The National Atmosphere

Prior to the National Consulta, convened by the EZLN and civil society for this March 21, a series of events occurred which should be mentioned and placed into context.

It is no accident that checkpoints have increased along the Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Federal District highway - and, while it is true that the National Immigration Institute checkpoints, along with the Federal Judicial Police and the co-called PRESOS' ones have already been there - today, the increase in the army presence is evident, with more than 11 checkpoints, both permanent and intermittent. Nor is it an accident that the police and military presence has increased in states such as Cd. Victoria and Tampico in Tamaulipas; Coahuila, Baja California and Jalisco. The excuses are those that are already so well known: the fight against drug trafficking, crime, social work, help to the people in need, etcetera. What is certain is that it represents the defense and imposition of the Mexican political system. It is also due to the fact that the neo-liberal system has created opposition within popular groups, who are increasingly organizing themselves in order to reject it. This has led to a loss of consensus in the government, both from the national and the international public.

Today in our country we are presented with opposition from the more than 50,000 workers of the Federal Electricity Commission, who see their only source of work threatened from the possibility of the privatization of the electricity industry, as well as its possible purchase by transnational companies. The same is being experienced by a large part of the rural population and small producers of maize, beans, sorghum, soy, sugarcane, rice and coffee - who have begun to resent the effects of the Free Trade Treaty (NAFTA). The majority of these persons belong to the National Campesino Confederation (CNC), which is affiliated with the PRI, and, in response to this situation, they are demanding that the Free Trade Treaty be renegotiated. Other examples are the increases in school quotas at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); the salary increase and union struggle demanded by the more than 800 academic and administrative workers of the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM); the repression against Section 9 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE). All of these groups, within their own resistance movements, are caught up in the flood tide of pressure which is preparing to participate in the National Consulta for the Recognition of the Rights of the Indian Peoples and for an End to the War of Extermination. This is because they see in the Consulta the possibility of demonstrating their support for the national indigenous movement, but also because they know that, behind that, is the peaceful transition to democracy, so much desired by civil society in Mexico. They know that the Consulta is important because it means a process of organization, mobilization, creativity, security, which is generating expectations of change, but also a possibility of participation which has been denied civil society. For the government, social groups exist only insofar as they generate votes for the PRI, if not, they are only "transgressors of the law," who weaken the party system in Mexico, or who seek to create "a bad image of the government."

While civil society looks forward to participating in the March 21 Consulta, the Political Parties are taking another path.

The PRI

As always, the PRI is immersed in internal, high level struggles, with nine candidates seeking the nomination for the presidency of the Republic. This is leading to reaccomodations among the Dinosaurs, the Reflectives, Democracy 2000, the Galileo group and the so-called Reform Wing [various wings of the PRI], who are all seeking to "padlock" the door in order to prevent President Ernesto Zedillo from imposing the PRI candidate. This situation leads us to other observations:

First: If the President of the Republic is going to use "cronyism" in the selection process of the candidates, the reaccomodations within the PRI will speak to the authoritarian system that exists within the party, but also in the country. It has been the PRI's themselves who have been accusing President Zedillo of supporting Jose Angel Gurría, or, in any case, the current Secretary of Government, Francisco Labastida Ochoa.

Second: In response to the revelation by the press that the investigation process and judgment against Raúl Salinas de Gortari - the brother of the former president, Carlos Salinas - has revealed that he received funds from the Medellín Cartel to finance his election campaign, the Reflective and Galileo groups are demanding that campaign funding sources be made public by the next PRI presidential candidate. They are also calling for the next presidential candidate to be nominated by a National Congress of the PRI.

Third: Many PRI's have expressed the concern that Zedillo's political timepiece is marking a different time than that of the party's.

Fourth: Given the system of imposition that exists within the PRI, we can see that the best ally of the opposition - or for the creation of an opposition alliance for 2000 - is President Zedillo, because he is furnishing the means for unifying those forces which are being impacted by authoritarianism. The political costs of the presidential hard line are bring paid by the PRI members and the party itself, since Zedillo has not been able to maintain the discipline that has been imposed on dissidents during previous times. Zedillo has been concerned with sustaining and maintaining the neo-liberal economic program, and he has forgotten about, and/or not wanted to, give priority to the democratic transition.

The PRD

The political campaigns within the PRD are revolving around: achieving the candidacy for President of the Republic and the national party leadership.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, the current mayor of the Federal District, figures prominently among the candidates for the presidency of the Republic. He has been more modest, arguing that, if he is going to be nominated, it will be decided by the party in the National Congress. Nonetheless, Support Committees for Cárdenas have been, little by little, emerging, such as those in Guadalajara, Jalisco and Tapachula, Chiapas. Meanwhile, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo has been campaigning in the states, seeking his party's nomination.

