Article written by Rachel Wallis and Alex Rocklin
In April, during a peaceful march Zapatista community members where
attacked and forced to flee their homes into the mountains. Members of
the Peace House were on hand for their return. (For a history of the
conflict in Zinacantan, which was left out of the April Newsletter by
accident, see the website archives for April) i. Oventik
We arrived at Oventik, a Zapatista center of international exchange and regional administration, to wait with our sleeping bags and long underwear. If the displaced communities of Zinacantan were to return to their homes we were on hand to accompany them. We spent five glorious days and windy nights at the Caracol of the highland region of Chiapas, talking international politics and immigration, bathing in an icy river, reading, attending an inaugural ceremony for a new office building, cooking over a wood fire and eating with people from all over the Americas and the world. The call finally came for Sunday the 25th.
In the pre-dawn cold and dark we awoke and went out to meet a group of men from San Andres de Los Pobres who would give us a ride. We all rode standing in the back of a pickup from Oventik to San Cris. At first a caravan of one, we were met on our misty, mountainous route by other trucks and a school bus full of men and women in pasamontanas. When we reached the Coca-cola factory outside the city we joined a line of cars and trucks of various sizes representing civil society, and continued on our way to Zinacantan.
By the time we reached the woods near where the displaced communities would be picked up we had attracted a lot of attention. We were followed the whole way by police trucks and helicopters, intelligence and surveillance vans and journalists in their beat up old cars. All of a sudden hundreds of women, children and men of all ages appeared out of the woods in black masks. While the Zapatista representatives tried to quickly get the people onto the bus and trucks and away, they were mobbed by press and onlookers and barraged by the flashing of camera bulbs. As the helicopter circled, and trailed by federal and state police, we returned with the displaced communities to their villages in Zinacantan. While there was continued police presence and onlookers spying for local community bosses, the return was completed without serious incident.
ii. Apaz
While Rachel went to El Ambo Bajo, I spent my time in the community of Apaz. Apaz is a politically mixed community and the Zapatista presence is about 65 out of 1,000. Unlike the other displaced communities, the problems in Apaz stem not from water, but from resistance to unjust electricity taxes. After the caravan left, the community milled around the yard of the responsable of the community, talking and arranging the flowers given to them by the caravan members. But when everyone gathered together in the common room of the house before their alter and prayed, there was an intense outpouring of cries of grief and wails from the men and women of the community.
The time I spent in the community was calm. There was no visible police presence in the area. While some community members smirked and gave us dirty looks, others responded to our presence with an amicable 'buenos dias.' There was some minor damage discovered on the return and some chickens had been killed. But although the head of the community had had his life threatened, and his son or one of the observers had to accompany him wherever he went, life continued for the majority of the people more or less as normal. As observers we kept watch on the roof of the house of the responsable; sat with the women as they made tortillas and cooked lunch; went around with the young men of the community to see the cultivated lands of the town; and went to the well to get water for a few Zapatista households. While things are more tranquil in Apaz they are still facing hostility from their community and confront the problems of not having electricity or access to sufficient medical care! .
iii. El Ambo Bajo
The situation in El Ambo Bajo was quite different from that of Apaz. El Ambo Bajo is a divided community in the literal sense of the word. The community is physically divided into PRD, PRI, and Zapatista sections, and the PRIistas and PRDistas each have their own church and town square. The community has a history of political tension, which has not only included attacks on the Zapatistas, but also attacks on the PRI supporters by PRDistas.
When we disembarked from the caravan on the 25th, the Zapatista companeros and comaneras gathered by the side of the road and the head of the community spoke at length in Tzotzil about their time in the mountains, the sacrifices they had made, and their continued belief in the Zapatista cause. Zapatistas we spoke to in the following days frequently remarked about how lucky they had been during their time in the mountains. Fifteen days was a short period, they said, and it hadn't even rained. They acknowledged that the first couple of days were hard, without food or blankets, but then people began to bring them supplies and it was ok. But from behind this cheerful demeanor, little by little the true cost of the attack and displacement came to light. Community members would gesture towards wounds or injuries, and tell us how they had been caused during the attack on the march. One woman from the community gave birth in mountains. The owner of the house that the human rights ob! servers slept in introduced us to his baby girl, just barely old enough to hold up her head. "She was there in the march and in the stoning," he said, "She was in the mountains." It was hard to look at that delicate creature and not imagine the fear that her mother must have felt, running with her through the hail of stones and gunfire.
The most obvious cost to the community, however, was economic. Of the 33 Zapatista families living in El Ambo Bajo, 30 homes were robbed during their time in the mountains. In total, the community lost nearly 170 chickens, a turkey, a pig, a pair of speakers, sacks of corn, and goods from their store. For a community making do with so little to begin with, the losses were staggering.
The situation continues to be tense in the community. They are still without water at the time this is being written, making do with rainwater and water from a filthy well on their property. They have had to take their children out of the government school because they were being harassed and attacked by the other students. They have heard rumors that their electricity will be cut and they will be denied access to their ejido, or communal land.
They are also threatened by the massive police presence in the area. Every couple of hours pickup trucks of heavily armed members of several police forces pass through the community. They spend the night camped out in PRD center, and there are frequent over flights by government helicopters and small aircraft. Although their presence could be justified with the argument that they are "keeping the peace," this logic doesn't fit with the actual history of Chiapas, where the police have repeatedly participated in attacks against Zapatista communities, protected and collaborated with paramilitaries, and stood aside during the perpetration of massacres (during the massacre of Acteal, police and military forces stayed put meters away up the hill during the hours of shooting). None of the Zapatistas in El Ambo Bajo feel safer with them around.
Three weeks later and things are still tense in the communities of Zinacantan. A shortage of money has stalled a plan to pipe in potable water to the communities that are in dire need. And four new human rights camps has put a strain on Enlace Civil to supply observers to the communities that are most in need. For information on how you can help support these communities, contact Enlace Civil, at enlacecivil@laneta.apc.org. More information is also available on the Chiapas IndyMedia website, chiapas.indymedia.org.
