Bright treetops of many shaded green extend along the foot of the mountains, fidgeting in the wind like dancers who can't come to an agreement. The palms are trying to lead, through that long movement of theirs, but the other trees don't pay them any mind.
The soft violence of vegetation in full bloom. From a promontory like this one, a river - at least - always divides. One hears a rumor of incomparable songs, belonging to no one. Perhaps some of them do not yet have a name.
As the heat of the day rises, the diaphanous pressure of the reigning sun is filled with a dense screeching of arthropods and amphibians, up to their old tricks in their natural habitat - pardon the redundancy.
A man is walking along an almost invisible path. He appears and disappears among the branches as he approaches. What is he carrying in that red net? It looks like fruit. Yes, oranges and another ball, green, large, it looks like a coconut or a melon, but it's not. From his shoulder is hanging a bottle of pozol, empty now, made from the maize which he plants. He goes straight on by along the path below here, without stopping. Only his hand waves a goodbye.
Once the man has moved on, the path disappears completely, sheltered by the animals making noises, it again becomes invisible.
The fundamental debate in the dispute for the Montes Azules is not whether or not "the environment," the resources, the virgin diversity, is being cared for or not. The issue is who is going to care for them and how. The indigenous who live in the expellable lands of the biosphere reserve say that they can care for the Selva, that they have the right to be here, that they should be left alone. Regardless, environmental conscience is almost as recent a thing for them as it is for governments and investors. It is a change in mentality characteristic of the end of century. Not very many decades ago the State and individual exploiters were the true and terrible destroyers of the Selva Lacandona.
Exploitation that ranged from hunting camps to bioprospecting. The government and individuals are, nonetheless, accusing the Indians of being the cause of the environmental damage. They are the criminals, the terrorists. A chorus of NGOs in line with the new State - who just arrived and who are still up for sale - as well as all the public agencies involved are flogging: "Get rid of them, get rid of them!"
In Washington they agree, they are pleased. If the resources of the Selva no longer belong to the nation, but to the world, who would think that a few Indians could have them? As if they would know how to assess how much those butterflies were worth in the international market. The black market usually. Like precious stones.
What is openly behind the "environmental rescue" is penetration, the exquisite exploitation of resources, business. In its justifications for dislocating the indigenous, federal officials (Victor Lichtinger, of Semarnat, and Ignacio Campillo of Profepa) have made it clear that they intend to transfer the nation's Selva. The priority of Vicente Fox's government - the Secretary of the Economy has already proclaimed - is to attract capital.
And all in the name of humanity, of international security, the Pentagon's strategic corridor through the selvas of southeastern Mexico, Belize and Guatemala, in order to be connected - through Colombia at war - with that other great selva that is being dislocated, and which is almost completed: the Amazon basin, the scene of the last American genocide of the 20th century.
To start with, on this increasingly thirsty planet, there is water here, a lot of water. And who better to control it than Washington and its businesses. In Chiapas they are fighting with the indigenous for territory where there are extraordinary resources. In the chiapaneca Selva, the Northern Region and Los Altos, as in few other places, there is an abundance of the most valuable raw material of all. The rivers are still carrying water, and so much of it.
Some well-tanned students who are spending a few days here in service to the community point to the sky and describe a UFO. Or at least that's what it looked like. They saw it a few nights ago.
Today the sky has clouds, but it is clear. The moon is rendering the cloud's movements majestic, it is lighting them up, and still, despite the brightness, many stars appear. "It went by here, real low, slowly. What could it be? It was like square, but not regular, Orangeish. With little lights like a city."
The girl laughed a bit at what she was saying, and she explained: "Three of us saw it." And another student, amused: "And I swear there's no alcohol here to make us think things like that."
"The compas have also seen it, on other nights. They say they saw it quite well," the first girl commented.
An urban youth, who also saw the orangeish "thing," describes how it moved away, very slowly, without gaining altitude, and was lost on the horizon. "As if it were a balloon."
More than a wild story, it seems as if they were describing a kind of probe, which would transmit to some ship or distant monitoring station what it had "swept" in the communities of Montes Azules. Collective hallucination? Science fiction? Or did they see a simple instrument of exploration which our technological ignorance prevents us from identifying?
