La Trinidad, in the Canada of Las Tazas, was occupied by 700 soldiers and police on the 9th, in order to protect the first group of EZLN "deserters," who turned out to be, as it had been said from the beginning, part of the MIRA paramilitary organization.
The new advance by the Mexican Army into the Canadas of the Selva does not only alter the daily life of the people, but also, by violating the law for dialogue, it makes the possibility of that very dialogue, reconciliation and peace in the region, even more distant.
Despite the economic and political efforts by Roberto Albores Guillen's government to establish paramilitary groups in the Selva Lacandona, through the MIRA, the resistance by the tzeltal population in the Canadas to this policy has provoked a new and significant advance by the Army.
The military camp in La Trinidad, with about 500 troops, is accompanied by about 50 Public Security police and members of the Judicial Police. Among them all, they have taken control of the community's spaces, including the banks of the Jatate River, the football field, the town center and the school.
Blue police uniforms are drying in the sun on the wire fences in the community center. And who is washing them? The women of the town.
Alcohol and prostitution also arrive along with these visits, as do constant patrols through the towns of the region, where EZLN support bases are quite numerous.
The excuse was provided by Vicente Perez Castellanos, who asked for police protection, accusing the zapatistas of stealing his cows. "What cows, or what anything," Noe says, a campesino from San Marcos, a town close to La Trinidad. "They stole them themselves, the PRI's."
But what cows are we talking about, and who is this Vicente Perez Castellanos, who merits such overt "protection" from a taskforce, in addition to the repressive apparatus of state power?
Months back, the police showed up in La Trinidad with an arrest warrant for Vicente Perez Castellanos, accused of auto theft. For some time, Perez Castellanos had been pointed out by campesinos in the region as being responsible for numerous assaults and thefts. At that time, the police recovered two vans, but they did not arrest the one who had them in his possession.
A little later, on March 29, Perez Castellanos made his debut during the first, and, to this point, most publicized, "turning in" of weapons and ski-masks to Governor Albores. That number, broadcast by commercial television from "the heart of the Selva Lacandona," took place at the Jatate River, but not here, rather in the resort at Ocosingo, rather like the Chapultepec forest.
On top of this set piece, others were staged. The self-styled "rebel command" had been co-opted by Deputy Juan Villafuerte, PRI, repeatedly noted (Taniperla, Morelia and other cases) as an organizer of the MIRA - that product of the break-up of the Official ARIC. They offered him money and "economic aid" to "reintegrate himself into institutional and productive life, and to return to legality."
Among other things, Perez Castellanos, and his companeros in this venture, were to receive 20 head of cattle, work tools and a completely equipped ambulance. A delay in the delivery of the first prizes led the "deserter" to give the governor a pair of periodicazos. The promises were then rapidly kept. By that point, however, the arrangements, prior to the delivery of the weapons, had already been exposed, even the manner in which they had been purchased, especially for the occasion.
Now, with the excuse that 20 of their cows had been "stolen," they call on the police. And, even though all campesinos in the region (members of the EZLN, of the Official and the Independent ARIC's) agree that it was a self-robbery, La Trinidad is now the seat of a new and large military camp, that has managed to subvert daily life in this Canada of Las Tazas in just a few days.
The mighty Jatate River, that crosses the Selva Lacandona, from among the Canadas to the border region, passes through all the towns of this rebel municipality of San Manuel, one of the autonomous districts in Ocosingo, supported by the majority, among them EZLN support bases and members of the Independent ARIC.
Now, in order to protect a car thief, the Army is advancing strategically between the Livingston and Cruz de Plata Sierras, in the Avellana route, toward the Montes Azules.
In front of Vicente Perez Castellanos' house, in La Trinidad, one can see the parked ambulance that the governor gave him. With its blue, white and red top, the vehicle, brand-new and white, looks more like a police vehicle. And it is being used as a police vehicle. With it, the purported deserters cover the roads leading to Ocosingo, accompanied by judicial police, looking for, and pointing out, EZLN sympathizers.
In San Marcos, whenever a vehicle goes by, even a passenger one, there is concern. The paramilitaries and police, in civilian clothes, go by continuously, as do military patrols, and the soldiers are now asking about ten indigenous, five from San Marcos and five from other communities, whom they are trying to detain.
"Now they have their quota of names," says Noe, a resident of San Marcos. "Now we can't go to work. The soldiers are occupying the roads and they're going into the fields. We have been named, and we are anxious."
He relates that, a few days ago, some indigenous were working their land, and the soldiers passed by, accompanied by one of Albores' "deserters," in a military uniform, who pointed out two of the workers.
"The soldiers got out where the companeros were, who noticed them and threw themselves into the water, and then they went into the mountain. They are suffering a lot there, they were being persecuted."
And he notes:
"We do not have freedom of the roads. We are being persecuted by the Army. Their patrols go by during the day, at night and in their helicopters."
In addition, the Army has set up a new checkpoint at the edge of the pipe bridge that crosses the Jatate River, at the only access to the Canada.
All the bridges there are made of grey pipes, lined up. An inheritance from the oil exploration that took place at the beginning of this decade. Pemex and foreign oil companies had been drilling there, and they left the drilling pipes as handy bridges. A pretty metaphor for progress.
Now, the communities of Francisco Villa, San Marcos, La Trinidad and Las Tazas are living in anxiety.
In a document from San Manuel municipal authorities, the following were noted as being organizers of the MIRA and as police informers: Manuel Mendez Ruiz, from La Union, and Clabiano Alfonso Ruiz, from Las Tazas, who who is currently working in the Sagar, in Tuxtla Gutierrez.
"There is a Mixed Operational Base detachment in the community of La Trinidad, whose presence is opposed even by the PRI's, since they are not letting the people go by, and they are only there to protect the Vicente Perez Castellanos and Domitilo Paniagua group," concludes the document from the Autonomia authorities.
Originally published in Spanish by La Jornada _______________________ Translated by irlandesa La Jornada Sunday, June 20, 1999.