antonio answered: well, it depends on what you mean by indian. if you mean simply people who are descended from the original inhabitants, the indigenous people of the americas, then it is possible to say that it is indians fighting amongst themselves. but if you mean by indian people who are practicing their traditional ways and maintaining their culture, their indigenous ways, then no, it is not indians fighting indians. the members of the paramilitaries are accepting money to defend the land that was stolen from indigenous people (their ancestors) by the spanish conquistadors who invaded this area generations ago. and the military, the government is a colonial system imposed upon the indigenous people by the spanish.

the newest form of that colonization is corporations who assert claims on indigenous land, sell the indigneous people's land out from under them and then hire the paramilitaries to intimidate the people, destroy their homes and, if necessary, kill them. it is a legacy of colonization and domination that is playing out in its latest form.

there was another question about tourism..... a lot of US citizens who visit mexico are not really aware of all these underlying currents taking place all around them (well, many tourists are not aware of the same currents taking place in the US either, so....). especially in san cristobal (the main city in chiapas). there's a big push by the mexican government to expand tourism in san cristobal. spanish classes, tours of the mountains and jungles, etc. So there is a concurrent and related plan to discredit and criminalize the zapatista movement, to make the residents of san cristobal, many of whom are mestizos, people of mixed spanish and indigenous descent, HATE the zapatistas. to this end, the city will do things like cutting off the water, then blaming it on the zapatistas; creating a refugee problem by funding paramilitaries that intimidate people into leaving their ancestral homes, then blaming THAT on the zapatistas. anything that goes wrong in san cristobal, the government will find SOME way to BLAME the zapatistas. and many people in that city have begun to buy the line, mainly because they themselves are dependent on tourism for their own well-being (servants, waiters, business-owners, sellers at the tourist market, beggars). it is in their economic self-interest (for the short-term) to be against the zapatista rebellion. but it is AGAINST their economic interest in the long-term, because the multinationals will soon step in to tap the tourist market to turn it into another cancun, with huge hotels and mega-malls.

whereas the economic model proposed by the zapatistas, and being LIVED and PRACTICED by the zapatistas, is a sustainable model for the long-term. it is the traditional model of mayan agriculture and community, small farms living in community and participating in the decisions that affect their community in a very real and directly democratic way. but this model is at odds with unbridled, unrestrained capitalism. for you can't sell off property that is communally owned. that's why the mexican government had to ANNUL Article 27 of the mexican constitution, which provided for communal land holdings by indigenous people, as a PREREQUISITE to their signing of NAFTA in 1993. did you get that? THEY CHANGED THE MEXICAN CONSTITUTION IN ORDER TO IMPLEMENT NAFTA! just like that! poof! indigenous land holdings - GONE! no wonder the zapatistas declared their revolution the day NAFTA went into effect! so you have these two mutually exclusive models - the one, sustainable, simple, community-based living of the traditional mayan indians (the zapatista model); and the other, unsustainable colonial capitalism that is based on a profit motive and will continue ravaging the land, people and resources until all the people, land and resources are dead, destroyed and gone. and YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH. so what happens in the tourist trade is a building up of a capitalist mentality and culture in a region, and an undermining of the more traditional way of living, and of the indigenous resistance.

so that you get to a point where you can find women selling zapatista dolls in the outdoor tourist market in san cristobal, women who HATE the zapatistas, but know that this is what the tourists want to buy. and their feeding of the tourist market is undermining the zapatista rebellion.

antonio also talked about the goodwill gestures of the mexican government, the demands that were made by the zapatistas last year when hundreds of thousands marched on mexico city after walking all the way from chiapas. there were three modest goodwill gestures suggested by the zapatistas to the mexican government, to show that the mexican government was willing to work with the indigenous people of chiapas: the release of 105 of the zapatista political prisoners, the closing of 2 of the 252 military bases in chiapas, and the passing of an indigenous rights bill in the legislature.

WELL, the government has made a MOCKERY of these goodwill gestures by:
1. releasing paramilitary members implicated in massacres of indigenous people at the same time that they released the zapatista political prisoners, virtually equating the MASS MURDER committed by those paramilitary members with the HOLDING OF DISSIDENT POLITICAL BELIEFS, which was the crime of the zapatistas who were in jail.
2. turning the two military bases that they closed, into social service centers STAFFED by ARMED members of the mexican military, thereby providing some of the services people in the area have been demanding, but only if those people agree to get those services from armed soldiers.
3.passing an indigenous rights bill that actually TOOK AWAY rights from indigenous people, rather than giving them more rights. the zapatistas reviewed the document and issued a list of 240 places in the document where the legislation actually TOOK AWAY existing indigenous rights. They brought their case to the Mexican supreme court, where the court upheld the legislation and dismissed their complaints.

and now the government is wanting to say that they did what the zapatistas asked! those shifty bastards!