On the outskirts of the Selva Lacandona, especially along its increasingly touristy (and militarized) northern stretch, between Palenque and Yaxchila'n (almost 200 kilometers, Bonampak and resorts included), international fauna are now added. Here the reader has, for example, the Australian, his entire body tattooed with sketched motifs on his fair skin, in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, with his hat and his dodgy appearance he looks as if he has just left the Australian Outback. By the back door probably. He is juggling three tenpins and approaching the cars at the gas station, asking, in bad Spanish but with a fantastic smile, for a few coins from the other tourists.
It is not these misfits that predominate. For years it has been the backpackers who use their savings to pay for visits to the tropics in order to learn. In addition to this traditional cultural-archeological tourism, there is now adventure tourism, with much income, which pays heavily to live what the big tourism magazines promise. They race along the border highway, in powerful rented all-terrain vehicles. They venture to the "real places," where "real indigenous people," the last men of the Selva, the Lacando'n, sell them spears, arrows and savage paws.
Behind this fac,ade, ringed by roads and trails controlled by the federal Army, the Montes Azules Biosphere is on tenterhooks. Dirt roads which the Coca-Cola suppliers still travel. Basic wood or pipe bridges to cross the fords and ponds of the Lacanja' basins, the blue-green river which looks like emerald from the air, and from the Ri'o Santo Domingo. Tall irises with purple flowers. Fish "swimming." Lakes on all sides. Cascades and falls. Water. Water.
As one moves ahead, the roads begin to grow scarce. They end. They run into the Selva. The rest are paths. And immediately the three beautiful and coveted sisters: the Ojos Azules, Ocotal and Suspiro Lakes, which even appear to have uranium. But the Selva continues further within, and it is much more than this.
The Spanish conquistadors called it the Desert of (their) Solitude here. It has been the home of enterprising Mayan peoples for two millennia, and for three decades it has been the subject of Jan de Vos, historian of the Selva Lacandona.
It would be risky to assume that the expellable indigenous are living in sylvan and passive ignorance, or clinging to atavism. They are organized, and they continue to learn, despite the few schools. The government could make the error, one more time, of underestimating them.
In a classroom made of rude planks, primitive tables and a laminate roof, a card leftover from some recent course reads: "File 4. Name: the Lacando'n Area, the Selva Lacandona and the Biosphere Reserve. What are they for? In order to learn the difference between area and Lacandona Selva. Know the differences between land and territory. Learn how the Mexican territory is divided, into the state of Chiapas, into the Ricardo Flores Mago'n Autonomous Municipality. Know what the Biosphere Reserve is and where it is located. How is it done: explain what is land, territory, Biosphere Reserve, area and Selva Lacandona, using maps."
These were called "exotic ideas" during the staunch PRI times. Now, what would they say about the anomalous fact that the marginalized, the nobodies, are informed in situ? The Profepa delegate has already said it: they are being badly advised.
A scene in the center of a small Selva community, which is on the government's list, made me think that, in addition, they walk together. As if it were a novelty: an old man was heading towards the bridge with handrails which crosses the river. He was tapping the ground with a long pole. He was blind. But he was an inexpert, or recent, blind person. Old age, cataracts which could be, or could have been, operated on. He had the stubbornness of someone who was not accustomed to not seeing. He managed to find the way to the bridge, and he continued. From a path ten meters away, a six-year old child appeared, running. He passed by me and reached the old man, who was unsteady on the middle of the bridge. He took his hand. Out of breath from running, the child spoke a few words to him in Tzeltal, protectively. They walked. The child guiding his grandfather.
The recent announcements and warnings are keeping the residents of the communities in resistance, within and around Montes Azules, at attention. They fear that the first expulsions will take place this Holy Week. They are remaining alert.
Federal officials have declared that, regardless, the "problem" will be resolved before the end of the year. Only at the end of the year it will be raining, and in this part of the world those operations are easier with a clear sky and dry ground. Especially if the idea is to do them surgically, rapidly, in 15 minutes. It would have to make the operators feel secure to have the god of technology on their side. Technocrats have always thought that was all they needed.
In a corner of the classroom, written in pencil, it reads: "Seat of the meek," and an arrow points under a chair. A little round face, without a mouth, appears, covered with chalk, next to it. The local version of the dunce's cap. But here the scholarly infraction is not being stupid, but being meek.
Originally published in Spanish by La Jornada ************************************ Translated by irlandesa La Jornada Thursday, March 28, 2002.