*ZAPATISMO NEWS UPDATE*--JULY 29, 1997
A service of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation.
Please redistribute.
More information regarding the FZLN and the Zapatista struggle in Mexico
can be found at:
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Please send comments to: joshua@peak.org
____________________________________________________________________
NEWS SUMMARY FOR JULY 16-28, 1997:
1. The COCOPA: Frustrated and Confused
2. Four members of Paz y Justicia assassinated in
northern Chiapas
3. 2nd Intercontinental Encounter begins in Spain
4. 800 OCEZ members expelled from land in Venustiano Carranza
5. Briefs
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THE COCOPA: FRUSTRATED AND CONFUSED
The legislative Commission on Concordance and Pacification (COCOPA) seems
trapped in frustration, disagreement, and lack of direction with only
five weeks left before a new round of federal deputies (and possibly some
senators as well) replace the current members of the commission.
The main debate within the COCOPA at this point is whether or not to
present their original constitutional reform initiative on Indigenous
Rights and Culture to the current legislature, or to wait until the new
Congress enters into session on September 1st. The initiative was part
of the COCOPA's attempts late last year to restart the suspended dialogue
between the EZLN and the federal government, by enacting major national
reforms to comply with the agreements on indigenous rights signed between
the EZLN and the government in February, 1996. The initiative was
originally approved by both the EZLN and the Interior Ministry--but the
latter then rescinded its support, and the government wrote an entirely
new proposal for consideration which does not even come close to
fulfilling the accords signed with the Zapatistas.
Several COCOPA members, including PRD deputy Juan Guerra, insist that the
COCOPA has a commitment to present the reform initiative to the current
session of Congress. "If the EZLN or Subcomandante Marcos have not
wanted to return to sitting at the negotiating table with the government
representatives", said Guerra, "it is because the latter do not honor
what they sign. And, if that is the way things are, then the only
solution is for the COCOPA to carry forward the constitutional reform
initiative".
"The Zapatistas have felt betrayed on at least two occasions", added
Guerra. "The first, when there was clear dialogue going on and arrest
warrants were issued against the leaders of the EZLN; and the second,
when the legal initiative on Indigenous Rights and Culture were rejected".
The COCOPA is scheduled to meet on August 2nd and 3rd to discuss whether
or not to present their initiative to Congress later in the month;
however, consensus seems unlikely. While members such as Guerra, PRI
deputy Jaime Martinez Veloz, and PAN deputy Rodolfo Elizondo want to see
their work bear fruit before leaving Congress on August 31st, pressure is
building from the political parties themselves to delay all new work
within the COCOPA until the new Congress enters into session. The
primary argument is that the new Congress, without an absolute majority
of the PRI, would be more receptive to a unilateral initiative of the
COCOPA which does not have the backing of President Zedillo.
PRD deputy-elect Gilberto Lopez y Rivas--an anthropologist and former
advisor to the EZLN, and likely to become a member of the COCOPA in
September--is one of those who opposes any attempt to promote a
constitutional reform initiative based on the San Andres Accords in the
current Congress. "It will be impossible for the current Chamber of
Deputies to carry forward the [constitutional reform] initiative on
indigenous matters in just a few weeks", he said, adding that the current
makeup of the Congress--with a large PRI majority--will almost nullify
the possibilities that such an initiative would be approved.
The federal government, meanwhile, seems to have completely forgotten the
reasons for the suspension of the dialogue with the EZLN in the first
place, and apparently believes that the July 6th elections fulfill all of
the conditions laid out by the EZLN nearly one year ago for a resumption
of peace talks. The chief government negotiator, Pedro Joaquin Coldwell,
made several statements to the press on July 16th indicating that the
basic conditions now exist "for the EZLN to incorporate itself into
institutional life and political competition under the new, transparent,
and equal rules for Mexican democracy". He also said that the government
supports constitutional reforms on indigenous rights--but that new
legislation must be worked out between the government and the EZLN,
apparently forgetting that such agreements have already been signed, and
that it is the federal government which refuses to implement them.
Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, for his part, made statements similar
to those of Coldwell during a visit to Chicago on July 23rd. The
president called on the EZLN to resume the peace talks with the
government, since "on July 6th, the Mexican people reaffirmed their
democratic will and their desire to live under the rights of the law".
He then said--in words recalling his public declarations just before the
military offensive against the Zapatistas in February of 1995--that the
government will "maintain an untiring patience" in order to achieve a
negotiated solution to the conflict.
