<nettime> *Marcos must be "fed up": Tacho

[ricardo dominguez <rdom@thing.net>]

 Originally published in Proceso, No. 1191, 8/29/99
--------------------------------------------
translated by Leslie Lopez

*Marcos must be "fed up": Tacho

*Nearly daily scenes in Chiapas: women and children clashing with
soldiers

*_The Mexican Armed Forces at the End of the Millenium_

by Julio Cesar Lopez

The sudden announcement that the road-building project between San Quintin
and Amador Hernandez was to be suspended, and the release of the three
zapatistas accused of attacking a Mexican Army contingent in San Jose La
Nueva Esperanza, were not enough to contain the irritation among
indigenous sympathizers of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
(Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional, or EZLN) caused by the profuse
presence of soldiers in the area. 

This reporter covered the zone between Amador Hernandez and the town where
a skirmish occurred on Wednesday the 25th, resulting in seven wounded
soldiers and three wounded zapatistas--according to the National Defense
Ministry.  He passed by La Realidad, considered the headquarters of the
zapatista command, and was able to observe the indigenous people, angry
and running out of patience about the growing militarization in the area. 

In separate interviews, Comandante Tacho and Chiapan federal deputy Carlos
Morales confirmed that impression. 


On Friday the 27th, while some of the members of the Peace and Agreement
Commission (Comision de Concordia y Pacificacion, or Cocopa), led by
Carlos Payan, were preparing to travel to the places where tension had
been rising, a communique arrived from the General Command of the EZLN,
signed by Comandantes Moises and David, among others.  They denounced that
"the Federal Army troops are still in Amador Hernandez and are continuing
in their tasks of fortification, laying in supplies and setting up
weapons, announcing that they will stay there for an indefinite period of
time." 

They also called on "national and international civil society, not to be
fooled by supposed detentes." 


*Marcos, "fed up"

"The situation is serious...Subcomandante Marcos must be fed up to here,"
Comandante Tacho told Proceso.  Comandante Tacho is one of the central
political leaders of the EZLN. 

It is Wednesday the 25th, in the afternoon, in La Realidad. 

Eight and a half kilometers away, towards San Quintin, on the banks of the
Euseba River, three Mexican Army tanks are aimed at the mountains.
"Everything is quiet here.  The tension they're talking about is an
invention of the journalists," comment the soliders posted at the
blockade, located at the edge of the Chavero Group. 

On the other side of the mountains, towards the border highway, at least
20 kilometers from La Realidad, Tojolobal indigenous people, EZLN support
bases, confront some one hundred soldiers with sticks, rocks and machetes;
the soldiers fire their weapons:  according to the zapatistas, two
campesinos were shot, and seven soldiers wounded with machetes and stones. 

It is 3:50 in the afternoon, and Comandante Tacho appears in La Realidad
on horseback.  He is alone, without escort.  He is wearing a black wool
ski-mask and his military uniform: brown shirt and green pants, with a
revolver at his waist and cartridge belts crossing his chest and back. 
And his perpetual olive green cap, with its black and red five-pointed
star. 

"Things are really bad.  Look what's happening in Amador Hernandez," is
the only thing he says to this reporter.  He doesn't want his picture
taken.  "Not now." 

Almost two hours later, at 5:40, he reappears, on horseback again.  He
looks different.  A nervous tic next to his left eye can be seen on his
brown face, despite the ski-mask. 

"The situation is bad," he repeats as he takes the reporter's
tape-recorder in his hands. 

He explains: "Today at 12:00 the Army and the Public Security Police went
into the community of San Jose La Nueva Esperanza.  They came from Rizo de
Oro.  The soldiers grabbed three indigenous men and shot two." 

He gives the names of those arrested, which are not the same as those
given by the National Defense Ministry (Secretaria de Defensa Nacional, or
Sedena): "Enrique Lopez Cruz, Estanislao Lopez Gomez and Carmelino Mendez
Lopez.  The wounded men are Herminio Vazquez Lopez, with a bullet wound in
his right leg, and Francisco Vazquez Vazquez, with a bullet wound in the
ankle." 

