CHIAPAS NEWS SUMMARY: The Critical Present

by irlandesa
May 2, 2000.

The times are more than difficult in Chiapas right now. And more than dangerous. There is a simultaneous clamor and silence that not only augurs, but also reflects, the darkest of moves.

There have been very many good words written of late about the closing of the circle of siege around the EZLN, the tightening of the noose in the Selva Lacandona, the fear of imminent strike.

We read the denuncias from the communities, the articles in La Jornada, the impassioned cries in the Cocopa. All hoping that we will see, hear, smell, know, what they are seeing, hearing, smelling, knowing.

And this is what they hear:

• The men from the Federal Preventive Police coming to their homes, their words of warning as to the consequences if they do not accept the dislocation of 32 zapatista and ARIC-Independent communities in the Montes Azules area in the Selva
• Armed soldiers wandering mountain roads saying they "are looking for the EZLN."
• The constant whine of helicopters above La Garrucha and La Realidad, flying dangerously low, filming, preparing...
• The new Bishop of San Cristo'bal de Las Casas, yesterday brazenly describing zapatismo as "a radicalized, violent and exclusionary ideology." And, then, further blaming them for the rise in militarization and paramilitarization: "Rising up in arms in order to bring the change that Mexico needs provokes an omnipresent militarization and...it can unleash a dangerous appearance of paramilitary groups."

And this is what they see:

• The fevered rush to bolster infrastructure in areas of zapatista influence. Roads to carry the machinery of war, airstrips for the quickest of responses.
• Thirty more camps in the Montes Azules area just since the Amador Herna'ndez blitzkrieg, bringing the total military and police positions now in place to 600.
• Increased government pressure to keep out international observers. Especially election observers. Especially right now.

And this is what they smell:

• Increasingly brazen paramilitaries, coffers filling, now with the added protection of the PFP.
• The Attorney General of the Republic, Jorge Madrazo Cuellar, saying he would be delighted to send the PFP to the conflict zones in order to sort out the "forest fires."
• Peace guy Emilio Rabasa Gamboa let out of his hiding place in order to deny the above and to secure his position as fall guy in-waiting.

And this is what they know:

• The run-up to the federal and state elections would not necessarily be a bad time at all for the government to capture headlines, to obscure their abysmal record and to effect a violent "resolution" to the conflict in Chiapas.
• The military and paramilitary infrastructures are most certainly in place. The SOA and Kaibil training complete. The innumerable shiny guns issued.
• The shameless insolence of the pretexts for attack are being trotted out with abandon now: the "forest fires," the "ecological damage," the "drug trafficking."
• The backup chorus is singing manfully. Tatic is gone, and the new bishop assures the Authentic Coletos that the guerrillas "are inducing armies to modernize and to spend on military equipment what could be used to alleviate the hunger of the poor..."

Another danger is that of our complacency.

The certainty that sabers may be rattling, but the knives are still sheathed. That this is not the place, the scenario, the history.

The truth is that this scenario has been being put into place - resolutely, relentlessly and mercilessly - since February of 1995. There is no reason to suspect that they will not act. Or that the time could not be now.