A colleague in Chiapas asked me to post this message. Most people
sending messages on this issue have been prudent so I post this one since
it is a useful summary of some 30 other messages even though it does not
contain information on the "spy" network in the government of Mexico -
that network received the most media attention over the weekend.
Sincerely, pat lauderdale
Forwarded message:
We want to inform you that the situation of the conflict in Chiapas
deteriorates day by day like product of the political pressure and
provocations that the Mexican government develops and that the
possibility of open war is dangerously close.
A brief summary of the serious cases of repression of these last
days shows the cynicism and impunity with which the government is
acting.
The 11th of April, hundreds of police, soldiers and agents of
Migration made searches, scares and attacks in Taniperlas, headship
of Autonomous municipality Ricardo Flores Magon, municipality that
was constituted the day before.
Like product of that action, 11 Mexicans (among them two observers
of human rights) and 12 foreigners were detained. The former have
been already transferred to the Cerro Hueco penitentiary, in Tuxtla
Gutierrez, Chiapas, adding the list of political prisoners who are
found in that jail. The latter were deported to their countries of
origin, in one more show of xenophobia the government seeks to
deport the eyes and ears of the world from Chipas.
In the context of those events, journalists Oriana Elicabe (of AFP)
and Paschal Gorriz (of AP) were attacked in the airport of Tuxtla
Gutierrez, by Chiapan police, when they covered the information on
the deportation of the detained in Taniperlas.
The 13th of April, a manifestation of inhabitants of Taniperlas
demanded the withdrawal of the police and assailed the army
resulting in 2 wounded indigenous.
At this hour (12:20 hours of the 14th of April, Mexican time), we
are informed that another 11 companeros of the community of
Taniperlas who were also detained and taken to Ocosingo, in
practice have disappeared, in that they are not in Ocosingo, nor
San Cristobal, nor in Tuxtla Gutierrez.
To this is added new information regarding the impunity within
which the paramilitary groups of the region act. Today is denounced
that this past 17th of March, the paramilitary group Peace and
Justice assassinated Trinidad Cruz Perez, in the autonomous
municipality of Work, in Palenque, Chiapas, after having been
submitted to tortures.
In other parts of the country, the situation of oppression has also
become serious. The last 10th of April, when the inhabitants of
several communities gave a visit to the municipal headship of
Matlapa, San Luis Potosi (in the north-center of the country), to
demand the fulfillment of the San Andres Accords, they were
repressed violently; the operation was realized with the
participation of police effectives from the judicial police and the
federal army, who, between insults and interrogations intimidated,
aggravated and privated of liberty six companeros for four hours. A
day later, were detained of new account the companeros Javier
Copado, Luz. Ma. Saldana and Miriam Sanchez, members of the
Zapatista Front of National Liberation, that works in the
indigenous communities of the region. They were detained by the
military and Federal road police at the military checkpoint that is
in the road of Actla and were led to Ciudad Valles, where they are
kept illegally detained under the argument that they carried with
them documents of a subversive kind. Said documents are diverse
papers of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation, totally
legal.
In journalistic notes of dates 10, 12 and 13 of April of 1998, one
is informed that presumed agents of Federal Judicial Police (PJF)
and of the Judicial Police of the state of Morelos (in the center
of the country) assassinated 5 native farmers of the state of
Puebla, minors, that were cutting wood in the community of
Hueyapan, Morelos. The victimas were found with signs of execution,
one of them in Ocuituco, Morelos, and the four others in Jolalpan,
Puebla. According to an eyewitness of the acts, who was 50 meters
from the place where the woodcutters were apprehended, he saw as
they shot his companeros and lifted them up into their light trucks
(compacts), one of them with the abbreviations of the Procurator
General of the Republic.
Up to this point a brief and without doubt incomplete radiogragph
of the most recent governmental repression in Mexico.
In this way, even though it seems that the presidential initiative
of indigenous law was obstructed in the Senate and that so far will
not pass, the provocation is transferred directly to Chiapas. The
National Indigenous Congress has announced that it will mobilize
its forces to stop these aggressions and will constitute 20
autonomous municipalities in the states of Veracruz, Oaxaca and
Guerrero. On their part, the different autonomous municipalities
from Chiapas are in red alert and have announced that they will
defend their process of organization; there are rumors furthermore
of a great movement of troops, that soon the army and the police
will enter to dissolve them.
We must be very alert everywhere. Please, do not lose contact and
use any public that you have to denounce the situation and to
demand: the freedom of the political prisoners; the cease of
attacks on the indigenous communities; the cease of deportations of
international observers, the fulfillment !ya! of the San Andres
Accords, as the way to deactivate the threats of war and a return
to the search for a peace with justice and dignity.
We will continue to be in contact.
International Commission of the FZLN
-- Zapatista Front of National Liberation: -> http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln/ (English) http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln/ (Spanish) <-