A-Infos (en) Acteal massacre : One month on

[Mark Connolly <mark_c@geocities.com>]

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Throughout the month of  January, hundreds of thousands
of people around the world continued to demonstrate against
the violence in Chiapas and the government's role in the massacre 
of Acteal. In some countries, embassies and 
consulates were occupied by Zapatista sympathizers; 
in Mexico, a demonstration in the eastern Chiapas 
city of Ocosingo ended in violence when the public 
security police fired live ammunition against a group 
of demonstrators, killing one and wounding two 
others.

Meanwhile, the situation of the refugees in Chenalho 
has hardly improved, even as hundreds of tons of 
humanitarian aid has arrived; and in Mexico City, the 
attorney general is still claiming that the massacre 
of Acteal was the result of "old hatreds" and 
"personal vengeance".

INTERNATIONAL OUTRAGE

The international image of the Mexican government has 
been severely tarnished by a wave of highly-
publicized demonstrations, protests, and actions 
carried out on five continents in response to the 
massacre of Acteal, Chenalho.

Even before the international day of protest on 
January 12th, thousands had demonstrated in front of 
Mexican government offices across the United States, 
Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Spain, France, 
Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.

In Italy--European bastion of the Zapatista 
solidarity movement--parliamentary leaders called for 
a repudiation of all commercial agreements between 
the European Union and Mexico as a "reprisal" for the 
massacre.

In Germany, 50 pro-Zapatista demonstrators occupied 
the Mexican consulate in Hamburg on January 5th, and 
hung banners from the balcony which read "Land and 
Liberty", and "Long Live the EZLN!".

In the United States, protests were carried out on 
January 2nd in most major cities and in front of 
nearly every Mexican consulate in the country.

In Zurich, Switzerland, the parliament approved a 
resolution binding the Swiss government to press for 
a quick reinitiation of peace talks in Chiapas, and 
to insist that the Mexican government provide human 
rights guarantees for the indigenous peoples of 
Chiapas.

And in France, the CGT trade union demanded that the 
European Parliament suspend all trade negotiations 
between the Mexican government and the European Union 
until the San Andres Accords are implemented and the 
government shows that it can respect human rights.

Such mobilizations caused president Ernesto Zedillo 
to give "explicit instructions" to his diplomats to 
confront what he called a "deliberate disinformation 
campaign" taking hold around the world. He told 
ambassadors and consuls to publicize the "fact" that 
violence has "only taken place in Chiapas in those 
areas where the federal army is not present", and 
insisted that all "rumors" of military incursions 
into Zapatista communities are "absolutely false".

But international opposition continued.

On January 12th--the Day of World Solidarity with 
Chiapas--the International Network of Resistance for 
Humanity and Against Neoliberalism published a letter 
in the Mexican press calling on the Mexican 
government to disarm the paramilitary groups, pull 
the federal army out of Chiapas, and honor the San 
Andres Accords in order to renew the dialogue process 
with the EZLN. The letter was signed by hundreds of 
political and social organizations from the Spanish 
Republic, Italy, France, Belgium, Denmark, 
Switzerland, Ireland, England, Greece, Argentina, the 
United States, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Canada. 
Individual signatures included prominent political, 
cultural, and academic figures such as Dario Fo, 
winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Literature; 
Spanish authors Jose Agustin Goytisolo and Juan 
Marse; leaders of the Communist Refoundation Party of 
Italy; French writer and philosopher Regis Debray; 
French sociologists Yvon LeBot, Edgar Morin, and 
Alain Touraine; and Nicaraguan singer Carlos Mejia 
Godoy. To mark the Day of World Solidarity, 
demonstrations in support of the EZLN were held in 
Buenos Aires, Argentina; San Jose, Costa Rica; 
Montevideo, Uruguay; La Paz, Bolivia; Quito, Ecuador 
(where protesters occupied the Mexican embassy); San 
Salvador, El Salvador; La Habana, Cuba; Madrid, 
Barcelona, Sevilla, and Zaragoza, Spanish Republic; 
Paris, France (where demonstrators held a mock 
funeral at the Mexican embassy for the 45 people 
killed in Acteal); Bern, Switzerland; Tokyo, Japan; 
Rome, Italy (where demonstrators took over the 
Mexican Tourism Office); and in more than 30 cities 
across the United States and Canada.

On January 15th, the Mexican government also came 
under increased attack from an important economic 
ally--the European Union. In an 11-point resolution, 
the European Parliament insisted that "human rights 
form the fundamental basis of the relationship 
between Mexico and the European Union", and made an 
energetic condemnation of the massacre of Acteal, 
calling on the Mexican government to eliminate the 
paramilitary groups in Chiapas and to punish the 
"material and intellectual authors" of the crime.