The comandante gives a bare-bones rundown of events: "When the Army came
in, the companheros were at work.  They grabbed three indigenous men. Then
the people gathered and went to ask them to let them go.  At 12:00, the
Army and the Public Security answered them by firing into the air. The
companheros try to get closer and the soliders fire at them.  There are
two wounded.  One of them, Herminio Vazquez, is in grave condition." 

He has no doubts: "It was a military aggression." 

--What was the motive? 

--We don't know. 

--What does the EZLN think about these occurrences? 

--We're seeing that the government has a plan to attack the indigenous
communities. 

--What does Subcomandante Marcos say about this? 

--He must be fed up to his hat, as we indigenous say when someone is
angry.  Imagine: there are companheros wounded. 

--Where is the Subcomandante? 

Marcos' inseparable companion says he doesn't know of his whereabouts. 

--Will the EZLN respond to the Army's aggressions? 

--I can't say anything else. 

--What is happening in Amador Hernandez? 

--The companheros are still sitting-in.  Things are bad. 

La Realidad, a community which the EZLN says could be attacked by the
Army, seems to be continuing its "normal" life. 

In the mornings, between 7:00 and 10:00, a long military convoy, of up to
30 vehicles, crosses the community once on its way through, and then again
on its way back.  It is armed, and carries heavily armed soldiers from the
Euseba River to Guadalupe Tepeyac and back again. 

A day before the confrontation between the EZLN support bases and the
soldiers, Comandante Tacho was in La Realidad, where he welcomed 36 UNAM
students and the federal and local PRD deputies on their way to Amador
Hernandez. 


*The confrontation

The soldiers clashed with the zapatistas of San Jose La Nueva Esperanza at
the edge of the San Caralampio farm.  >From Maravilla Tenjapa, about 100
uniformed soldiers advanced up the muddy path that links Rizo de Oro with
Guadalupe Los Altos when (according to the Sedena version) they ran into
"three masked, armed individuals." 

Right afterwards, "a group of 40 masked people, carrying sticks, rocks,
machetes and knives threw themselves violently at the military
contingent," wounding three soldiers with machetes; five others sustained
"head injuries." 

"Military personnel fired their weapons to dissuade the aggressors," and
arrested three:  Ramiro Vazquez Rodriguez, age 35; Andres Perez Jimenez,
age 45; and Daniel Gomez Lopez, age 40.  The names do not correspond with
those given by Comandante Tacho and the inhabitants of San Jose La Nueva
Esperanza. 

A group of reporters from different national media and foreign agencies
went to the community on the 26th, and gathered testimonies from the two
indigenous men with gunshot wounds, who do not appear in the Sedena
bulletin, but do in the communique from zapatista comandantes Felipe,
David, Moises, Daniel and Rafael. 

Herminio Vazquez Lopez has a gaping wound in his right leg, caused by a
bullet, and is in a bed in the small community hospital.  He says the
problem started because the soldiers arrested three indigenous men who
were on their way back from their plots of farmland. 

"A companhero came and told us, and the wives of the men who were arrested
went to help them.  But the soldiers beat them...they kicked them and they
pulled their hair.  More women came and they were beaten too. 

"When we saw that the Army was treating the women like animals, we
intervened to rescue the companheros who'd been arrested.  We were
carrying machetes, clubs and some rocks, and the Army fired a stream of
bullets at us.  They used their pistols and their long weapons." 

Francisco Vazquez Vazquez is the other one who was wounded.  He is 66
years old, and has a bullet wound in his knee; he is resting in another
bed, partly covered by a blanket with the image of La Virgen de Guadalupe. 

His version coincides with his companhero's.  He says the first one to
fire was an officer. 

"The signal to fire was three shots in the air." 

The women accompany the journalists to the places where the confrontations
occurred, and show them the rocks where the soldiers slammed their
arrested husbands' heads.  And the barbed wire fence of the San Caralampio
pasture, where the soldiers fired on the indigenous zapatistas. 

The women want to know where their husbands are.  "Whether they are alive
or already passed on to the cielito lindo," they say in Tojolobal. 

