La Jornada Sunday, April 9, 2000.
Hermann Bellinghausen, correspondent. Selva Lacandona, Chiapas

Threat to Dislocate Indigenous in Amador Hernandez
The panorama from the bridge across the Euseba River is that of a military barracks seemingly intent on becoming one once and for all. Dozens of campesinos are working as helpers and bricklayers in the construction of a large building with concrete columns and brick walls. The soldiers say it is going to be the store, a Sedena supermarket in the heart of the Selva. But there are many soldiers stationed here, the consumer needs must be great.

A possessed bustle of trascavas and olive green cargo trucks with earth and rocks. Flat areas are being prepared along the slopes next to the river, for offices and dormitories.

"We're not going to be bivouacked on the ground any more," a sergeant comments with pleasure at the strict control point which the federal Army Canador Group has set up here. The checkpoint is some twenty meters from the bridge across the river, which has less water these days and is swimmable. A dozen soldiers are fishing and bathing on one bank. On the facing bank, several vehicles, half in the river, are being washed. The river crosses these lands from the Miguel Hidalgo ejido.

Two curves up the road, in the distance one can make out the laminate roofs of the Aguascalientes of La Realidad, since the Euseba is the military base closest to the zapatista town.

In order to construct the larger buildings, the group stationed on the Euseba River had to move their artillery and cannon-equipped tanks, which they had parked in front, where the store will now be. They put them up a bit further back, which also hid them better.

The same construction fever can be seen in the Aguascalientes of old Guadalupe Tepeyac, where machinery and carros de volteo from a private construction company are entering and leaving. Behind the mud - on the site where the National Democratic Convention was held - they are building a residential unit and a practice camp.

At the entrance to the same village, where the commanders are located, the construction activity has also been intense for a little less than a month. Campesinos in the area are even saying that the soldiers are going to pave the landing strip, as they did at the military fortress of San Quintin.

Meanwhile, the houses of the abandoned village are beginning to be choked with vegetation and to disappear from view. The wood walls of what had been the school are falling down, they appear skeletal now, full of bones, and soon they will not be able to support the roof.

A few meters away, the countryside clinic - the famous white elephant which the Salinas government came here to plant - almost deserted, as always, waits for mothers ready to give birth or for people dying.

The Case of the Reserve

The same thing is happening next to the Montes Azules biosphere reserve. In Amador Hernandez the soldiers have occupied more land, and the threat of dislocation hangs above more than a dozen communities, the majority Tzeltal.

PGR agents recently visited the people of San Francisco, a relatively new community. They went to tell them they had a deadline for leaving their houses. They will be removed after April.

In Amador Hernandez, soldiers are setting up new barbed wire circles, and they occupied the 'hamaca' (pedestrian bridge) above the Pella River. They took it hostage, and began controlling the campesinos' passage between the two sides of the river. The indigenous abandoned that 'hamaca', and they went and put one up in another place, far from the soldiers.

The Sword of Damocles

The communities located in the last redoubt of the more or less virgin Selva belong to the ARIC Independent, or are EZLN support bases. During this time of drought they have the Damocles' sword of forest fires hanging over their heads.

At the same time, the increase in the lands being occupied by the federal Army in the ejidal lands of Amador Hernandez - towards the interior of the biosphere reserve - indicates that the site could be one of the entrances to the Montes Azules. Campesinos in the area say that the soldiers are trying to lay a highway, hidden and controlled by them, across the Montes Azules.