The internal struggle within the PRD to gain the national party leadership will also be provoking reaccomodations, not of persons, but rather of social organizations tied to the PRD. We can find three major characteristic trends. The first, is tied to social organizations struggling for their own demands, such as campesinos, indigenous, shop tenants, urban organizations fighting for housing and services, teachers, etcetera. The second are those coming from political parties, from wherever they may be, who are seeking a more top level struggle. The third would be those who joined the PRD on an individual basis, without origins in the social movement: this part seems to be more a question of personalities than of social trends.

Nonetheless, it is necessary to recognize that a large part of the PRD organizations and activists are organizing in order to participate in the March 21 Consulta. This indicates that it is the only political party that is leaning more towards civil society and the popular interests.

PAN

This party is more concerned with "mixing" with the PRI's political brokering and leaving the issue of the nomination for 2000 for later, which does not mean that some people, such as Vicente Fox, are not struggling to achieve it.

However, it should be noted that that Zedillo's relationship with the PAN began deteriorating with the breakup of the Group of Four, the FOBAPROA approval and the 1999 budget.

The conditions in the country present the possibility that an Opposition Front could be organized. This is being promoted by Manuel Camacho Solís, leader of the Democratic Center Party, and it coincides somewhat with what Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas has stated, concerning the possibility of forming an alliance of the parties in order to face the PRI in 2000 and to create the conditions for a peaceful transition to democracy.

War is Seen in Chiapas Once Again

Governor Roberto Albores Guillén's statements are contradicted by his actions: he has argued that peace will not come to Chiapas by decree, but only through concrete actions. His government actions, however, demonstrate the opposite, trying to sort out the conflict through decrees and laws. A few examples of this should suffice:

First, he is trying to settle the armed conflict in Chiapas by means of a Law for the Disarmament of Armed Civilian Groups in Chiapas (which we analyzed in the previous bulletin). This Law was approved in the Chiapas State Legislature on February 23. The PAN demonstrated that it was opposed to the Law in word only, in deed they voted for it, except for Deputy Victoria Rincón Carrillo, who abstained, while the PRD and the PT opposed the legislation.

The PRD argued that it voted against the Law because it was ambiguous, inconsistent, and because it was an attempt to break up the EZLN support bases.

Incongruously, on the very day the Law was approved, 6 members of the paramilitary group "Los Chinchulines" - who were responsible for the violent actions of May 5, 1996, in Bachajón, municipality of Chilón - were released from the Cerro Hueco jail. Along with them, Sebastián Vázquez Luna and Armando Luna, from the community of Chimix, municipality of Chenalhó, were also released. The latter were accused by Las Abejas of having been seen arriving in their community with bloodstained hands following the Acteal massacre.

On these same dates, the "main cacique" was released: cattle rancher and landowner of Angel Albino Corzo, Carmen Orantes Ruiz, who was accused of being the intellectual author of the assassination of the leader of the State Democratic Assembly of the Chiapaneco People (AEDPCh), Rubicel Ruiz Gamboa, in February of last year. The material author of this assassination, Julio César Avendaño, has stated that Orantes Ruiz was the one who paid him to assassinate Ruiz Gamboa, because the latter was inciting the campesinos to take over lands in the region.

The same day, the Coalition of Autonomous Organizations of Ocosingo (COAO) denounced that a group of unknown persons in Marqués de Comillas had assassinated Vicente Hilario Peña, who belonged to the Independent Regional Campesino Movement (MOCRI), in an ambush.

Similar events occurred when Public Security police officers brazenly and openly fired on campesinos in the municipality of Nicolás Ruiz.

Police-military operations in Chiapas are increasing, such as in Tenejapa, where Public Security police are breaking new ground in order to discover new means of inflicting losses, from Chenalhó and San Juan Cancuc, to Tenejapa, cornering the communities that belong to, or sympathize with, the EZLN, under the pretext of recovering stolen cars.

Everything seems to indicate that the more talk there is of armed civilian groups, the more they insist on demonstrating their existence, that they are present, and that they are capable of demanding to be recognized as armed groups under a Law that will make them equal to the EZLN. In this way they will be able to counteract the zapatista initiatives, and then Emilio Rabasa Gamboa (federal government representative for Chiapas) can try to set himself up as Coordinator of Dialogue between the zapatistas and the paramilitaries. In other instances, the paramilitaries will be able to demand the disarmament of the EZLN as a condition for their own disarmament.

