Zapatista Report
First presented as a speech at the Indigenous
Struggles panel at the Second National Conference on Mexico-U.S.
Relations, Mexico Solidarity Network
by Mercedes Osun, translated by Irlandesa
Z magazine, December 1999
The causes that led to the Zapatista uprising-poverty, hunger,
diseases, a lack of services, injustice and racism against the
indigenous communities-have not, in any way, been resolved. The
economic, political, and social conditions have been made worse
by the government's failure to carry out the accords signed between
the EZLN and the federal government, and which were synthesized
by a legislative commission (the COCOPA). But those conditions
have also been exacerbated by the positioning of more and more
tens of thousands of military and police personnel from various
forces, as well as by systematic attacks by paramilitary groups
against the indigenous communities, destroying the material conditions
of life and the community fabric and feeling of these Indian peoples.
Meanwhile, there has been much and varied academic and journalistic
research that has corroborated and clarified the suspicion regarding
the extraordinary strategic importance of the material wealth
of the Selva Lacandona: issues such as oil, biodiversity (more
and more involved with genetic engineering and its various bio-piracy
activities), water (which serves not only for hydroelectric use,
but also for irrigating high consumption forestry plantations,
such as eucalyptus, and bamboo for paper production), minerals,
plantations, archeological ruins (now in the process of being
privatized), the eco-tourism of the Mayan Route, and, of course,
drug trafficking.
Such varied uses of the land, within the context of NAFTA,
allows one to foresee the convocation of a multitude of businesses
and capital interested in new methods of looting the natural and
historical resources there, as a new means of acquiring extraordinary
profits. It has been denounced in many media how the 1992 amendment
of Article 27 of the Mexican Political Constitution-regarding
campesino ownership of land-had to do with agricultural integration
into the North American market. This integration is sacrificing
not only the cultivation of our traditional products (maize, beans,
etc.), but also, and above all, the 1,000-year-old continuation
of Mexican campesinos on their farming lands. In the case of Chiapas,
however, the pressure on land ownership is not coming just from
the aggressive and implacable North American agricultural companies,
but also from the various capital tied to the oil, hydroelectricity,
paper, pharmaceutical, and hotel industries, as well as from genetic
sequencing companies, seed producers. All equally interested in
various forms of privatization of the strategic resources there.
The ruination of Mexican farmers is leading, throughout the
country, to the accelerated abandonment of their lands and their
forced migration to big cities or to the United States. As is
the case in Chiapas, the possibility of the exploitation of strategic
resources lead to their privatization, and it can be expected
that these changes will unavoidably lead to the massive expulsion
of hundreds of thousands of campesinos.
The military, police, and paramilitary deployment above and
around the strategic resources of the Selva, even in areas where
there is little or no population present, is the unlucky signal
of a coming war of expulsions and extermination. In this regard,
let us look at the most recent incidents.
Recent events
San Manuel: Since March 29, there have been simulations of
weapons turn-ins in this municipality by para- militaries and
PRIs from the area, as if they were Zapatistas. In June, the soldiers
set up a camp at the entrance to La Trinidad ejido, impeding access
to the community's health center. Everyone traveling through that
area is being searched and harassed by this detachment. There
have been various denunciations by communities in the region asking
for the Army's withdrawal from that town.
Ricardo Flores Magon: On July 22, 5,000 military troops entered
this area, setting up new camps and checkpoints in the communities,
offering to replant the area with mahogany and cedar. In the communities
where they were accepted, they have reforested even the plots
(beginning with the PRI communities, and then moving to the other
Zapatista communities). They subsequently entered other areas,
reforesting without the consent of the communities. In the Viejo
Velazco Suarez ejido, Senor Pedro Lopez Hernandez, 75, was detained
on July 21, and his whereabouts is still unknown. It is in this
area where children are being given money in order to obtain information,
and for them to bring in their sisters to work as prostitutes.
Soldiers and their prostitutes are | going to the springs there
to bathe, | leaving trash, contaminating the | rivers, etc., which
the communities l use for drinking water.
San Pedro de Michoacan: The community of La Realidad is located
in this important municipality. Since May, defoliants have been
applied as part of a program for controlling the Moscamed Mediterranean
mosquito, which is being carried out as part of an agreement between
Mexico and Guatemala. It is an extremely aggressive defoliant
that pollutes the entire environment, affecting the communities'
primary crops, such as maize, beans, coffee and fruits, as well
as also contaminating the springs. The chemical being applied
affects the skin and causes headaches and vomiting. A generalized
poisoning can lead to death. Residents of this municipality have
denounced that the persons carrying out this program are foreigners,
as they were in 1995.
