Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 11:44:56 -0500
From: Molly Molloy <mmolloy@lib.nmsu.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <lasnet@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu>
Subject: AP story on net coverage of Mexico News
Subject: Rebels get High Tech Aid (AP, 2/16) (fwd)
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 14:23:32 +0600
> From: Luis Fierro <lfierro@mundo.eco.utexas.edu>
> Subject: Rebels get High Tech Aid (AP, 2/16)
>
> Thu, 16 Feb 95 0:10:17 PST
>
> Newsgroups:
> clari.world.americas.mexico,clari.news.conflict
>
> MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico's Zapatista rebels operate in the
> nation's most backward state, where the nearest phone is sometimes
> 50 miles away. But their supporters are on the technological edge,
> where worldwide communication is just a modem away.
> The rebels' statements are traveling the information highway,
> relayed by church and human rights groups. Through the Internet,
> they're being heard around the globe.
> Barbara Pillsbury translates and posts news and analysis on
> Chiapas on the Internet from her Mexico City office at Equipo
> Pueblo, a rural development organization. Her group, like others
> distributing news of the rebels, is sympathetic to the problems of
> Mexican peasants but favors a peaceful solution to their struggle.
> Some of the news goes to Congressional staffers in Washington.
> ``It's clear that a lot of things that affect Mexico get decided
> in Washington,'' said Pillsbury, a 24-year-old Yale graduate from
> New York City, who first saw armored vehicles headed into the
> Chiapas jungle when she was on a family vacation a year ago.
> Pillsbury's boss, Carlos Heredia, says Equipo Pueblo has been
> subject to harassment -- office break-ins, arson, and accusations of
> rebel links.
> ``The Mexican government can deal with critics who write
> newspaper columns, but once you get on Internet and American TV
> they can't control it,'' he said.
> The Interior Department, which controls the police force Heredia
> named in his October complaint, promised to investigate ``these
> intimidating acts apparently committed by members of the federal
> judicial police.'' Police officials denied their forces were
> involved.
> With soldiers blocking reporters from entering war zones, news
> within Chiapas travels slowly.
> But once the information reaches computers in Mexico City, it
> moves across the wires within minutes.
> Users of Internet, the computer network linking universities,
> businesses and activists, can browse through dozens of files for
> material on Mexico.
> By sending a simple message, they can ``subscribe'' to four
> separate bulletins on Chiapas in English or Spanish, and reach
> like-minded organizations and activists across the world.
> Phil McManus, an activist with the ecumenical peace group
> Fellowship of Reconciliation, relies on computerized access to
> Chiapas news to alert some 1,500 people ready to send faxes.
> Electronic communication has also brought together human rights
> monitors in Chiapas with organizations that lobby the government in
> the Mexican capital.
> ``It has facilitated our work a lot,'' said Mariclaire Acosta,
> President of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion
> of Human Rights.
> ------
> The Internet address for information is:
> pueblo(at)laneta.apc.org.
>