During the same session, the state government introduced an Ecology Law that "tries" to prevent burnings and forest fires. This Law will punish those who bring fell trees and set forest fires with jail sentences. The question is: will the soldiers be punished who fell trees to build their trenches and military camps? Indigenous in the community of La Realidad, in the municipality of Las Margaritas, last year denounced to the newspaper La Jornada that they saw soldiers setting fire to pastureland next to the "Río Euseba." If this were to happen again: will they also be punished?

Secondly, the governor of the state is applying pressure in order to gain the political initiative and to attempt to counteract the effects of the EZLN's Consulta of March 21. To this end, next Tuesday he will be sending the State Congress legislation on the Law for Indigenous Rights and Culture, which, according to him, would be carrying out the San Andrés Accords. In order to achieve this, he is repeating the same actions that every authoritarian chiapaneco government has taken: using the PRI caciques of Chamula and Zinacantán, municipal presidents of Chenalhó and Larráinzar and letting them talk about indigenous uses and customs at official events, such as the one Albores Guillén held on March 3 in the community of Ventana, municipality of Zinancatán. These PRI caciques are the ones who expelled persons from Chamula and Zinacantan, and who are losing political and economic control of their communities. They are known internationally, not for their tourist value, but as being where the PRI has protected the cacique structure at the cost of the expulsion of more than 25,000 indigenous from their communities. This was done partly because of their having changed their religious beliefs, but also for not having gone along with the caciques in their manipulation and improper use of religious traditions for the strengthening of the PRI. For this reason they have become a dependable source of votes for the PRI, with even the deceased and newborns voting. Meanwhile, the municipal presidents of Chenalhó and San Andrés Larráinzar, who are repudiated by the majority of the residents, remain in power because they have the support of the army, Public Security policy and paramilitary groups. The popular vote has not been respected here; instead, the zapatista and PRD communities, which are the majority in those places, have opted to establish Autonomous Municipalities in order to express their opposition to the government.

Thirdly, the state government is reactivating the Redistricting legislation, arguing that it is fulfilling the San Andrés Accords (we have commented on this legislation in the previous bulletin). But it is necessary to add that in some places, such as in Monte Cristo, municipality of Angel Albino Corzo, it is being used in an attempt to strengthen the cacique system of the group in power in Alvarado and Orantes. In other places, such as in Malpaso and Marqués de Comillas, it is well known that those who are calling for redistricting are PRI groups who support the government, and this is not in keeping with the rules and accords reached between the EZLN and the government for the implementation of the San Andrés Accords.

Everything would seem to indicate that the state government is being pressured to obtain a series of legal arguments in order to allow the war to be pursued from different angles.

The Diocese of San Cristóbal

As the National Consulta of March 21 draws closer, the Diocese of San Cristóbal is also being attacked. The exaggerated presence in the communities of the parish priest who was excommunicated from the Diocese of San Cristóbal, Luis Beltrán Mijangos, is not without reason. He is widely known due to the fact that he is the priest for the Authentic Coletos (power and shock group of San Cristóbal, headed by Ricardo Díaz, the father of the current municipal president), who is stirring up division in the communities, and who is seeking to align himself with local PRI's in order to accomplish this division. We have concrete examples of this in Chenalhó, Zinacantán, Huixtán and Oxchuc, among other municipalities. The group of Catholics called Amatulis - who are not in agreement with the pastoral Diocesan position of accompanying and working with the poor - is being strengthened as part of this strategy.

In addition, official campaigns in the press are becoming more aggressive, to such a degree that the State Government released a communiqué asserting that the Diocese was recruiting two persons per community to make up civil bands in Acteal, since they had knowledge that acts of destabilization were going to be carried out there. This was used to justify a greater police presence in Chenalhó during the time the displaced were cutting coffee.

Local power groups also seem to working in unison with the local government, carrying out campaigns against the Bishops Samuel Ruiz and Raúl Vera López. The leader of the Authentic Coletos, Ricardo Díaz Martínez, held a press conference in the latter half of February in order to attack Don Samuel and Don Raúl, accusing them, along with the pastoral agents, of being responsible for the armed movement in Chiapas.

There is no doubt that the state government, supported by the federal government, is trying to lay the groundwork for making war, and that the current official policies are attempting to counteract the results of the Consulta and wrest the political initiative from the EZLN. In this regard, the month of June will be key, because that will be the end of the time period for the armed groups - according to the disarmament law - to have turned in their arms. If this has not occurred, police-military operations will be reinitiated, some army checkpoints could be disbanded in order to allow their entrance into the communities, and thus justify substituting the enforcement of the Federal Firearms and Explosives Law with the Disarmament Law of Armed Civilian Groups in Chiapas.

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