In an armed conflict, when the imposition of armed force is insufficient, because the enemy is, on most occasions, "well-versed," difficult to attack or is, in any case, stronger than expected, other forms of war are resorted to in order to undermine the communities and populations. Low Intensity Warfare, which is expressed in different ways, is geared towards breaking up the organizational bases of the insurgent movement, cornering them, humiliating them, and it is geared, above all, towards undermining revolutionary morale, not just of the support bases, but also of the combatants.

When the armies that are defending the imposed power do not have the territory under control, and they lack knowledge of the geographical conditions of the mountains, it is impossible to advance against the enemy in order to defeat him, and, thus, he resorts to other modes of war. In this case, Biological Warfare, which is merely one more repetition of the experiences of the United States Army in Vietnam, Cuba and other countries.

Concerning the indications of the use of defoliants and sprays in the Selva Lacandona, in August of 1994, the EZLN, through a communiqué, denounced the fumigation that the civil population was being subjected to around the vicinity of the Comitán-Altamirano highway.

On November 2, 1998, in the community of Guadalupe Carrizal - previously Emiliano Zapata - in the municipality of La Independencia, a MOSCAMED airplane passed over, spraying an apiary consisting of 29 beehives, of which 16 were completely destroyed and 13 were rendered irreparably damaged. The honey, which was at the point of being collected, was lost. Following negotiations with and denunciations to MOSCAMED, they received compensation in the amount of 12,000 pesos (letter of denunciation from the community).

Of Rats, Toads and Snakes

Despite this being the month of the day of the dead, you should not believe that this subtitle refers to a costume party or to Halloween night. It refers to the expression of a new stage in the war that is being waged in one part of the mountains of Chiapas.

For two months now, the indigenous communities of the "Tierra y Libertad" region have been denouncing to the press and the public how they are being affected by the Mediterranean Fly Program (MOSCAMED).

Concerned about their situation, the following communities met this October 28 in order to discuss the effects they were experiencing from the application of the Mediterranean Fly Program (a program designed to fight that species of larval fly that is introduced into fruits): Nuevo San Juan, Nuevo Huixtán, Matzam, Jerusalén, Santo Domingo, Monte Cristo, Salto de Agua, San Andrés, San Mateo, San Francisco, San Antonio Los Montes, Trinidad Anexo La Revancha, San José el Zapotal, Saltillo, Nuevo San Antonio, Constitución, Caracolito, San Carlos, Rizo de Oro, Rancho Alegre, Santa Rita Bella Illusión, Poza Rica, José Castillo Tielmans, Monte Flor, Flor de Café, Zacualtipan, Tziscao and Pena Blanca - all of them belonging to the municipalities of Las Margaritas and La Trinitaria in the Border region with Guatemala. They also prepared a letter which they sent to the media, and which we received as well. In order to understand more clearly what was going on, we made a trip to the area in order to gather more information. In the community of Francisco I. Madero, very close to the Rancho La Flores military checkpoint, we found a kind of MOSCAMED warehouse, located in a pasture. There we saw a the cab of a Trayler with a large sign saying MOSCAMED, a red helicopter and several bins with the same lettering. When we spoke with some persons from the communities (including zapatista sympathizers and PRI militants), they explained to us that the place we had just passed is where the MOSCAMED workers leave from every day in order to spray the region, throwing out sacks containing mosquitoes, rats, toads and snakes from the helicopters, without giving any explanations. Only in the community of Castillo Tielmans - because of pressure from the residents - a MOSCAMED employee said that the rats and snakes they saw coming out of the sacks were to eat the flies.

Under the pretext of fighting the Mediterranean Fly, they are spraying the mountains and coffee plantations of the region, causing the leaves of the trees to dry out as a consequence and the tender coffee beans to fail to reach maturity and to "dry up."

In their letter to public opinion, the campesinos say: "the dissent we are feeling in the region, for which reason we are denouncing the fly program, which is damaging our communities through our crops such as: coffee, maize, beans, oranges, mango, papaya, guineo, and in some communities in the area there are many plagues of rats and snakes which the fly program is throwing out of the helicopters or planes, we are now asking that this program be removed from our region"

Our conversation with residents of communities of the region follows. They told us the rats are eating the maize, "now they're not letting it mature, and they eat it when it is very young, when we want to cut the corn, it's nothing but husk. It's going to be more difficult for us now because we're not even going to have anything to eat, and if the coffee doesn't come in, we're not going to be able to buy things in the store either, we're going to be hungry come summertime."

