*Charges by ARIC-independent against ARIC-official
*The temperature rises in the civilian contigent in the jungle*
*12,000 soldiers have been mobilized into the zone*
Juan Antonio Zuniga m, correspondent, Part 1
Montanas del sureste March 11
The advance of the Mexican Army has involved the mobilization of some
12,000 soldiers exclusively into the five regions of the jungle zone,
whose terrain obstructed their passage and fundamentally limited the
effectiveness of the heavy armament, in particular in its road to the
Montes Azules, which is considered an integral reserve of the biosphere.
Armed conflicts have not happened, but in the interior of the jungle the
temperature of the civilian contigent is rapidly rising because of the
continual accusations of the members of the Rural Association of
Collective Interest - Official (ARIC-oficial) against members of the
ARIC-independent.
In this sense the regional assembly of the ARIC-independente, which was
held in Agua Azul, stated:
"We are responding to those who have hurt us and for this reason we ask
the leaders (of the ARIC-oficial) to change their policies, because the
day will come when we will not tolerate their offenses and we will have to
respond. The government supports only those who obey. But we are
different. We do not want food packages, we want to participate directly
in the solution to our problems. We are working people, and we want to be
allowed to work, not to be helped as they think that it is necessary to
help us. We do not speak their language, but we have capacities. We are
tzeltales, not idiots."
There has not been any ranch, community or collective farm to which have
not arrived the displaced from Ocosingo, and in which the PRI members of
the ARIC-oficial have not accused members of the ARIC-independent of
thefts, sackings and being "Zapatistas".
The ARIC-independent stated that the people who sold the properties that
they are now saying were stolen, that these lands have been taken care of,
and that the ARIC-independent is a civic association whose demands--for
housing, potable water, healthcare and roads--coincide with those of the
Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). "As part of the civic society,
our needs coincide with the demands of the EZLN, for this reason their
demands are also ours."
*Deep Mexico*
Until now, the Army has not had a confrontation with any of the EZLN
forces, who maintain their retreat into territory that historically has
constituted a natural strength and refuge for the hundreds years old
culture of resistence inherited by the residents of these communities who
speak only tzeltal, smile easily and have a universal generosity.
The presence of the federal troops, or the closing in of their advance,
has altered the daily life of the indigenous life. The advances of the
Mexican military obstruct the work in the cornfields, the pastures, and
the coffee fields, comment the residents. "If they see us in the
cornfields--located far from the villages--they interrogate us, asking
where are the Zapatistas and they tell us to leave because it is going to
get ugly."
The women stay in their houses with their children, the elderly and the
sick. Some men watch from a distance, while others leave to work in the
nearby properties. Since the "armies" arrived, as the soldiers are
called, nothing has been the same, "there is fear and hardship", they
comment.
The activities have been altered in the jungle places where the troops
have stopped or have passed by.
Due to the peculiarities which give them a sense of indentity, these
Meso-American cultures, for as many studies and tests that have been made,
do not appear to understand the Western World, now represented by the
clothes of the soldiers.
Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, one of the anthropologists who got to know the
Indians profoundly, explained: "There is a complete attitude of the man
before nature, which is the point of common reference for his knowledge,
his abilities, his work, his specific form of satisfying the insolvable
need to obtain sustenance; but which is also present in the projection of
his dreams, in his capacity to imagine and not to simply observe in
nature, in the willingness to dialogue with nature, in his fears and hopes
in the face of forces outside human control."
"In the end this is occuring in all of the cultures, except in the Western
culture they try to separate and specialize distinct aspects of this total
relation: the poet sings to the moon; the astronomer studies it; the
painter recreates forms and colors of its passage; the agronomist knows
the earth; the mystic prays...and there is no form, in the Western logic,
that unites everything in a total attitude, as the Indian does it."