The parliament further warned the Mexican government 
that the trade accord signed between Mexico and the 
EU in December, 1997--currently awaiting ratification 
by individual European nations--contains an article 
requiring its suspension in the case of "grave human 
rights violations".

On January 24th, following the one-month anniversary 
of the massacre, another wave of international 
protests took place. Italy was the site of the 
largest demonstrations outside of Mexico, with 60,000 
people taking part in a pro-Zapatista march through 
the center of Rome. Demonstrators in Venice, 
meanwhile, took over and occupied the Mexican 
consulate there and demanded that the Mexican 
government honor the San Andres Accords, disarm the 
paramilitary squads, and punish those responsible for 
the Acteal massacre.

The protests spread to Brazil on January 29th, where 
members of the Landless Movement (MST) and the 
Workers Party (PT) demonstrated their solidarity with 
the EZLN in front of the Mexican consulate in Sao 
Paulo. The following day, legislators from El 
Salvador, Panama, and Spain sent a letter to 
President Zedillo in which they expressed their 
concern for the "growing militarization" in Chiapas 
and considered the government's investigation into 
the Acteal massacre to be "insufficient".

Finally, on January 31st, several hundred pro-
Zapatista demonstrators showed up in Davos, 
Switzerland, where Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo 
had arrived in order to take part in the 
International Economic Forum. Protesters with shouts 
of "Stop the massacres in Mexico!" and "Respect 
indigenous rights!" demonstrated peacefully outside 
the conference, denouncing the event as a symbol of 
economic globalization and "international 
exploitation".

NATIONAL MOBILIZATIONS

On a national level, the month following the Acteal 
massacre was marked by demonstrations in nearly every 
state of the republic, including large marches which 
came close to filling the Zocalo of Mexico City on 
two occasions.

The first major civilian action took place on January 
5th, when a group of 32 young militants and 
sympathizers of the Zapatista Front of National 
Liberation (FZLN) occupied the installations of a 
major radio station in Mexico City in order to 
broadcast testimonies about the massacre of Acteal 
and the situation of the indigenous refugees in 
Chenalho.

The occupation took place at the same time that 
hundreds of other demonstrators marched to the 
Mexican Stock Exchange, delaying its opening for 
several hours.

At the radio station--the headquarters for Pulsar FM 
and Radioactivo--the station manager, Carlos Jaime 
Lopez, affirmed that the Zapatista supporters 
"entered peacefully" at 7:15 in the morning and were 
acting in an attempt "to break the information 
blockade regarding the violence in Chiapas".

The ski-masked students--who, it was later clarified, 
were acting "independently" and not under the 
responsibility of the FZLN--managed to transmit tape-
recorded testimonies of the Tzotzil refugees in 
Chenalho for half an hour before their transmission 
was cut by the government.

Groups of supporters soon began to arrive outside the 
building, as did heavily armed and black-clad 
elements of the federal judicial police.

At 10:30 a.m., the students decided to end the 
occupation. While the police were busy dodging the 
soft drinks and garbage being thrown at them by the 
neighborhood residents who had gathered outside in 
support of the occupation, the 32 activists quickly 
ran out of the station and boarded a bus which would 
take them to the ongoing demonstration at the Angel 
of Independence monument downtown.

Those who had gathered outside, meanwhile, continued 
to distract the police (who had threatened to open 
fire to prevent the students from leaving), and 
cheered on the "getaway". After the bus had passed, 
many blocked the road with their bodies to prevent a 
pursuit; and the bus was quickly lost in Mexico City 
traffic.

The following week, on January 12th--four years to 
the day after the great March for Peace, announcing 
"civil society" as a new social and political actor 
following the Zapatista uprising--Mexico City again 
burst with urban anger.

It was described as one of the largest demonstrations 
Mexico had seen in decades (and certainly the largest 
pro-Zapatista demonstration), although no one seemed 
to be sure of the number of marchers; the figures 
reported by the press and the organizers ranged from 
80,000 to 300,000 people.

"It was a different kind of march", wrote FZLN member 
Amarela Varela when it was over. "It was different 
and diverse because within it converged militants of 
the 'old left', now grouped under the acronyms of 
political parties or collectives; entire families 
which could easily have formed their own contingents; 
local government bureaucrats; members and 
sympathizers of the FZLN; campesinos from other 
regions of the country; students, unions, artists, 
political parties, and social organizations--all 
which have rarely marched together to openly manifest 
their sympathy for the EZLN or their opposition to 
the federal government".

