It is the rainy season in Chiapas. We slogged our way through dark mud ten inches deep in the Lancondon jungle of southern Mexico. Drenched in sweat we followed trails long used by the local Mayan Indians to chase deer, carry wood and corn.

Then we saw them - through the dense green foliage and tangled vines - a long line of soldiers in full battle gear, some with crowd-control shields and helmets, others with automatic rifles. They were behind coils of barbed wire and trenches lined with sandbags.
The equipment was recognizably American, as were the helicopters circling right over our heads. So were the troop carriers and army trucks we'd seen in other parts of the country.
The troops, faces set and angry, videographed and photographed us as we took photos of them - a peculiar form of communication.

Facing them, and only ten feet away, were our hosts: 200 indigenous women, men and children using their only weapon - their voices. They chanted loudly for democracy, economic justice and some autonomy for the indigenous population. They sang Zapatista songs and called for dialogue. But their voices were drowned out by the continuous blasting of martial music, polkas and Celito Lindo over the army's loudspeakers.

As we followed the path around the army compound which had been cut out of the jungle we saw the traps: crude but intricate tangles of sharp pointed sticks which would catch and hold a leg - reminiscent of Vietnam The villagers had uncovered 36 of them.

This was September 18, 1999. We were there in response to a call by fifteen Mexican human rights organizations, through the US-based Mexico Solidarity Network and Global Exchange to witness the low intensity war in Amador Hernandez, a tiny and remote village in the poorest state of Mexico where the nearest road was a ten-hour muddy hike up and down mountains.

The people we lived with for three days worked hard for their existence, sharing the land, living on the corn and beans they raise, native fruits, and little else. Malnutrition was obvious. But in recent years conditions have turned desperate, as the markets of Mexico have filled with cheaper corn from Iowa, making the little they can now sell barely enough to survive - a result they predicted from the North Atlantic Free Trade Alliance (NAFTA). Disease and death rates are rising in Chiapas.

The village supports the Zapatista rebels who rose up the day NAFTA began - January 1, 1994 - using their few arms for only 12 days before withdrawing to the jungle and carrying on an unusual and non-violent campaign of organizing communities, holding extra-legal elections all over Mexico. Their "offensive," by e-mail and internet, is led by the now internationally famous Subcomandante Marcos, known as the kind man in the black balaclava smoking a pipe, with a rifle on his back, who sends out poetry and moral theses and recently wrote a childrens book on colors.

On August 12 the Mexican Army and state military police dropped paratroopers on this village of 250 people and occupied it. Already 6000 troops had been moved into the larger area, raising the total number of troops in Chiapas to 70,000. 600 remain in the army encampment. But the people rose up there as they have in many other communities which have been attacked since 1994. Mostly women and children, all unarmed, shouted down the army and backed them out of their village, down the mountain, out of the corn fields and into the jungle, where they remain. This,despite the army's use of tear gas.

The people fear attack daily. They are constantly harassed by patrols (which elsewhere in Chiapas have raped, jailed and tortured the Mayans, killing several hundred since 1994 and displacing a total now of 23,000 people, burning their homes and fields in the process).
This is low intensity war and it has been taught to thousands of Mexican military in recent years at the US Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, and at Fort Bragg, SC, which specializes in psychological warfare.

Why is this happening? Why did the Chase Manhattan Bank produce an internal report in 1995 - leaked to the press - calling for the elimination of the Zapatistas in the name of economic security for outside corporate investment in Chiapas? Washington tries to justify this to the taxpayers by saying the war in Chiapas is a part of our drug war. Yet the indigenous people and the Zapatistas never have been accused of drug trafficking. And Amador Hernandez is virtually inaccessible.

Why? If not to stop drugs, is it racism? Is it fear of a small, now non-violent rebel force? Is it related to the vast petroleum, uranium and other natural resources under those Mayan villages?

Whatever the reason the Mexican government does not want human rights observers in Chiapas. We flew from Mexico City to Tuxtla Gutierrez where authorities milled about in the airport, keeping their eyes on our delegation and photographing us as we boarded vans for San Cristobal de las Casas. They were present as we unloaded at the tiny airport in Comitan; and Mexican authorities photographed us, demanded to see our passports, and wanted to check our belongings. Our lawyer refused this as illegal.

We took off in a piper cub with a bush pilot, three of us crammed into two back seats, across a grassy field and up across the mountains. But the plane failed, lost all oil pressure, and we suddenly found ourselves in a forced landing. On the second try we flew over mountains and deep valleys and landed on a grassy strip covered in mud, where we were met by laughing children, women in their traditional, colorful dress, black-hooded Zapatistas and village men. They provided shelter, food and protection for us. They welcomed us into their church. They led us down steep muddy slopes and helped us across rushing streams as we hiked to the army encampment, showing us along the way corn crops damaged by army helicopters. They welcomed us officially in a ceremony where we told them who were, whom we represented, and asked questions.

The rainy season left us marooned for an extra day in Amador Hernandez because the planes couldn't get through the clouds which billowed up from the valleys and obscured the mountains. The rain at night sounded like a waterfall. There was no way to communicate. We imagined missing our plane home. But on the third day there was a sudden break in the sky and two planes circled, banked and landed. We ran with knapsacks, waving good-bye, leaped in and took off in tight formation. As we flew over the army encampment's heliport we could see soldiers racing, helicopter blades turning; and we wondered if the villagers were in for trouble.

Two vans awaited us at the airport; and we drove through two military checkpoints into San Cristobal and a press conference. One day later, in Mexico City, immigration authorities followed us, took the name and photo of the driver of our taxi-van and asked him who we were and where we were going. After our press conference a human rights lawyer escorted us back to the airport in case of trouble. There wasn't any.

So now we're back in the land of plumbing and plenty. But we are experiencing a deep sadness in leaving people who share all that they have, who are so vulnerable and so courageous, whose voices are their only weapons in their struggle for democracy and economic justice. And we know what we must do.

We need to get the word out to the media, to Congress and the public about this war and the US role in it. Our country must stop all military aid and training of the Mexican army and encourage the Mexican government to implement the already signed San Andres Accords.

Peter and Gail Mott