"And what is going on with the snakes? "Look, here's an area, mountain and selva, that already has snakes. But we've never seen ones like these in the area now. Some fifteen days ago, in Castillo Tielmans, the compañeros went and searched the bag that the helicopter had just thrown out, and it just had little snakes, but then they grow." "The same thing is happening with the rats. They throw them out like that in little sacks, they spread them out over the mountain and then they grow, they're a danger to us when we're in the mountain."

"They throw out the mosquitoes wherever they feel like it, and then they're all over the place, and when they bite us our skin swells up and turns red." "That's how it is." "If you could tell them there, at some agency or government official, that we don't want the fly program here anymore, because they only come to mess with us and screw up our crops."

The Production Plants for Sterile Flies and Barrenador Cattle Larvae are two official agencies whose main production plants are in the municipalities of Chiapa de Corzo and Metapa de Domínguez. They operate with 80% United States capital and with 20% national capital. They work on programs aimed at fighting the Barrenador Cattle Larvae and the Mediterranean Fly. But, on several occasions, neighborhood organizations in those municipalities have denounced the amount of radioactive contamination being discharged into area rivers, especially into the Grijalva. The communities that have been being affected by this contamination for years now are Rivera de Copia in Chiapa de Corzo and residents located near the distribution center in the municipality of Ocozocoautla, who have suffered from respiratory problems.

Among the denunciations of these plants, we have those from December 13 to 29 in 1987, when the state-wide newspaper Numero Uno published a series of articles in which they denounced the devastation wrought by the Sterile Fly production plant. They also stated that only North American personnel had access to the places where the larvae were being produced. During that time, workers who belonged to section 74 of the Fly Production Workers Union also denounced, with marches and sit-ins, the devastation caused by the discharge in the surrounding areas, and also to the personnel working there.

In response to the seriousness of the problem, the Union for the Defense of the Interests of Chiapa de Corzo (their representative was Dr. Alberto Vargas Domínguez), and the leaders of the Fly Institute, established a coordinating group in order to lend more weight to the denunciations and the consequent plant directives. During that period, MOSCAMED workers in Metapa de Domínguez also held several work stoppages in support of the establishment of better working conditions, given that the radioactive pens were causing mucosity, bronchial respiratory diseases, nausea and headaches. In response to so much pressure, the Under Delegate of the SEDUE, Rodolfo Robles Solís, leapt to the defense of the Fly Production Plants, stating: "the Grijalva River receives residual waters and contaminants from its source in the Peten region in Guatemala, in addition to the 3000 liters a second it receives from the black waters of Tuxtla Gutiérrez" (El Orbe newspaper, May 29, 1990).

The Sterile Fly Production Plant in Chiapa de Corzo has been operating since August of 1972, in order to produce flies to fight the Barrenador Cattle Larva, such as the Mediterranean Fly, not only in Mexico and Guatemala, but also in other countries in Central America.

The companies' problems are not over yet, however. This November 8, more than 260 discharged workers began a sit-in, and they are keeping plant entrances blocked. They are demanding their re-hiring, biomedical examinations and compensation for having been exposed to nuclear radiation for so many years.

This is what has been being denounced for a very long time. These denunciations are again valid today, because, not only are the workers being affected, but it is also being used as part of the strategy of the Biological War in the mountains and the Selva of Chiapas. They are not trying to fight the Mediterranean Fly, but rather the resistance of the Indian peoples, who have chosen to strengthen their resistance as long as President Ernesto Zedillo's government does not carry out the San Andres Accords in Matters of Indigenous Rights and Culture. In addition to the fact that the people have now regained their dignity by refusing to take anything from the government, unless it is with dignity, and as part of what is theirs by right and which has been denied them for so many years by the PRI regime.

""What comes next? As a consequence of these policies, the siege of hunger and of misery will increase, leading to an increase in Procampo, Progresa and Procede credits, as will the distribution of aid and Maseca, and, in the best case, the planting of more trees. This will be done in order to buy the consciences of the peoples in resistance, in exchange for their return to the PRI, and in exchange for their voting for Francisco Labastida Ochoa in the upcoming elections on July 2, 2000, and, on August 7, most certainly for either Sami David David or José Antonio Aguilar Bodegas as PRI candidate for Governor of Chiapas.

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