"First there came to these lands a gentleman by the name of Christopher Columbus, he who first crossed the sea, he saw many indigenous people, he admired our customs, the very good land of our old ones. He went to tell his compañeros who lived on the other side of the sea, he told them there was a good land here and many unknown people (...) In that time our old ones had very good organizations. They had doctors, engineers, lawyers, builders. They had authorities the way we want them. But they began to bother the old ones, to take away their lands, and to make them work without wages, working very hard all day long. They took away all the organization we had. Then the ladinos treated us like animals (...) Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas saw that what his other compañeros were doing was very bad, then he began to defend the indigenous, because we are indigenous, but we indigenous are the same Christians as the cashlanes (ladinos, not indigenous). Since there were so many of them, the ladinos even wanted to kill Fray Bartolomé. Because he was defending us. He fought very hard and he asked the authorities on the other side of the sea to make the cashlanes stop bothering us, that there should be a law so that all of us would be equal."

"We, the indigenous, now is the time for us to think and to see if we truly have the freedom which Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas left us. Because all of us, the indigenous tzotziles, tzeltales, choles and tojolabales, live in the mountains while all the ladinos live in the city and have fine ranches and fincas. But if we demand our rights or want to ask for our land, we cannot. They have already taken away our ancient organization; that is why they impose even our authorities now and even at the federal level. As in Chamula where we have suffered incarceration for defending our right to elect our Municipal President (...) The authorities send soldiers so that we will be afraid. That is the very reason why there are abuses by the finqueros. As in Altamirano, where our homes were burned down by the same soldiers, just for asking for land. That is why there are outrages which do not respect the customs. It is not authority the way we want it (...) Where is the liberty Fray Bartolomé left? We have been suffering from injustice for 500 years and we continue in the same way. The injustices continue against us. They want to treat us like animals because we are indigenous (...) Fray Bartolomé is not living now, he is dead now, and now we do not expect another. Who is going to defend us against the injustices and so that we might have freedom? The ladinos? The government? We must all be Bartolomé."

Twenty-four years ago, in 1974, more than 2000 indigenous from the four ethnic groups with the greatest presence in Los Altos of Chiapas, recalled, with these words, the 500th anniversary of the birth of Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas, in the First Indigenous Congress, which took place in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas.

They were thrown off their lands and subjected to forced labor from sun-up to sundown, at starvation wages paid in kind, perpetuating dependency, with loans at 200% interest rates. Made homeless by the owners who possessed them like animals, the only recourse which was left them was alcoholism. Unfair business practices, with no means of communication and at the mercy of predators. They controlled them and robbed them of money, as well as through the price of goods, with the infamous wages of the day laborer, and they did not address the just demands of the workers. With an education which did not reflect their values, cultures and customs, with teachers who attended the schools two days a week, who asked for money for school registrations and for their food and, like the owners and caciques, came to introduce alcohol and the business of bars. Some schools only went up to the third grade, and, over 38 years, some schools never managed to graduate one indigenous with a complete primary education. They demanded health committees in their own communities, the indigenous medicine and the traditional healers; that they be treated as persons, with respect and without discrimination. They wanted to learn hygiene, since "our conditions of life are conditions of illness." Without money to buy medicines or to travel to cities in order to receive medical care, the indigenous peoples saw many unnecessary deaths.

At the closing of the First Congress of 1974, the representative of the Governor of Chiapas said: "The spirit of Fray Bartolomé is that we feel we are all brothers, that we are all men and that we all have the same rights." Twenty years later, of the 111 municipalities in Chiapas, 94 were classified at high and very high levels of poverty, among those are the 37 municipalities which have an indigenous population of greater than 49%. With unemployment rates at 25% in the chiapaneco population, where 2 out of every 10 persons receive no income at all, and 4 receive less than the regional minimum wage, which is the equivalent of 12 pesos per day (USD$4 in 1994). An agrarian underdevelopment representing 27% of the entire country's total. While a little more than 6000 cattle families hold more than 3 million hectares, almost half the area of the state of Chiapas, the social sector, with almost the same number of hectares, is made up of almost 200,000 ejido and commune members, equaling almost one million persons and representing one third of the state's inhabitants. This is not counting the thousands of campesinos without land, settlers and day laborers. Still, 10 years after the Indigenous Congress was held, 1,032,000 indigenous own less than one hectare per person, while one family alone holds 121,000 hectares.

