Chiapas Support Committee
Home of the Compañero Manuel blog on zapatistas & mexico
Peter Rosset: To better understand anti-Zapatista violence in Chiapas. A brief guide.
Are Indians just violent people, or what? Are the Zapatistas violent? There is a heck of a lot of confusion surrounding violence in Chiapas. To help clear up misunderstandings about what is going on, I offer this brief guide to better understanding.
The counterinsurgency strategy in Chiapas is based, in part, on the implementation of policies designed to fragment peasant, community and indigenous organizations, creating ever smaller, more polarized, more aggressive, more opportunistic and easier to manipulate factions. Local and regional leaders are bought off with handouts and money for productive projects, with candidacies, cushy government jobs, etc., responding both to the objective needs of their followers, as well as to their opportunism, envy and grudges.
These offers either explicitly or implicitly hinge on distancing their organizations from Zapatismo. The first goal is to politically isolate the rebels. These resources and jobs are then also used to provoke open conflict, with or without violence, against Zapatista supporters (called ” support bases”) and communities. Local problems and disputes, many times preexisting, are used to stimulate violence, even though the issues at hand may be completely unrelated to Zapatismo itself. These are the kind of conflicts that are commonplace, even “normal”, in all rural societies, both in and outside of Chiapas.
Among these common problems are disputes over property lines between adjacent landholdings, especially in contexts where one group wants to title the land and the other doesn’t; access or control over local resources, such as water, timber trees, land suitable for development, and sandbanks and gravel quarries; family and religious differences; political party affiliations; competition for government projects and handouts; disputes over representation viz a viz the State; as well as greed, resentment, grudges and jealousies going back in time. Manipulation by the State can take almost any latent, preexisting difference, and transform it into an open conflict.
Still, it would be a mistake to see the State as monolithic. There are factions in the State that look to encourage violence by any means possible, but there are also forces trying to temper the violence, so as to not scare away investors and tourists. This means that on one side, anti-Zapatista violence is promoted through “rewards” (projects, government posts, candidacies), and on the other side, a “resolution” is sought, to calm each conflict. A given peasant group may be rewarded with resources by one arm of the State for the attack, and then given another reward for stopping the attack, by the other arm. Then they must wait a decent interval before they can attack again, to get more rewards. As result it seems that these local factions rotate, taking turns doing their job of attacking the Zapatistas.
It should be no surprise that violence directed at the Zapatistas gets misleading coverage in the mainstream media, tainted as it is by racism and classism. Instead of being presented as attacks and aggression, it is portrayed as “local conflicts,” or “dust-ups between peasants,” that come about because “Indians are inherently violent,” and “poor people just go around killing each other”. This messaging is used as a justification so the “forces of order” can act against the Zapatista support bases.
Often national farmer organizations deny ties to what apparently are their local affiliates, when these commit violent acts. This can happen precisely because, as a result of the overall strategy, these local groups who belong to the national organizations, are constantly forming, dividing, re-combining and merging in new combinations, all with astonishing quickness. Many times national leaders aren’t even aware of the day-to-day reconfiguration of their bases. But the decision to draw a dividing line between themselves and their old members doesn’t mean that those people didn’t once belong to the national organization, and couldn’t once again in the future. Sometimes the explanation given by national leaders is but a pretext; while other times they may quite simply be ignorant of what is going on with their bases.
Counterinsurgency in Chiapas takes advantage of local conflicts as a central part of its strategy. These preexisting local problems are like trees, while the counterinsurgency policy is the forest. Both must be seen simultaneously. It is important to understand, and not forget, that the forest is built, precisely, from all the trees.
Finally, there is one additional element that should be taken into account. In the disputed territories of Chiapas, there are two predominant visions. One, the Zapatista vision, is centered on the gradual construction of territorial, indigenous, and peasant autonomy, on autonomous education, health and justice, on agroecology, and on self-government. It is a vision that, little by little, is becoming reality. The other is more petty, short-term, always trying to cozy up to power, and seeks immediate and individual benefits. Those who identify themselves as from the left and from below prefer the Zapatista vision, and want it to be allowed to consolidate itself, more and more, as an alternative and an example. For this to happen, the total repudiation of all aggression against Zapatismo is an urgent necessity.
Peter Rosset is a specialist in rural issues, PhD from the University of Michigan. Among his books is Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform.