He added, however, that there are a number of "fundamental principles"
which "cannot be negotiated"--national sovereignty, territorial
integrity, and national unity. These "non-negotiable principles" are
apparently aimed at the desire of indigenous communities for limited
community autonomy, and completely disregard the fact that what Zedillo
is (and has been) condemning as "attacks on national unity" have already,
in fact, been negotiated and signed by the federal government as part of
the San Andres Accords. Zedillo further insisted that the EZLN "drop its
rebellious rhetoric and take up more constructive tasks".
Members of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), as well as leaders of
the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), were quick to
lash out at the president's remarks. CNI members Melquiades Rosas
Blanco, Abelardo Rodriguez, and Marcelino Diaz de Jesus said that it is
Zedillo's job--not that of the Zapatistas--"to create the conditions for
a resumption of the dialogue with the EZLN", and that the next step for
the government must be that of "giving public signals in order to
recuperate lost confidence, since it has been the government which has
placed all the obstacles" toward peace in Chiapas.
PRD deputy Cuauhtemoc Sandoval, meanwhile, added that the statements of
the Mexican president in Chicago "is more a message designed to
strengthen Zedillo's image in the exterior, than it is a true sign of
political will toward pacification in Chiapas."
"One should not forget", said Sandoval, "that the dialogue with the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation was broken by Zedillo himself, in
the manner in which the government first said it would accept the
initiative to be drafted by the COCOPA, and then refused to sign or to
support that valiant initiative which the members of the COCOPA drafted
by consensus".
COCOPA member Juan Guerra also responded to the President's declarations,
insisting that by limiting basic issues for negotiation, "what the
government is doing is making a call to dialogue, but without wanting to
negotiate".
FOUR MEMBERS OF PAZ Y JUSTICIA ASSASSINATED IN NORTHERN CHIAPAS
Four members of the PRI-backed paramilitary group Paz y Justicia were
killed and at least one seriously wounded last week in the northern
Chiapas municipalities of Tila and Sabanilla, during three separate
ambushes carried out between July 21st and July 23rd.
According to police reports, the first attack was carried out "by heavily
armed men" at 2:00 in the afternoon on July 21st near the community of
Masoja Grande, in the municipality of Tila, killing Paz y Justicia
secretary Santiago Sanchez Torres, the leader in charge of organization
for the paramilitary group.
At 5:00pm on the same day, Bersain Vazquez Cruz--son of one of the top
leaders of Paz y Justicia--was killed in a similar attack near the town
of Pasija de Morelos, as he was traveling to the municipal center of Tila.
Two days later, near the community of Buena Vista (in Sabanilla), Paz y
Justicia members Elvira Mendoza Perez and Mateo Martinez Lopez were
killed in yet another ambush, while Jose Luis Juarez was seriously wounded.
While the local authorities have accused Zapatista sympathizers of having
planned and carried out the killings, many civilian Zapatistas insist
that the assassinations were carried out by Paz y Justicia itself, either
because they want an excuse to provoke new clashes between the
paramilitary group and the Zapatistas, or simply as a result of an
ongoing internal power struggle within the organization (the father of
Bersain Vazquez Cruz, for example, has been heavily criticized by others
within the organization for having adopted a posture toward negotiation
and reconciliation in the northern zone).
Regardless of who actually was responsible for the attacks, Paz y
Justicia has threatened "revenge" from the PRD and Zapatista communities
in northern Chiapas, insisting that "for every dead PRI militant, five
Zapatistas will be buried".
Meanwhile, one of the remaining leaders of Paz y Justicia--Marco Albino
Torres--has gone before the authorities to formally accuse his own niece,
Gloria Maria Torres Lopez, of having planned the assassinations of the
four militants of the paramilitary group. The state Attorney General's
office has since also issued statements to the press accusing Torres
Lopez of being behind the killings--as well as having been trained as a
guerrilla leader by Michio Kawamura in the Peten region of Guatemala.
However, Gloria Torres--a PRD militant originally from the community of
Masoja Grande--was in Tuxtla Gutierrez at the time of the killings, as
one of the leaders of the displaced Chol families who spent nearly ninety
days in peaceful protest at the governor's palace in order to demand
justice for their communities.
