Chiapas: Time of War

La Jornada Tuesday, May 2, 2000.
Luis Herna'ndez Navarro

A new wind is blowing in Chiapas: it is the wind of the war that is coming. It is not the indigenous insurrection of January of 1994. Nor is it the shameful war of the paramilitaries. Nor even the silent war disguised as the official peace of the Mexican Army, which has advanced over the last few years by way of highways and roads of loss. No, what is happening now in the Mexican southeast is not a little more of the same. It is not merely a greater narrowing of the circle around the rebels. It is something dramatically different: it is the announcement of the imminence of military offenses against the zapatista communities.

The powers have been preparing their revenge for years. They counted on exhaustion and the wearing down of public opinion in order to take their vengeance. Taking advantage of the election period, they escalated the military presence in the region until they had made it something qualitatively different from what it was a year ago. The national political calendar offered them, from July 2 to the first of December, a magnificent interregnum in order to settle accounts with the rebels.

But now the powers have become nervous. The clock has been turned ahead. Francisco Labastida's sad panel has caused red lights to come on at the heights. In Chiapas, the strength of the gubernatorial opposition candidate, Pablo Salazar, is growing every day. The level of voter registration in the regions of zapatista influence has increased. The IFE reports that 122 additional polling places will be installed in the conflict zone. In order to reverse the fall of the official candidate, the state of opinion must be stifled in favor of the official candidate. The game board must be struck out at. It is the moment to revive the vote of fear, and, in order to do so, what better scandal than a war.

The pretexts for prettifying and justifying a military offensive have been sown in public opinion over the last few months. They are called nazism, drug trafficking and ecology. The war machinery has been set in motion. In addition to the traditional presence of the Army - which has raised fortresses in the middle of the Selva - there has been unusual activity by paramilitary groups and a star appearance by the Federal Preventive Police (PFP).

During a sinister International Nazi Congress, held in Chile a little less than a month ago, a nazi-zapatista organization appeared which had previously navigated, almost unnoticed, the seas of cyberspace. Some media took charge of fishing up the freak and magnifying it, as if it were something other than a virtual reality. Adolph Hitler and Marcos remain joined there for whenever it becomes necessary to justify his assassination.

While marijuana cultivation is flourishing in PRI communities in the Selva, and its use is increasing among campesinos, they are trying - for the umpteenth time - to involve the zapatistas in drug production, through statements from a Brazilian narco who says he has had contact with members of the EZLN.

The center of the government onslaught is twice colored green: that of the Army and of the defense of the environment. Curiously, the Under Secretary for Forestry Affairs of the Semarnap is Jorge del Valle, one of the official negotiators at the San Andre's talks. In the name of the defense of trees, of the Selva and of fighting forest fires, they are trying to dislocate 32 communities from the Montes Azules and to transfer the PFP - who, as is known, bore such good fruit during the police intervention at the UNAM - to the region. It matters little that the true out of control seasonal forest fires are occurring far from the Selva, in the Frailesca, Villaflores, Albino Corzo and La Concordia, or that many of the communities they are trying to throw out have been living on those lands for years. What is essential, for them, is to have an excuse which will justify the military escalation.

The opposition candidates have in front of them an affront and a responsibility. The future of Mexican democracy is at stake in Chiapas. They will all be seriously affected if hostilities are reinitiated.

Nothing good can be expected of Francisco Labastida. As Secretary of Government, he opposed a peaceful solution to the conflict. His advisors then - who always promoted a violent solution - are his advisers now. Nor can one have any hope for Rinco'n Gallardo and his party. Eraclio Zepeda, with his hands covered in blood, took refuge in the PDS, and some of the most anti-zapatista forces in the country are participating there.

For the powers, the moment of fomenting the vote of fear has arrived. It is the time of war in Chiapas. The opposition candidates will have to say and do much in order to stop it.