Hermann Bellinghausen, correspondent Altamirano, Chiapas August 25
They are assaulted by those things, but today they are here for those in Amador Hernandez, with whom they are standing. And they still do not know that in the tojolabal village of San Jose La Esperanza, in addition to being assaulted, they are firing at the campesinos.
For a few hours, this hostile municipal seat, recovered by the PRI after a fleeting PRD government, is filled with zapatistas, who are despised and feared here. But there is no dearth of people in this mestizo city willing to form a cordon in front of the riot police. It was their way of helping and accompanying the indigenous demonstration.
A similar act is being held in the seat of Ocosingo at this moment. In Amador Hernandez, the Army is withdrawing the coils of barbed wire from the road and putting them around their camp, making it clear that they are not withdrawing. In Miguel Aleman, municipality of Tila, Peace and Justice is having internal disputes over government money (there has already been one death) and baring their teeth to the zapatistas. In Chilon, some unnamed Chinchulines are doing the same thing the PRIs of El Eden just finished doing in Nuevo Momon: violently blockading the roads. Now, in San Jose La Esperanza, Hermelindo Vazquez Lopez and Francisco Vazquez Vazquez are being wounded by gunfire.
All at the same, or almost the same, moment.
Nonetheless, this march is peaceful, conciliatory with the other indigenous, and, despite its seriousness, somewhat festive.
Each and every one of the indigenous, with their ski-masks, have "Peace with dignity" on their foreheads. There are close to 1500 of them, surrounding the plaza of this municipal seat. On a rag, a belt or a piece of colored paper, white, sewn, tied or glued, the message is on all the ski-masks. Today they arrived from the towns and ranches of the 17 de Noviembre Autonomous Municipality, all of them with their diadems.
They come from a tzeltal and tojolabal region where the counterinsurgency policies have been administered punctiliously, and with sufficient funds, over the last five years. The bombardment of the regime's social policies has produced division and an increasing danger of violence. The presence of the former PRI Deputy, and now Department of Government official, Juan Villafuerte, has been conspicuous in the region. Several posters at today's march mentioned him, calling for him to leave. He is said to coordinate the MIRA (Anti-Zapatista Indigenous Revolutionary Movement), and, regardless, he has been the civil operator for the paramilitary, police and military strikes against Taniperla, La Trinidad and other places in Ocosingo and Altamirano. These days he can be found, operating, in Amador Hernandez.
It was precisely the military invasion of Amador Hernandez that precipitated this gathering, to which they say other indigenous had been coming, but they did not have transportation and did not manage to make it.
A hot noon is approaching, when the zapatistas enter the Altamirano plaza, preceded by two national flags and a band of drums and reed flutes, that were softening, inevitably, what had been, in principle, an angry protest.
The owner classes of Altamirano, who do not want anything to do with these Indians, closed their businesses. The municipal president is surrounded by policemen with shields, shoulder to shoulder. Behind them, they are backed up by a detachment of judicial police. All very alert.
A spontaneous band of civilian residents of the town is set up in front of them, holding up a rope, protecting the support bases who are forming a circle. They are shouting, singing, demanding : "Get the Army out!"
Dozens of handcrafted posters, some even damaged from the trip: "No to prostitution." "Stop the violence created by Zedillo and Albores Guillen." "Even though they want to destroy our Aguascalientes, we will defend it with our blood." "Get out, Avelino (Lopez Cruz, the municipal president). "Get out, Juan Villafuerte." "Albores, pull your pants up, carry out the San Andres Accords." "Vivan the UNAM companeros."
Finally they stop and hold a sit-in in the park, with a good bit of distance separating them from the Council and from the police cordon that is, once again, the face the government shows them.
A banner is hung across the three wooden tables that serve as dais: "By the dignified resistance of the brothers of the Emiliano Zapata Autonomous Municipality."
In their speeches they insist: "We declare that our rights as chiapanecos and Mexicans must be respected." And also: "We declare our support for our companeros in Amador Hernandez, who are suffering the bad government's war."
Everyone here carries with them the stigmata from the divided communities. The Morelia ejido - seat of an Autonomous Municipality and an Aguascalientes - is a classic example of the insidious social investment, whose purpose is to divide. That is referred to in a document that the marchers distributed, but did not read, directed to the PRIs, of Morelia in particular.
