A-Infos (en) Mexican army Jan. activity in Chiapas

[Mark Connolly <mark_c@geocities.com>]

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     A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
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On January 1st, 1998--the fourth anniversary of the 
EZLN uprising--the federal army began a new offensive 
against the base communities of the Zapatistas in 
Chiapas, under the pretext of a "generalized 
disarmament campaign" in the wake of the Acteal 
massacre.

1. Mexican Army Launches "Disarmament Campaign" 
Against the EZLN
Source: FZLN see end of mail

Such a campaign had been predicted by the EZLN in 
late December, and was officially confirmed by an 
announcement from the army's Seventh Military Region 
(which covers the state of Chiapas) on January 2nd, 
indicating that it would increase its patrols and 
roadblocks in the so-called "conflict zone" of 
Chiapas in order to "indiscriminately enforce" the 
Federal Law of Explosives and Firearms.

The official government justification of the campaign 
was that a repeat of the December 22nd massacre in 
Acteal, Chenalho could only be prevented with the 
"full disarmament of all civilian groups" in Chiapas. 
However, far from being an "indiscriminate" 
operation, the federal army's latest moves have been 
directed solely and exclusively at the base 
communities of the EZLN, often with support and 
guidance from members of paramilitary organizations.

Thus, while the illegal paramilitary groups continue 
to enjoy impunity (the army, in fact, has repeatedly 
denied that they even exist), the disarmament 
campaign is directed against the EZLN--which is 
actually the only "armed civilian organization" in 
the country which has a legal right to carry 
otherwise illegal firearms, as long as it does not 
use them in an offensive manner. This is clearly laid 
out in the "Law for Dialogue, Reconciliation, and a 
Just Peace in Chiapas", approved by the Mexican 
Congress and signed by the President on March 11th, 
1995.

While the EZLN has continuously abided by this law, 
the federal government has violated it repeatedly--
and apparently has seen fit to do so again.

Key events of the first several weeks of the army's 
latest (and illegal) actions are as follows:


  * January 1st, 1998: The federal army entered the 
Zapatista  communities of Yalchiptic and La Esperanza 
(both in Altamirano),  destroying and stealing 
possessions belonging to the Tzeltal  inhabitants of 
those communities, and then announced it had found  
an "arsenal of weapons belonging to the EZLN" in 
Yalchiptic. The  inhabitants of that community, 
meanwhile, continue to insist that  the army brought 
in the weapons themselves only to suddenly "find"  
them hours later.    On the same day, the federal 
army entered the Tzeltal Zapatista  community of San 
Caralampio (Ocosingo) and arrested the local EZLN  
representative, Manuel Morales Cruz, under the charge 
of  possessing a pistol.

  * January 2nd: The 
federal army entered the refugee camp of X'oyep,  in 
Chenalho, and installed a military encampment on the 
outskirts  of the community. This was the army's 
third attempt to do so in a  two-day period; on the 
first two occasions, the troops were  repelled by 
women and children who said the army's presence only  
"brings many evils" such as prostitution, alcoholism, 
drugs, and  division within the community.

  * January 3rd: The federal army placed the Tojolabal 
community of La  Realidad under military siege for 17 
hours. Several members of the  community were 
temporarily detained, beaten, and interrogated  
regarding the location of the general headquarters of 
the EZLN.    Meanwhile, 70 federal troops occupied 
the Tzeltal community (and  Aguascalientes) of 
Morelia for 24 hours, during which time they  
threatened the inhabitants of the community and 
ransacked homes.  Several hours after the withdrawal 
of the army, four inhabitants  of Morelia were 
kidnapped, beaten, and interrogated by army troops  
on the road to Altamirano.

  * January 4th: Federal 
troops entered the Tzeltal Zapatista  community of 10 
de Abril (in Altamirano), interrogating  inhabitants 
and ransacking homes.