Twenty years later, 6 out of every 10 homes only had 1 or 2 rooms (kitchen and bedroom), with an average of 6 persons living in them. The state median is half the population with dirt floors in their homes, but among the indigenous population, this obtains in 7 out of 10 houses. This same percentage uses firewood for cooking, opposed to the national average, with 7 out of 10 homes using gas. Among the indigenous population, only half have electricity. Only 4 out of 10 houses have running water (not potable), and only 16% have sewage systems, according to the Department of Health and Assistance. These figures are comparable to those countries of sub-Saharan Africa, an even more violent comparison considering that Chiapas is the state which generates the greatest amount of hydro-electric energy in the country, and 30% of the surface water in the country is found in the state. And the poverty levels are two to three times higher in Los Altos if we compare the figures of the rural indigenous population with those of non-indigenous urban population.

The number of deaths due to nutritional deficits rose 641% between 1984 and 1994, making malnutrition the sixth leading cause of death in the indigenous population (it is number 11 in the rest of the country). Thirty-three percent of the indigenous population less than 5 years of age is in a state of "severe malnutrition." Malnutrition in Chiapas stands at 55%, and, for the indigenous population, it is 71.6%. In the rural zones of the state, the population does not meet the minimal requirements for protein and calorie intake, and it has been calculated that expenditures on food are less than 22 pesos (US$2.20 in 1998) per person per week.

According to official figures, life expectancy at birth is 66.4 years, 20 years after that same figure obtained in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, and 8 years less than the median for industrialized countries (74.4). In 1992, the 25 principal causes for illness in the state reflected the consequences of the widespread poverty. Eight out of ten of the primary causes of illness were infectious diseases, 59% of which were respiratory, caused by the lack of adequate housing and clothing, followed by gastrointestinal, due to lack of potable water and sewage systems, at 31%. The highest number of deaths from tuberculosis in the country occur in Chiapas. In the indigenous municipalities, it is the 11th leading cause of death, while it is 16th nation-wide. For every 100,000 births, 117 women die, placing it third in the country, while the median for industrialized countries is 10. To this we can add the fact that, while in the state capital, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, there is one physician for every 397 residents, in those municipalities where the indigenous population exceeds 70%, there is one doctor for every 25,000 inhabitants, figures which are comparable to those in Lesotho, Ghana and Cambodia. The figures for hospital beds per inhabitant follow a similar pattern. It is officially accepted that more than a million chiapanecos lack access to health centers, primarily among the indigenous. Today there is one soldier for every 50 residents of Chiapas.

In 1990, 6 out of every 10 school-age children did not have access to centers of learning, and only 1.2% of the economically active population is employed at a professional level. Chiapas has three times the national average of illiteracy among those persons of more than 15 years of age (30.1% versus 12.4%). Among the indigenous population, this percentage is even higher, with 5 out of every 10 adults being illiterate, the figure being twice as high in women as in men. The rate of those persons over the age of 15 who did not complete their primary education is also double the national average (62.1% versus 29.3%).

The lack of justice for the indigenous is another historic scourge. Between 1989 and 1993, a total of 2290 indigenous were imprisoned in Chiapas, of which 914 were released during the same time period. According to the National Human Rights Commission, Chiapas was second in the nation in human rights violations during the administration of Governor Patrocinio González Garrido between 1989 and 1992.

In addition to the lack of improvement in the conditions for life and democracy, was the absence of peace. From 1974 until the end of General Absalón Castellanos' government in 1988, whose family owned 14 fincas in the state, comprising some 20,000 hectares, 982 leaders were assassinated, in just one indigenous region in Chiapas, 1084 campesinos were arrested with no legal basis, 379 seriously wounded, 505 kidnapped or tortured, 334 disappearances, 38 women raped, thousands expelled from their homes and lands, 89 towns which experienced the burning of homes and the destruction of crops, and innumerable attacks and marches and protests.

