the branch of Comitas in Tuxtla Gutierrez DID agree to be the recipient organization, but the process was then stopped by the main Customs branch in Mexico City – they are really pulling out all the stops to prevent this aid from entering!!! why is it such a big deal?? it’s really not THAT much stuff – considering how much is needed, it’s a tiny drop in the bucket. but it seems that it is the PRINCIPLE that has the government so upset – Pastors for Peace gives aid to anyone who needs it – government approved or not. and some of the communities in need are communities in resistance. that’s what makes the government so upset. that there are communities that continue to be in resistance to their neo-liberal policies DESPITE the 252 military bases they have installed in Chiapas to intimidate and threaten the population into conceding its autonomy, DESPITE their paying of paramilitaries to frighten, torture and kill civilians until they comply with this unjust rule, DESPITE the millions of dollars the US has poured into the Mexican military to defeat its indigenous population into submission once and for all to the colonialism that for 500 years has been pushed upon them. That there exist communities in resistance DESPITE all of this is a slap in the face to the colonial government in Mexico City. and to think that anyone would give AID to these poor people is unthinkable to that colonial government. that’s why they’re trying so hard to prevent it from entering mexico.

meanwhile, the forced relocations have begun in montes azules. we went out for two days to La Realidad, nearby montes azules, to see if our presence would do any good in preventing the government’s actions. it didn’t, and we’re
back to the drawing board in figuring out how we can stop these forced relocations of people who have lived in that region for years, sometimes generations, having been pushed out of their original homes by military threat. the
government tries to push the line that it is trying to protect the rainforest, and that these people (that the government is relocating) are destroying it with their ‘slash and burn’ method of farming. the truth is, there is no one better suited to living sustainably in the rainforest than the mayan indians, of whom these people form
a part. the damage being done to the rainforest is NOT the tiny, subsistence plots eked out by these, the poorest of the poor – rather, the damage being done to the rainforest is due to the huge investments by multinationals in
building dams that flood thousands of acres, in prospecting for ores and bio-prospecting for patentable plants, in logging of VAST stretches of rainforest – all of this is
already being done by multinationals in the montes azules protected rainforest. the idea of displacing these people is so that the corporations can have access to ALL the rest of the rainforest, and ‘manage’ it as their profits deem
best.

and this is not the first time that the government has attempted to do this same thing, to THESE SAME PEOPLE – in 1978, there was a forced relocation that was almost exactly like the one being pushed today. About 8,000 people were
pushed off their subsistence farming plots in the rainforest so the government could declare it a ‘protected biosphere reserve’ and thus keep the historical inhabitants of the land off of it. But instead of ‘protecting’ the
rainforest at that time, the government made vast stretches of it available to timber companies that, of course, cut the trees to export the wood. Now the government is attempting to do the same thing again, and make the last remaining rainforest available to multinational timber corporations.

And the sick, twisted public relations campaign that the government has pushed on this issue has been to BLAME the peasants for destroying the rainforest, thus pitting environmentalists and environmental groups against their
natural allies, the small farmers (just like in the US!). and the public relations campaign is sophisticated – the government claims to have satellite images showing that the
rainforest has been shrinking every year. and it’s true – the rainforest HAS been shrinking – but if you were to examine the satellite pictures more closely, you would see that the areas that have been destroyed are almost exclusively those areas surrounding military bases! like I have said before, there are 252 military bases in chiapas – a large number of these are lining the border of the montes
azules bio-reserve, and some are within the bioreserve. the military has burned large stretches of rainforest – perhaps to give themselves areas to do training exercises. the military has also contracted out to timber companies to
cut down stretches of rainforest for profit. THEN they have the NERVE to blame it on the peasants!

So we went out there to La Realidad, near Montes Azules, to see if our presence would have an impact on the government’s decision on whether to carry out the forced relocations. It didn’t, and they relocated about a dozen
families to the city of Comitan despite our presence. The government has no plan for these people -- even though it claims to be providing them with housing and health care, it is not. And putting farmers into the city is another step in the insidious push towards making all the farmers into factory workers, dependent on wages for their subsistence, rather than on their own subsistence farm. The
people do not WANT to leave their farms, but the government, in its reports to the media, makes it seem as though it is doing these people a favor. AAARGH!!

Anyway, La Realidad is really amazing. It’s one of the Zapatista community centers, and has developed the most autonomous system yet! Their water system comes from a river that runs nearby, and they have built, with the help of an Italian support group, a dual-turbine generator that uses the flow of the water to generate electricity for the community. no hydro-electric dam, no coal-burning power-plant, just a sustainable form of electricity-generation
that provides for the needs of the local community. they probably couldn't power the machinery of a huge textile factory or weapons manufacturing plant, but they don’t WANT a textile factory or weapons manufacturing plant. like E.F.
Schumacher says, small is beautiful. the people are living sustainably with very little, farming only what they need, and the existence is a tranquil and amazingly beautiful one. waking up in the morning with the rooster crowing, the
sun peeking out from behind a hill, cooking over a fire and bathing in a swimming hole – wow. a friend of mine said, “Two days in La Realidad (translates to: Reality) is worth a month in therapy”. And THESE peaceful, resilient
farmers are the people the Mexican military wants to call ‘terrorists’! sheesh.