Libertad de los Pueblos Mayas: The Army entered Amador Hernandez
on August 11, under the pretext of buying food. On the 12th, around
550 Army, Air Force, and Navy troops arrived in helicopters and
by land, and they set up a camp one kilometer from Amador Hernandez,
within the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. After huge protests
from the communities and from civil society in solidarity-and
after the COCOPA's arrival-the federal government declared the
temporary suspension of the building of the San Quintin/Amador
Hernandez/Rio Perla/Monte Libano highway.
Tierra y Libertad: On August 25, the Army entered the community
of San Jose La Esperanza. Patrols were being carried out on the
outskirts of this community. On this day, however, the Army decided
to enter the community, and the women blocked the Army's passage
while the men were working in the fields. When they heard the
women's cries, the men came running to the village with their
work machetes in their hands. When the Army saw them they began
firing, purportedly into the air, but two campesinos were wounded
by gunfire. One of them stands to lose his leg. The Army detained
three men and took them to Tuxtla Gutierrez. The men were brutally
beaten.
17 de Noviembre Municipality: Early in September in the community
of Morelia-which is also one of the five Aguascalientes-a group
of PRIs went to the house where national and international human
rights observers were staying, giving them 30 minutes to leave
the house. They looted the homes of some of the residents in the
Autonomous Municipality, and, during the incident, the PRIs detained
| six members of that municipality's l Autonomous Council, who
were released two days later. Because of this, the community decided
to take refuge in the Aguascalientes' facilities, many of whom
still remain in the Aguascalientes. Following these incidents,
and under the pretext of repairing roads in the village, the PRI
municipality of Altamirano sent purportedly technical personnel,
who appear, in fact, to be police officers. They seem to be anticipating
a military operation there soon.
Imminent Dangers in the Conflict Zone
The federal government, international bodies, and world capital
are attacking the lives of the communities. Like the embodiment
of death, they are also attacking the survival of the Selva (even
against the supposed strategic importance that biodiversity has
for cutting edge technologies). One example is the deforestation
caused by fires that were started in 1998 in various regions of
Los Altos and La Selva, primarily around the Montes Azules Biosphere
Reserve. These fires were used at that time as an excuse for entering
the indigenous communities. In this regard, one should recall
the numerous complaints in the national press that accurately
denounced how the drought that year was deliberately caused in
the Selvas of Chiapas and Oaxaca in order to feed the artificial
fires. As we can see today, they also laid the groundwork for
reforestation activities of the single crop culture of cedar and
mahogany being carried out by the Army this year.
The environmental fakery of the federal and state governments
has also been made manifest through the following incidents:
1. The application of strong defoliants (under the pretext
of the Moscamed program) during 1995 and 1999 in the San Pedro
Michoacan municipality
2. The request by local PRI officials for the opening of roads
and the establishment of military camps (among other things under
the aegis of the construction companies), which involves
the felling of trees, even in areas of high environmental
protection, such as the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve
3. The production of trash and urban consumer waste from tens
of thousands of military troops in dozens of camps and detachments
in the middle of the Selva (as denounced by the Ricardo Flores
Magon Autonomous Municipality)
4. The one-sided planting of forest species that destroys
the equilibrium of the complex diversity of species in the Selva,
as also denounced by the same municipality
5. Military and paramilitary aggressions against all the Zapatistas
communities who, once they have been expelled from their places
of origin, find themselves forced to go more and more deeply into
the Selva
6. The opening of roads and activities related to oil exploration
(explosions, drilling, creation of waste, etc.)
7. The development of eucalyptus plantations, and other species,
for the production of paper, rubber, etc., which is continuing
the destruction created previously in the region by widespread
cattle ranching
8. The introduction of genetically modified organisms, such
as the transgenetic maize for cultivation in the regions of the
Selva and Los Altos by SAGAR and by national and international
companies, or the proposal for the mass cultivation of specialty
coffee (also transgenetic), developed by the Mexican multi-national
company, Pulsar SA (today renamed Savia)
To all of this must be added the destructive effects which
could still be occasioned by the planned oil exploitation there,
as well as the building of 43 hydroelectric dams planned by CFE
for the Selva Lacandona, and the seven private dams also being
proposed by the Mexican Business Council for International Affairs
(CEMAI) for the same location (without forgetting that there are
33 other dams proposed by CFE for the rest of the state).