Deputy Noel Rodas Vazquez, coordinator of the PRD fracion in the Chiapan
Congress, was in San Jose La Nueva Esperanza that same day, as part of the
group of legislators that traveled to Amador Hernandez and this community. 

Indignant after photographing the wounded, he told Proceso: "This is very
delicate.  It indicates t hat the military is a loose cannon; soldiers are
acting on their own account, and occurrences like this could start up the
war again." 


*The rejection

The community of San Jose La Nueva Esperanza belongs to the recently
created municipality of Maravilla Tenejapa, one of the most heavily
militarized zones in Chiapas.  For the rebels, it is part of San Pedro de
Michoacan.  It has an elementary school and an airstrip which hadn't been
used for 12 years.  An "XA TBS" plane that brought four members of the
National Human Rights Commission (Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos,
or CNDH)  on the 26th ended its long period of disuse, to the excitement
of the children. 

"We learned that they were beaten.  We brought them some candy, but we
didn't think there would be so many children.  We brought a doctor too," 
the CNDH envoys told the zapatistas. 

At almost the same time, three soldiers in civilian dress arrived at the
community.  They said they were accompanying reporters from the Mexican
Radio Institute (Imer).  The names the soldiers gave to the townspeople
were: "Carlos Chacon Ramirez, Juan Carlos Garcia Perez and Matias Guillen
Nicolas."  The natives isolated them, and when the CNDH representatives
left, at 2:20 pm, they asked them to leave. 

The irritation of the indigenous people has been manifest in the
Highlands, the Jungle and the Northern Zone, in the communities of San
Antonio El Brillante, X'oyep, San Jeronimo Tulija, Yuqin, Puerto Cate, San
Cayetano, Aldama, Chavajebal, Union Progreso, Amador Hernandez and Sn Jose
La Nueva Esperanza, where they have blocked the soldiers' paths. 

In those places the same scene has been repeated: women and children who
push at the soldiers to block their way, while yelling zapatista slogans
and "Vivas" for "insurgente Marcos." 

The Attorney General of Military Justice, Rafael Macedo de la Concha, gave
a press conference in Tuxtla Gutierrez Thursday the 26th, to give his
version of events, and showed a video called "Provocations against
military personnel in the state of Chiapas." 

Each segment of the video begins with explanations like the following:
"From the 6th to the 16th of April, 1996, military personnel, during the
search for a state government helicopter that crashed, was provoked and
verbally assaulted by townspeople in the community of San Antonio El
Brillante."  There are images of two columns of soldiers walking along a
road while they are harrassed by women and children who yell at them "We
want you to leave," and "Federales get out." 

"From August 24th to the 25th, 1997, the Mexican Army, upon reinstalling a
military camp in San Cayetano, was provoked and verbally assaulted by
inhabitants of that place."  The soldiers are at the side of the road,
when groups of masked indigenous people appear, pushing them and yelling
slogans. 

"On January 3rd, 1998, in the community of X'oyep, sympathizers of the
dissenting group dismantled the social work equipment, in order to prevent
the population from receiving help. 

"From the 1st to the 4th of March, 1998, in the community of San Jeronimo
Tulija, in the Chilon municipality, military personnel, when they set up a
camp, were assaulted and provoked by the townspeople."  One can see how
the women and children, armed with long sticks, push and hit the soldiers.
In one scene, two children hit the arms of two soldiers, push them from
behind and hit them in the seat. 

"On April 23rd, 1998, the Juarez military group, during its patrol, was
blocked and verbally a ssaulted by townspeople from the Yuquin community." 
The soldiers walk towards the entrance of the community, where they have
to pass to continue along their way.  The community is in the middle,
blocking the way.  The commanding officer of the group yells: "Senhoras,
we are only here on a routine patrol, we aren't going to hurt you.  We
want to get through."  Then several men from the community come closer,
and he tells them: "You already did your military service and you've dealt
with the Army.  Doesn't the Constitution say so?  What does the
Constitution say; what does the National Anthem say?  Doesn't it say that
there's a soldier given in every son?  So, are we talking about something
strange to you, or what?  Let us pass.  What do I take from you by
passing?  What am I going to take from you?" 


