Second Zapatista Intergalactica – With Photos

This year it began early, in Tuxtla Gutierrez on 19 July, with a event in the main square in support of the People in Defence of the Land. With the indigenous peoples of Chiapas being traditional owners of large tracts of hardwood forests, there has been an upsurge in attempts to drive them off their land, by fair means or foul. Fair means amount to theft through the courts, either paying off judges or ignoring their judgements, or both. Foul means include murder, paying some community members to attack (and often kill) their Zapatista neighbours refusing to sell or leave, such as occurred last November in Montes Azules, or the more usual and ever more frequent kidnap and beatings, and abandonment on the roadside

Even ambulances are not exempt from this treatment – today I met a woman waiting outside the Zapatista health clinic for follow-up treatment from her recent hospitalisation. The Zapatista ambulance taking her unconscious to hospital from Oventic to San Cristobal de las Casas on 8 July was set upon by two truckloads of men, who dragged the driver and health promoter from the ambulance and beat them. The valiant driver and health promoter still managed to get her to hospital, despite their own injuries. She considered herself lucky to have been unconscious, or she too may well have suffered at least as bad, if not a worse, fate, such as that to befall Ernestina Asencio in Veracruz February, who was raped by 7-9 soldiers, then murdered – yet another of the growing numbers of indigenous Mexicans murdered with impunity.

As the ambulance incident shows, medical personnel are not spared either attack or imprisonment, including in Sal Salvador Atenco, where Dr Guillermo Selvas and his daughter Mariana, who were providing medical care to an injured student, are amongst 28 of those illegally detained last May still imprisoned. Whilst other students have been released, Mariana accompanied her father to provide medical treatment for student Alexis Benhumea, unconscious after being hit in the head by a tear gas cannister. When her father left the house where Alexis was lying to find an ambulance for him, he was detained and beaten by the police, and when Mariana went into the street to see what had become of him, she too was detained, beaten, and sexually assaulted. Like the ambulance driver and health promoter, their sole crimes were to be Zapatistas providing medical care, but unlike them, who although beaten can still enjoy their freedom, the Selvas are both in jail, and Alexis is dead.

The fallout from Atenco also continues. I ran into Jorge Salinas at the Encuentro, last seen in SCOOP (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0606/S00354.htm) with his head covered in blood being detained in Atenco, and told me that his ´case´ is still ongoing. His physical injuries have largely healed, although he has permanent damage to his hands and cannot close his right hand, of which two fingers are immobilised, but his anguish continues. Like most of those detained, he was eventually charged with blocking a public road, but was eventually released on $15,000 peso bail – the daily wage is 50 pesos so that is about a year´s wages. He must report to an 'audiencia' every 15 days, to sign a form, and although in the last month the reporting place has changed and is now a little closer than the prison he has had to report to for the last year, it is still about 100km from his home. He has to be present from 10am until often 11pm at night for this process, and when asked when his case will be finalised, he said there is no end in sight, and it could go on for years. "It is not a legal process, it is a political process," he said, pointing out that the sanctions will be either a fine or a prison sentence. The only three Atenco defendants to have been sentenced so far received sentences of 67 years, while none of the police have been charged, despite the wealth of evidence against them and several national and international human rights reports documenting a litany of abuses. Regardless of the National Commission of Human Rights recommendations, and the Supreme Court of Mexico announcing they are investigating the events at Atenco, Jorge holds out little hope that anything will come of either. "They are both just part of the total apparatus of the State." But he also had some good news – the defendants are also using every available legal resource and recourse, and have had some successes, with four 'amporros' being found in favour of Magdalena Garcia – who nevertheless also remains imprsioned. Magdalena was the indigenous woman selling food in Atenco, who was swept up in the events, and was widely seen on the internet, with a cop putting the boot into her as she was thrown into the back of a pick-up. Jorge said there are more than 500 poltical prisoners currently in jail, from several States. The tally of Zapatista dead stands at more than 40, with numerous imprisoned and disappeared, and the attempts to wrest control of natural resources such as forests and water, continue on a daily basis.

Unsurprisingly, then political prisoners, and the protection of natural resources are high on the Encuentro agenda, receiving special mention in the speech of Subcommandante Marcos. His speech also concentrated on the position of indigenous people in Mexico, and in the world, in particular the Yaqui, who in October will host the Indigenous Encuentro of the American Continent in Sonora.

It is scandalous that in the year that the Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is opened for signing, the country with the presidency of the United Nations Council of Human Rights provides a backdrop of exploitation, forced relocation, repression, and death of its own indigenous peoples – almost always with total impunity for the perpetrators.

However, the Zapatistas continue building their communities from below and to the left, and several thousand people have again come from all parts of the world to see firsthand, and experience how they are going about it, not least because the only improvements to date in health and educational status reported in Chiapas indigenous communities are in the Zapatista autonomous communities, which provide their own health care and education, as well as dispute resolution.

Today we move on to Morelia - watch this space for further developments, especiall information on the education, health and self-governance systems. But be patient – internet access is not easy in the mountains of Mexico!!

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Tuxtla Gutierrez

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Tuxtla Gutierrez

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Beautiful weather and a beautiful banner welcome the people of the world

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Ambulance that was attacked 8 July - note dented door

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waiting for Marcos

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Marcos arriving

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Marcos speaking

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Listening intently

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Thousands have arrived

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Jorge Salinas

***ENDS***

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