"They are blaming me for the murder of Santiago Sanchez Torres, but it is
nothing but a lie; I haven't been to Tila in more than three months, nor
do I organize armed groups", said Gloria. "I haven't left the protests.
Now they are blaming me, but I didn't even know Santiago Sanchez had been
killed; what's more, I can't even enter into Masoja Grande because of the
threats against me".
As of this writing, Gloria Torres has not yet been detained, although the
accusations against her remain. Meanwhile, the PRD-Zapatista community
of Shushupa, in Sabanilla, and the Zapatista families in Masoja Grande,
in Tila, remain on alert for possible attacks of reprisal by Paz y
Justicia. And as of July 26th, hundreds of Paz y Justicia militants have
been leaving their communities across the municipality of Tila in order
to concentrate themselves in the town of Limar, where it is feared they
may be planning some kind of attack against the PRD-Zapatista refugees in
the nearby community of Jolnixtie.
SECOND INTERCONTINENTAL ENCOUNTER BEGINS IN SPAIN, WITH THE PARTICIPATION
OF THE EZLN
The Second Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against
Neoliberalism was inaugurated in the outskirts of Madrid on July 26th,
with the participation of nearly 4,000 delegates from 50 countries,
including two indigenous representatives of the Zapatista Army of
National Liberation.
The Second Encounter--based on the obvious precedent of the First
Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism,
convoked by the EZLN and carried out in Zapatista communities in Chiapas
exactly one year ago--will be divided into a number of major thematic
working groups (and more than 50 sub-groups) in five different regions of
the Spanish Republic for the next seven days, and will conclude with a
full plenary session on August 3rd.
Countries with representatives present on the first day of the Second
Encounter included Italy, Spain (Cataluna, Islas Canarias, Pais Vasco,
Galicia, Andalucia, Aragon), Mexico, Switzerland, France, Germany,
Denmark, Canada, the United States, Finland, Ireland, Great Britain,
Belgium, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Greece, Austria, Portugal, South
Africa, Chad, Cameroon, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, Morocco, Turkey, Israel,
India, Bangladesh, Australia, and Indonesia, as well as nearly every
country from South America.
As part of the official inauguration ceremony on the evening of July
26th, the two Zapatista representatives--Dalia and Felipe, both
Tojolabales from the exiled community of Guadalupe Tepeyac--addressed the
thousands of delegates with a message from the indigenous Zapatista
communities of Chiapas:
"It has been very important for us to know that all these people exist",
said Felipe, in reference to the participants of the Encuentro. "We
thought we were alone, and that we were the only ones being screwed
over. But now, you help us, and we help you. We came to discuss a plan
of struggle. We want everyone to have the same as everyone else--not
that everyone lives the same, but that we all struggle together to
respect the cultures and the customs of both the countryside and the
cities. We fight against neoliberalism, because we see the situation in
the world: the rich are richer, the poor are poorer. More death, more
oppression. We want everything to be done better", he said.
"We did not come here", continued Dalia, "to fight among ourselves, to
see whose word is best, or to find out who has the truth or who is the
strongest. Freedom is not achieved by defeating one's brother. We can
only become better with others, and not on top of others."
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos had previously announced the imminent
presence of an EZLN delegation in Spain in a communique published on July
23rd:
"For the first time, a delegation made up of members of the EZLN will
attend an international event outside of the Mexican borders", said
Marcos. "Thus, the EZLN has decided to break the local, regional, state,
and national sieges in order to carry the voice of the Zapatistas on
Zapatista lips.
"While the Mexican government hides its hands stained with indigenous
blood in order to achieve a commerce agreement from the European Union
which does not entail profound changes in the system, the indigenous
communities in Mexico continue to suffer a persecution and harassment
only comparable to that carried out centuries ago, and the Mexican
population continues suffering from an economic model that only
democratizes poverty and concentrates the riches in the hands of a few....
"Our delegates are bases of support of the EZLN, indigenous people who
represent the rebellion and resistance of the peoples who rose up in arms
more than three and a half years ago against the oblivion and death to
which they had been condemned....The EZLN does not send "personalities"
as delegates, but rather a representation of its true leaders, the
indigenous-zapatista peoples.
"The world is not made up of leaders or caudillos, but rather of bases
of support. We are all bases of support for the great struggle for
humanity and against neoliberalism."
