:: 2/05/2004 ::

Zapatista update

Mexican armed forces attacked the Zapatista community of Nuevo San Rafael, burning down 23 homes and violently evicting the indigenous Chol inhabitants. The attack, which happened on either 19 or 22 January, took place in the remote Montes Azules jungle area of Chiapas. This eviction (that the authorities describe as "voluntary") contradicts declarations of the government of Chiapas and the environmental authorities who said there would be no evictions in Montes Azules.

The resource-rich area has long been coveted by multinationals. So the government’s helping them press forward with the ‘Plan Puebla Panama’, which aims to "develop" southern Mexico and Central America, exploiting natural resources, biodiversity and hydro-electricity by driving peasants off their land and into sweatshops. The “war of low intensity” against Zapatista autonomous communities amounts to blatant repression of locals to let multinationals get their grubby hands on the regions’ resources. The Secretary of Government of Chiapas, claiming to be worried about conservation, promises more evictions, declaring that land ‘invasions’ (by indigenous people!) will not be tolerated.

The fate of the inhabitants of Nuevo San Rafael is unknown; the army is preventing reporters and human rights observers from entering the area. Local indigenous leader, Josué Jiménez Cruz, has been arrested, and is apparently being held in prison.

According to a local human rights centre, 40 Marine and Police officers remain in the village. The community are being held incommunicado and the right to travel freely in the Montes Azules region has been suspended. The inhabitants of this community, are indigenous Choles; refugees who had to flee from Calvario in the north of Chiapas, two years ago due to threats and violence by a group known in true Orwellian style as ‘Peace and Justice’.

‘Peace and Justice’ destroyed their cooperative shop and a Zapatista health centre after turfing them off their land, conveniently for the local government. Not surprising then that one of the group’s leaders, Carlos Torres Lopez is also municipal president of Tila, Chiapas. He has used his position to funnel government resources to the paramilitary organization. During the August state elections, the group patrolled polling stations in the northern part of Chiapas using violence and intimidation against opponents of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), which was in power in Mexico for more than 70 years until the 2000 elections.

Meanwhile in the north of Chiapas the Zapatista committee of good government has denounced a state of siege from the military, the situation also remains tense at the threatened Zapatista community Morelia and further north in the state of Morelos repression continues against the autonomous community of Tlanepantla,

One thing is certain, the Zapatistas will not give up their autonomy, won with their own blood. The autonomous municipality of Ricardo Flores Magon said: "A SHADOW of death is being raised in the heart of our land, of our mother, of our forest. A cloud of soldiers, paramilitaries, plans and projects is coming once again to threaten us, to rob us of our dream and to evict our indigenous communities.... But we are not going to permit eviction, nor the relocation of our communities, we are going to defend them with everything we have in our hands.."

International solidarity activity is vital.
ring the Mexican Embassy in London on 0207 499 8586 (open 9am-6pm)
Chiapas Indymedia

:: Tony 17:27 [link] ::

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