Democracy was notable by its absence. The municipality of Oxchuc is one of the 50 municipalities where the official party, the PRI (Revolutionary Institutional Party) "won" with "100%" of the votes in the August 18, 1991 elections, the municipality where now the presumed paramilitary group "Indigenous Revolutionary Anti-Zapatista Movement" (MIRA) - and also presumed to be led by a PRI deputy - is accused of division, deaths and repression. The lack of democracy, the imposition of governors, electoral frauds, and so forth, caused dissatisfaction with electoral politics as the means for change. From 1825 to 1995, over 170 years, Chiapas has had 160 governors, a little less than one per year; of those, only 34 have been constitutionally elected, 100 have been interim and the others provisional, substitute and appointed. There have been only 34 elections to choose a Constitutional Governor for the State, of which 7 were chosen by the State Congress, 12 indirectly through secondary electors and 15 through a popular, direct and secret ballot. In Chiapas, abstention has reached as high as 70%. In the presidential elections, the PRI in the state obtained 98.3% of the votes in 1970, 97.7% in 1976, 90.2% in 1982, 89.4% in 1998 and 47% in 1994, the year of the Zapatista uprising and with 35% of the electorate staying away from the polls.

Despite the fact that in 1993 an investigation by the National Bank of Mexico warned of the danger of an indigenous rebellion in Los Altos in Chiapas, due to the various political, economic, social, military and religious problems in the state, and to the poverty and exploitation of the indigenous, the federal government is spending approximately 0.6 centavos per day per person (US$0.06) this year. Documents from the Department of Social Development (SEDESOL) reveal that residents of the municipalities in the Selva region received 58 centavos (US$0.058) this year per indigenous.

It was in this context that the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) made its appearance, on the first of January of 1994 with the First Declaration of the Selva Lacandona, demanding work, land, shelter, food, health, education, liberty, democracy, justice and peace. Today, almost 5 years since its appearance and two years since the suspension of dialogue and the negotiations of September, 1996, conditions are no better. Chiapas continues mired in its poverty between political and natural catastrophes.

"THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF THE LAW: IMPUNITY"
(Excerpt, Part XX)*

TITLE IV: CIVIL POPULATION

Article 13: Protection of the civil population.

1. The civil population and civilians will enjoy general protection from the dangers generated by military operations. In order to make this protection effective, the following rules will be observed in all circumstances.

2. The civil population as such shall not be the object of attack, nor will civilians. Acts or threats of violence whose primary purpose is to terrorize the civil population shall be prohibited.

3. Civilians will enjoy the protection conferred by this Title, unless they participate directly in the hostilities and only while that participation lasts.

One of the strategies to wear these people down is to generate fear, to make those men and women, who are conscious of their dignity ,and who want to transform the injustice and the exclusion which they suffer, feel the weight of the power which confronts them and understand the price for challenging this domination is death. The one who creates this psychological effect is, naturally, the Army (Concha, M. Militarization and Politics. La Jornada, 6/29/98).

The four dead, the 27 wounded, the 2 disappeared children and an undetermined number of those wounded by gunfire are, all, Zapatista civilians who did not fire, simply because they were found unarmed.

(...) They were large-caliber weapons - the health worker explained - like those used by the police and the soldiers.

(...) the police "loaded their weapons and fired at us then. They didn't even give us time. We defended ourselves, but not with weapons, some compañeros grabbed firewood and sticks."

At the same time, helicopters - Manuel did not know if they were from the police or the Army - began firing. Because shortly after the firing began, federal Army vehicles began to arrive. Manuel was wounded: "The Army left four here, dead, and my little brother was still alive then. Then they shot him twice. I didn't see it. The women saw it."

"When the soldiers arrived, they went into each house," of those which were pointed out as belonging to Zapatistas, "the soldiers didn't even apologize, they even broke the door, the windows, the televisions, beds, whatever was in the house, they wrecked it all."

During this operation, the soldiers "took away the men, even 13 and 14 year old boys, they took them all away. Others went to the mountain, to the coffee plantation." The women managed to escape. In all, 22 were arrested in the houses, violently kicked and beaten up, according to the health worker who was translating for the women who witnessed it.

