File spoon-archives/marxism-news.archive/marxism-news_1998/marxism-news.9801, message 32


Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 01:56:36 -0600 (CST)
From: Sendic Estrada Jimenez <sestrada-AT-fcfm.buap.mx>
Subject: M-NEWS: E;AP,Mexican Army Closes in on Towns Sympathetic to Rebels,Jan 8 (fwd)






---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 11:11:57 -0600 (CST)
From: Chiapas95 <owner-chiapas95-AT-eco.utexas.edu>
Reply-To: Chiapas 95 Moderators <chiapas-AT-eco.utexas.edu>
Subject: E;AP,Mexican Army Closes in on Towns Sympathetic to Rebels,Jan 8

This posting has been forwarded to you as a service of 
Accion Zapatista de Austin.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 21:28:46 -0800 (PST)
From: Tom Burghardt <tburghardt-AT-igc.apc.org>
Reply-To: a-infos-d-AT-tao.ca
Subject: (en) Mexican Army Closes in on Towns Sympathetic to Rebels


________________________________________________
     A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
           http://www.ainfos.ca/
________________________________________________

        http://www.boston.com/dailynews/wirehtml/008/
 
                              -----
_________________________________________________________________
 
     MEXICAN ARMY CLOSES IN ON TOWNS SYMPATHETIC TO REBELS
_________________________________________________________________
 
     By Trina Kleist, Associated Press 01/08/98 15:41
 
     SIBACA, Mexico (AP) - Dozens of soldiers with automatic
rifles swarmed into this Tzeltal Indian hamlet at the crack of
dawn Thursday, entering homes in what they said was a search for
weapons.
   
     About 150 terrified villagers fled two miles down the dirt
road and set up a roadblock of logs at the turnoff from the
highway as protection. About 50 soldiers formed a line alongside
them.
   
     The villagers screamed at the soldiers in the Tzeltal
language, and signaled them to leave. One woman grabbed the
barrel of an automatic rifle and shouted at the soldier holding
it, using a language he didn't understand.
   
     ``We don't want you to be here,'' she said. ``It would be
better if you went back to your barracks. There's nothing bad
here.''
   
     The woman, like the other village women dressed in a
traditional white robe, would not give her name.
   
     In Sibaca itself - a coffee-growing village in the hills -
14 Humvees and three personnel carriers were parked in front of
the ruins of a 16th-century church. A plane flew overhead and
three Mexican patrols walked through the village with guns drawn.
   
     Village leaders turned on a siren, calling residents to a
meeting. Those who gathered asked an army official to explain
what the soldiers were doing.
   
     ``We are here for your benefit. We are here to make sure
that other armed groups don't come in,'' he said.
   
     A village leader, Nicolas Lopez Gomez, asked him: ``If you
want to do social work here, why won't you tell the people what's
going on?''
   
     The officer, who refused to give his name, didn't respond.
   
     The army operation Thursday in this hamlet 40 miles
northeast of San Cristobal de las Casas followed several similar
sweeps in the southern state of Chiapas since Dec. 22, when pro-
government gunmen massacred 45 peasants in the highlands hamlet
of Acteal.
   
     Survivors of the slaughter have blamed paramilitary forces
aligned with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. The
villagers were said to have supported the rebels.
   
     The army has sent in at least 5,000 new soldiers to the
southern state of Chiapas, in addition to the 35,000 who already
were there. Soldiers have been stopping cars and going house to
house to search for weapons.
   
     And they have been closing in on villages sympathetic to
rebels of the Zapatista National Liberation Army - like Sibaca.
Villagers are scared, and angry.
   
     ``They say the president wants a dialogue,'' said a woman at
the roadblock who gave only her first name, Maria. ``He just
wants war and to kill Indians.''
   
     Soldiers in Chiapas say they are under orders not to speak
to reporters, and Mexico's Defense Ministry did not respond to
requests for comment.
   
     Officials have said soldiers are merely enforcing federal
firearms laws. But one soldier at a roadblock admitted that the
list of license plate numbers he was taking down had nothing to
do with firearms laws.
   
     Some soldiers also are engaged in distributing food and
medical care to needy refugees. But since the massacre, the
soldiers also have entered areas sympathetic to the rebels;
villagers accuse them of trying to crack down on the rebels in
violation of peace accords.
   
     The firearms law ``is the pretext of the evil government for
provoking war,'' a man named Carlos said Wednesday outside the
village of Oventic.
   
     Disarmament suddenly became a key issue in the 4-year-old
Zapatista rebellion after the massacre.
   
     Although government and military officials have vowed to
enforce gun laws against all sides in the conflict, weapons
searches primarily have been made in rebel-supporting villages.
   
     ``It's only a maneuver ... to distract public opinion from
the massacre of Acteal, to provoke the Zapatista Army and renew
armed confrontations,'' rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos wrote
in a statement released Wednesday.
   
     On Saturday, about 150 soldiers were stationed outside La
Realidad, a jungle village that the Zapatistas often have used
for ceremonies.
 
     Terrified villagers already had packed up in preparation to
move, but voted in a town meeting to stay.
   
     Villagers in Oventic - where rebel support runs high - fled
when soldiers set up a roadblock a half-mile from town Tuesday.
All returned later in the day when the roadblock was removed, but
many still fear an imminent army incursion.
   
     And on Wednesday night, soldiers searched homes in the
village of Morelia for the second time in a week - but found no
weapons.
 
     Copyright 1997 Globe Newspaper Company
 
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_________________________________________________________________
 
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        to subscribe e-mail Tom Burghardt <tburghardt-AT-igc.org>
 
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