But La Realidad is not utopia – it is a community still struggling with the effects of heavy HEAVY militarization by the mexican military. the zapatistas do not kick people out of their communities, no matter if they are supporters
of the PRI (the main political party in Mexico, and the one thought to be behind many of the paramilitary groups), supporters of the PRD (the moderately left political party), or full-fledged zapatista supporters – all are welcome in zapatista communities. but the result of being so accepting is that there ARE supporters of the PRI within the community, people who do not understand the
community-based model of the zapatistas, and would rather get something for themselves. so we faced children in La Realidad who tried to sell us little things, a rural imitation of the children in the city of San Cristobal who
leech off the tourists by selling bracelets and belts. the difference between the child-vendors in La Realidad and those in San Cristobal was that the kids in La Realidad were
more prone to listen when we talked to them about how selling things to foreigners was a way of losing your dignity. People WITHIN their own community were telling them the same thing. We told them that we were going to buy things from the cooperative store, because the way the store was organized, it was to lift the WHOLE community up, not just one person or one family.

On the way to and from La Realidad, we also stopped at two other communities. One was Guadalupe Tepeyac, a place that was completely abandoned up until last year. It was abandoned in 1995, when the military established a base on the edge of town, destroyed people’s property and threatened villagers with their guns until the residents were forced to leave. Salinas, who was President at that time, made a big deal out of the building of a military hospital there, supposedly ‘for the people’. He flew in with a helicopter to meet a shipment of medical equipment that came in on a truck for the occasion. All the media showed up to film Salinas opening the hospital and unloading the medical equipment off the truck. Then, the media left and Salinas’ helicopter took off, the equipment was loaded back onto the truck and taken away – it wasn’t being given to that hospital after all!! The people have
boycotted the government hospital since it was built, and continue to boycott it even now that they have moved back into their community. They boycott it because the hospital does not respect traditional ways or traditional medicine,
and will not allow family members to remain with a hospitalized family member during the duration of their illness. Acceptance of the military hospital would also legitimize the militarization of their community, something that the people of Guadalupe Tepeyac do not accept.

During the march to Mexico City in April of 2000, the base at Guadalupe Tepeyac was one of the seven (out of 259) that the Zapatistas asked the government to close as a measure of goodwill. The government did remove troops from this base, but maintains a core staff and the infrastructure, ready to re-open it at any time. Nevertheless, the people from the community of Guadalupe Tepeyac decided to leave the refugee camps and other places where they had settled temporarily and return to their own community. They have
established several cooperative stores, and have electricity (the government ran wires out to this remote area for its own purpose – its military base and hospital
– but now the people are able to take advantage of those wires, and have run them to their own houses). They have painted amazing and beautiful murals showing their struggle and history in Guadalupe Tepeyac, and have established a
community center where they have regular meetings to make decisions regarding their community.

The other place we stopped was the small village of San Pedro, where there is a clinic up on a hill that serves many of the surrounding villages. It has a small, dedicated staff of local people who have skills in dentistry, pediatrics, lab-work and traditional herbal medicine. For surgeries and more serious procedures,
they have to send people away, but there at the clinic they can set fractures, birth babies, conduct tests, prescribe medicines.....they also have a dormitory where family members of the ill person can stay, and a classroom where they teach first aid and medicine. One of the staff members gave us the optimistic vision, “We are going to make this into the first autonomous, indigenous medical
school in Chiapas. It’s a dream, but with help from international and Mexican supporters, we can make it happen.” That is the attitude of determination and vision that I’ve found in so many of the Zapatista communities, something I find so inspiring.


22 dec 2002
san cristobal, chiapas, mexico

this weekend we visited the communities of Polho and Acteal. The two are very strongly connected, because Polho is a refugee camp that was formed from people who fled from Acteal (and other places) after a horrible massacre by
paramilitaries that happened on 22 dec 1997 (five years ago today). There are now close to 8,000 refugees living in Polho – INTERNAL refugees, all from within the state of Chiapas, but unable to return to their homes. And Polho is
just one camp – it is said that there are more than 20,000 refugees in Chiapas. All of these people have had to leave their homes and villages – whether because the military has formed a base on or near their village, paramilitary groups have threatened or killed people in their families or communities, or their traditional way of life has been threatened by the militarization of their region. The refugee camp of Polho provides a sanctuary for the displaced of Chiapas. It is high up on a mountaintop, with no fertile land to speak of, and is thus completely
dependent on food aid for survival. I wrote about this a little bit when I was in Memphis, but I wanted to fill in with a bit more info from the ground. the mexican red cross has cut down the aid that they bring to Polho to less
than ¼ of what it was originally – and at the same time, the number of refugees has increased from 6,000 to 8,000, and so now there is REALLY not enough food to go around.