Major working groups into which the delegates at the Encuentro will be
divided include: "The Neoliberal economy against Humanity: our lives
beyond the economy"; "Work and the means of production: creating the
conditions for a worthwhile life"; "North-South and East-West relations";
"People and identities: old and new problems"; "Human mobility and forced
destinies"; "Struggles for culture, education and information"; "Women
and their struggles: the struggle against patriarchy"; "Struggles for
land and the earth: Ecology"; and "Against all forms of marginalisation".
DOZENS OF OCEZ FAMILIES EXPELLED FROM LAND IN VENUSTIANO CARRANZA
Dozens of families belonging to the Emiliano Zapata Campesino
Organization (OCEZ) were expelled from their homes on July 18th by public
security police, in the central Chiapas municipality of Venustiano Carranza.
The 800 OCEZ members had been working 2,500 hectares on 18 land plots in
the municipality since a land invasion more than two years ago. In a
press statement released the day of the expulsions, the OCEZ declared
that their members were working in their fields early in the morning of
July 18th, when they were attacked by nearly 800 public security police
who fired live ammunition at them from trucks and a low-flying
helicopter. No one was initially reported wounded following the incident.
In related news, members of the Casa del Pueblo ("Home of the People") in
Venustiano Carranza--part of the OCEZ, as well as of the Broad Front for
the Construction of the National Liberation Movement (FAC-MLN)--have
denied that their organization forms part of the Popular Revolutionary
Army (EPR). The denials come amid a new wave of harassment against the
Casa del Pueblo and other social organizations in southern Chiapas, based
on the supposed affirmations of two campesinos arrested in the southern
border region of the state last November for the illegal transportation
of RPG-78 missiles, supposedly destined for the EPR.
The official testimony of the two prisoners--which, as is often the case
with Mexican justice, may or may not be based on their true
declarations--says that part of the money used to purchase the weapons
came from "the Casa del Pueblo, which forms part of the Clandestine
Workers Revolutionary Party-Union of the People (PROCUP) [a founding
guerrilla nucleus of the EPR]". The Casa del Pueblo insists that such
declarations cited by the authorities are not based on fact, and that
they are simply used as a justification to increment the low-intensity
warfare and repression against popular organizations in Chiapas.
The EPR, for its part, has sustained the declarations of the Casa del
Pueblo, as well as of the Francisco Villa Popular Front--also accused of
being part of the EPR--whose members were violently dislodged from an
estate in Angel Albino Corzo (in southern Chiapas) two weeks ago during
an attempted land takeover. A communique distributed this week by the
EPR insists that the government propaganda campaigns designed to create
confusion about their supposed presence in Chiapas "are part of the
psychological warfare being developed by the government against the
people", and that "military intelligence has distributed rumors about our
presence, or that of armed and masked subjects who commit bad deeds, thus
creating uncertainty in the region...or else fabricates declarations
implying membership in our ranks and then attributes them to members of
the campesino movement."
NEWS BRIEFS:
CHOL DEMONSTRATIONS IN TUXTLA GUTIERREZ COME TO AN END WITH NO AGREEMENTS
In Tuxtla Gutierrez, 87 days of permanent demonstrations by
representatives of displaced Chol communities and civilian Zapatistas in
northern Chiapas came to an end on July 22nd, without having received any
response to their demands on the part of the state government.
The Choles had maintained the protest outside the government palace of
Tuxtla in order to demand the freedom for more than 50 of their
indigenous companeros being held in the Cerro Hueco state prison; freedom
of movement throughout northern Chiapas; compensation for their goods
stolen or destroyed by the paramilitary group Paz y Justicia; and
assurances of security for an eventual safe return to their original
communities.
"We are leaving", said a statement issued by the coordinators of the
demonstrations, "not because we are tired, but because we must now
continue our struggle by other means, though always peaceful....We will
never give up, and we will hold Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro [Chiapas state
governor] directly responsible for any attack or action carried out
against us or against our communities".
"From June 15th, 1996 until today", continued the document, "in the
municipalities of Tila, Sabanilla, Tumbala, and Salto de Agua, 28 of our
companeros have been killed or have disappeared; 32 have been imprisoned;
more than 600 arrest warrants continue in effect; 1,150 homes and seven
temples were destroyed; 3,458 heads of cattle were robbed; and 24
communities continue to be affected by the blockades of Paz y Justicia".
"All of us are bases of the Zapatistas", they said, "because their
objectives--liberty, justice, and dignity--are also our objectives, and
just like many other Mexicans, we will continue to construct the country
and the world which all of us desire".
