government isn't up to facing the
consequences that would come from the necessary changes. The
people understand this and we (Zapatistas) have concluded
that the communities can organize for change. That is what we
have discovered in the last five years-you know'.
Moises simplifies complex issues. The government and the
forces of globalization have combined to remove indigenous
people from their last landed hiding places: the Lacondon
jungle and the mountains of Chiapas. Without the possibility
of acquiring new land the indigenous cannot reproduce as a
people. The low coffee prices add to their problems and
constitute yet another globalizing lever to induce indigenous
people to leave their villages. But the monstrous presence of
the occupation army looms as the heaviest shadow hanging over
this ancient civilization. Hundreds of thousands have already
fled the war zone or just packed up and left in order to
physically survive. You can find them in the border cities
working at the maquilas, selling chicklets, hooking, or just
plain begging. Some have even made it to the fields and
factories of the United States. The rest hang on. Their
ancient land is also the source of their identity,. their
common strength and the origin of all life - and their life
style.
I return along the dirt, mud, gravel road to San
Cristobal de las Casas, some 5 plus hours away. In San
Cristobal, a colonial city Of some 100,000 people, I seek the
man who some of the more ardent right wingers accuse of being
responsible for the Indian uprising. Bishop Samuel Ruiz for
more than 35 years has organized his priests and catechists
to teach the Indians the world of the Lord, which includes
knowledge of their rights to land. The Bible says that the
meek shall inherit the earth, the bishop said. Well, this
means that one must do all possible to see they are not
removed from the earth they are supposed to inherit. Poverty
isn't a result of people wanting to be poor, but rather from
a way of life called globalization. We see the harsh
repercussions of the growing economic crisis. The number of
poor increases. In Mexico, some 14 families control 70% of
the wealth in the country. The economic crisis creates
concentration of wealth. That's how the market functions. We
cannot wait for the market to make changes because the market
doesn't consider human worth because it doesn't contribute to
capitalism's profits.
Well said, Don Samuel.
Copyright 1998 Pacifica News
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