The event that unchained the spiral of violence in the region was the on March 19, 1995 assassination of a young militant from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), committed on behalf of the mayor of Tila, Jesu's de Ce'llis, who belongs to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The crime caused the township --comprised of a fraction of the official party, of the PRD, of the Labor Party (PT) and the Party of the Cardenista Front for National Revolution (PFCRN)-- to protest by looting police headquarters and occupying the town hall for 15 days until a new city council was named. The mayor had been sharply impugned since long before, while in the municipality and the region in general, the Cardenistas had received the most votes during gubernatorial elections in 1994. Similarly, thousands of Chol Indians had joined the civil resistance movement against the electoral fraud that handed the state governorship to Eduardo Robles. Many of the communities that voted for the opposition were excluded from public works programs, and community leaders were threatened. Wealthy merchants in the municipal seat had unleashed a libelous campaign against parish priest Heriberto Cruz, in part because he had made it impossible to do business on temple grounds. The murder of the PRD militant thus appeared to be not an isolated act, but rather part of stepped-up repression on the part of official sectors to contain an increasingly radical popular movement.
In the midst of the escalated violence, the opposition detained Nicola's Pe'rez, National Campesino Confederation (CNC) leader and one of the official party's few political agents in the region, who had sought to organize merchants and PRI sectors in order to retake the town hall. While being transferred to Panwitz Ejido, Pe'rez was assassinated. From that moment on, death seemed to have gained permission.
The recrudescence of political confrontation --which can only minimally be explained as a conflict between parties-- coincided with rising public insecurity. A wave of assaults in the lower part of the municipality served as a pretext for part of the town council to request intervention on the part of the Army and the Public Ministry. Popular malaise increased. The word in the mouth of the people was that "we named the Council to take care of the town, not to bring in the Army." Militarization didn't stop crime.
The electoral process to appoint state representatives and municipal presidents, held on October 15, 1995, elevated the confrontation even more. First, there was a strong dispute over candidacies for representatives and municipal presidents within the PRI between traditional political bossism in Yajalo'n (represented by the Seltzer and Utrilla families, who promoted the CNC leader as candidate for state representative) and newer organizations such as Socama and Pajal, supported by the Secretariat of Social Development (Sedesol), who advocated the candidacy of Samuel Sa'nchez. Furthermore, there were organizational advances on the part of opposition groups. In this context, the paramilitary group "Peace and Justice" appeared publicly, a group which various sources associate with current state representative Samuel Sa'nchez and federal representative Rafael Ceballos. Clearly, "Peace and Justice" arose because local power groups had been cornered.
For months, "Peace and Justice" acted with complete impunity. The wrongs that dissident PRI communities suffered at the hands of this group could fill several pages: murders, rapes, arson, evictions, shutting down churches, charging "taxes" to reinstate dissidents as PRI members and an attempt to kidnap the Auxiliary Bishop.
The group's victims belong to all political parties that operate in the region. Some members are ex-soldiers discharged from regiments in Tabasco and Campeche. They carry high-quality weaponry and, according to several witnesses, are trained by soldiers on active duty. They would seem to be the Mexican version of campesino "self-defense" groups created to combat Guatemalan guerrillas.
Of course, PRI militants have also died. On July 15, 1995, a confrontation in the community of Seljha, in Tila, left a total of four dead. Three were PRI members and one belonged to the PRD. The most noteworthy "incident" in this period was the death of eight members of a family from Mizopa', Tila, in a series of events which was at first attributed to witchcraft, and later, according to unproven official versions, associated with a "settling of scores" between members of a "secret organization linked to the EZLN."
The confrontation has taken place between Indians, but has also been produced between indigenous groups and non-indigenous merchants. In fact, there have been inter-ethnic conflicts in Sitala' and Petalcingo.