Hand in Hand: Road Fever and Harassment Against Zapatistas
Hermann Bellinghausen, correspondent, La Jornada
Moise's Gandhi, Chiapas
October 25, 1999.

With the excuse of a new road - of less than 20 kilometers - the communities in resistance of this region - equidistant from the cities of Ocosingo and Altamirano - have seen an increase in military harassment and rumored threats over the last few days.

According to spokespersons for the Che Guevara Autonomous Municipality, it is about humiliation and provocation.

"The people of the community are wondering what is going on and what will make those soldiers calm down, that is why we came to denounce them," one of the Autonomous Municipality spokespersons said today.

Sad and Humiliated
"So now we're being jumped by an armed group," I joked with a young man who was guarding the entrance railing to the community, as five men, adults, approached with hatchets and machetes. They are the committee that will be talking to the journalists.

"After talking to you, they're going to cut wood, that's why they're bringing their machetes, rope and headbands [for carrying things], the boy smilingly explains.

Moise's Gandhi, seat of the Che Guevara Autonomous Municipality, one kilometer from the Cuxulja' crossroads on the San Cristo'bal-Ocosingo road, is a visibly poor place. Withered lands, felled forests, very modest and widely scattered wooden houses, overworked fields on the hillsides. Poor, even for these regions of the poor, here they are, like good tzeltaleros, happy and proud. And also quite cautious, as zapatistas in resistance should be.

For them, the Army's presence is offensive, insulting: "The soldiers here, in these parts, set up checkpoints wherever they feel like it. They make everyone stop, and they ask their names and community. They ask for their rucksacks so they can search them. They say they want to know whether they're carrying weapons. They do this to us everyday, to the small and the great, all the same." Says Rufino, who is standing, with a little piece of crumpled paper in his hand.

And, he adds, with dignified simplicity, "For us, it is violence. There is no freedom of movement. The people are always afraid of the soldiers. Nowadays we feel sad and humiliated by the soldiers. That is why we want to tell the government to leave us in peace."

Another man steps in then, older than Rufino: [The soldiers want to know who is from Moise's. Some of them already have a name, and they ask in order to identify them."

The access to Moise's Gandhi, and to ten or so other communities - PRI as well as zapatista - is controlled by the Army at the only means of access. A barracks functions as a control point in Cuxulja'. Soldiers recently invaded Moise's Gandhi lands in order to set up their soccer camp. Today, at this very moment, twenty soldiers, in shorts and olive shirts, are
playing in that camp. Boys and girls on their way to school pass by there, and by the barracks, every day, "and they try to make them their little errand boys, and the soldiers stop them to interrogate them."

Pressures from the soldiers have been inexplicably increasing over the last few days. Rufino relates:

"Last Tuesday, some 20 soldiers came here to be trained," and he points to the field behind us. "But we saw them suddenly going to our mountain, where they had never gone before, and they spread out and hid, as if they were going to do something. They took up positions, then." "That day we had to get the people together, to see what could be happening. There are rumors from the PRIs that the soldiers want to enter in to our community. We have also heard from the PRIs that they want to build a road to the Virginia neighborhood, and they've been in touch with them to go along with the soldiers, and we do not want that."

Poisoned Roads
Despite its proximity to the road system, the Che Guevara Autonomous Municipality has also been feeling the road-building fever which, under the pretext of social investment, has been both method and excuse for the progressive expansion of the military encirclement. The pressure for the building and the militarization of the road is coming, it is assumed, from the PRIs of Virginia, Comalchi'n, Nazaret and Santa Juanita.

Another man, under the same open shed where a strong and cold wind is blowing, with the horn that is used to call to the people swaying from a beam: "We've also seen that there's no sense in making the road for two reasons, like the government says: it isn't necessary and there aren't any big towns. It's an excuse. And we know they're going to mess up many trees, like they always do. They already stripped a forest to make the barracks."

One more time, the artificial creation of a conflict between PRIs and zapatistas, with the former receiving the immediate attention, backing and guidance of federal troops. Rufino says the machinery "has already arrived in Cuxulja'," and they are waiting for the rains to end to begin work. "The PRIs have told people that the machinery is going to come in with violence. The soldiers want to talk to us lately, to see us face to face, in order to convince us, they say."

"Why have they ordered this widening now, and not before?" an old man asks. "What I'm seeing is that the government does what it likes, and it does not dare to carry out the San Andre's Accords."

According to Rufino, on Thursday, the 21st, four truckloads of troops and one of Public Security police officers, entered the nearby town of Abasolo, "and they surrounded us from behind, towards the Aurora area." "Friday afternoon government people came in order to talk to us." And he mentions Rafael Molina Matus, regional inter-institutional coordinator; Jorge Gutie'rrez Toledo, agrarian delegate and Miguel Go'mez Lo'pez, from the Department of Indigenous Peoples Affairs.

"They want to order the authorities to get the people together. We asked what they wanted. And they said we are not with the government. They already know that we don't agree with the road, what they're doing is looking for problems. The government acts like that in order to create provocations."

(Not very different from the governments procedures which precipitated the Army's bursting into Amador Herna'ndez: Sizing up an incident, whatever it might be, officials calling for the Army's intervention).

The old man angrily adds: "We don't want the soldiers coming to bathe in this stream either. They and their prostitutes are making the spring water filthy!"

In ending, Rufino says; "We want to demand that the soldiers no longer continue cutting down the trees in this forest, they are doing it even though the government says it's prohibited. And you know why they're screwing with the trees?" he asks, pointing out the grove in the direction of the barracks. He answers himself: "So that the way will be clear, and they'll be able to attack us if they decide to."

Originally published in Spanish by La Jornada (translated by irlandesa)