To learn more about the most recent incident:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2014/05/10/pain-and-rage/
Peter Rosset: Para entender la violencia antizapatista
¿Son violentos los indios? ¿Son violentos los zapatistas? Existe mucha confusión sobre la violencia en Chiapas. Aquí intento ofrecer una guía breve para su interpretación.
La contrainsurgencia en Chiapas se basa, en parte, en la implementación de políticas diseñadas para fragmentar las organizaciones campesinas, indígenas y comunitarias, creando facciones cada vez mas pequeñas, tendenciosas, oportunistas y manipulables. Esto se logra ofreciendo a líderes locales y regionales recursos para proyectos productivos y asistenciales, candidaturas, puestos en la administración pública, etc., con base en las necesidades objetivas de sus bases y a sus oportunismos, celos y rencores.
Estos ofrecimientos están condicionados explícita o implícitamente a su distanciamiento del zapatismo. Su objetivo es aislar políticamente a los rebeldes. Estos recursos y posiciones también son usados para provocar el conflicto abierto, sea con violencia o sin ella, contra las bases y comunidades zapatistas. Para estimular la violencia se utilizan problemas y disputas locales, muchas veces preexistentes, que con frecuencia ni siquiera están relacionados con el zapatismo como tal. Se trata de conflictos que son comunes, y hasta normales, en la sociedad rural, dentro y fuera de Chiapas.
Entre este tipo de problemas se encuentran las disputas sobre colindancias de terrenos, sobre todo en contextos en donde unos quieren regularizar la posesión de la tierra y otros no; el acceso o control sobre los recursos locales, tales como agua, árboles maderables, predios aptos para urbanización y bancos de arena y grava; diferencias familiares y religiosas; representaciones de partidos políticos; la rebatinga por proyectos productivos o asistenciales; disputas por protagonismo e interlocución con el Estado, así como avaricia, rencores, resentimientos y celos históricos, etc. La acción del Estado manipulador puede transformar cualquier problema latente preexistente en una fractura abierta.
Sin embargo, sería un error ver al Estado como monolítico. Dentro de él existen tanto facciones que buscan alentar al máximo la violencia, como fuerzas que buscan atemperarla, para no espantar a inversionistas y turistas. Eso provoca que, por un lado se promueva la violencia antizapatista por medio de premios (proyectos, puestos, candidaturas), y por el otro se quiera resolver y calmar el conflicto. Esto provoca que grupo campesino pueda recibir recursos para, primero golpear, y luego dejar de hacerlo hasta que pase un cierto tiempo. Estos grupos que agreden a las comunidades en resistencia se alternan en su labor de agresión.
Las hostilidades contra zapatistas son a menudo divulgadas en los medios de comunicación convencionales, con un sesgo racista y clasista. Se les presenta como meros conflictos locales o enfrentamientos o grescas entre campesinos, surgidos del hecho de que los indios son de por sí violentos y los pobres se la pasan matándose entre ellos. Esta violencia sirve como justificación para que las fuerzas del orden actúen en contra de las bases de apoyo zapatistas.
Con frecuencia, las organizaciones campesinas nacionales se deslindan de sus afiliados locales cuando éstos cometen actos violentos. Los grupos locales pertenecientes a centrales nacionales se forman, dividen, recombinan y fusionan con gran rapidez. Muchas veces los dirigentes nacionales ni siquiera están al día de lo que sucede entre sus bases. Pero su decisión de trazar una línea divisoria entre ellos y sus antiguos miembros no significa que éstos no hayan pertenecido en el pasado a esa organización nacional que, en el futuro, pueden serlo. En ocasiones esta explicación de los dirigentes nacionales es un pretexto; sin embargo, sucede también en ocasiones que simple y sencillamente ignoran lo que está pasando con sus bases.
La contrainsurgencia en Chiapas utiliza los conflictos locales como parte central de su estrategia. Los problemas locales preexistentes son los árboles, la política contrainsurgente es el bosque. Hay que ver ambos de manera simultánea. Lo importante es entender y no olvidar que el bosque se conforma precisamente por el conjunto de los árboles.
Finalmente, hay un elemento adicional que no se debe perder de vista. En los territorios en disputa en Chiapas predominan dos visiones. Una, la zapatista, es de la construcción paulatina de la autonomía territorial, indígena y campesina, de la educación, salud y justicia autónomas, de la agroecología, y del autogobierno. Se trata de una visión que se está haciendo realidad, poco a poco. La otra es más mezquina, cortoplacista, de acercamiento al poder, que busca beneficios individuales e inmediatos. Quienes se identifican como abajo y a la izquierda prefieren la visión zapatista, y quieren que tenga la posibilidad de consolidarse cada vez más como alternativa y ejemplo. Para ello, es necesario el repudio total a toda agresión contra el zapatismo.
