Contact: NCDM national office phone/fax (915) 532-8382
Washington DC Hunger Strike communication center
phone: (301) 270-6122
DC Cellular number available upon request for
interviews only
March 8, 1995
IMMEDIATE PRESS RELEASE
THREE WEEKS ON HUNGER STRIKE
REP. APPOINTED BY EZLN DETAINED BY POLICE UPON ARRIVAL IN DC
AREA
US MILITARY AID IN CHIAPAS
INDIGENOUS MAN KILLED BY VILLAGE COUNCILMAN
ARMY WITCHHUNT IN VERACRUZ
UN'S GHALI AGAIN SAYS NO TO CHIAPAS
Today is the end of the third week of the hunger strike by
Cecilia Rodriguez, who was appointed by Subcomandante Marcos
to represent the EZLN in the US. In a statement released
today and written on Monday -Day 19, Ms. Rodriguez reports
that upon her arrival in the DC area on Monday night, just
outside the Baltimore airport, she and her escorts were
stopped by five police cars, including an undercover agent
for an alleged traffic violation. They were bodily
searched, had their documents and personal belongings
rifled, and had a dog investigate the vehicle. They were
detained for an hour and half and then let go without
further comment. This was in addition to having her flight
cancelled, and having to be rerouted and delayed for more
than two hours.
In the area around El Censo, in the municipality of
Ocosingo, an enormous quantity of food packaging stamped
with the name of a US company has been found. The trash
from the Mexican military is marked: Cinpac, Inc.,
Cincinnati, Ohio 45212, and bears the names of food like
chicken stew, corned beef mash, and potatos au gratin. This
would appear to be part of the US military aid given to
Mexico, allegedly in support of their anti-drug trafficking
efforts.
News reports document another murder in the Lacandon jungle.
Pascual Sanchez, an indigenous Chol, was shot to death by
Jesus Celis, a village councilman in the Tila collective
farm. That is in addition to the unknown number of refugee
babies, children, women and elderly who have died from
starvation, exposure, dehydration, dysentary and pneumonia.
Official reports only have documented the five people killed
at Neuva Estrella in Ocosingo, and the murder of Gilberto
Jimenez Hernandez in front of his family by federal
soldiers.
In Veracruz 500 members of the Mexican Army are searching
indigenous communities looking for 15 indigenous leaders
alleged as EZLN members. The majority of them are leaders of
the Committee of the Union of Campesinos and Artisans in the
Sierra Nahuatl in Zongolica. Army soldiers have ransacked
private homes and removed documents from the organization.
UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has again refused
to have the UN become involved in the Chiapas conflict.
Reiterating a position taken in response to Cecilia
Rodriguez' December 1994 request on behalf of the EZLN for
UN mediation, Ghali stated at the World Meeting on Social
Development that Chiapas was internal matter, and that the
UN would only get involved upon the request of the Mexican
government.
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