Source: The Mexico Peace Review.
Number Two LA MANO DURO (THE HARD LINE) IN CHIAPAS
Three were killed, two were gravely wounded and fifty- seven were detained in a violent eviction of settlers in the municipio of Pichucalco, Chiapas. The campesinos in question were members of the Central Independiente de Obreros Agricolas y Campesinos (CIAOC). It is said that the Chiapas Secretary of Government, Eraclio Zepeda was responsible for the government order.
Hernandez Aguilar, the Chiapan Attorney-General, said that evictions would continue on any estate not covered by the farmland contract signed by the Chiapas government and, allegedly, 40 campesino organisations.
At the estate of Gran Poder in the municipio of Nicolas Ruiz three campesinos were killed and also two police in a six-hour shootout.
The police began the action by firing tear gas and discharging weapons into the air. The eighty campesinos who were working organised themselves and responded to the police attack. Hundreds of local people came to their aid. The shootout began at midday and ended around dusk.
The Chiapas Public Security asked for reinforcements from the nearest police detachments and for helicopters. It's thought they also asked the Mexican army for help.
To explain the casualties, which included thirty wounded, the government invoked a likely fictitious ambush. They produced two versions of this story which differ in detail. Putting everything together, the Seguridad Publica suffered two dead and l6-23 wounded. A costly eviction.
The justification for this latest wave of killings is a so-called agreement between the authorities and forty campesino organisations of Chiapas. President Zedillo has made much of this agreement in the press. But campesino organisations in Chiapas have denounced the agreement as illegitimate. And the EZLN calls it A lie, which can easily be exposed
The agreement gives (technically, sells over twenty years) land to sixty thousand campesinos on condition that they do not invade any more land.
The objections are as follows. The sixty thousand campesinos is just an arbitrary number. If the story is true we are talking about a tremendous amount of land. Where is it going to come from? If it is to be bought we are talking about an awful lot of money. Where is this money going to come from? Generally this looks like a US counter- insurgency strategy. It's aim is to divide and conquer. And of course it makes great propaganda: We offered the indigena this great deal and what did they do?
Right now its use is very crude indeed, as a justification for killing, wounding and jailing the indigena of Chiapas. PRI law has much in common with Nazi law, the most terrible of atrocities flow naturally from its sanction.
With the ink hardly dry on President Zedillo's agreement with sixty-nine campesino organisations six more evictions come up. Blitzkrieg.
Six estates in the municipio of Venustiano Carranza are under fire. The names of the estates are San Sebastian, Agua Dulce, Union, Carmeleto, Memelita and Rosita. The campesinos working them belong to OCEZ, Organicacion Campesina Emiliano Zapata.
An OCEZ spokesman says 500 campesinos have fled to the hills to avoid the attacks of the police. Four men have disappeared. He warns that if the government continues with the politics of eviction a time-bomb will go off on Chiapas because the campesinos can wait no longer for land. He dismisses the settlement that Zedillo has concluded. It will not end the struggle for land in the country and particularly in Chiapas. We need land to work. It is unjust that the authorities promise us this and then evict us afterwards.