  * January 5th: The federal 
army carried out a vast operation by land  and air in 
an attempt to enter and occupy the highland Zapatista  
community of Aldama. The civilians of the community, 
mostly women,  blocked the troops entering by land. 
After a day-long standoff,  the army withdrew.    On 
the same day, the federal army entered the town of 
Petmachtic  (Altamirano), and claimed to find a "safe 
house" and "arsenal"  belonging to the EZLN. 
Meanwhile, army troops entered the  community of 
Belisario Dominguez, in Chenalho, and ransacked  
houses looking for a "clandestine communications 
center".  Journalists also observed a "heavy movement 
of troops" toward the  Zapatista villages of San 
Andres Larrainzar and Polho (Chenalho).

  * January 6th: Army troops entered and then surrounded seven  
communities in the municipality of Mitontic, and 
installed a  military encampment in the municipal 
center. (Mitontic had  previously been one of the few 
municipalities in Chiapas without a  permanent 
military presence.)    Meanwhile, a military 
checkpoint and temporary encampment was  established 
500 meters from the entrance to the Aguascalientes of  
Oventic, in the highlands. As troops continued to 
arrive, the  majority of the community fled to other 
villages or to the nearby  hills. Most returned the 
next day.

  * January 7th: The federal army made 
incursions into the communities  of La Union and 
Guadalupe Bateaton. In La Uni&oacuten, one women  was 
beaten by soldiers and many others were threatened.
  
* January 8th: In the early morning, the federal army 
entered the  communities of Moises Gandhi, Sibacja, 
Patria Nueva, Ernesto Che  Guevara, El Prado Pacayal, 
Uk'Umilja, Santo Domingo, and  Latzbilja, all in the 
municipality of Ocosingo. Troops also  attempted to 
return to the ejido of Morelia, in Altamirano, but  
were blocked by groups of unarmed indigenous women. 
Women also  prevented the army from continuing its 
siege of Ernesto Che  Guevara and Moises Gandhi later 
in the day.    In the afternoon, the troops which had 
entered El Prado Pacayal  hours earlier began moving 
toward positions held by the EZLN in  the nearby 
mountains, in order to look for clandestine  
communications devices and locate members of the 
CCRI-CG of the  EZLN.

  * January 9th: The army 
withdrew from Sibaca and Patria Nueva, in  Ocosingo. 
However, federal troops entered the village of 
Galeana  (also in Ocosingo) in the morning, in their 
third attempt to  occupy it since January 1st. They 
were blocked by women and  children with rocks and 
sticks, and finally retreated to their  base near La 
Garrucha in mid-afternoon. In the municipal capital  
of Ocosingo, meanwhile, businesses shut down, schools 
closed, and  people stayed in their homes due to a 
circulating rumor (which  later proved to be false) 
that "armed civilians" were about to  attack the 
city.    

In the municipality of Altamirano, six 
military vehicles entered  the community of La Laguna 
in the morning, but were blocked and  forced to turn 
around by the indigenous women of the village. In  
nearby Ocotal, 100 troops entered the community at 10 
am,  accompanied by members of paramilitary groups. 
The troops  interrogated members of the community and 
ransacked a number of  homes.    In the village of 10 
de Mayo, also in Altamirano (and very close  to 
Ocotal), the federal army entered at 11:00 in the 
morning with  10 transport vehicles full of troops, 
public security police, and  judicial police, all 
under the direction of four well-known PRI  militants 
from La Laguna. A group of 50 women and children  
approached the convoy to try to keep the soldiers 
from entering  the village; when they did so, they 
were immediately attacked,  both verbally and 
physically. Many were severely beaten by sticks,  
clubs, stones, and rifle butts, and some soldiers 
threatened to  rape them. One woman fainted, and 
soldiers were observed shooting  very close to her 
body "so she would get up". Pregnant women were  
beaten and poked in the abdomen with rifle barrels. 
In all, the  aggression lasted two hours; 16 women 
and 9 infants were wounded,  and two had to be taken 
to the hospital in Altamirano for  immediate medical 
care.  