Peter Rosset es un especialista en cuestiones rurales, doctor por la Universidad de Michigan. Entre sus libros se encuentra Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform. Este trabajo apareció en Rebelión.
Conversations On Autonomy II
PLEASE JOIN US FOR:
CONVERSATIONS ON AUTONOMY II
La Realidad Caracol Graphic
TUESDAY, MAY 20, 2014 – 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
CENTER for POLITICAL EDUCATION
518 VALENCIA ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Requested donation: $5-$10 (No one turned away for lack of funds)
The Chiapas Support Committee, the Center for Political Education and YoSoy 132, Bay Area, are convening the second in a series of four community gatherings to discuss, dialogue and learn together about autonomy and the struggles for autonomy. Initiated by the Chiapas Support Committee (CSC), these gatherings are based on participatory discussion on what we can learn from the Zapatista Escuelitas and how that learning can be applied to our work here in the Bay Area. The CSC will also address the significance of the recent murder of a Zapatista in La Realidad.
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Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas
P.O. Box 3421, Oakland, CA 94609
Tel: (510) 654-9587
Email: cezmat@igc.org
http://www.chiapas-support.org
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chiapas-Support-Committee-Oakland/
Zapatistas clarify: it was not a confrontation, but an attack
THERE WAS NO CONFRONTATION; IT WAS AN ATTACK ON US, ZAPATISTAS CLARIFY
La Realidad Caracol Graphic
** The Good Government Junta will send the case to the EZLN’s General Command
** They denounce behavior of the CIOAC-H paramilitaries, headed by the Los Luises gang
By: Hermann Bellinghausen
“Faced with the murder of the Zapatista compañero Galeano (a teacher from the Escuelita for Freedom Zone) and the problem” in the community of La Realidad, Chiapas, the Towards Hope Good Government Junta announced its decision to “withdraw its participation and pass the whole matter to the hands of the General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), so that it is well investigated and so that justice is done.”
It also contradicted that the Zapatistas may have been armed. “If we were, the result would be different.”
The Junta identifies a good number of the “paramilitaries” from the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Campesinos-Historic (CIOAC-H), headed by what is known in the region as “the Los Luises gang,” among many others Luis Hernández Cruz, José Antonio Vázquez Hernández, Roberto Alfaro Velasco, Alfredo Cruz Calvo and Conrado Hernández Pérez. Among the five that the government announced it had detained, the Junta only identifies Hernández Pérez as “paramilitary.”
The rebel Junta recapitulates the facts. On March 16, when a health campaign was being carried out in General Emiliano Zapata autonomous municipality, with its seat in Amador Hernández, the Cioaquistas from La Realidad detained the Junta’s truck that was transporting the medications, with the pretext of the extraction of gravel in two trucks of the bases of support of La Realidad.
Although it’s the “La Realidad paramilitaries” who monopolize and use the collective gravel pit badly, with such a “pretext” they took away the vehicle and the medications from the Zapatistas, despite the agreement that the gravel is communal. “Organized and prepared” by the “three levels of bad government” for “the counterinsurgency campaign,” they went against the Junta, “because instead of detaining the truck that was transporting the gravel, they detained the vehicle that is at the service of the health of thousands of Zapatistas.”
The Junta sought a solution, but the Cioaquistas refused and the alienated truck remained at the ejidal house. Facing these “attitudes,” the Junta went to the Frayba (Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center) and asked the Center “to go to explain it to Los Luises and deliver to them the summons to appear for the date of March 31” in reference to the “Cioaquista problem” in La Realidad.”
The CIOAC-H did not show up then, nor a second summons to dialogue, although they had accepted both times. The third date was May 1. Roberto Alfaro Velasco and Alfredo Cruz Calvo came from the officialist (pro-government) central. The latter left saying that he would speak with his fellow members in La Realidad, but “he was with the paramilitary chief of Los Luises” and returned to the Caracol with another 15 people “to tell us that we would have to free Roberto Alfaro.”
Alfaro clarified to the Junta: “that he is not kidnapped or detained.” Those that arrived (with Cruz Calvo) sought to obligate him “to accept” that he was.
