A-Infos (en) Comprehensive analyzis: The Massacre in Acteal and the Future of Mexico I (1/2)

[Ilan Shalif <gshalif@netvision.net.il>]

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FWDed: chiapas95-english@eco.utexas.edu BY Michael Flynn
<mflynn@bullatomsci.org>
Terror in Chiapas:The Massacre in Acteal and the Future of Mexico
(Part 1)
The following is an article published in the latest issue of the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists (March/April '98).  The writer, an economist in
Mexico City at El Colegio de Mexico and former economic adviser to the
Zapatistas during the peace talks, has spent quite a bit of time in Chiapas
investigating the events surrounding the massacre.  The article itself is
an excellent reporting job on the Acteal massacre and places the event
within the larger context of democracy and the rule of law in Mexico.
During his investigation, the writer uncovered considerable evidence
linking the paramilitaries to official chains of command that, according to
his estimates, ultimately lead right to the feet of Zedillo himself.  It is
a excellent counter to the information being posted in newspapers and
released by the Mexican government that focuses only on the state power
apparatus in Chiapas while ignoring the institutional footprints that lead
to the federal government.  Considering the increasing tension and terror
taking place in Chiapas, it is, I feel,  important that the article receive
as much attention as possible.
Also, for journalists interested in following up on a story about Chiapas,
the piece provides excellent background information and useful leads.

Michael Flynn
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists


Terror in Chiapas:  The Massacre in Acteal and the Future of Mexico (Part 1)

by Alejandro Nadal
published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 1998

On Monday, December 22, I was traveling in Chiapas, a mountainous state in
southern Mexico that borders Guatemala. My excursion that morning ended in San
Andrés Larrainzar, some 20 miles northwest of San Cristóbal de las Casas.
        The village, once the site of the peace talks with the Zapatista rebel
group, was a shadow of its former self. At noon the market in the main square
was not merely empty; the wooden stalls were closed and locked. No one could
be seen in the dirty streets. The walls were marred with pro- and
anti-Zapatista graffiti. All was quiet. And despite the majestic view of the
surrounding mountains to the south and the valleys to the north, an ominous
air hung over the village.
        At that exact moment a bloody massacre was taking place not 15 miles
away, in Acteal. The victims-45 Tzotzil Indians-had been living in a makeshift
refugee camp on the roadside. Built on steep terrain, the camp was about 600
feet from the school and community center of Acteal, a village some 20 miles
north of San Cristóbal de las Casas.

No escape

Several weeks before the massacre, the victims had fled nearby Chenalhó in an
effort to escape the violence perpetrated there by one of the
government-oriented paramilitary groups now active in the Los Altos region.
Most of the refugees belonged to the Sociedad Civil Las Abejas (the "Civil
Society of the Bees"), which has close ties to the Diocese of San Cristóbal de
las Casas. In spite of its strong sympathies for the Zapatista National
Liberation Army (ezln), Las Abejas is well known for its strong commitment to
non-violence.
        The refugee camp was new, with wooden shacks on two embankments about
50 feet below road level. An improvised wooden house on the lower embankment
served as a church. But at 11 a.m. on the morning of December 22, most of the
inhabitants were praying in an open space on the upper embankment. At 11:30,
the camp was surrounded on three sides by approximately 60 armed gunmen, most
carrying ak-47s, their faces partially concealed by bandannas. The attack
started from below the lower embankment, with the first shots fired at the
makeshift church.
        In the commotion that followed, men, women, and children tried to
escape. Some stumbled down into the ravine through thick foliage. Three men
hid in a small crevasse. A large group huddled together against a furrow on
one side of the embankment, with nowhere to go. The killers had time to
position themselves and fire at will.
        When the last volley ended, 45 people were dead or dying. The
inhabitants of Acteal could hear their screams as the murderers closed in with
machetes to finish the wounded and mutilate the dead. A few children,
concealed beneath the corpses of their parents and relatives, survived. Some
of the survivors had wounds caused by bullets that had been doctored to
explode on impact.
        With the camp emptied, the gunmen looted every shack, shooting into
the air as they went. This process continued until 4:30, when they drove away
in their pickup trucks.
        The shooting could be heard in Polhó, Chimix, and Majomut, all
villages within a few miles of Acteal. A police transport stationed on the
road between Polhó and Acteal heard the dense and prolonged firing, but failed
to investigate.
        In the afternoon, reports of the shooting reached Father Gonzalo
Ituarte of the National Commission for Mediation in San Cristóbal. He
immediately contacted Chiapas's secretary of government, a man named Tovilla.
"Everything is under control," he was told. "There was some shooting there,
but we have agents in Acteal right now and everything is okay."
        This deception was to be followed by others, as reported later by the
National Human Rights Commission. In the first cover-up, state authorities
tried to alter the scene of the shooting, removing the corpses before Justice
Department officials arrived. They piled the bodies in a truck and drove them
to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of Chiapas. (The bodies were later returned
to Acteal, where they now rest.)
        But when the first of the wounded reached San Cristóbal in the early
hours of December 23, the magnitude of the massacre was revealed. Acteal
became a synonym for infamy.
        In the aftermath, the attorney general declared that the deaths at
Acteal had been the result of a family conflict, or perhaps of community
strife. The attorney general's statement was then used to justify the military
buildup that followed.