  Also on January 9th, General Jose Gomez 
Salazar--commander of the  Seventh Military Region--
issued a press statement in which he  directly 
accused Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, President of the  
CONAI, of being a member of the EZLN. General Gomez 
later issued a  bulletin correcting his statement, 
affirming that in making the  accusation he was 
speaking only for himself, "not in an official  
manner".

  * January 12th: During a march of more 
than 6,000 people through the  municipal center of 
Ocosingo, Chiapas, in protest of the massacre  at 
Acteal and the subsequent militarization of 
indigenous  communities in the region, elements of 
the Public Security Police  of the State of Chiapas 
opened fire on a group of demonstrators.  Using tear 
gas grenades and live ammunition, the police murdered  
one indigenous woman and wounded her baby, and 
severely wounded  another young man.

  * January 18th: 80 soldiers armed with automatic assault 
weapons  attempted to enter the community of Galeana 
(Ocosingo), and set up  a checkpoint on the road 
outside the village.

  * January 19th: Seven trucks 
carrying between 80 and 90 federal  soldiers entered 
the community of Morelia (Altamirano), arguing  that 
they were "looking for the road". They asked 
questions and  interrogated the human rights 
observers stationed in the Civil  Peace Encampment.
  
* January 20th: Military troops entered the community 
of San Antonio  La Victoria (Ocosingo), just outside 
of La Union, in order to  search houses. A short time 
later, several truckloads of soldiers  and two 
helicopters entered the community of San Francisco, 
saying  they had search warrants to look for weapons 
but refusing to show  such warrants to the members of 
the community.  

  Also on January 20th, the federal 
army established a roadblock at  the crossroads of 
Jolja, in the northern municipality of Tila.  Under 
the direction of five known members of Paz y 
Justicia, army  troops then entered the Jolja coffee 
fields, searched homes, and  detained four people, 
all of whom were transported to the  headquarters of 
the Public Security Police in Yajalon, where they  
were later released.  

 Although there are not specific descriptions 
available for all of the incursions undertaken by the 
army, press reports indicate that 33 Zapatista 
communities in the highlands, north, and jungle areas 
of Chiapas have born the brunt of at least 44 armed 
incursions by federal troops since December 22nd. In 
nearly all the cases, soldiers were faced with the 
civil resistance of women and children, who often 
managed to force the soldiers to leave after tense 
and prolonged standoffs.

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation repeatedly 
denounced the offensive actions of the federal army, 
and warned in a number of communiques that the 
situation could become much worse. The Zapatistas 
insisted that, while they would abide by the Law for 
Dialogue and not use their weapons in an offensive 
manner, nor respond violently to the government's 
provocations, neither would they disarm.

In one communique, issued on January 9th, 
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos accused the commander 
of the Seventh Military Region, Gen. Jose Gomez 
Salazar, of essentially implementing a "coup d'etat", 
since the army "is acting above the laws dictated by 
the Congress of the Union, turning itself into judge 
and jury, persecuting the Zapatistas and dividing up 
guilt and punishment among those it considers 
responsible".

"It is understandable", continued Marcos, that the 
disarmament of the paramilitary groups is not being 
carried out. All the soldiers are busy pursuing us. 
Anyway, in keeping with the custom, the government 
says one thing and the army does another".

The Zapatista bases of support, meanwhile, continued 
to resist by nonviolent means, and on several 
occasions carried out "peaceful" or "symbolic" 
occupations of federal army bases in order to 
denounce the military incursions into their 
communities.

One such occasion was on January 18th, when nearly 
2,000 Tzeltal and Tojolabal demonstrators, 
representing a wide variety of local indigenous and 
campesino organizations, marched to the brand-new 
headquarters of the 39th Military Zone in the 
municipality of Ocosingo. They peacefully occupied 
the 800-troop base for nearly one hour, while 
shouting slogans in support of the EZLN and against 
the army presence in their communities. In a document 
read during the occupation, the protesters said:

"Our demand that the Mexican army leave our 
indigenous and campesino  communities is not just in 
the interests of a few people. Rather,  it 
constitutes the primary demand of the indigenous 
peoples of  Chiapas, and has been expressed and 
reiterated since the first  incursions of the army 
troops into our territory, in February of  1995.    