With everything, the meeting continued on May 2 and “were arriving at agreements” on continuing the dialogue the following day, but “the chief of Los Luises and the 15 were organizing something else outside.” That afternoon dozens of Zapatista bases were heading to the Caracol “for other work, and the paramilitaries ambushed them” at the entrance and in the center of the community. “Armed with both long and short arms, machetes, cudgels and stones, and before carrying out the murder, they began destroying the autonomous school” and cut the water tubes for the Caracol and the Zapatista families.
The ambushers attacked the EZLN bases with stones and cudgels. Other Zapatistas left the Caracol to help them, “but they couldn’t reach them, they were attacked in the middle of the village with firearms, and that is where our compañero José Luis, a teacher from the Escuelita por la Libertad Zone,” fell. He received three shots, one of which was “the fatal shot in the back of the head.” It was 8:30 PM on May 2. As for the 15 officialists that were in the “he told them to go out and control their people,” which no one wanted to do.
On May 5, the Junta adds, the Chiapas government said it had detained five persons; one “is indeed the paramilitary leader of the CIOAC;” the others “we don’t know them, but these are known, above all the maximum paramilitary chief Manuel Velasco and also the supreme paramilitary leader (Enrique) Peña Nieto.” Thus, those who took the life and shot the compañero to death “continue in La Realidad, provoking, and they will continue because it is the supreme paramilitary’s plan.”
The Junta emphasizes the presence of the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center at the scene, in whose word “one can see directly who is telling lies and where the truth is.” And he points out: “Everything that came out in the press for pay (prensa de paga) is a lie. There was never a confrontation. What happened was an attack.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/05/07/politica/011n1pol
Zapatistas Were Ambushed at Entrance to La Realidad
MEMBERS of CIOAC-H, PVEM and PAN MURDERED a Zapatista: FRAYBA
La Realidad Mural
[Note: The Zapatistas have now issued an account of the events that took place surrounding the murder of their compañero. It will take time to translate. This article, as it says, is based on the Frayba Human Rights Center’s account of events.]
** It asks for punishment of those responsible and an impartial investigation
By: Hermann Bellinghausen
Members of the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM) and National Action Party (PAN), as well as of the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Campesinos Historic (CIOAC-H) were the ones that murdered the Zapatista José Luis Solís López in La Realidad last Friday, with three bullets and a machete blow to the face, the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) maintained.
The officialist groups, it added, ambushed, attacked and shot at three vehicles in which Zapatista bases were travelling, and also at those who went to rescue them.
The Center said that last May 2 a “dialogue commission” of 15 CIOAC-H members arrived at the Towards Hope Good Government Junta, in the Caracol of La Realidad, asking for the alleged liberation of Professor Roberto Alfaro Velasco, private secretary of the CIOAC-H.
Nevertheless, that same professor clarified: “At no time have I been retained, I have been free and decided to stay to resolve this problem, because of which we have been meeting and exchanging information continuously.” In light of that, the commission decided to continue the meeting “until agreements are signed.”
The Frayba pointed out that on May 4, at 10:00 PM, the CIOAC-H commission withdrew from the Caracol in the Tojolabal community, part of the San Pedro de Michoacán autonomous municipality.
The meeting has been developing since May 1 in the offices of the Junta, “with the consent and presence of CIOAC-H representatives, members of the Junta” and two people from Frayba “in the role of observers.” Until the afternoon of May 2, “they were reaching agreements for resolving the problem derived from the retention of the Junta’s vehicle.”
Nonetheless, pointed out the Frayba’s eyewitness testimony, “at 6:30 PM, members of CIOAC-H, PVEM and PAN that were outside of the Junta’s offices began to hit” the next door installations of the autonomous school and clinic. “They also heard the retained vehicle being damaged.” The Zapatista bases remained in the Caracol “to avoid confrontation.”
Moreover, the CIOAC-H’s dialogue commission “asked for safekeeping in the Caracol” to guaranty their personal safety. Minutes later they heard “a warning that at the entrance to the ejido, approximately 140 La Realidad residents belonging to the CIOAC-H and members of the PVEM and PAN ambushed and attacked approximately 68 BAEZLN that were headed for the offices of Caracol 1 aboard three vehicles, using firearms, machetes, sticks and stones. The result was BAEZLN injuries, as well as damage to the vehicles in which they were travelling, which consisted of broken windows and lights and dented doors on two small trucks and a 3-ton truck damaged with cudgels.
That resulted in several Zapatistas injured and their vehicles were also vandalized. The Frayba testifies that the EZLN bases that went to the aid of their compañeros were attacked with shots and rocks. Solís López received three bullet impacts: in the right leg, the thorax and in the rear part of the skull, besides blows from a cudgel to his back and head, and a machete blow in the mouth.
