Counterinsurgency in Chiapas During the Other Campaign
by Mary Ann Tenuto-Sanchez
March, 2006
As Delegate Zero (aka Subcomandante Marcos) travels through Mexico with the Other Campaign, drawing large crowds and generating energy and enthusiasm below and to the Left, another story is unfolding in Chiapas; a story of counterinsurgency against the Other Campaign.
La Jornada, Mexico's left of center daily newspaper, reported on March 16, 2006 that Mexico's Interior Minister, Carlos Abascal Carranza, met with the Pacification and Harmony Commission (Cocopa, for its initials in Spanish) and told those present that the Mexican Army had stopped watching the “conflict zone” of Chiapas. Cocopa is the commission created by law to facilitate peace in Chiapas. It is composed of federal legislators from the principal political parties. According to the article, Abascal said that in Chiapas the Army only attends to the needs of a state with “border state” characteristics. For anyone who has been to Chiapas recently, this is obviously pure propaganda, one weapon in the counterinsurgency arsenal.
Subcomandante Marcos responded to Abascal's “lie” the following day during his talk in Aguascalientes, the capital of the Mexican state with the same name. Marcos said that “70,000 federal troops maintain a circle to harass and intimidate the communities which are support bases of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). At no time have the federal Army's principal barracks inside the so-called ‘conflict zone' disappeared. To the contrary, they have reinforced their positions by regrouping. The federal Army has not left the state of Chiapas nor the ‘conflict zone,' it has simply withdrawn from some positions to become stronger in others, specifically in the Canyons and in the Highlands of Chiapas.” Marcos further alleged that where the federal Army has withdrawn its positions, it has left behind armed paramilitary groups to clash with Zapatista supporters.
Chiapas Support Committee members and friends just returned from two weeks in Chiapas, mostly in the conflict zone. We saw the same old olive green military barracks and camps that we have seen for the last eleven years. We saw the soldiers from those camps patrolling the roads that run right through civilian Zapatista villages; none of them near the border.
The counterinsurgency campaign taking place against the Other Campaign includes not only propaganda like that of Abascal, but detentions, threats, false accusations and harassment by paramilitary groups against Zapatista communities and participants in the Other Campaign. It also includes the closing (once again) of Enlace Civil's bank accounts. The HSBC Bank in San Cristobal de las Casas closed the bank accounts of Enlace Civil, the nonprofit which works with civilian Zapatista communities on health and education projects. HSBC is the second bank to close Enlace Civil's accounts and there can now be little doubt that the orders to close the accounts are coming from government officials. HSBC opened the accounts with full knowledge that the money in the accounts came from international solidarity for projects in civilian Zapatista communities. BBVA-Bancomer closed all of Enlace's accounts last year.
Damaso Villanueva Ramirez, a San Cristobal activist, was arrested and jailed on false charges of destroying a cell phone antenna in San Cristobal. He was involved in protests by neighborhood residents against the antenna and against electric rates and the privatization of water. He participates in the Other Campaign and distributed information about it in San Cristobal's Zocalo. He has since been released.
As Marcos plainly stated in his reply to Abascal, the federal Army works hand-in-hand with paramilitary groups. The activity of these groups began to increase after the Other Campaign's September 15, 2005 Plenary.
La Jornada published a story in its December 12, 2005 edition citing a document entitled “Putting Two and Two Together,” by the Center of Political Analysis and Social and Economic Investigation (Capise, for its initials in Spanish). According to that document, paramilitary membership of several organizations, Opddic and Cioac-official, has grown considerably with the inclusion of new groups of people, some of them criminal elements.
The investigation conducted by Capise arose due to several ugly incidents involving alleged land disputes between Zapatista supporters and new members of Opddic and Cioac. In October 2005, the Organization for the Defense of Campesino and Indigenous Rights (Opddic, for its initials in Spanish) announced that it intended to dismantle the autonomous Zapatista county of Olga Isabel in the official government county of Chilon. In November, the Independent Central of Farmworkers and Campesinos (Cioac-official) blamed the EZLN for the death of six of its members in a land dispute. The Zapatistas from November 17 County flatly denied any involvement and government authorities agreed.
According to the La Jornada article, the Capise investigation showed that the Oppdic and the CIOAC are increasing their numbers by promising land titles to people from other organizations who have disputes with the Zapatistas over land; specifically, land recuperated by the Zapatistas as a result of the January 1994 Uprising. The Opddic is affiliated with the PRI political party and has control of the official county government of Chilon. Cioac is affiliated with the PRD political party and has control of the Las Margaritas County government. They are, therefore, able to promise land titles in those counties.
The two above incidents were published in newspapers and by the relevant Good Government Junta. The EZLN has also published actions taken against organizations participating in the Other Campaign, such as, Desmi, Fray Bartolome Human Rights Center, Sipaz, Maderas del Pueblo, etc. (La Jornada, March 3, 2006). Most recently, the home of the Caritas director and her husband in San Cristobal was broken into. And, Ernesto Ledesma, none other than the director of Capise, had his San Cristobal home broken into. This level of repression against civil society is somewhat reminiscent of the early years of the Uprising before Fox (president of Mexico) and Salazar (governor of Chiapas) toned down the rhetoric in order to attract foreign investment..
The Chiapas newspaper, Cuarto Poder , recently published a new story about the Opddic. (Cuarto Poder leans to the right and towards the PRI.) However, according to the story, one member of Opddic was kidnapped and another killed in Busilja (Ocosingo) and Opddic blamed the Zapatistas (Cuarto Poder, February 25, 2006). The Busilja incident has not been clarified either by government authorities, by Zapatista authorities or by the Other Campaign. This incident, however, bears a striking similarity to the incident with the Cioac-official last November.
What has not been published are reports we heard while in Chiapas (March 1-14, 2006) from international peace observers (peace campers) about the on-going harassment of Zapatista communities by paramilitary groups.
According to “Report: Opddic: Operation Land Displacement” published by Capise, OPDDIC was founded on May 20, 1998 in the community of El Censo in Ocosingo County. The organization was started by and is headed by Pedro Chulin Jimenez, who is originally from Taniperla and is a former PRI deputy in the Chiapas state Congress. He is currently running for office again in Ocosingo County and his name is plastered all over the city of Ocosingo. Both El Censo and Taniperla are within Ricardo Flores Magon autonomous Zapatista county, adjacent to the Chiapas Support Committee's sister county of San Manuel, which has had significant problems with Opddic in the past. The most dramatic incident occurred in August 2002 when 200 armed Opddic members attacked the Zapatista community of Nuevo Guadalupe Quexil in San Manuel, leaving several Zapatistas severely injured.
Mary Ann Tenuto-Sanchez is a member of the Chiapas Support Committee in Oakland, California and just returned from two weeks in Chiapas. You may contact the Chiapas Support Committee by email at: cezmat@igc.org