A-Infos (en) Women Confront Chiapas Conflict

[Tom Burghardt <tburghardt@igc.apc.org>]

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               WOMEN CONFRONT CHIAPAS CONFLICT
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     By PAIGE BIERMA
     Associated Press Writer
     02/05/1998 03:05 EST
 
     POLHO, Mexico (AP) -- As dusk settled over this mountain
village, 200 Indian women and their children hastened through the
night to confront their adversaries at an army post a mile away.
   
     When they arrived, a woman in a woven blouse and the
trademark black ski mask of the Zapatista rebels lashed out at
the colonel.
   
     ``We don't want to see you around here anymore,'' she
scolded him, first in her Tzotzil language and then in shaky
Spanish. ``You only come to kill us, to rob from us, to threaten
us and to do many bad things.''
   
     The woman, who refused to give her name for fear of
reprisals, is among thousands of Indian women who have begun to
take front-line roles in recent confrontations with police and
the army.
   
     The confrontations have come almost daily since Dec. 22,
when a pro-government paramilitary group massacred 45 Zapatista
sympathizers -- including 21 women -- in the nearby village of
Acteal.
   
     In response, officials sent troops to keep order and disarm
paramilitary gangs. But rebel supporters claim the army itself
has collaborated with such groups and is now trying to disarm
rebel sympathizers rather than their pro-government rivals.
   
     Time after time, soldiers entering pro-rebel communities to
search for weapons face village women, often accompanied by their
children and sometimes armed with machetes and sticks. Meanwhile,
the men flee into the forest for fear of being detained.
   
     The women count on soldiers being reluctant to attack them.
   
     The tactic worked at the San Jose el Contento ranch near
Ocosingo on Jan. 8, when 150 angry Tzeltal Indian women prevented
the army from sending patrols up a dirt road.
   
     But the next day in the village of Diez de Mayo, 15 Tzeltal
women were treated for gashes to the head after they faced down
soldiers.
   
     ``The soldier grabbed my stick and threw me into the
ditch,'' reads the testimony of one woman. ``My daughter defended
me and the soldier punched her so hard he knocked her out for an
hour.''
   
     And on Jan. 12, Guadalupe Mendez Lopez, 38, was shot to
death by state troopers in Ocosingo when a crowd of people
leaving an anti-government protest threw rocks at police.
   
     Nationally published photographs of angry women grabbing at
soldiers' guns stirred public sympathy.
   
     ``It's just a Zapatista strategy,'' said Mayor Rolando
Villafuerte of San Cristobal de las Casas. ``Why don't they send
the men out to confront the army?''
   
     Some say the military presence is emboldening women -- not
just to demand military withdrawal, but to insist on greater
rights in their own communities.
   
     ``We grew up accustomed to having no voice in the community,
and believing that only men know how to think. Now it's the women
who are fearlessly facing the soldiers,'' said Sister Rosa
Espinoza, a Tzotzil Roman Catholic nun helping the thousands of
refugees who fled the fighting.
   
     The government opposes a legal proposal implementing a 1996
peace accord negotiated with the Zapatistas, partly because it
says the bill's language on Indian autonomy could result in
discrimination against women.
   
     The violence, however, already affects women
disproportionately, Espinoza said.
   
     Congresswoman Patria Jimenez has gathered testimony from
women who accuse soldiers, police and ruling party-linked
paramilitary gangs of ransacking their homes, stealing their
crops and beating them.
   
     ``The women here are terrified, but they keep ... placing
their bodies between the army and their villages because it's the
only way they know to protect their communities,'' Jimenez said.
   
     Jimenez' leftist Democratic Revolution Party and human
rights groups have called for the 40,000 troops in Chiapas to
pull out of rebel villages and for peace talks to resume.
   
     Several Zapatista women participated in peace negotiations,
but seemed to have no leadership roles.
   
     Zapatista rhetoric about women's rights is far from being
fulfilled in practice, but Espinoza said the Chiapas woman is
gaining confidence.
   
     ``Now, with the help of God, she is learning her own
power,'' Espinoza said.
 
     Copyright 1998 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
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