The three main speakers at the rally also 
demonstrated this apparent unity of the social and 
political organizations on the left: Mariclaire 
Acosta (president of the Mexican Commission in 
Defense and Promotion of Human Rights) spoke on 
behalf of the non-governmental organizations; Javier 
Elorriaga (of the FZLN) spoke on behalf of the 
civilian Zapatista movement; and Andres Manuel Lopez 
Obrador (president of the Party of the Democratic 
Revolution) spoke on behalf of the country's second-
largest political party.

All insisted on the need for the government to 
immediately demilitarize the indigenous regions of 
the country, halt the Federal Army's disarmament 
campaign against the EZLN, implement the San Andres 
Accords, disarm the paramilitary organizations, and 
punish those officials responsible for the massacre 
of Acteal.

Adelfo Regino, leader of the National Indigenous 
Congress (CNI), also read a communique to the 
marchers from the CCRI-CG of the EZLN:

"The Zapatista Army of National Liberation salutes 
the national and  global mobilization which, 
demanding justice and an end to the war  in Mexico, 
is being carried out this January 12th. And in 
today's  mobilization, we salute all the 
demonstrations which have been  carried out in Mexico 
and across the five continents as a result  of the 
massacre of Acteal, the renewed persecution of 
Zapatistas  in the mountains of the Mexican 
southeast, and the government's  failure to comply 
with the San Andres Accords.    (...)    Acteal is 
the symbol of a form of governance: that of faking  
peace while making war; that of pretending to 
dialogue while  preparing treason; that of promising 
peaceful solutions while  assassinating the 
innocent....Acteal is the symbol of a war of  
extermination, the true government response to the 
just demands of  the indigenous peoples of Mexico.    
(...)    But Acteal is also the symbol of the 
struggle of two efforts:  that of the government 
which seeks to make impunity and  forgetfulness 
triumph; and that of civil society, which demands  
true justice and refuses to forget the worst crime of 
the last 30  years. And the struggle for memory and 
justice is the struggle for  a just peace.    (...)    
Neither peace nor justice will come from the 
government.    They will come from civil society, 
from its initiatives, from its  mobilizations. To 
her, to you, we speak today.    We join in your 
demand for justice. We unite in your insistence  to 
put an end to the war and the persecution. We adhere 
to your  demand for a peace with justice and dignity.    
And, together with all of you, we demand, now, the 
implementation  of the San Andres Accords."   
Meanwhile, similar demonstrations were taking place 
in dozens of other Mexican cities. In Guadalajara, 
Jalisco, 5,000 marchers laid coffins at the 
headquarters of the Fifth Military Region. In 
Veracruz, members of the FZLN and El Barzon 
symbolically occupied the installations of the Army's 
13th Battalion, while marches were carried out in 
Cordoba, Orizaba, Poza Rica, Coatepec, Papantla, and 
the Port of Veracruz.

The Fourth Military Region headquarters was the site 
of protests in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, while thousands 
of marchers filled the main squares of Morelia 
(Michoacan), Puebla, Chihuahua, Villahermosa 
(Tabasco), San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Queretaro, 
Tijuana (Baja California), Tlaxcala, Durango, 
Aguascalientes, Guanajuato and Leon (Guanajuato), 
Tulancingo (Hidalgo), and cities and towns throughout 
the state of Oaxaca.

In Chiapas, indigenous organizations and bases of 
support of the EZLN held demonstrations in the cities 
of San Cristobal de las Casas and Ocosingo.

While the San Cristobal protest transpired peacefully 
without any provocations, the demonstration in 
Ocosingo turned tragic when a group of public 
security police open fire on the five-hundred 
indigenous demonstrators who were shouting for them 
"to leave the municipality, because for us, you [the 
police] are murderers".

Twenty-two police officers fired automatic weapons 
for three minutes against the crowd, killing a 
Tzeltal woman, Guadalupe Mendez Lopez, and wounding 
her baby daughter as well as another young man.

Then they fled in a hurry--still firing from the 
windows and back of their "getaway" pick-up truck.

The government later denounced the police actions, 
and said 29 public security officers had been 
"arrested" by the federal army and would soon face 
criminal charges for their participation in the 
shootings.

Meanwhile, in Ocosingo itself, all army troops and 
police units quickly packed up and left town--perhaps 
fearing retribution for the killing. The city of 
40,000 then enjoyed several days of peaceful 
indigenous occupation.

On January 13th, the mayors of Altamirano and 
Ocosingo held a press conference in Ocosingo 
condemning the murder and calling on the government 
to immediately demilitarize the state of Chiapas.