The Zapatista rebellion

Those killed at Acteal were the latest victims in a conflict that began in
January 1994 with the appearance in Chiapas of the Zapatista rebels. After a
brief period of hostilities, the government of Carlos Salinas appointed a
peace commissioner, and negotiations to end the conflict began. The first
round of talks was concluded in March 1994 with a series of loosely defined
agreements.
        However, the ezln had reserved the right to consult with its
supporters on the substance of the agreements, which most observers felt did
not address the main causes of the rebellion. Most saw the agreements as an
attempt by the Mexican government to maintain the status quo while buying
time. The end product was rejected by the vast majority of Zapatista
supporters.
        The impasse that followed lasted until December 1994, when a major
non-violent mobilization of the Zapatista rebels demonstrated the wide degree
of support their movement had obtained in the state of Chiapas. With the
support of a broad network of communities, the ezln was able to break out of
its encirclement by the Mexican military without firing a single bullet.
        Also in December 1994, Ernesto Zedillo succeeded Carlos Salinas as
president of Mexico and, following the advice of hardliners in the government,
launched a large-scale military offensive against the ezln in February 1995.
However, the response to that offensive was so negative at home and abroad
that the government eventually agreed to a new round of negotiations.
        The ground rules for this set of negotiations took months to define,
and the talks resumed in late 1995. The legal framework, the "Law for Peace in
Chiapas," recognized the ezln as a "non-conformist group" and tacitly
acknowledged that just causes led to the uprising. That law, still in force
today, was supposed to suspend all penal procedures and military operations
against the ezln. Further, the law mandates the implementation of
confidence-building measures to facilitate the advancement of the peace
dialogues.
        The new talks included one session on the rights of indigenous
peoples, a second on justice and democracy, and a third on economic
development. The first session ended with the signing of the Agreements of San
Andrés. Indigenous organizations from all over Mexico (including many that had
been invited as advisers by the federal government) exerted pressure to obtain
the government's signature on the agreement, which granted indigenous peoples
the right to autonomous governance of their communities, within the
overarching framework of Mexico's Constitution.
        In March 1996, the second session opened with the active participation
of many advisers-including the author-who had been invited to participate by
the Zapatistas. However, unhappy with the outcome of the first session, the
government had by this time decided to sabotage the peace process (see
"Trashing the 'Law for Peace,'" page 25). As a result, the ezln decided in
August to suspend the talks, declaring that it would not return to the
negotiating table unless the government took steps to comply with the
agreements that had already been reached; unless it ended the expansion of the
military presence in Chiapas as mandated by the Law for Peace in Chiapas; and
unless it fully empowered its negotiating team to conclude substantive
matters.
        This is where the story begins to link directly to Acteal. In August
1996, the government began implementing a counterinsurgency strategy, probably
designed by the Center for Research on National Security (cisen), a federal
political intelligence agency.
        The regional expression of the government's strategy is the State
Security Council, an agency that analyzes rural conflicts and social movements
to help channel social investments and development resources to sympathizers.
Following a cisen-designed plan, the State Security Council created municipal
security councils in Chiapas which were supposed to facilitate information
exchanges and coordinate relief efforts in case of natural disasters. In
reality, these councils have been used to distribute resources and money for
weapons, and to identify possible recruits from among the young landless rural
laborers to build up local paramilitaries sympathetic to the aims of the
national government.
        Tracing the exact origin of the weapons used by the paramilitaries is
extremely difficult because of the complex chain of intermediaries used to
distribute them. Despite this, evidence in the form of testimonies and written
requests demonstrates official involvement. This writer has obtained copies of
various requests for money, weapons, and communications equipment addressed to
the municipal authorities of Tila, a town in northern Chiapas, from the local
pri-dominated council in San Francisco Jimbal.
        No matter the exact route used to distribute the weapons, the outcome
of the government's counterinsurgency strategy has been the appearance of
armed paramilitary groups throughout the Los Altos region of Chiapas. Acteal
was the inevitable result of the creation and arming of these paramilitaries.