PROF. JOSE PACHECO PINEDA, FREED AFTER 18 DAYS OF SECRET DETENTION
Nahua professor Jose Pacheco Pineda--a member of the National Indigenous
Congress and director of the Independent Campesino Organization of
Indigenous Communities (OCICI)--was freed on July 15th, after having been
kidnapped and held secretly for 18 days in Puebla, Mexico City, and
Guerrero, supposedly by members of the Mexican military.
Prof. Pacheco was kidnapped on June 27th near Chilapa, Guerrero, by four
men in civilian clothes who blindfolded him, tied his hands, robbed him
of his possessions--including more than 6,000 pesos destined for
development projects in indigenous communities of Guerrero--and began to
interrogate him. He was tortured physically and psychologically for the
next two days, and was then taken to Puebla, where he was apparently kept
on a military base.
The tortures and interrogations continued for much of the next week, and
when he was finally released by his captors in Mexico City, they gave him
the following advice: "Don't return to Chilapa for a time; disappear for
awhile together with your family. Otherwise, you will be killed".
GENERAL GODINEZ BRAVO, ESTEBAN MOCTEZUMA, AND MARCO ANTONIO BERNAL WILL
HAVE POSTS IN THE NEW CONGRESS
Three main government actors in the armed conflict in Chiapas were
elected as federal deputies or senators for the ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the July 6th federal elections. General
Miguel Angel Godinez Bravo--former commander of the Seventh Military
Region of Chiapas, and the head of military operations against the EZLN
in January of 1994--was elected as a federal deputy on the proportional
representation lists of the PRI. Godinez is seen as a politician who
supports a full military crackdown on the EZLN, and has even made recent
declarations to the press insinuating that civilian governments "inspire
distrust".
Esteban Moctezuma, who served as special envoy between President-elect
Ernesto Zedillo and the EZLN in late 1994, and later as Interior Minister
during the military offensive against the EZLN in February of 1995, was
elected as a national senator, also from the PRI's proportional
representation lists.
Finally, Marco Antonio Bernal--chief government negotiator for the
Dialogue of San Andres, and one of the primary obstacles to the
achievement of a peaceful resolution to the conflict--was also elected as
a federal deputy for the ruling party.
All three are expected to represent the "hard line" of the federal
executive in the upcoming debates on Indigenous Rights and Culture in the
new Congress.
GUERRERO INDIGENOUS COUNCIL: "WHY RESTART THE DIALOGUE WITH THE EZLN?"
[The following is a translation of a public letter to Pedro Joaquin
Coldwell, published in La Jornada on July 19th, and signed by the
Guerrero Council of 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance.]
"C. Pedro Joaquin Coldwell, government representative for the Dialogue for
Peace in Chiapas:
"We have been attentive to the advances of the dialogue between the
federal government and the EZLN to achieve the pacification of Chiapas.
We are aware that the government delegation is now insisting to the EZLN
that the dialogue be reinitiated. We ask ourselves: what sense is there
in reinitiating the dialogue process between the government and the EZLN,
when not a single aspect of the first accords regarding Indigenous Rights
and Culture has been implemented? What are you going to discuss? The
accords which are unfulfilled on your part? Perhaps you are hurrying to
arrive at new accords with the EZLN so as to refuse to implement them
later? Gentlemen negotiators of the government, we believe you are
intelligent enough so as to have already understood that the silence of
the Zapatistas has spoken in order to manifest their anger for the
agreements which you signed in San Andres, and which you have not
honored. In any case, we cast our votes so that peace may arrive to our
Mexican homeland. We cast our votes for the fulfillment of the San
Andres; Accords and the approval of the "Indigenous Law", which
recognizes the autonomy and free determination of our Indian peoples in
our Constitution. Onward with hope!
"Sincerely,
"Consejo Guerrerense 500 anos de Resistencia Indigena: Cirino Placido
Valerio, Pedro de Jesus Alejandro, Irineo Peralta Martinez, Amador Cortez
Robledo y Marcelino Diaz de Jesus."
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Primary sources for all news articles: La Jornada, Proceso, El Financiero,
and Siglo 21.
The primary responsibility for the content of this news page
lies with its author, Joshua Paulson, and not necessarily with a
commission, civil committee, or other dependency of the Zapatista Front
of National Liberation.
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Comments: joshua@peak.org
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