"Make it bigger!" shout the companeros as we paint Tierra y Libertad on the roof of the co-operative store. If we make it any bigger I fear the 'tad' of Libertad will fall off. "Make it big so the helicopters can see it" they shout.
All week the military and police helicopters and occasionally warplanes have being flying low over the glen. Every day they swoop in, sometimes taking photos, sometimes following people in the fields or sometimes just lingering. Pure intimidation say the companeros, and its true. In other communities the people have driven long pointed stakes into the ground to stop the helicopters landing, but here there's just too much open ground to do that; and so the people try to ignore it as much as possible and not let themselves become frightened. Nevertheless, as we give crayons to the children, helicopters and warplanes figure in all the drawings.
The sun is splitting the stones and we're up on the roof putting the finishing touches to the very impressive Tierra y Libertad when the news comes in of the military entering the nearby community of Nueva Esperanza. This is the same community that fled to the mountains on January 1st as hundreds of troops occupied the village, burning houses and killing livestock.
It appears there are no campamentistas or international observers in Nueva. This is crazy because just two weeks ago there were 10 peace-campers stationed there for the 12 families who had finally returned from displacement in the mountains.. Today the army enters and there is nobody.
While the people in the Glen organise themselves against any possible military incursions, we the 'internationals' split into 2 groups, one staying in the glen and the other to go to Nueva.
All is quiet as we arrive a short while later. Nueva Esperanza is a tiny settlement on the side of a dusty road of about 20 houses. The Tolojobales who live here occupied this piece of land about a year and a half ago. It seems deserted, and an untranquil silence abounds. Slowly, a few heads appear from windows. Fear and caution.
We introduce ourselves and they tell what happened. Around 11am that morning 40 paramilitary policemen of the Seguridad Publica drove through in a fleet of pick-up trucks. They got out of the trucks and started threatening and insulting the few villagers present. They said they were looking for a certain individual and that they would return later that afternoon. After a half an hour, they drove off, swinging their semi-automatic rifles and throwing a few more insults at the people.
We look around this wretchedly poor place, at the few stick houses with thatched roofs and the children in rags and the mangy dogs and try to imagine those 40 fat-bellied macho thugs coming in and bullying about the few inhabitants and it makes you feel sick.
The village welcomes our presence and we set up camp. The children are packed off to safety in the mountains and we wait for any further incursions while the companeros tell us their stories and their woes. These people have nothing, absolutely nothing and one of the campamentistas gives a donation of 300 pesos to buy some rice and beans. Thank you, they say and then ask if we can donate 15,000 pesos so they can start-up the co-operative store which the army robbed and plundered on January 1st.
If its not the army or the helicopters or the myriad of other social, political and economic problems the communities have to contend with, then there is always nature. 'El Nino' has begun causing problems in Chiapas. There has been hardly any rain for months and the ground is rock hard and the fields and mountains dry and thirsty. Forest fires are running rampant and the sky is heavy with smog.
Here in the glen, we are ringed at night by the most sublime sight of the surrounding mountains burning radiantly and ferociously. And the milpas are being razed and the forests destroyed. Night after night the community mobilises to fight the fires. It's an impressive feat, as hundreds of campesinos stream up the black mountainsides whooping and shouting and carrying buckets of water and an assortment of leafy branches to beat out the flames. They work hard all night to bring the fire under control and eventually ,near dawn, they succeed....
Here is a true fighting spirit as the whole community mobilise to combat the fire. Here is autonomy in action - in the absence of any state fire services (there are fire-brigades but they don't serve the indigenous communities) the people organise effectively and efficiently. And here is hope and inspiration, to witness how disciplined and decisively the people can act in emergencies.
And in the morning a pall of smoke hangs heavy over the glen and the helicopters come swooping in and the villagers are attending workshops on co-operatives and another on stress management and some merchants deliver gas stoves for 25 families and that brings a smile to many women's faces while they haul heavy loads of firewood from the hills. Life continues in the shadow of war.
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