On the same day, the body of Guadalupe Mendez Lopez 
was taken temporarily to the city of Altamirano, 
where--speaking above her open casket--city official 
Gabriel Montoya said: "I want to ask the federal and 
state governments to control their armed assassins. 
The time has come for them to be controlled, before 
the people get out of control".

On January 14th, a massive funeral procession left 
from Ocosingo to bring Guadalupe back to her home 
town: the Zapatista stronghold of La Garrucha, in the 
jungle canyonlands of Ocosingo.

The procession was made up of civilian Zapatistas, as 
well as members of the ARIC-Independiente, the COAO, 
and the ORCAO. On the way to the cemetery of La 
Garrucha, they would have to pass by a permanent 
encampment of the Mexican army. But instead of 
passing by it, the marchers decided to simply walk 
over the fence and pass through it.

As the soldiers began to run for cover and take up 
combat positions, the 700 unarmed marchers shouted 
"Chiapas is not an encampment! Take the army out of 
Chiapas!"--and they continued walking.

After having laid the body of companera Guadalupe to 
rest, the marchers returned to La Garrucha the way 
they had come--through the military encampment. 
"Neither tanks nor machine guns can silence the 
people!", they shouted. "Long live the EZLN!" "Long 
live Zapata!" "Long live Subcomandante Marcos!"

Later in the afternoon, at the Aguascalientes of 
Garrucha, the crowd received a message from the CCRI-
CG of the EZLN. It was the voice of Marcos, being 
transmitted by FM radio on 107.1 MHz:

"Internal communique. To all the companeros and 
companeras bases of support of the Zapatista Army of 
National Liberation. Brothers and sisters: The 
Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee-
General Command of the EZLN communicates to all 
companeros and companeras, that the companera 
Guadalupe Mendez Lopez began to live on January 12th, 
1998, when she was assassinated by government police 
officers during a peaceful protest in Ocosingo, 
Chiapas.

"The companera Guadalupe Mendez Lopez was a base of 
support of the EZLN", continued Marcos, "and was born 
in La Garrucha, rebel municipality Francisco Gomez, 
Chiapas, Mexico, and adds her name to those of the 
fallen in the struggle for democracy, liberty, and 
justice".

The message was then repeated on the radio in the 
Tzeltal language.

Guadalupe's husband, Gilberto, commented before 
returning to his home in Altamirano: "Although they 
have killed my wife, I will continue to struggle. 
That will not change".

Meanwhile, in Tuxtla Gutierrez, governor Roberto 
Albores announced on January 14th that as a result of 
the shooting in Ocosingo, he has decided to 
completely dissolve the State Public Security Police. 
Public security in Chiapas will now be in the sole 
hands of...the federal army, as well as the state and 
federal judicial police.

One week later, the one-month anniversary of the 
massacre of Acteal was commemorated with a mass given 
at the chapel in Acteal itself, attended by hundreds 
of members of Las Abejas.

"We will never stop struggling", announced Antonio 
Gutierrez, one of the leaders of the Abejas. "If they 
want to kill us all, then may we all die, perhaps 
then they might feel ashamed when the news is 
published around the world".

In Tuxtla Gutierrez, also on January 22nd, thousands 
of supporters of the Party of the Democratic 
Revolution (PRD) marched through the streets in order 
to demand the disarmament of paramilitary groups and 
the compliance with the San Andres Accords. National 
PRD leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was the key 
speaker at the rally, calling on the federal army "to 
withdraw from the indigenous communities in Chiapas".

Marches and protests sponsored by militants of the 
Zapatista Front of National Liberation (FZLN) were 
also carried out that day in the states of Morelos 
and Veracruz.

Finally, the second mass demonstration in Mexico City 
in under two weeks was held on January 24th, again 
nearly filling the Zocalo with tens of thousands of 
marchers ranging from FZLN militants, PRD leaders and 
supporters, artists, students, and feminists, to 
militants of the Urban Popular Movement (MUP) and the 
Francisco Villa Popular Front (FPFV).

It took three hours for the entire column of marchers 
to enter the Zocalo, and while the speakers were 
different, the demands were the same as those 
expressed on January 12th: justice for the martyrs of 
Acteal, compliance with the San Andres Accords, 
dissolution of the paramilitary groups, an end to the 
militarization of indigenous communities in Chiapas, 
support for the EZLN, and a peace forged with justice 
and dignity.

*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 
________________________________

NEWS SUMMARY FOR JANUARY 1-31, 1998:

1. Mexican Army launches offensive "disarmament 
campaign" against the EZLN 
2. Interior minister, Chiapas governor, and 
government peace negotiator all replaced 
3. A "new strategy for peace"? 
4. The Acteal massacre: one month later 
5. Briefs
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