The deceased was participating in the referenced dialogue, and a little before had denounced “harassment and threats from the ejido commissioner Javier López Rodríguez, the municipal agent Carmelino Rodríguez Jiménez, the commission’s secretary Edmundo López Moreno, also from Jaime Rodríguez Gómez, Eduardo Sántiz Sántiz and Álvaro Sántiz Rodríguez, all CIOAC-H members.” This Monday, the aggressors cut off the water supply to the Caracol.
The Frayba condemned the aggressions, the interruption of the dialogue and the escalation of violence “that puts the lives of everyone in the Caracol at risk.”
The organism calls on the Chiapas government to: “realize a prompt and impartial investigation, and to sanction the material and intellectual authors of the murder,” and also those responsible for the aggressions that left several “gravely” injured. The clinic was “totally destroyed,” as well as two classrooms, the mesh for the school’s vegetable garden and three damaged vehicles.
On May 1, at 11 AM, in the Caracol of La Realidad, a dialogue was initiated between two CIOAC-H members, Alfredo Cruz and Roberto Alfaro, with the Junta. The purpose, the Frayba says, was to resolve the retention of a truck belonging to the Junta that the Cioaquistas (CIOAC-H members) had kept in the ejidal house since March 16.
In said meeting, the Junta members proposed to their counterparts seeking “peaceful solutions,” and agreed that Alfredo Cruz would go to speak with the official authorities and with his organization, in a fruitless attempt to free the vehicle.
“Assuming responsibility for the CIOAC-H,” the Frayba points out, Professor Alfaro asked Cruz to communicate to Luis Hernández, historic leader of the “históricos,” the situation that prevails in La Realidad, “urging him to reach agreements with the members of his organization.” The civilian organism relates that the parties had declared themselves in a “permanent meeting,” and that “at all times” two of its members had communication with the CIOAC-H leadership.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/05/06/politica/011n1pol
Update on Murdered Zapatista
FIVE CIOAC-H MEMBERS GIVE STATEMENTS
By: Elio Henríquez, Correspondent
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, May 4, 2014
On Sunday afternoon, state police presented five members of the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Campesinos-Historic (CIOAC-H) to the District Attorney (Ministerio Público), so that they could give their statements about the homicide of a Zapatista, which was perpetrated last Thursday in the community of La Realidad, Las Margaritas (official) municipality, government sources reported.
They clarified that the five Tojolabales, located in the city of Comitán, more than 100 kilometers from La Realidad, are not under arrest and are only giving statements as witnesses.
Those presented are: Adán Vázquez Jiménez, Trinidad Álvarez Jiménez, Eduardo Méndez, Francisco Sántiz Hernández and Conrado Hernández Pérez, who was released yesterday after the Zapatistas held him for several hours in the Caracol of La Realidad.
The sources pointed out that the three killers of José Luis López, the Zapatista leader murdered during a confrontation between both groups, could probably be among those presented.
It will be acted on “energetically”
The Chiapas government advanced that it will proceed “energetically and in conformance with law to assign responsibilities for the murder.” In a communication, it lamented and condemned the homicide, as well as “the aggression” of the CIOAC-H against the Zapatistas.
“Unilateral actions that attack against the will and achievements in matters of détente contribute nothing,” it added.
Support bases of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) confronted Thursday night in La Realidad, a community situated in the Lacandón Jungle belonging to the (official) municipality of Las Margaritas, with militants of the CIOAC-H, linked to the Party of the Democratic Revolution.
The Zapatista José Luis López died during the squabble. He was a native of La Realidad and, according to unofficial reports, was a member of the Good Government Junta. There were also 16 people injured.
The president of the ejido commission, Javier López Rodríguez, and the municipal agent of La Realidad, Carmelino Rodríguez Jiménez, belonging to the CIOAC-H, said that the divisions between both groups have become more acute sharp because they decided to accept social programs from the federal government.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Monday, May 5, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/05/05/estados/028n3est
SEE ARTICLE BELOW!
Zapatista Killed in La Realidad Confrontation
ZAPATISTA KILLED in CONFRONTATION with the CIOAC-H in LA REALIDAD
Photo taken in La Realidad by Isaín Mandujano for Proceso
[The Chiapas Support Committee compiled this information from a number of online articles. We emphasize that the Zapatistas have not issued a report and, therefore, we do not have their word. We have not been able to find a report from the Frayba Center either.]
