Hermann Bellinghausen, correspondent, La Jornada
X'oyep, Chiapas March 19

Some twenty Tzotzil campesinos, men and women, who live in the refugee camp on the other side of the hill, a kilometer from here, came to the military camp in order to put up just a modest little plastic hut, which they called a "store." They belong to Las Abejas, from Chenalho', and they have been uprooted from their homes, fields and coffee plantations for almost three years now, due to paramilitary violence.

The "houses" in which they are living under miserable conditions, in the community of X'oyep, are no less precarious than the little shack which they literally planted in front of the soldiers.

Today they are being accompanied by members of the Christian Teams for Peace Action (ECAP), set up by the Mennonite Church and the Quakers, who "help teams in order to reduce violence," as they say. From the United States and Canada, a dozen pacifist youth are accompanying Las Abejas in their Lenten action, an extremely eloquent kind of prayer.

The soldiers are worriedly watching the action by the indigenous and pacifists, a curious alternative compound of North American trilaterality.

At the edge of a soccer field, and under a national flag put there by the Mexican Army the Tzotzils began their work at 8:00 this morning, pounding stakes into the ground which will support the plastic that will serve as roof and walls for the little shack from now until Holy Week. During that time they will be keeping continuous guard, singing and praying.

Previously they planted 12 white candles in a line, and they read the Bible: "All shall live without fear and all shall be able to rest under the shade of the fig tree." In their "campaign of fasting for peace" Las Abejas and EPAC are calling "for the return of the displaced to their communities, of the Army to their barracks, for the fraternal coexistence among brothers, and a return of hearts to the path of God."

The kitchens of the military camp are giving off a strong odor of carne asada, while the Catholic indigenous are fasting, superimposing a Lenten fast on the obligatory fast which they already experience every day.

Who Says You Can't?
"Picture, please," says a woman from the federal Army as she approaches, dressed in an olive green uniform and a yellow bracelet reading: "Social Work, DM III Plan," while she brandishes a camera and takes pictures of the indigenous and the pacifists.

Major Criso'stomo, the officer observing the action, asks the journalists not to take photographs of them while the soldiers are taking photographs. Up to now he had been observing at a distance, next to the satellite antenna in the military camp. He receives a document from EPAC, and he announces he will send it to his superiors, but that he is not authorized to make any statements. Criso'stomo, who graduated from the US Army's School of the Americas, tries to be pleasant, and he almost manages to achieve it.

When they set up the labaro patrio on what had been the lands and forest of X'oyep, the detachment of the 31st Military Region wrote at the bottom, in large white letters on a black background: "Yes, We Can."

There is no doubt about this statement. They are the power here. The clean heliport, circumscribed with white rocks and with an immense 'H" tattooed in the ground, could be a land art show if it had a bit of flair (and a little something else). The military buildings, made of dark wood and meticulously assembled, produce a sensation of remote de'ja` vu. The camps from war films, with paths marked by whitewashed rocks and turrets made out of sticks, rather ingeniously, could indicate a runway. The EPAC camp looks like something else entirely.

They say that a Mexican General explained to them the reasons for the military presence in the rock strewn landscape. "We are here in order to win the hearts of the populace. We're here in order to take away the zapatistas' flag."

Unable to resist the memory of the famous hearts and minds of the Yankee counterinsurgency in Vietnam, a member of EPAC replied: "The Army hasn't done anything to resolve the problems, instead it's part of the problem. Your Social Work hasn't helped the thousands of displaced return to their communities."

In a flyer they distributed to the soldiers, the indigenous from Las Abejas invited then to exchange "your armed vehicle for 196,000 kilos of tortillas and your rifle for 5340 kilos of tortillas."

"You have traveled through our region, you know our places," they tell the soldiers. "You know there is no calm while you walk around, provoking, with your weapons. You have introduced the paramilitaries to weapons. You have bothered those who come to visit us at your checkpoints, and us as well. How does your heart feel?"

"We have asked for the demilitarization of the area, but the government does not listen. One cannot learn how they think. That is why we are asking you to leave your military camp," the indigenous say to a Mexican soldier.

"The bad spirit, the spirit of war, of injustice, of violence, will be pleased with us if we do not do what is necessary for peace to come to these lands."

The indigenous recount that, on a previous occasion, members of Las Abejas went into the same Sedena [Department of National Defense] camp in order to hold a prayer. Several soldiers approached them intending to pray as well. "But the Major forbade them to do so, and he took them away from our presence."

Ultimately, can one, or can't one?

The Marvel of Gratitude
In the community of X'oyep, in addition to the original populace, there are now 1190 inhabitants expelled by the paramilitaries who perpetrated the Acteal killings. Existing under bad living, health and sanitary conditions despite the national and international aid they receive, but which is not enough the displaced families come from Los Chorros, Puebla, Yaxjemel, Ch'uchtic and Yibeljoj the very den of the still not dismantled paramilitary group of world fame.

X'oyep, with its overcrowding of little plastic huts and a few boards, is proof that a vast part of Chenalho' is under the permanent control of the counterinsurgency group (for some, simply a "gang"). Everything indicates that the goal of "taking the water away from the fish" of zapatismo and the resistance continues to be in force, and successful, in Chenalho'.

On the other side of the hills and mountains, Polho' can be made out, where another 8000 displaced zapatistas from many communities share the fate of Las Abejas of X'oyep and, for that matter, also of Acteal. All in all, there are more than 10,000 indigenous without peace and without land. They don't even have enough firewood in this grim mountain range.

The situation is the most precarious in X'oyep. Here they are living below the minimal standards set by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (ACNUR) regarding populations in disastrous circumstances. Nonetheless, the International Red Cross has decreased their contribution. The same thing is happening with the help from civil society. And the DM III Plan for natural disasters which is not the case is not improving things.

Avelino is five years old and seems oblivious. Poorly dressed, with a runny nose and swollen belly from malnutrition, he approaches the journalists and offers them a handful of totis, the cheap fry-up that staves off the pangs. The Tzotzil cooks in the San Juan Diego camp (they have already got the jump on the Pope here, in canonizing the controversial Mexican Indian) will be no less generous, offering us a hot breakfast: beans and rice.

A wall in the kitchen (one of the few buildings made of wood, and not plastic, in the displaced camp) is decorated with a nai:f mural, which depicts the famous photograph by Pedro Valtierra, taken right here in 1998, in which a campesina of small stature struggles with an armed and helmeted soldier. Next to it appears a written greeting "to national and international society."

Their homes devastated, their animals sacrificed, their fields appropriated by paramilitaries from their own villages, these Tzotzils in resistance still give thanks with their mouths and hands. Some would call that a miracle.