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Show Autumn 1996 Venceremos - 3 Chiapas: Indigenous People Caught in the Middle by David Tucker Moxon vatizing everything they can get away with and using l6s, a thousand or so Huey the money to beef up the military and police and build Helicopters, thousands of more prisons. Does this sound familiar? HUMMER jeeps and tanks and The communities the latest satellite surveillance Immediately after the January 1st uprising, the systems. As well we find hunZapatistas held a significant portion of Chiapas. dreds of US, French and Within a few weeks the Mexican military had driven Argentine military advisors them back to the edges of the forests and more inacworking directly with the cessible rural and wilderness areas. A year later, on Mexican government. All US February 9th, 1995, the Mexican army invaded the military equipment in Chiapas Zapatista communities and territories. They burned was either donated or sold to crops, killed animals and drove more than 20,000 peothe Mexican government at ple into the wilderness areas. ? subsidized rates; gifts from one There are entire villages in Chiapas that have been gang of elites to another. completely abandoned. For example, Guadelupe For the indigenous peoples Tepeyac, a town of more than a thousand, was a ghost of Chiapas, the line between town when we traveled through it this summer. There Guatemala and Mexico has were trees and shrubs growing out of the roof of the never existed, except for the school. There were still house hold objects lying in thousands of their brothers and the overgrown streets. The only sign of human activsisters that have had to escape ity is the huge military base that the army recently the 30 year old US backed civil built. The hospital, originally built by Salinas” govwar. This war has :claimed ernment is now used to treat the soldiers venereal thousands of lives, mostly diseases, while the people in neighboring communities indigenous people. The war in still die from diarrhea. Chiapas, now almost three Jorde and Guillermo in Oventic highlands in Chiapas. They were encuentro participants. The invaded communities are finally starting to recovyears old has claimed around er economically, after missing last years coffee harvest. 200 direct war casualties, hunImagine missing your yearly paycheck. Coffee is the (Cósics the border back into what is now called the dreds of deaths from starvation, and thousands of rapes, only cash crop these people have. With the money they United States, I began to wonder why we put so tortures and diseases. Why do the centers of power in buy rubber boots, soap, and other essential things we much importance into an arbitrary line in the Mexico City and Washington, DC, have so much to lose sand. Other than the Rio Grande, which separates take for granted. from a few thousand poor farmers, Indians? And even Mexico from the US at the Nogales border crossing, the The Zapatista communities live in a state of conmore puzzling, why aren't the Zapatistas dead, after stant harassment and fear from the army. This is the border is nothing but an ideological and economic line what happened in Guatemala? that separates us from them. Here in gringolandia the process of Low Intensity Conflict (LIC), a concept A Brief History of the Zapatistas lines are nebulous, it is impolite to talk about them. developed by the US military and taught to Latin Perhaps we should begin with a historical perspective But, as you travel further into the heart of Mexico, other of Chiapas. Chiapas is the southlines become very clear: poor vs. rich, mestizo vs. indigeernmost state in Mexico. It is nous, the powerful and the powerless. also the richest state as far as natWhen you finally reach Chiapas, these lines are walls, ural resources. Chiapas has huge topped with razor wire, and they scream at you. These deposits of petroleum and vast walls become canyons, filled with stagnant water stands of tropical hardwood imprisoned behind dams. The power generated by them forests (the Lacondonan jungle is is sent to the centers of power, Mexico City, and to the largest intact raimforest Tuxtla Gutierrez, the political capital of Chiapas. Here ecosystem in the northern hemithe powerful hold indigenous people, accused of being sphere). Chiapas produces the Zapatistas, behind bars, concrete walls and razor wire. "best coffee and some of the best Electrical power from the dams is attached to the heads, tobaccos in the world. the genitals and nipples of the prisoners, to torture them, The irony is that the people of to make them admit to being so poor that they might Chiapas are the most impoverfight. Here everyone knows who has the power and who ished in Mexico. Especially in 1s the slave. e recent years, indigenous people For 504 years this scenario has played itself out in have been driven off the best Latin America, and for hundreds of years in Chiapas the agricultural lands by coffee indigenous Mayans have been under the thumbs of the barons and cattle ranchers. The white Mexicans, the powerful, the rulers of the armies indigenous people are very and the owners of the guns. divided religiously, politically Now there are Mayans with