A confrontation between bases of support of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN, its initials in Spanish) and of the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Campesinos-Historic (Cioac-H), in La Realidad, left one Zapatista dead and 13 injured from the Cioac-H. These facts do not seem to be in dispute. However, we do not know how many Zapatistas were injured. The confrontation allegedly occurred last Friday, May 2.
It also seems undisputed that the conflict originated when members of the Cioac-H retained a farm truck belonging to the Zapatistas that was used to transport their members. It is, however, not clear exactly when that may have happened. Apparently, the Zapatistas retained some Cioac-H members in retaliation for taking the truck and the confrontation occurred when other Cioac-H members went to La Realidad to negotiate their release. The Zapatistas retained the leader of the Cioac-H group and, in retaliation, the Cioac-H members cut off the water supply to the Zapatistas.
It would seem important here to remember that anti-Zapatistas calling themselves the Cioac-Democratic were the ones that assaulted Catholic nuns and medical personnel in February. The national Cioac organization stated that the assailants were not part of the national organization and were just using that name. We have no information about the group calling itself the Cioac-H.
Stay tuned for more details.
Zapatista News Summary for April 2014
APRIL 2014 ZAPATISTA NEWS SUMMARY
Displaced families return to the Puebla ejido
In Chiapas
1. Zapatistas Release 2nd Issue of Rebeldía Zapatista – The Zapatistas have released another edition of the Rebeldía Zapatista magazine. The Zapatista bases that participated in the Escuelitas give their impressions of the students. An editorial by Subcomandante Moisés is the only part of the magazine published online. You can read his editorial comments here.
2. Homage to 2 Zapatista Supporters Murdered Near Agua Azul – On Saturday, April 26, residents of San Sebastián Bachajón ejido (SSB), adherents to the EZLN’s Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle, gave homage to Juan Vázquez Guzmán, murdered April 24, 2013, and Juan Carlos Gómez Silvano, murdered on March 21, 2014. Both men were leaders in SSB’s struggle to defend their lands from government efforts to take that land away; in other words, against dispossession. SSB has been resisting the government’s efforts to take its lands in order to benefit powerful interests. Tourism interests are those that have dominated previous reports and analyses from Chiapas. However, at the homage to the two fallen leaders, the SSB folks raised the specter of another powerful interest – Walmart!
3. International Campaign in Support of San Sebastián Bachajón – Between April 24 to May 6, Zapatista Solidarity groups are sponsoring an international campaign in support of San Sebastián’s struggle to defend its land and in honor of its 2 murdered leaders. It involves watching a 13-minute video about the struggle. The video is posted on YouTube. It is in Spanish with some English subtitles (click the cc box at the bottom of the screen for English subtitles).
4. Displaced Return to Puebla Ejido – On April 14, the 17 Catholic families displaced last August from this ejido in Chenalhó municipality by the dispute over a piece of land with the Evangelical majority, returned to the Puebla ejido accompanied by Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, the Bishop of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, and Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar, the Secretary of Government, as well as by representatives of non-governmental organisms and civilian observers. The Bishop stated that it was a return “without justice,” and asked: “to continue supporting the “returnees,” because it’s not over, not only as to material issues, but above all in security, stability, harmony and reconciliation.” The Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center was one of the organisms accompanying the Catholic families.
In other parts of Mexico
1. Self-Defense Groups and Government Sign Agreement – Early this month, leaders of the various self-defense groups from 20 Michoacán municipalities signed an agreement with the federal commissioner for Michoacán, Alfredo Castillo, and other government officials to “demobilize” and register their weapons. The deadline set for the demobilization is May 10. Castillo said: Those who want to continue patrolling the towns of Michoacán will have to become part of a new statewide rural police force. All current self-defense group members, however, will be allowed to keep their weapons, regardless of whether they join the police force, as long as they register them with the Army and keep them at home. Castillo said: “Beginning May 11, any [armed] person not registered, not uniformed, will be arrested.” He said the deadline date would allow authorities time to vet and train those who want to join the rural force and to re-train and purge municipal police forces of officers with known or suspected criminal ties. Meanwhile, the self-defense groups had some demands of their own and some provisions are included in the agreement regarding the release of self defense members who are in prison simply for carrying weapons. There are also provisions for financial support for widows and children of victims of the struggle against organized crime in Michoacán. The United States government has poured untold billions into the “drug war” and little, if any, progress was made to protect ordinary citizens from the criminal groups until the self-defense groups formed and ran the criminals out of the communities. We’ll see what happens after May 10! For an analysis, here’s an article by Luis Hernández Navarro.