The strategy leading
to Acteal

Professional politicians seem incapable of understanding the origin or nature
of the Zapatista uprising. Misery and destitution, the marginal existence and
the daily presence of death, corruption and injustice, deterioration of state
institutions-all of these help explain the genesis of the revolt in Chiapas.
Yet at the highest levels of the Mexican government there is an inability to
comprehend.
        Acteal was the predictable result of the Zedillo government's
counterinsurgency approach to this situation. There are three closely
interrelated components in this approach. The first rests on a strong military
presence in Chiapas in order to neutralize and, if possible, destroy the ezln.
The second consists of a façade of being actively engaged in a peace process.
The third element is the growing set of paramilitary groups that are the
backbone of the counterinsurgency war in the North and Los Altos regions of
Chiapas.
        With governmental encouragement, the paramilitary groups multiplied
rapidly. The first two-Paz y Justicia and Los Chinchulines-appeared in
northern Chiapas in 1995, operating from the communities of Tila, Tumbal, and
Sabanilla. In 1996 and 1997, other groups emerged-the Tomás Munster, the
Movimiento Indígena Revolucionario Anti-Zapatista, the Máscara Roja, the
Fuerzas Armadas del Pueblo, among others. The exact number is difficult to
determine, but in the county of Chenalhó alone, anthropologists André Aubry
and Angélica Inda recently found 255 armed members of paramilitaries in nine
localities. The most important of the groups, based in the hamlet Los Chorros,
was the main source of the gunmen who attacked the refugees in Acteal.
        Typically, these groups were organized and supported by local members
of Mexico's ruling party, the pri (the Partido Revolucionario Institucional).
Their methods included outright theft, the levying of "special taxes" to
purchase weapons, and the firing of their weapons just over the rooftops of
the houses of those who failed to comply with their demands. If families fled,
their frail wooden houses were looted and then burned to the ground. If people
remained but refused to "cooperate," they were often kidnapped or killed. In
many cases, the paramilitaries used the proceeds from the sale of looted goods
to buy more weapons.
        The paramilitary groups have taken a heavy toll. No one has an exact
figure for the casualties in this war of attrition, but a conservative
estimate would be 1,500 dead in the two years leading up to the massacre in
Acteal. The number of villages and hamlets in which the paramilitaries
operated has not been counted, but the National Mediation Commission (conai)
has evidence that more than 60 communities have been subjected to harassment,
thefts, shootings, and burnings.
        According to conai, by December 1997 the number of refugees in the
northern part of Chiapas was 6,120; in the area of Chenalhó (the central part
of Los Altos), the figure was 9,207, or almost 30 percent of the total
population of that county. The numbers have increased since the killings at
Acteal.
        Most of the refugees in the North are prd (Partido de la Revolución
Democratica) sympathizers, while the majority of those in Los Altos are
sympathizers or supporters of the Zapatistas. Some refugees are even
supporters of the pri who have refused to pay the paramilitaries' special
taxes. This group includes 300 people from Los Chorros and Canolal, who are
now refugees in San Cristóbal.
        The refugees cannot safely return to their communities to rebuild
their homes as long as the paramilitary groups operate. Conditions in the
camps are desperate. The refugees have little food or medical assistance, and
their camps are in the bitter cold of the highlands-some are located 7,600
feet above sea level, in an area that has the heaviest rainfall in all of
Mexico. Infant mortality, a chronic problem in Chiapas, must be extremely high
in the camps. On a tape recording I made of interviews with refugees in a camp
near Polhó, the voices of the refugees, eager to tell their stories, were
drowned out by the coughing of the children.
        Why Acteal and Chenalhó? Why didn't the paramilitary groups emerge in
the nearby Canyons region, where the Zapatistas have strong social support?
Anthropologists Aubry and Inda believe there are two critical elements in
understanding the appearance of the paramilitary groups.
        The first is electoral logic: The paramilitary groups became active in
the North and in Los Altos, where there were 18 municipalities in which the
prd had harvested good returns in the last elections. The paramilitaries were
organized, in part, to help skew elections through intimidation. In contrast,
the paramilitaries were not active in the Canyons, because there were fewer
municipalities and thus fewer elections to be lost.
        The second element was the ready supply of landless and unemployed
young men. In just a few days, a lonely lad with no prospects for education or
a decent job could become "someone" just by joining a paramilitary group. He
could carry a weapon and everyone would "respect" him. A little training-more
to build esprit de corps than to develop weapons expertise-and he would be
ready for action.
        How did Acteal fit into this strategy? And why were the non-violent
Las Abejas attacked? Aside from electoral considerations, one possible reason
was to deliver a message-there would be no neutrality in the war against the
Zapatistas. All neutrals would be regarded as enemies. This message of terror
still reverberates throughout the North and Los Altos, despite the
government's recent public relations blitz designed to calm fears.
        Las Abejas is devoted to non-violence, and it is particularly close to
Bishop Samuel Ruíz, who heads the Mediation Commission. By attacking Las
Abejas, party chiefs and caciques (rural bosses traditionally linked with the
ruling party) are also attempting to undermine by terror the popular support
enjoyed by the bishop and weaken his role as mediator.
        The killers could have chosen to attack the community of Acteal
proper, where some refugees from Zapatista communities were temporarily
located. But they chose the refugee camp instead. This does not mean, however,
that there won't be any paramilitary attacks against Zapatista-allied
communities in the near future. This could be the next stage, but it would
require tactical changes and perhaps the appearance of death squads--the next
step toward an inexorable escalation of violence. This stage, which would lead
to the selective elimination of ezln leaders and key advisers, must be
prevented at all costs or it will contaminate beyond hope any chance for a
rapid solution to the conflict.


