By Wendy Patterson
Chiapas once again burst on to the front pages of the world's newspapers with news of a massacre in the small town of Acteal on December 22. Local members of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) gunned down 45 unarmed Tzotzil Indian refugees praying in a church.
The subsequent investigation has shown that local and state PRI officials not only had knowledge of the preparations for attacks on the village, but also provided material aid to the murderers.
Hundreds of displaced supporters of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) had taken refuge in Acteal, located in the municipality of Chenalhs. The attackers, many of them poor Tzotzil peasants, were armed with AK-47 and M-16 rifles, arms which they could not possibly have afforded on their own. The PRI loyalists opened fire on the Zapatista supporters and then pursued them for hours.
The mayor of Chenalhs, a member of the PRI and a known paramilitary leader, and nearly 40 others have been formally charged. It is now known that during the massacre, which lasted five hours, both public security police and army units were close by but did nothing to stop the slaughter.
Unions' response
The response from the labour movement was varied. Leonardo Rodriguez Alcaine, the head of the Confederation of Mexican Workers, at a meeting in Jalisco on January 10, attacked Bishop Samuel Ruiz for his connections with the EZLN and accused both of having harmed investments in Chiapas and affected the economy of the entire country. Priests, said Alcaine, should stay in the pulpit and not in politics.
But many other unions, particularly those independent of the PRI, called for an end to the army's occupation of Indian villages in Chiapas.
University unions, the Nuclear Workers Union, the Electrical Workers Union, democratic Locals 9 and 10 of the Teachers Union, the Authentic Labor Front and several others joined with civic organisations, Indian groups, social movements and non-governmental organisations to demand: the fulfilment of the San Andres accords; fulfilment of the Law for Dialogue, Reconciliation and a Dignified Peace in Chiapas, and respect for the National Mediation Commission; punishment for those responsible for the massacre at Acteal; withdrawal of the Mexican army from the Indian communities; and the disbanding of the paramilitary organisations.
The Federation of Unions of Goods and Services, in an advertisement, expressed its "preoccupation with the situation in Chiapas" and called for a return "to dialogue".
The national coordinating committee of the Teachers Union placed an advertisement which called on the Ernesto Zedillo government to stop its genocidal war in Chiapas.
In a separate incident on January 12, a day of international protest for peace in Chiapas, members of the public security force in Ocosingo fired on unarmed protesters, killing one Tzeltal woman, and wounding her baby and another young man.
The crisis in Chiapas led Zedillo to appoint a new governor of Chiapas (the fifth in four years), Albores Guillen, and a new interior minister, Francisco Labastida Ochoa. Both are long-time PRI leaders.
The National Human Rights Commission had concluded that the former Chiapas governor, Ferro Ruiz of the PRI, had information that the massacre would occur and failed to do anything to prevent it. He and other local officials face possible charges.
Army on alert
The government's immediate response was to send the army further into Zapatista territory to search for arms. Even before this, the army declared it was on "maximum alert". In the municipality of Chenalhs there is now one soldier for every 20 inhabitants.
On January 3, reports that the army had "taken" La Realidad, the presumed headquarters of the EZLN and its leader, Subcomandante Marcos, provoked an outcry from many sources. Labastida and the army hotly denied the reports.
After nearly 48 hours of confusion the press confirmed that the army was in La Realidad for approximately 17 hours and interrogated and tortured several villagers. The army, however, denied it had taken the town.
The government justified the army's actions saying it was enforcing the federal firearms and explosives law "indiscriminately". Nevertheless, the searches seem to be taking place only in towns sympathetic to the Zapatistas and not in areas where the paramilitaries are located. This has led the EZLN to charge that the army is trying to provoke confrontations and that it is acting against the 1995 Law for Dialogue, Reconciliation, and a Just Peace in Chiapas.
The Acteal massacre grows out of Mexican government policies and military tactics. The magazine Proceso recently published a report on the so-called Campaign Chiapas '94 in which the army details a counter-insurgency strategy to "create paramilitary groups, displace the population and destroy the bases of EZLN support".
According to the article, the Acteal massacre is the result of the strategy to "break the relationship of support that exists between the population and the law-breakers", the Zapatistas. The army's report said the military intelligence should "secretly organise certain sectors of the civil population, among them cattle ranchers, small land-owners and individuals characterised as highly patriotic, who will be employed in support of our operations".
The report also states that it is the army's role to "assist and support the forces of self-defence and other paramilitary organisations" and, "in case self-defence units don't exist, it is necessary to create them". The government has denied the existence of this plan, while the military has said that it doesn't exist or they can't find it.
The National Peace Negotiating Commission, the NGO connected with the dioceses of San Cristobal, has documented the increased presence of paramilitaries and violence in the area over the last two years and linked it to local PRI officials. (Some 1500 people have been killed in Chiapas since the uprising in 1994.)
There has been a pattern of harassment and violence against Zapatista-sympathetic or independent towns. Thousands of peasants have become refugees. Today it is estimated that there are upwards of 8000 "displaced" persons in the highlands. This has created a politically explosive situation as there are great shortages of shelter, food and health care.
Indian women have organised demonstrations and several non-PRI affiliated towns in the region are demanding the military leave.
The Zedillo administration has been further embarrassed by the refusal of some villages to accept government assistance, or to only accept aid via NGOs. The government has justified the overwhelming army presence by saying they are performing social work and providing aid.
On January 9, General Gsmez Salazar, commander of the seventh military region, accused Bishop Samuel Ruiz of being connected to the EZLN. (Ruiz has played a key role as an unofficial negotiator between the government and the EZLN.) The army's "evidence" was books written by the Bishop or edited by the Dioceses and translated into Tojolabal language found in Zapatista towns.
Meanwhile, 200,000 Mexicans turned out for a protest for peace on January 12. The Party of the Democratic Revolution and the National Action Party have called on the government to find a peaceful solution to the crisis and condemned its response to the massacre.
[Abridged from Mexican Labor News and Analysis. <>ttp://www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect>.]<>><>41559MS>n<>255D>