Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 14:24:51 -0400
Subject: FW: AUT: Emergency News Summary on Events in Chiapas



"solidarity means sharing the same risks" - Che
( la solidarita significa correre gli stessi rischi)

----------
From: "Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu>
To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: AUT: Emergency News Summary on Events in Chiapas
Date: Sun, Aug 22, 1999, 12:27 PM



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:28:21 -0400
From: irlandesa <irlandesa-AT-compuserve.com>
To: chiapas-n <chiapas-n-AT-burn.ucsd.edu>
Subject: Emergency News Summary

EMERGENCY NEWS AND SOLIDARITY SUMMARY:
        ** Amador Hernandez **

by irlandesa

Friday, August 20, 1999.


** Given the gravity of the events going on in Chiapas at the moment, and
the plethora of often disjointed reports abounding, I shall try to provide
a brief, concise daily summary as circumstances warrant.  Further details
can be found in La Jornada and in denuncias and bulletins from Enlace Civil
A.C.  These are all being posted to Chiapas-n, Chiapas-L and Chiapas 95,
and as many as possible of them are being immediately translated into
English. 

WHERE: 
         Amador Hernandez is a town in the rebel municipality of Emiliano
Zapata, constitutional municipality of Ocosingo.  It sits in the Amador
Valley, at the edge of the Montes Azules biosphere reserve.

WHAT: 
         Amador Hernandez, over the last 2 weeks, has been subjected to a
fierce, sudden and comprehensive military occupation by the Mexican Army
and Public Security Police.  Residents of the community - zapatista support
bases and members of ARIC-Independent - have been demonstrating against
this occupation since August 12, the day they discovered their access road
had been completely blockaded and shut down by the military.  They were
joined on the 14th by a group of students who had been participating in the
National Encuentro in Defense of the Cultural Heritage in La Realidad,
convened by the EZLN.  Most of the students were from the National School
of Anthropology and History.  A few were from the UNAM.  The students, and
actress Ofelia Medina, joined the residents in the demonstrations, which
had already been taking place.

WHY:  
        The government of the state of Chiapas has been determined to build
a highway through the Selva, skirting the Montes Azules.  They have claimed
that the entire occupation is due to the need to protect the private
company slated to do the roadwork on the Amador Hernandez - San Quintin
[the site of a large military complex] stretch of this highway.  Local
residents, both from Amador Hernandez and from nearby communities, are
firmly opposed to this construction.  They have seen it - and their
position has now been amply proven - as primarily an excuse for the
deployment of more military and security forces into the Selva region.

THE OTHER WHYs:  
        The Communities:  Have been adamantly opposed - as has the rest of
the civilized world - to the remaking of the state as a police state.  With
the military comes even more checkpoints, harassment and restriction of
their freedom of movement.  More degrading of their social and physical
environment.  More encouragement of PRI paramilitary groups.  This
particular occupation appears to be part of a pattern aimed - among other
things - at the ejection of zapatista support base and independent peoples
from their communities.  As well as the tightening of the military noose
around the EZLN comandancia.
        The Government:  Governor Roberto Albores Guillen -who is the de
facto head of the state Labastida Ochoa campaign ['official' candidate for
the PRI nomination for president in the year 2000 elections] - has seized
on the circumstances in Amador Hernandez in order to do a number of things.
 First, he is attempting to take the Chiapas conflict local, to keep it out
of the national arena, where it can only harm the official party's chances.
 To almost everyone's surprise, it has formed one of the major issues thus
far in an already heated campaign.  Secondly, an attempt to do what no
other interim governor of Chiapas has done - he is hoping to survive.  To
this end ,he has been orchestrating a consolidation of political power
within the state over the last year, including the establishment of tight,
slick media control;  the rubberstamping of a series of state legislation
designed to co-opt the San Andres Accords;  the release of seemingly
bottomless funds [allegededly from the World Bank and from Labastida's war
chest, among other sources] down the PRI pipeline in Chiapas; and, of
course, the ever popular creation of media-friendly jingoistic incidents
designed to whip the straying faithful into frenzied line.

ON THE GROUND: 
         Lots of soldiers with riot gear and tear gas (which they used on
the 15th), acres of barbed wire, paratroopers, government political
operatives, helicopters redux, sealed roads [by the military].  What there
is not:  the observance of almost any constitutional rights.
        What else:  hundreds of determined indigenous, a handful of
students, acres of mud, flowers on barbed wire fences [placed there by the
demonstrators], not enough food, and voices being raised.

THE LATEST:  
        The government has announced arrest warrants, that it shall go
after the students and community leaders.  That it will not put up with
caravans of Mexican citizens from Mexico City.  That it will maintain
control.  Come hell or high water.  Or both.

WHAT IS NEEDED: 
         An end to the occupation.  Food, water, clothing.  Massive
world-wide awareness of what is going on there.  More, much more, than
indignation.

***********************************
irlandesa-AT-compuserve.com



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