In all, 27 arrests. "Two children disappeared, 8 and 9 years old. And we couldn't go in," Manuel goes on. "The Security Police were there, taking care of their people, the PRI's." San Pedro is closed, the families dispersed, incommunicado. There could have been more dead and wounded in San Pedro, and more Zapatistas caught. "I don't know where my family is," Manuel concludes. (Case of San Pedro Nixtalucum. Bellinghausen, H. La Jornada, 3/16/97, p. 18)

On the night of July 6 to July 7 of 1997, some dogs belonging to a family in Sultana went to the military barracks as they always did, but they came back poisoned.

(...) at least 7 dogs and 40 hens belonging to several families in Sultana died (...) the animals were killed with rat poison, which is not used by the people in the community.

On the 6th and 7th you couldn't walk by the military barracks because of the traps the soldiers had set around the camp. Maybe they had something to do with the dead animals. (Report from the Community of Sultana. Ojarasca. La Jornada, 3/11/98, p. 7).

There is a climate of "constant tension and fear." (...) "All of this alters and wears down the daily life of the communities."

(...) "The community's state of mind (Las Tacitas) is one of obvious panic, some of them mentioned that a military attack appeared imminent."

Days before, some soldiers commented that they were ready now to "fill those guerrillas with lead." One of the campesinos asked: "And the civilians?", to which the soldier responded: "Let's see if we can tell them apart." (Balboa, J. La Jornada, 6/8/97, p. 6).

After the elections, the military pressure on the communities in resistance was renewed.

(...) Yesterday, at 10:00 PM, a large search plane flew very low over Las Tacitas.

(...) Since yesterday the federal Army has started to come out of their numerous barracks and renew the patrols. (Bellinghausen, H. La Jornada, 7/10/97, p. 17).

(...) Last Tuesday, June 17, a large number of soldiers - the neighbors talk about thousands - entered Patathé Viejo, municipality of Ocosingo, and positioned themselves there despite the displeasure expressed by the communal authorities. In addition to the terror their presence generated, are added the deliberate problems of the contamination of the water, the destruction of the sugar cane sowings. (Concha, Militarization and Politics. La Jornada, 6/29/97, p.8).

Residents of ten places in Ocosingo, who have been established on Selva Lacandona lands for the last 15 years, have been threatened with expulsion, reported the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Selva of Chiapas. (Ucisech).

He added that, as part of the "threats, intimidations and harassment," last week-end the zone where the ten communities are located was "surrounded" by members of the Mexican Army, which has created a climate of "anxiety" among the residents (Henríquez, E. la Jornada, 7/23/97, p. 16).

Members of the Army went into the Sibacjá ejido, in the municipality of Ocosingo, and caused fear and concern within the community, where EZLN sympathizers live. (Balboa, J. La Jornada, 8/3/97, p. 8).

Four trucks - one with state Public Security officers and three with soldiers - entered one of the barrios in Acteal at noon today, which has been tension-filled the last few days due to the actions of PRI-affiliated paramilitary groups. The objective of the police-military incursion was to "look for weapons," which never appeared; on the other hand, several women were attacked when they formed a barrier in an attempt to prevent the soldiers' entrance. (Balboa, J. La Jornada, 11/25/97, p. 1).

In the case of the Acteal massacre, it is significant that the aggression has been directed against a group of displaced who belong to Las Abejas Civil Society, which has been making an effort to find peaceful solutions to the conflict between the federal government and the EZLN, and who have themselves suffered the harshest consequences of that confrontation; it is revealing that the victims were, in the great majority, women and children, and that the massacre occurred in a zone under the intense scrutiny of the Mexican Army and state public security forces. (Editorial, La Jornada, 12/24/97, p. 2).

In the last three days, following the massacre at Acteal, at least 5000 military troops have arrived in the state, with the National Defense Department (SEDENA) positioning some 2000 in the municipality of Chenalhó, and who yesterday set up four camps in the district where the massacre of 45 refugee indigenous occurred last Monday. (Mariscal, A. and Balboa, J. La Jornada, 12/26/97, p. 5).

The Mexican Army mobilized members of the Anti-Riot Military Police, equipped with electric prods, protective gear, tear gas and acrylic face shields, as well as infantry and special troops and a helicopter from the state Public Security Police against the tzotziles, who were trying, at all costs, to keep the military out of X'oyep.

The intensive military and police mobilization in that region (Los Altos) was manifested in the military presence in 10 communities in the municipalities of San Andrés, El Bosque, Chenalhó and Pantelhó, "supported by artillery helicopters and warplanes which swooped low over the communities."