2. United Nations Special Relator on Torture Visits Mexico – The United Nations (UN) special relator on torture, Juan E. Méndez, began a visit to Mexico in the last week of April. The not-really-shocking, but very sad, headline is that complaints about torture increased by 500% during the Calderón administration. This is attributed to the use of the Armed Forces in public security and the legal figure of arraigo (lengthy detention without charges). He has not yet visited Chiapas.
3. North American Defense Heads Meet in Mexico – Robert D. Nicholson, Canada’s Minister of Defense; Charles Timothy Hagel, US Secretary of Defense, as well as General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, Mexico’s Secretary of Defense, and Admiral Vidal Francisco Soberón Sanz, Mexico’s Secretary of Navy met together in Mexico. They discussed their mutual concerns about threats from transnational organized crime and ways to improve mutual efforts… at least that’s what the press reports said.
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Compiled monthly by the Chiapas Support Committee.The primary sources for our information are: La Jornada, Enlace Zapatista and the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba).
We encourage folks to distribute this information widely, but please include our name and contact information in the distribution. Gracias/Thanks.
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Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas
P.O. Box 3421, Oakland, CA 94609
Tel: (510) 654-9587
Email: cezmat@igc.org
http://www.chiapas-support.org
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https://compamanuel.wordpress.com
A Possible Walmart Connection to San Sebastián Bachajón Dispossession?
RENDER HOMAGE TO DEFENSE OF LAND LEADERS MURDERED in CHILON, CHIAPAS
Juan Carlos Gómez Silvano, regional coordinator of adherents to the Sixth Declaration in Chilón and murdered on March 21, 2014
** They say the attempt to dispossess plots of land is for a toll road and a supercenter
** “Our struggle is peaceful, but we demand respect,” say the ejido owners and adherents to the Sixth
Photo: provided by the Gómez Silvano family. Juan Carlos Gómez Silvano, regional coordinator of the Sixth in Chilón and executed with more than 20 gunshots last March 21 on the road to his community, Virgen de Dolores.
By: Hermann Bellinghausen
Tzeltal ejido owners of San Sebastián Bachajón, in Chilón, Chiapas, adherents to the (EZLN’s) Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle, rendered homage this Saturday to two leaders assassinated in recent months, “fallen in defense of their people and their territory,” Juan Vázquez Guzmán and Juan Carlos Gómez Silvano.
In the message read today in the community of Nah Choj, the Indigenous expressed: “We know that capitalism doesn’t rest day or night in order to dispossess us of our culture and of Mother Earth, because it wants to make businesses and a lot of money that goes into the pocket of the big impresarios. The only thing that capitalism leave us is poverty, misery, violence, prison and death; it wants to kill our hope and our way of life so that only capitalist life, individualism and the law of the strongest exist.”
They remembered that Juan Vázquez Guzmán “understood the traps of the bad government and capitalism and because of that he embraced the struggle even more and the love for his people grew, working without rest for the liberation of political prisoners and for the defense of the lands. He dreamed about his people free of the oppression of capitalism. Juan was not afraid of doing work for his people; he was always a brave compañero that struggled for his community to live well.”
The night of April 24, 2013, he was assassinated at the door of his house “by the bad government, to try to quiet the voice and hope of our organization,” the ejido owners maintained; “as they also did last March 21 to Juan Carlos Gómez Silvano,” who was the regional coordinator, “still young and with a lot of participation in the organization.
“Our struggle is peaceful, but we demand that the three levels of the bad government respect our people, because we are not going to remain seated watching how they continue violating our rights,” they emphasized.
The Tzeltal community of the Northern Zone denounced: “the contrivances and corruption of ejido commissioner Alejandro Moreno Gómez, his vigilance councilman Samuel Díaz Guzmán and the former ejido commissioner Francisco Guzmán Jiménez, who are accomplices of the government’s dispossession and are not content with what they have done. They want to continue dispossessing more lands to make way for the toll road from San Cristóbal de las Casas to Palenque and for an Aurrerá (owned by WalMart)[1] supercenter in Bachajón, because they are government puppets and have done it completely behind the community’s back for personal interest.”