we pulled into polho with a bus full of bags of corn and beans – we ended up making three trips, donating a total of 17 tons of food. and ALL of that is ONLY enough to feed that entire community for TWO weeks. they told us that a support group from the basque country donated twenty tons, as did another group from germany. but they are still just living day to day, wondering when the next truckload of food will arrive. regardless of their desperate food
situation, the people remain defiant, bold and autonomous. they have a school and a clinic set up in polho, as well as a comunity center. we met with the elders of the community, who dressed in the traditional chiapanecan ceremonial dress – black wool shawl over white shirt, with hats draped with dozens of colorful ribbons. they told us of their struggle as a people, and how they would not
succumb to the pressure of threats and fear forced upon them by military and paramilitary groups that try to get them to accept the militarization of their homeland. only the removal of the military from chiapas will give them
the assurance they need to return home.

as the men and boys gathered around the bus to help with the project of unloading the food, surrounded by beautiful and colorful murals and in the distance, the view of the forest-covered mountains, my friend noted, “This is the
way a community should be”, and I nodded – people helping without being forced into it, food being distributed equitably, kids laughing despite their hardships, a music workshop set up next to the crafts workshop.....

then today we went to acteal. it was horrible to imagine the day 5 years ago today when the paramilitary stormed into the village, went to the church and killed everyone inside while they were praying, then remained in the village for SEVEN HOURS after the massacre, looking for more people to kill. imagine hiding in a cabinet inside your house, knowing the gunmen had just shot your family, waiting seven hours in there, afraid to move a muscle, til they left town. and, I just need to note this, THERE WAS NO REVENGE ACTION by the zapatistas. 45 people gunned down in absolute cold blood while they were praying, and after all that, the zapatistas kept their word of maintaining a cease-fire. they did not pursue killing even ONE of the paramilitary members, even though they KNEW WHO THEY WERE. instead they pursued the avenue of having them jailed. and now, this year, the government has decided to release the perpetrators. can you imagine the fear that people must be living in? whew. and then the government has the NERVE to have a military outpost set up just outside acteal, and FILM and TAKE PICTURES of every vehicle and individual
coming into the community for the memorial service. I mean, if you had lived through the massacre, would YOU want to have to walk through a line of military who is photographing and filming you??? knowing that the film
will most likely end up in the hands of the people who carried out the massacre.....how cruel can they get?

there were hundreds of people there, probably close to a thousand, for a somber commemoration and Catholic mass led by the Bishop. the people who were killed in the massacre in 1997 were members of a religious group called Las Abejas (The Bees), who are pacifist and number several thousand in this area. they are not zapatistas, but they are loosely associated with the zapatistas because their members do not condemn the movement. why were they killed? the question remains....although it is as obvious now as it was then
that this was a way to attack what was seen as the most vulnerable members of the resistance, people who would not be likely to fight back. during the month of december, 1997, the members of las abejas had been part of a dialogue with the EZLN (zapatista army), municipal authorities, and members of civil society organizations to figure out how to deal with the problem of the threats by paramilitaries and the burning of houses that was being done by paramilitary
groups in the area of acteal. the massacre on the 22nd was the culmination of an escalation of threats that had pushed many people out of their homes and high up into the mountains. The members of Las Abejas who were in the
church at Acteal numbered 45, and were praying for an end to this escalation of violence that was going on. and they themselves became the next victims.


25 dec 2002
san cristobal, chiapas, mexico

feliz navidad! christmas in san cristobal.....
there are lots of firecrackers everywhere – seems that is a major way to celebrate. there are also lots of pinatas – we got to hit one filled with cane sugar plant, oranges and sugar beets.....and pine needles on the floor, with a creche – manger scene – made from natural, local materials like moss, flowers and local plants. the right-wing newspaper in town has a special section on ‘how to celebrate christmas’, and the first thing on the list says something like: “There is nothing like the feeling of OPENING A GIFT on christmas morning. don’t deprive your child of this joy – buy them a gift!” – trying to encourage the spirit of consumerism and massive spending that is associated with christmas in the US. but that over-consumptive spirit has not hit mexico yet, and they are having to resort to measures like this – ‘instructions’ on how to celebrate christmas that tell people their duty is to consume. I much prefer the mexican way of celebrating – a family fiesta, food and music, pinatas and firecrackers......

just talking to some folks who said there is a zapatista community where a community activist was killed in august by paramilitaries, and the paramilitaries around that community are taking the opportunity of it being christmas
to shoot their guns in the air and parade their weapons around – a form of intimidation toward the people living there. it just never ends.......

but the caravan, at least this part of it, has ended. I will probably send out another missive after january 1, depending on how the negotiations with the government go, asking for help in pressuring the Mexican government to
allow the aid to pass – we may need a phone and fax campaign, depending on how things go. And then, we will have Caravan Pt. 2 – the bringing of the trucks full of aid. until then.......