"This demand is based on very sound reasons: the 
violent arrival  of the Mexican army into our daily 
lives and its permanent  presence since then has 
brought with it multiple cases of  violations of our 
human rights, committed by army personnel; it  has 
contributed to the deepening of social problems which 
gravely  affect the lives of the communities, such as 
prostitution,  alcohol, and drug abuse; and, above 
all, it has brought daily  fear".   After 53 minutes 
of occupation, the indigenous demonstrators handed a 
copy of their demands to an army officer at the base, 
and then returned to their communities.

For its part, the federal government embarked upon a 
rather contradictory (and at times ridiculous) public 
relations campaign throughout the month of January in 
order to explain the increased militarization and 
daily incursions in Chiapas, ranging from outright 
denials to assertions that the military was simply 
carrying out "social labor" in indigenous 
communities.

The Interior Ministry issued a statement on January 
4th, insisting that the federal army "did not place 
the community of La Realidad under military siege" 
the day before, regardless of the dozens of 
eyewitness accounts and press coverage saying that 
they did.

On the same day, the new interior minister, Francisco 
Labastida, insisted that it was the government's duty 
to "dismantle all the armed groups" in the state of 
Chiapas, "including the Zapatista Army of National 
Liberation", since "we cannot ask only for one type 
of group to disarm and not others".

Five days later, however, Labastida retracted his 
previous statement and announced to the press that 
the disarmament campaign in Chiapas "does not include 
the Zapatistas".

Labastida was either lying, or hinting that the 
government does not control the actions of the 
federal army in Chiapas; for the following day, on 
January 9th, the federal army occupied the Zapatista 
communities of Galeana (Ocosingo) and Ocotal 
(Altamirano), and brutally attacked 16 indigenous 
women and two children in the Zapatista community of 
10 de Mayo (also in Altamirano).

Also on January 9th, Gen. Jose Gomez Salazar, the 
commander of the Seventh Military Region, began a war 
of words with the Diocese of San Cristobal de las 
Casas and the National Intermediation Commission 
(CONAI), upon announcing that "it is obvious" that 
Bishop Samuel Ruiz "is involved" with the EZLN.

General Gomez also contradicted the Interior 
Ministry, saying that the federal army was most 
certainly "enforcing the Federal Law of Explosives 
and Firearms" against the EZLN. In fact, his "proof" 
of Bishop Ruiz's involvement with the rebels was the 
"discovery" of a pastoral book written by Ruiz in the 
middle of a "Zapatista arms cache" supposedly 
decommissioned by the federal army in Yalchiptic, 
Altamirano on January 1st.

The General's accusation drew immediate condemnation 
from the Catholic Church, as well as a "correction" 
from the interior minister, Francisco Labastida, who 
told the press that Gomez's statement was made 
"speaking only for himself", and not necessarily for 
the government or any other "official position".

The following week, on January 13th, Labastida 
insisted that the army would remain indefinitely in 
Chiapas, implementing the Law on Firearms and 
Explosives, and that the responsibility to avoid 
armed clashes would thus lie exclusively with the 
EZLN.

For their part, the official National Human Rights 
Commission (CNDH) and the legislative Commission on 
Concordance and Pacification (COCOPA) demanded that 
the federal army be removed from Zapatista 
communities in Chiapas, although they stopped short 
of suggesting the army should leave the state 
altogether.

Speaking for the COCOPA, PRI Senator Oscar Lopez 
Velarde said on January 14th that the removal of the 
army from indigenous communities in the highlands, 
north, and jungle regions of Chiapas "could be 
carried out in the same way as that accepted by the 
federal government in February of 1995, when this 
commission recommended the army's withdrawal, which 
was accepted, thus reducing the social tension".

While the recommendations of the COCOPA and the CNDH 
were being ignored, the federal army and the 
government's new chief negotiator for dialogue in 
Chiapas, Emilio Rabasa Gamboa, spent the next two 
weeks publicly contradicting each other in their 
press statements, leading many to wonder who was 
really in charge.