*Where is Fidelino?*
Located at the end of the road, which is no more than a dirt road, now a
little more level and wider because of the military vehicles' passage,
Taniperlas is located within the Tzeltal canefields, between the Cruz de
Plata mountain and the banks of the Perlas river, in the northwestern part
of the jungle region, and at the edge of the integral reserve of the
Montes Azules biosphere.
There one of the principal bases of the Army is located, and it is easy to
observe no less than 130 military vehicles of different types and a
helioport with the capacity to have 6 helicopters stationed there at the
same time.
There modern times has come in the form of a clinic, and sophisticated
weaponry, which includes at least one cannon of unknown characteristics,
because it is permanently covered.
The armament came first. The clinic, made up of a poorly constructed
wooden hanger with four divisions, and equipped with an arsenal of 90
medicines, came later, and was inaugurated by the substitute governor of
the state, Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro, and also by the secretary of Health,
Ramon de la Fuente, last March 3rd.
Fidelino Sanchez Gomez did not see it. The residents relate that on the
morning of February 24th, he left very early from his home and he went to
cut coffee. This same day, the soldiers left for the mountain, which is
where Fidelino's coffee field is. Fidel does not speak any Spanish, only
Tzeltal. Shots were heard, various soldiers came down, and other soldiers
went up with picks and shovels. To this moment he has not come back home.
*By the green road*
Very near Taniperlas, in the western direction, is the collective farm
Agua Azul, where the road suddenly ends. Leaving from there, two tractors
and a motor driven molder from the Army open a path towards the Perla de
Acapulco collective farm, where the natural environs appear to cover its
modesty with leaves up to 1.2 meters (5 feet) in diameter.
Camouflaged, some 300 soldiers are posted in a vally while an undetermined
number of others are in the high spots. A colonel affably receives the
column of journalist but who asks a subaltern to take down their names and
for whom they are working. Their questions receive vague answers:
-What is your name, Colonel?
-Whatever information that you need can be obtained in San Cristobal.
--How many soldiers are under your command?
--Look, don't be rude. Whatever information that you need can be gotten
in San Cristobal, or if you want, in Tuxtla.
--Have you had any problems? --Things are fine. We are doing social
work. We are consulting with the population, and they told us that what
they need most is a road and we are making it.
--Listen, Colonel, if you think that it is impertinent, you can tell me to
be quiet, but our job is to ask questions. Don't you think that it is
better that public investment come to these communities in the form of
tractors and motorized molders instead of weapons? Everyone would be
happier, and you all would be in your barracks.
--Yes. This is how it is effectively.
The road to Perla de Acapulco continues going forward, but the character-
istics of the terrain makes it clear that it will not resist the forces of
the rains. From Agua Azul, the reporters' column had to continue on foot
because of the impassibility of the path, although, according to the
military engineer who was directly the work, it will be finished by
Saturday March 11th.
A representative of the community of Perla de Acapulco confirmed that
around that area there had not been a confrontation between the Mexican
Army forces and the EZLN. Here the displaced who had been in the county
seat of Ocosingo have now arrived.
The situation is the same: "They have mistreated and threatened us. There
were no thefts, the refugees sold their things before they left. What
surprised the community was the large planes and helicopters which pass
day and night apparently towards San Quintin. We do not want the soldiers
here. If they prevent us from working, and there isn't a corn crop this
year, there will be hunger next year. The refugees come with the soldiers
and they keep looking to see if we commit some kind of crime, but we don't
get into a direct conflict. The ARIC-official wants that we be seen as
weak, but it isn't so."
--Do you think that the road that they have built will hold up?
--No. The rains will turn it into a big mud puddle.
Leaving Perla de Acapulco, the jungle almost returns to being a jungle.
Getting to Zapotal is only possible by a real road and a multitude of
paths.
Leaving from here, among the ravines and a vegetation that practically
impedes the passage of sunlight, the "real roads" become the only means of
access to get to the communities located more than two days away, and in
which the "congenial myths", which are not considered in the official
statistics, are transformed into a genuine rural reality.
(translated by Cindy Arnold, volunteer, National Commission for
Democracy in Mexico)