In the face of this devastation, the (government's) manipulative
environmentalism is ironic. It is only being used as an instrument
for the expulsion of the indigenous population from the Selva,
by reforesting cultivated fields. This implies that those campesinos
who want to plant their own lands would be seen as the new enemies
of the environment. It is commonplace among many ecologists to
lament the population growth of indigenous and campesino populations
as a destructive factor in the forests of the world. Nonetheless,
those who see things like that are not only ignoring the way in
which large genetic engineering multinationals are today seeking
alliances with some international environmental organizations
(such as Conservation International) in order to privatize the
areas of natural protection. They are also forgetting that it
is the indigenous cultures that have the greatest cultural wealth
for the employment of sustainable technology and conservation
of the great Latin American Selvas. From our point of view, these
are crucial problems that should be fairly evaluated by truly
humanitarian environmental organizations. The survival of thousands
of indigenous, as well as the true conservation of the Selva,
requires the participation of the international environmental
community, to vigorously call on the Mexican government for an
immediate halt to the current war it is waging, in both a veiled
and an open manner, against the indigenous communities.
A second widespread element, which is present in all the events
going on in the current low intensity war in Chiapas, is the systematic
destruction of the conditions for the production of the indigenous
communities' basic foods. Destruction of the immediate material
conditions, as well as those conditions which assure a mid and
long range subsistence. Such is the case with the spraying of
defoliants that prevent the current cycle of a year's production
of maize, beans, squash, coffee plants and their natural shade,
bananas, citrus, and other fruits. The reforestation programs,
which are absurdly planting trees of precious woods in the campesinos'
plots, have a similar effect. In the long term, once the use of
transgenetic seed becomes widespread in the area, what campesino
in Chiapas is going to be able to buy the technology package of
trans-genetic seeds, hormones, and appropriate pesticides? And
that is without taking into consideration the total catastrophic
effect of introducing these genetically modified organisms into
the middle of the Selva, one of the primary regions in the world
for the domestication of foods. This warlike aggression against
the conditions of agricultural production, and the lack of foods
which it artificially creates, is added to the chronic poverty
of the place, for the deliberate purpose of defeating the struggles
of these communities against hunger. The immense perversity of
these actions is reflected in the most recent studies on malnutrition
among the population of Chiapas. These studies have confirmed
the generalized decrease in stature among all recent newborns.
In response to this situation, we are asking you for the physical
presence of observers who can bear direct witness to what is going
on there, and to, accordingly, take whatever measures you find
most suitable.
If one carefully looks at a map of all the military, paramilitary,
and anti-environmental activities organized recently in the Selva
region, one can ultimately to observe the attempt to try establish
an encirclement of infrastructure and of aggressive actions, around
the community of La Realidad. This is where the federal Army supposes
that the EZLN comandancia is located, and their purpose is to
deploy a sudden attack against them, at the same time cutting
off supposed evacuation routes of the command. Northeast of La
Realidad, residents in the area are reporting the future construction
of a highway leading towards the town of Agua Zarca, at the request
of residents there. In the same region, they are attempting to
develop the construction of a highway from San Quantin to Amador
Hernandez (with a possible prior destination at Monte Libano,
crossing the entire Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve from south
to north).
Southeast of La Realidad, the Army attacked the community
of San Jose La Esperanza in an attempt to establish a camp there,
which was prevented by resistance from the people.
South of La Realidad a fumigation program is being carried
out against the Mediterranean mosquito which serves to apply defoliants
that increase the army's visibility in the Selva, at the same
time destroying the conditions for growing food in the area. This
action is being accompanied by the current construction of a highway
from El Eden to Guadalupe los Altos.
Lastly, west of La Realidad, the construction of another highway
has also been observed, leading from the community of Vicente
Guerrero, and which is assumed will lead to the Aguascalientes
of Francisco Gomez (previously La Garrucha).
To these operations should be added the entrance of 5,000
military troops north of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve,
right at the site that Pemex has called the Region of Ocosingo.
As the Ricardo Flores Magon Autonomous Municipality has denounced
so well, these new military emplacements are flooding the northeast
of the Selva, controlling the border highway that runs parallel
with the Usumacinta River. Since these troops are in addition
to the numerous detachments already posted in the area where oil
and biological reserves intersect, as well as certain bioprospecting
facilities belonging to the Pulsar group, one could think that
control over this region is important, not only for military reasons,
but also, concomitantly, as a defense of wealth that the Mexican
government is now seriously at the point of privatizing.
Because of all of this, and of all that was described above,
we are reiterating our invitation to visit the conflict region
as soon as possible as civil observers, while at the same time
mobilizing within your own country, demanding of the various governmental
and international bodies the necessary measures for the building
of a true circumstance of peace in the region, which will resolve
all the injustices and grievances which gave rise to this unhappy
conflict.
Mercedes Osuna is director of Enlace Civil, a non-governmental
organization based in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas (www.Enlacecivil.Organization
mx/ index.htm).
Central America watch