Rabasa started off with a visit to Chiapas on January 
17th, signaling his desire to restart negotiations 
"immediately" with the EZLN, and to hold a face-to-
face meeting with Subcomandante Marcos. In Tuxtla 
Gutierrez, Rabasa condemned the existence of 
paramilitary groups in the state, and added that the 
army's enforcement of the Law on Firearms and 
Explosives could not be applied to the EZLN, since 
the rebels clearly had legal immunity under the Law 
for Dialogue and Pacification.

Four days later, however, the Mexican Secretary of 
Defense, Gen. Enrique Cervantes Aguirre, squarely 
contradicted Rabasa. He told the press that the army 
has "not found any evidence" of paramilitary groups 
in Chiapas, and that the armed forces would continue 
to enforce the Law on Firearms and Explosives 
"indiscriminately, without exception"--including 
against the EZLN.

The following day, January 22nd, reporters tried to 
ask Rabasa to comment on the declarations of General 
Cervantes. Pointing to his black tie, Rabasa answered 
that he was "in mourning" for the one-month 
anniversary of the massacre in Acteal, and therefore 
would not comment.

Later, at the end of the month, the army began a new 
public relations strategy: rather than talk about 
their "indiscriminate disarmament campaign", they 
began issuing daily reports on the number of free 
meals, haircuts, and "electro-domestic repairs", 
dental check-ups, and tooth extractions they have 
given to the indigenous people of Chiapas.

[This supposed "social labor" on the part of the 
Mexican army is not new; in fact, it was used as a 
primary information-gathering tool during the 
counterinsurgency campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s in 
the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, and since 1994 has 
been used extensively in Chiapas. The scenario is the 
following: the army enters a community, and asks 
everyone to get in line for their free lunches, 
haircuts, etc. Their homes are often searched while 
they are being "attended to", and troops use the 
occasion to scout out the village. During the check-
up or haircut, the army asks questions to their 
"patients" regarding members of the community, the 
location of guerrilla cells, the political tendencies 
of the community, the last time a guerrilla unit 
entered the town, etc. When they leave, they make it 
clear that they expect collaboration in return for 
all the "free services" they have provided.]

As of this writing, the military and paramilitary 
persecution against the Zapatistas continues 
throughout Chiapas, and shows no sign of letting up 
anytime soon. The government's strategy seems to be 
to talk broadly of peace, while using the military to 
harass, intimidate, assault, persecute, and 
occasionally kill members of the base communities of 
the EZLN in order to provoke splits in their ranks, 
lessen their popular support, and force them back to 
the negotiating table in a weakened position.

The EZLN, meanwhile, has indicated it expects a new, 
full-blown military offensive sometime in the near 
future; but it will not precipitate such an event by 
responding violently to the military's incursions 
into Zapatista communities, nor will the rebels be 
provoked into returning to the negotiating table 
until the government honors the agreements it already 
signed regarding Indigenous Rights and Culture.

While the government speaks of peace, writes Marcos 
in his most recent communique, dated January 29th, 
"nothing has changed. The persecution of the 
Zapatistas has not stopped; not a single Zapatista 
prisoner has been freed; the incursions against 
indigenous communities continue; the paramilitary 
groups continue to provoke the displacement of entire 
villages; the murder of dissidents had become a style 
of governance in Chiapas; and Zedillo again bets on 
postponing the peaceful solution of the conflict by 
refusing to implement the San Andres Accords"

 *ZAPATISMO NEWS UPDATE*--January, 1998 Part 1 of 5

A service of the Zapatista Front of National 
Liberation.

Redistribution of the following articles is permitted 
and encouraged,  as long the source is cited.

More information regarding the FZLN and the Zapatista 
struggle in Mexico can be found at:   
http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln  (English)   
http://spin.com.mx/~floresu/FZLN  (Spanish)

This and previous news updates can also be found at: 
http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln/news.html

Please send comments to: joshua@peak.org
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