La
Jornada
Sunday, April 23, 2000.
Andrea BecerrilI.
Since 1997, Military Positions have Increased From 197 to 300
Systematically, unceasingly, the federal government has been
closing the police-military circle around the Zapatista Army
of National Liberation (EZLN). If, in 1997, three years after
the appearance of the rebel group, there were 197 military positions
- including bases, barracks, camps and checkpoints - there are
now 300 places on the chiapaneco map with soldiers present,
some of them encamped within the indigenous communities themselves,
invading schools and plots, cutting down the forest wealth of
the Selva Lacandona.
Far removed from the government talk about peace, the military
occupation of indigenous lands is advancing. Tragedies like
Acteal, in December of 1997, have served as an excuse for officials
to increase their military forces. And so, following the killing
in Chenalho', in the region of Los Altos, 20 Mexican Army camps
were established. And, in August of last year, its repositioning
was focused on the Selva, since, following the incidents in
the community of Amador Herna'ndez, another 30 camps were set
up in the Montes Azules area.
Added to the incredible San Quinti'n military base - established
in the middle of the Selva Lacandona, in contrast with the poverty
of neighboring communities - is a new training camp for the
Mexican Army and Air Force, in the municipality of Maravilla
Tenejapa, to one side of Las Margaritas and beneath Ocosingo,
on the approach to La Realidad.
The project will soon be getting underway, since last March
a decree by President Ernesto Zedillo had already been published
in the Official Diary of the Federation, in which 30 hectares
of common use by ejiditarios were expropriated in Maravilla
Tenejapa - who were offered an average payment of 2000 pesos
per hectare - in order to build a military fort.
In addition to the militarization of Chiapas, there is also
a strong police presence, with another 300 positions having
been established by state Public Security police, federal and
local Judicial Police, Road Police and Immigration, bodies which
are working jointly with the Army.
Statements by Researchers and NGOs
This was the scene found by legislators and members of civil
society, who carried out a visit last weekend to three places
in the conflict zone. "We are truly concerned after what
we saw, by the statements and information we received from researchers
and non-governmental organizations who have been following the
conflict up close, such as the Fray Bartolome' de Las Casas
Human Rights Center, Global Exchange and the Center for Economic
and Political Research of Community Action (CIEPAC)," commented
PRD Senator Carlos Paya'n Velver.
They emphasized that 600 military and police positions have
been concentrated in areas of EZLN influence, in addition to
paramilitary groups "who continue acting jointly, in a
coordinated manner, and who continue to go unpunished, as can
be corroborated in the Taniperla ejido, and which could provoke
new outbreaks of violence, similar to Acteal."
The legislator reiterated how they confirmed that soldiers are
taking on police and immigration tasks, acting in coordination
with the many security bodies who are harassing the indigenous
population.|
Paya'n warned that it is "low intensity warfare" aimed
at doing away with the zapatistas, being systematically waged
by the federal government. In agreement with the evaluation
by the legislator, who is a member of the Cocopa, were Senator
Mario Saucedo and Deputies Gilberto Lo'pez y Rivas, Samuel Lara
Villa and Fabiola Gallegos, who participated in the visit to
Amador Herna'ndez, Acteal and Taniperla, along with academics
Luis Gonza'lez Souza and Fatima Ferna'ndez, journalist Carlos
Fazio, ceramist Hugo Vela'zquez and Gustavo Castro, of CIEPAC.
Strike; Advance and No Withdrawal
Castro, along with One'simo Hidalgo, is the author of the book
The Strategy of War in Chiapas, an investigation based on public
denunciations and documents from the historic archive of the
National Intermediation Commission (Conai), covering February
12, 1994 to November 28, 1998, when its president, Bishop Samuel
Ruiz, decided to dissolve it.
Gustavo Castro notes that it is an evaluation of the situation,
based on the experiences of one of the actors in the conflict
which erupted in January of 1994: for "the voice of those
without voice, the indigenous and campesinos themselves,"
who are suffering the military and police presence and attacks
by paramilitaries on a daily basis.
In an interview, the researcher stressed that the military repositioning
in Chiapas has, in a dual manner, been accompanied by the "government's
purported peace proposals." That, he added has been the
tactic used by officials since the signing of the San Andre's
Accords. The most recent example of this was in August of 1999,
when there were demonstrations by various sectors of society
rejecting the military incursion into this Tzeltal community
in the Selva Lacandona.
"They strike, they put the Army in, they advance, but they
never withdraw, as happened in Amador Herna'ndez, where the
military detachment remained, and, in addition, they set up
more camps throughout the entire Montes Azules region,"
added Castro. He emphasized that, simultaneously, in September,
the Department of Government released the Open Letter to the
EZLN, which was widely published as a new peace proposal.
Nonetheless [the letter] "did not even mention the issues
of the Army and the paramilitaries," the Fray Bartolome'
de Las Casas Human Rights Center stresses in a report presented
last April to the UN Human Rights Commission. In the document,
the Center emphasized that the Mexican government remains "deaf
and blind" to recommendations made by the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, as well as
to her recommendation that militarization in Chiapas be reduced
as a sign of good faith, given that, in 1999, the Mexican Army
made new advances into indigenous communities in the Selva Lacandona.
The prelude to that - notes the Center, which has its headquarters
in San Cristo'bal de Las Casas - was the incursion into the
Nazareth ejido, also in Ocosingo, on June 4, 1999. During the
operation, carried out in order to set up a camp in the patio
of the community's school, 700 Army, Public Security and PGR
troops participated. "The soldiers demanded that ejido
authorities sign a document in which they expressed their agreement
with the soldiers' presence, but the indigenous did not accept
it."
Afterwards, from June 4 to 10, incursions were made into the
communities of El Censo, San Jose' Betania and Francisco Villa,
all of them in the municipality of Ocosingo, and into Santa
Luci'a, La Trinidad and Rosario Rio Blanco, in Las Margaritas.
"The serious moment of the confrontations provoked by the
military advance was the establishment of an army camp on the
ejidal lands of Amador Herna'ndez, one of the entrance points
to the Montes Azules biosphere reserve," the Fray Bartolome'
notes in their report to the UN. It also reports on several
denunciations made by indigenous concerning attacks they experienced
at the hands of the soldiers.
Meanwhile, in Amador Herna'ndez the resistance movement continues
against the presence of the soldiers, who are still there, eight
months later. They are not the only ones being threatened by
that "low intensity war," as Senator Paya'n described
it, or that "war strategy," in the words of CIEPAC
researchers.
In addition to the 600 police and military positions which are
trying to close the pincers around the EZLN, 32 communities
located around the Montes Azules reserve - 12 of them members
of the ARIC-Independent - were notified by an interdepartmental
commission, in which Government, Semarnap and others participated,
that they must remove themselves from that region, Gustavo Castro
revealed.
Their relocation is being proposed, with negligible indemnification,
and with the excuse that they are damaging the environment.
Some with PRI affiliations have already accepted it, the rest
have not, but, in reality, "it's obvious that what they're
trying to do is to isolate the EZLN so they can close the military
siege," noted Senator Paya'n Velver.
Translated by irlandesa |