*The causes

The indignation of the indigenous is due to the growing presence of the
military.  For example, in the 120 kilometers between the municipal seat
of Las Margaritas and San Quintin, passing through La Realidad, there are
four road blocks and six details, or groups.  In all of them, they look
over vehicles and travelers' belongings, under the pretext of applying the
Federal Law of Fire Arms and Explosives. 

The first road block is in Nuevo Momon, 38 kilometers from Las Margaritas,
and 57 from La Realidad.  Name, occupation, exit point, destination,
reason for the trip and type of vehicle are some of the things the
soldiers ask.  The second road block is in Vicente Guerrero, 37 kilometers
from La Realidad.  There a person undergoes the same review, and the
soldiers ask the same questions.  The third road block is in the town of
Guadalupe Tepeyac, abandoned by its old inhabitants since the military
offensive of February, 1995.  The Magan~a Group is located there, divided
into two camps.  One of them is in the place where the first zapatista
"Aguascalientes" once stood. 

In the other, Lieutenant Herrera comments to this reporter that "nothing
is happening."  The afternoon of Wednesday the 25th, under incessant rain,
protected by a waterproof cape, the officer adds that "everyone says we're
ready for an invasion of La Realidad and here we don't anything about
that.  Everything is quiet and in order." 

History repeats itself at the fourth road block, located at the edge of
the Euseba River, where the Chavero Group is installed.  In this place, 8
and a half kilometers from La Realidad, there are three tanks. 

One kilometer away, towards San Quintin, a group of at least 10 soldiers,
supported by a Hummer artillery vehicle, protect three topographers who
are taking measurements in the road bed. 

This group is under the command of Lieutenant A. Gorostiza, of the 19th
Regiment of the Motorized Cavalry.  He explains that the non-zapatista
population supports the military, since they offer them protection, in
addition to the fact that their presence represents economic income. 

He comments that in the Chavero Group there are Infantry, Cavalry and
Armory, and that to date "we haven't had any conflicts despite the fact
that we're so close to La Realidad and Amador Hernandez." 

Friendlier than the other soldiers, he says that every day there are
patrols from the Euseba River to Guadalupe Tepeyac, passing through La
Realidad, but he says they are "routine movements."  He says, moreover,
that there has been no increase of troops in the Lacandon Jungle. 

Seventeen kilometers from the Chavero Group is San Quintin, base for the
73rd Infantry Battalion.  There are at least 800 soldiers there, under the
command of Colonel Javier Cruz Rivas. 

According to the PRD parliamentary fraction in the House of Deputies,
there are some 40,000 soldiers distributed among 11 military groups in
Chiapas since 1997, the large majority in the so-called conflict zone. 

The book _The Mexican Armed Forces at the End of the Millenium_ (_Las
Fuerzas Armadas Mexicanas a fin de milenio_), written by deputies Gilberto
Lopez y Rivas, Jorge Luis Sierra and Alberto Enriquez del Valle, shows
that these groups were located in San Quintin, Nuevo Momon, Altamirano,
Las Tacitas, El Limar, Guadalupe Tepeyac, Monte Libano, Ocosingo, Chanal,
Bochil, and Amatitlan. 

In the state, they say, "there are at least six Infantry battalions
deployed, two Motorized Cavalry regiments, three Mortar groups and three
loose companies." 

Chiapan federal deputy for the PRD and member of the Cocopa, Carlos
Morales, says that attacks on a military contingent like the one that
occurred in San Jose La Nueva Esperanza "only happens when someone is
totally out of patience and irritated.  There is a real climate of tension
in the region.  When the people, armed with sticks and rocks, confront the
Army, it is because there is extreme dissent." 

In San Cristobal de las Casas, Friday the 27th, Senator Carlos Payan,
current president of the Peace and Agreement Commission (Comision de
Concordia y Pacificacion, or Cocopa), said the actions of the Army could
break the cease-fire, decreed since January 12, 1994.  And although he
shows enthusiasm about the suspension of the road-building project, he
says the problem continues to be militarization. 

(With information from Salvador Corro and Isain Mandujano.) 


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