They noted, as an example, that last January 5 military troops arrived in 24 cars in the communities of Nijoj, Belisario Domínguez, San Jose Fiu, Revolución and Aldama in the municipality of Chenalhó, and, when they got out of the vehicles, "they took up attack positions, surrounding and taking the communities by assault, occupying paths and mountains, harassing and threatening the indigenous campesinos with rifles and machine guns." (Gil Olmos, J. La Jornada, 1/8/98, p. 11).

An operation by the Army brought anxiety and serious concern to San Juan del Bosque, seat of the Autonomous Municipality San Juan de la Libertad: 60 federal soldiers rushed in, at 4:15 PM, to the El Bosque Regional Center of Eco-Development, charging that it was a "guerrilla training camp." The operation included, according to Center personnel, the interrogation of innocent parties, legal processing of all those present with pictures and video, and the invitation for them to clear out "if it wasn't convenient for them to stay."

(...) the captain in charge of the operation said the Center was "a good place for a barracks," and the troops should "celebrate Army Day" there. (Bellinghausen, H. La Jornada, 3/1/98, p. 4).

In the Sierra Madre in Chiapas, a minimum of five Army convoys and two from Public Security arrived in the towns and searched the campesinos' houses, demanding they hand over arms.

During the operations, the police forces threatened the women and the children in the community, demanding they inform them of the whereabouts of the men, who generally flee to the nearby mountains for fear of being assassinated or incarcerated. (Mariscal, A. La Jornada, 4/3/97, p. 15).

"They say (the soldiers) that they come to offer medicines and care, and instead of medicine, they point their guns. Today some PRI compañeros who are handing us over, pointing out the houses. Messing around with the soldiers in the houses, and here, we are, alone, taking it," related residents of Morelia. (Entrance of the Federal Army into the Morelia Ejido January 3. Bellinghausen, H. La Jornada, 1/6/98, p. 11).

The violent incursion of 50 soldiers into the community of La Union yesterday, Wednesday, at 12:30 PM, during which they harassed the residents and struck a woman

They also showed up today in Sibacjá, "where they intimidated and insisted that the people receive their social service."

In the community of Moisés Gandhi they tried to break in at 6:30 in the morning, but they were stopped by a group of women, just like in the Morelia ejido.

The incursion of troops into eight communities in the municipality of Ocosingo was denounced. (Gil Olmos, J. La Jornada, 1/9/98, p. 7).

"They wanted to come; we wanted to know where they were going, what they were looking for; we didn't want them to frighten the children, it was the first time they had come. We wanted to talk with them, but they didn't give us time; they came quickly, throwing rocks at us. They came in ten trucks, along with the police and the PRI's they brought. There were about three hundred.

They came in three formations; when we asked them who had sent them they said the government had sent them, 'we came here to kill you, because you are Zapatistas,' the bloody soldier told us." This is the testimony of Rosario, a tzeltal indigenous from the community of 1st de Mayo, in the Autonomous Municipality 17 de Noviembre, and she is one of the 50 women who, on January 9, confronted the federal Army for two hours, in order to protect the entrance to their community. (Lagunes, L. Doble Jornada. La Jornada, 2/2/98, p. 7).

"They just grabbed us and clubbed us, they grabbed other women by the hair and shook them by the head, that's what they were doing to us when they hit Manuela's child in the face with their arm. Her nose has been bleeding for two days now." Testimony by Maria, tojolabal indigenous from the community of San Pedro Guerrero, municipality of 17 de Noviembre, which the Federal Army also entered on January 9. Here they searched a home and the Health House, where they threw away the medicine they found. The bread oven the community built last year was destroyed by the soldiers. In the communities they have decided to abandon the camp; they are afraid the Army will return. It is now the time to harvest the coffee (Lagunes, L. Masiosare. La Jornada, 2/2/98, p. 7).

*Excerpt from the document "The Uunbearable Lightness of the Law: Impunity; Three Months from Acteal," by "Alternative Popular Communication, Working Group," from 4/11/98

Popular Alternative Communication and Gustavo Castro
Center for Economic and Political Investigations of Community Action, A.C.
CIEPAC

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