guns, this puts them on and by ethnic groups. It is amazthat level of power. Some of their guns are made of ing that the Zapatistas have wood, to fool the enemy, old hunting rifles and carbeen able to successfully orgabines and a very few AK-47s, M-16s, and home-made nize their diverse ranks. They David Tucker Moxon 9mm pistols. are made primarily of 4 main Mexico City May Day March, May 1st, 1996. The fifteen thousand or so Zapatista insurgents, miliethnic groups each speaking a tants and militia men and women are matched by an distinct language, plus a number estimated 70 thousand Mexican soldiers and tens of of smaller ethnic groups. Some of these groups have - American military officers in training programs at the School of the Americas. LIC seeks to break the morale thousands of paramilitary agents and hired vigilantes been traditionally at odds with each other, but were and economic structure of rebel communities to try to (Guardias Blancas) The Mexican army and their able to see beyond their differences to create a moveturn the people against the rebel forces. The main cronies are equipped with the latest in US and European ment of solidarity and resistance. and Israeli military equipment: tens of thousands of Mweapon of LIC is rape. Chiapas is divided geographically into distinct regions: In Chiapas, thousands of indigenous women and chilthe highlands and mountains, the midlands and the jundren have been systematically raped by Guardias gle. Only in: recent years has there been a large Blancas and Mexican soldiers and paramilitarys. As migration into the rainforest. Traditionally, the well, foreign nurses and peace activists have been raped. Lacondonans, the forest people have lived relatively Last October, Cecilia Rodreguez, a Texas Chicana and uninfluenced by European and mestizo culture. But, representative of the Zapatistas in the US was raped and with the recent land seizures by the wealthy, more and sodomized by armed thugs in Chiapas. They told her more campesinos have been forced to make new settlethat she better shut up or worse will happen to her. She ments in the forest. This along with tourism, continues to speak out and resist despite the fear. There evangelical christian missionaries and disease has lowis no judicial recourse for these women, yet they resist ered the numbers of traditional forest people to a mere in spite of this genocidal war of intimidation. few hundred. When traveling in the Zapatista territories, it is not The Zapatistas are the product of years of repression but first formed an armed movement 13 years ago. They -apparent they you are in a war zone, until you are passed by a squadron of Mexican soldiers, and have a M-60 organized in all the sympathetic communities that they machine gun pointed at your face. This is the daily realcould. The actual decision to make an armed uprising ity of the people of Chiapas. I talked with some of the was very difficult for the people. Many thought that children about the February invasion. They drew me they would not survive more than a few months pictures of the US made helicopters and the soldiers because of what had happened in Guatemala. The date streaming out of them. They told me of their nightof the uprising was chosen as January 1st, 1994, the day mares, of the different fake names they had to assume to the North American Free Trade Agreement went into protect their parents, of their constant preparations for effect. In one of their first communiqués they stated another invasion. They are the famed war children that that NAFTA would be a death sentence for the indigewe read about in National Geographic, so distant from nous peoples of Chiapas and Mexico. our comfortable lives. They are in Chiapas, Palestine, Ironically, the Mexican and US governments were Bosnia, Northern Ireland and Los Angeles, everywhere fully aware of the instability in Chiapas long before the fascists need to hold down the slave rebellion. NAFTA was even passed. The Mexican military found The women in the Zapatista communities have had arms caches and training camps, and even engaged in the largest struggle for their rights. In the actual firefights during the summer of 1993. This information Zapatista army, women enjoy the same privileges and was purposely held from congress and the North leadership as the men, but in the communities, change American people to make it seem that Mexico and comes slower. For these women, the right not to be Mexicans were just as willing to accept free trade as we bought or sold, or even to be allowed to wear a pair of supposedly were. NAFTA was passed, and many of the boots instead of going barefoot is a victory. There is an predictions of radical labor and economists have come extreme lack of basic gynecological care. Many of the true, especially in Mexico. The economic crisis in women in very rural communities were given inter-uterMexico has been the most profound since the revolu“. "David Tucker Moxon * ine devices by government doctors as a form of birth tion. Crime has risen upwards of 70% in Mexico City, See “Chiapas” on page 6 Graffiti at the Mexico City May Day March, May 1st, 1996. and the government is cuttring social spending and pri- |