"If some PRIs have turned viciously against their brothers, it is because their conscience is being bought with the country's money, taking advantage of their economic situation, their ignorance and their weakness."
Graffiti, spray-painted in green by a masked young person in the kiosk in the plaza, reads: "Brother PRI, join the zapatista struggle."
The manifesto to the PRIs, "fraternally" signed by the "Autonomous Municipalities," also says: "You are not PRIs, you are indigenous. Regrettably, the bad government changed your thinking, and put in your head, calling you by another name, they never tell you the truth of their plans they have on their desks to wipe out the indigenous and our culture, it is in their interest to appear to be concerned with meeting your needs by giving you spraying equipment, machetes, spades and apparently dignified houses, but in the end you will be left indebted, as long as they need you they call you brother and companero but when they no longer need you they despise you and humiliate you, the bad government distracts you with crumbs that will do nothing to resolve your great need and through this deception they make you stop thinking of your children's future, yours and the others', through this they make your hope disappear of someday living as a human being with rights, and not like you are, deceived and manipulated."
The message has a special tone, and not just because of its syntax: "Here once more we are present, the old men and women, teaching our young ones how they should defend our rights. Today, our young ones of this generation are accompanying us, so that in the future they and our peoples will enjoy what we are aspiring to today."
"Our gathering in this empty Municipal office of Altamirano, those of us who belonged to the 17 de Noviembre Autonomous Municipality, we came to express ourselves and to peacefully denounce our opposition to the attempts at provoking war being made by Senor Zedillo and Albores Guillen, who, along with the corrupt municipal presidents and Juan Villa Fuerte, are planning war against the indigenous. These men are not only willing to do away with our organization, they are also willing to once again see the flowing of indigenous blood that struggles for the recognition of our rights. The low intensity war they are currently organizing in the tzeltal and tojolabal communities, the constant low overflights by helicopters and detector planes harassing our communities, our boys and girls."
The demonstrators also expressed their opposition to "the constant patrols of the municipal police, mixed with personnel from the federal Army and Public Security, spearheaded by the federal Army in order to intimidate our normal work."
The message, also directed to the public and the press, continues eloquently: "We are here, and we are using our conscience in order to defend our patria, we are bring present but no one of us is here because of the force of money." It refers, on the other hand, to "people who are moved by the force of money, who are helping the dirty war they are waging against us, the poor."
And it concludes, directing itself to the government: "You are the teachers who are teaching the diversion of Mexican funds, tomorrow there will be more robbers than you. The vocation of peace you speak is war and death. You speak of development, but to divide the indigenous communities, and you are sowing division and violence. You will no longer be able to deceive us, we now understand your world. That is why we are here and here we will be."
During the act in front of the Council, Maribel reads: "We came to demand the demilitarization of the entire country," and she asks: "Could it be Zedillo's orders to initiate violence against the communities?"
She then expresses solidarity with "our brothers from Amador Hernandez," and a "regional dance" is begun. The flutes and drums of leather and wood (or PVC pipes) accompany a dozen men, dressed in impeccable white clothing, softly playing maracas, and women dressed in fluorescent colors. Between songs and speeches, the songs 17 de Noviembre, Zapata's Tomb, Listen, Senores, can be heard. In the Song of Human Rights, a group of young people sing: "We will continue to learn the rights we have, individual rights, and also collective."
A poster with thick letters is blowing: "Observing is not a crime." An orator, a man of age, masked like the rest, points to the police, the municipal officials and the Altamirano residents: "All of those in front are not our enemies. The struggle we are making is for their good afterwards."
Another orator says: "All the policemen are sons of the poor," and jokes and murmurs can be heard in the police cordon. The indigenous continues on the theme of division in the communities. Many, he says, "are selling their lives because they have nothing, out of hunger." He demands the resignation of the mayor, Avelino Lopez Cruz.
A woman speaks last, in tojolabal. These campesinos always sound more eloquent in their own language.
They end their sit-in, renew the march, give two more turns around the Altamirano central park, and they leave, orderly, by the Ubilio Garcia Avenue, the main road in this town. They still manage to shout one last slogan: "Tomate, cebollas, Zedillo, ya no jodas."
Originally published in Spanish by La Jornada ________________________ Translated by irlandesa La Jornada Thursday, August 26, 1999