Lastly, they pointed out that the situation in the country “is more difficult all the time for the communities and for the peoples. They want to accelerate the privatization of our territories and exploiting them for the million-dollar benefit of the few; it is a lit that it is for progress and development, because it is only a pretext for taking our lands away from us. They are death projects.” Therefore, they called “to struggle organized and to defend the life of our peoples,” and they greeted “the peoples and communities of Mexico and the world in resistance against the capitalist megaprojects of dispossession.”
Meanwhile, dozens of solidarity organizations of France Francia, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Spain demanded from the Mexican government gobierno “the return of communal lands to the San Sebastián Bachajón population; respect for the rights of these Tzeltal indigenous peoples over their lands and territories; respect for their right to free determination and their search for alternative ways of life.”
[1] Aurrerá is a chain of supercenters for one-stop shopping in Mexico that is now owned by WalMart!!
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Sunday, April 27, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/04/26/politica/013n1pol
Rebel Zapatista: The Word of the EZLN
Editorial 2: Rebeldia Zapatista: The Word of the EZLN
Editorial by Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés for the second edition of the magazine Rebeldia Zapatista: The Word of the EZLN.
Compañeras and compañeros of the Sixth and the Zapatista Little School:
Here we continue to recount the words of the compañeras and compañeros, families, guardians, and teachers about how they saw and evaluated their students in the Little School.
As we say here in these rebellious lands, there is no rest; one must continue to work hard.
We mention this because there is another round of work coming up, with the compañeras and compañeros of the National Indigenous Congress. So you see, it’s true; there is no rest.
Even when there is a break from these tasks, it is used to work to sustain one’s family, but also to think, study, and make plans for the struggle.
This is important because of the simple fact that the neoliberal capitalists do not take a break from thinking about how to extend their domination into infinity.
As the compañeras and compañeros say in one of the “sharings” that we have had here: in just 19 years we have thrown off the bad system of 520 years of domination, and we now hold our own freedom and democracy in our hands. And we are just a few thousand women and men who govern our own communities; imagine if we organized with the other millions of people in the countryside and the city.
As the same compañeras and compañeros say, this is thanks to the fact that we have organized ourselves and understood what dignity and resistance really mean. We no longer resign ourselves to the leftovers, handouts, or crumbs thrown to us amid deception after deception by the bad government.
As the Zapatista people say, our great great grandparents, our great grandparents, and our grandparents were never given anything to eat. On the contrary, what they produced was taken away from them and they were given a few crumbs to eat that day so that they could return to work for the boss the next day. That’s how they went through life: exploited by the boss and the bad government. Why would we think that the bad government is different now, that it is good, when it is made up of the grandchildren and great grandchildren of those same exploiters, and who are the worst sell-outs of our time?
That is why the new bosses are foreigners, that is, if we let them be—if we, the poor men and women of the countryside and the city, resign ourselves to this.
It is time for the poor of the countryside and the city to organize —time for the peoples of the countryside and the city to take their destiny into their own hands. That is, it is time for the people to govern themselves instead of being governed by a few individuals up there who are just trying to get rich. It is easy to see and easy to confirm in practice that this is the only reason they are there.
That is why the compañeras and compañeros of the Zapatista bases of support organized themselves and dreamed and worked together to determine their own destinies, and this destiny is now visible. Their manner of governing themselves as peoples and communities is totally different; they rule as a people and their representatives obey, that is, their government obeys. This is true change, not just a change of colors or logos.
Who says this can’t be done, compañeras and compañeros of the Little School? It can be done, because it is the people themselves deciding, in organized fashion, what they want in all aspects of their lives.
Why are we afraid to let the people decide for themselves how they want a new life to be? How can we not fear the great atrocity committed by the three levels of bad government in deciding our future against the good of our peoples? This is where the compañeras and compañeros of the EZLN say that the people must have the power of decision over their own lives, because they make decisions for the good of the people and not to benefit their own vices. And if they make a mistake, well then they correct it. But the three levels of bad government have no ears to hear or eyes to see, they refuse to acknowledge any error within their world of domination and deceit. Let’s leave that world, leave them alone to see if they can survive, stop allowing ourselves to be exploited, and a whole string of etceteras.
The compañeras and compañeros of the Zapatista communities have provided an example.
That is why we are continuing to share here the words of the compañeras and compañeros bases of support of the EZLN.
And this will continue and keep going.
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
Mexico, April 2014. Twentieth year of the war against oblivion.
Originally Published in Spanish at:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2014/04/24/editorial-2-rebeldia-zapatista-la-palabra-del-ezln/
Translated by El Kilombo Intergaláctico
Chiapas Support Committee 