The role of the army

In late January, the federal government launched an ambiguous initiative
nominally designed to defuse the crisis in Chiapas. A central point of the
initiative was a pledge to use the army to disarm "clandestine or illegal
groups"-that is, the paramilitaries. As the Bulletin went to press, it still
remained unclear whether this also meant the Zapatistas.
        According to the Law for Peace in Chiapas, the government must disarm
the paramilitaries, regardless of the new initiative. One hopes that the army
will actually play a positive role in creating favorable conditions for
continued negotiations by taking weapons away from these criminal gangs. But
the government has issued many comforting statements in recent months and
years regarding the conflict in Chiapas without following through.
        In fact, a close reading of the pledge suggests that the only weapons
the army will take away from the paramilitary groups will be army-issue
machine guns and explosives. The paramilitaries will continue to possess
rifles, pistols, shotguns, machetes, and other tools of mayhem and
intimidation.
        After all, the paramilitaries are largely creatures of the federal
government-and of the army. Any lingering doubt about the paramilitaries' role
in the defense ministry's counterinsurgency strategy vanished in January with
the disclosure of "Chiapas '94," a defense ministry document disclosed by
Proceso, a Mexican newsweekly. The authenticity of the document has not been
denied by the military.
        The document discusses, as one line of action, the "secret
organization of certain sectors of the population, among which ranchers, small
private landowners, and individuals characterized by their high sense of
patriotism . . . will be employed under army orders in support of army
operations." It outlined plans for training "self-defense groups" and
paramilitary organizations, describing them as the backbone of military and
"development" operations. It also included instructions on how to create
self-defense groups where they do not exist.
        In claiming the authority to organize these groups, the Mexican
military went well beyond its constitutional limits, and no one was to blame
more than the head of the armed forces, President Zedillo himself.
        Forced to respond after the Acteal killings, the federal government
insisted that all responsibility for the creation and training of the
paramilitary groups resided with state police and security officials. But it
is impossible to believe that the Mexican army was not involved. That the
paramilitaries carry military-issue weapons-the very weapons that the army is
now supposed to round up-is one indication that regular army units have been
involved with these groups all along.
        Further, to ascribe the creation of the paramilitaries to the state
government was disingenuous at best. Political institutions in Chiapas are in
dismal disarray, and the state is for all practical purposes under federal
control. Since the conflict started in 1994, six provisional, substitute, or
interim governors have been paraded through the governor's palace in Chiapas.
Under these circumstances, it is impossible to think that the army, probably
the best organized structure in Chiapas, with 45,000-60,000 troops now
stationed there, could be ignorant of what had been going on.
        In fact, the operations of paramilitary groups in northern Chiapas and
Los Altos have reflected the federal government's two-pronged strategy. On the
one hand, the paramilitaries' covert actions relieved the army of the shameful
task of terrorizing civilian populations. On the other, the regular army
remained available for use against Zapatista strongholds (after Acteal, 3,000
fresh troops were flown in from neighboring Yucatán and Campeche).
        It is inconceivable that Commander-in-Chief Zedillo was ignorant of
the rise of the paramilitary groups. He has visited Chiapas on at least eight
different occasions since taking power in December 1994, and he has been
repeatedly alerted about the rising paramilitary groups.
        Now his government says it will disarm the paramilitaries. That
remains to be seen, of course. Unwilling to implement the signed peace accord,
unable to follow through on its word, the government's credibility is close to
zero.
**********



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