PUZZLING OVER WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING

From my bedroom I look across the central courtyard of our Mexican home to a pink flowering tree pushing up against a grey concrete wall. Among other bric-a-brac, cartons of empty bottles of coca-cola stack high against the wall. Coca-cola. Something clean to drink when you cannot trust the water. A sugared potion to hasten death. Diabetes is rampant in the population -- in Mexico some consider it to be the primary cause of death. It is ascending as a cause of death in the Chiapas area.

Baby Maria's demanding voice rises from the kitchen below.  Her father Gilberto and mother, Ramona, are having breakfast. Ramona's voice. I'm writing in my journal. I've already had a full morning. I was eating breakfast with the father of our host family, Roberto, when news of a conflict in the tourist area of Agua Azul came on the radio. The Bishop of San Cristobal diocese was interviewed at length. The Catholic church apparently is to be consulted in these situations.

Roberto, a former teacher and director of a primary school, explains the situation. He speaks in the measured and clear tones of a natural teacher [in Spanish, of course]. In past government funds did not reach the indigenous campesino. It stopped with government officials and local chiefs (caciques). The campesinos had very little -- no food, no health care, no educational facilities -- and sometimes no land at all. Mestizos often had large tracks of land. With the perceived threat coming from the Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC) [NAFTA in our terms], the thought was that the problems of the campesinos would be worsened. The rich resources of Chiapas and other southern states were to be put up for sale.

Andres gave the example of an orange which is 40% juice. That juice would be extracted and sent of to Europe and North American. Protests and concerns received little response from the government. The result was the Zapatista uprising in 1994.

Subsequently, with the mediation of Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, government and Zapatistas were at the point of signing an accord. The Government has not signed to this point in time. The Zapatistas started "La Otra Campana" [The Other Campaign] throughout the whole of Mexico bringing their case before the Mexican people and attempting to rouse support. Vincente Fox, the successful PAN candidate for President of Mexico in 2000, promised that within 15 minutes of becoming President, he would have an agreement with Marcos and the Zapatista communities. It has not happened 15 minutes and years later.

Now the Zapatistas have organized 5 "caracols" [snails] which they supervise for the purpose of good government. When there are conflicts the people can bring them to councils of good government to ensure just decisions. One of the positions of the Zapatistas is that they will accept no support from the government. They do not participate in the various development programs proposed by the government. These include various monthly payments to older people, to mothers of families, and to students. The Zapatistas see this as buying off the people. The result is that in the areas controlled by the Zapatistas there are communities that support the government. It does not really matter which party they belong to -- PRI, PAN, PRD -- those who support and receive support from the government are in tension with the Zapatistas. This is the source of the conflict on the highway leading into the tourist area of Agua Azul.

With my level of Spanish abiility, I know that I have not captured the nuances of Andres' explanation of the situation. I will have to study more and talk with others to help my understanding of the situation. When I read the newspaper later, the story is about the Governor Juan Sabines handling the Agua Azul conflict personally. He has called together the disputants around a large table for dialogue. Now it is the local Presbyterian church that is signaled as a major interlocutor in the debates.

Aware that the Zapatistas see the Governor as being behind the problems encountered in this situation by Zapatista sympathizers, I am presently in a puzzled state. I ask myself what is really going on? The next day we attend a press conference in which the Governor Juan Sabines is identified as having taken over part of an ejido back as early as 1980. The people do not want money for the land, rather they want the ejido (traditional communal land) left intact. The matter is presently with the Supreme Court.

An event next day at Frayba [Centro de Derechos de San Bartolomeo de Las Casas] critiques plans to put a highway through traditional areas with all the exploitation possibilities that will come with easier access. The highway is intended to run from Mexico to Colombia and the front story is that it is to open up the area to tourism. Resistance to these plans meets with repression.