AUT: E;BAS,A.Nadal:Terror in Chiapas,Mar/Apr

[Chiapas 95 Moderators <chiapas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This posting has been forwarded to you as a service of=20
Accion Zapatista de Austin.

Folks: Hey, it's worth going out and buying this issue of the Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists. The article below is the cover story and the whole
cover has the increasingly famous photograph of little indigenous=20
women pushing back the big Mexican soldier.

Harry

                                                         March/April 1998
                                                           Vol. 54, No. 2

                                    Terror in Chiapas
                                   By Alejandro Nadal
                On Monday, December 22, I was traveling in Chiapas, a
                mountainous state in southern Mexico that borders
                Guatemala. My excursion that morning ended in San Andres
                Larrainzar, some 20 miles northwest of San Cristobal de
                las Casas.

                The village, once the site of the peace talks with the
                Zapatista rebel group, was a shadow of its former self.
                At noon the market in the main square was not merely
                empty; the wooden stalls were closed and locked. No one
                could be seen in the dirty streets. The walls were
                marred with pro- and anti-Zapatista graffiti. All was
                quiet. And despite the majestic view of the surrounding
                mountains to the south and the valleys to the north, an
                ominous air hung over the village.

                At that exact moment a bloody massacre was taking place
                not 15 miles away, in Acteal. The victims--45 Tzotzil
                Indians--had been living in a makeshift refugee camp on
                the roadside. Built on steep terrain, the camp was about
                600 feet from the school and community center of Acteal,
                a village some 20 miles north of San Cristobal de las
                Casas.

                No escape

                Several weeks before the massacre, the victims had fled
                nearby Chenalho in an effort to escape the violence
                perpetrated there by one of the government-oriented
                paramilitary groups now active in the Los Altos region.
                Most of the refugees belonged to the Sociedad Civil Las
                Abejas (the "Civil Society of the Bees"), which has
                close ties to the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas.
                In spite of its strong sympathies for the Zapatista
                National Liberation Army (EZLN), Las Abejas is well
                known for its strong commitment to non-violence.

                The refugee camp was new, with wooden shacks on two
                embankments about 50 feet below road level. An
                improvised wooden house on the lower embankment served
                as a church. But at 11 a.m. on the morning of December
                22, most of the inhabitants were praying in an open
                space on the upper embankment. At 11:30, the camp was
                surrounded on three sides by approximately 60 armed
                gunmen, most carrying AK-47s, their faces partially
                concealed by bandannas. The attack started from below
                the lower embankment, with the first shots fired at the
                makeshift church.

                In the commotion that followed, men, women, and children
                tried to escape. Some stumbled down into the ravine
                through thick foliage. Three men hid in a small
                crevasse. A large group huddled together against a
                furrow on one side of the embankment, with nowhere to
                go. The killers had time to position themselves and fire
                at will.

                When the last volley ended, 45 people were dead or
                dying. The inhabitants of Acteal could hear their
                screams as the murderers closed in with machetes to
                finish the wounded and mutilate the dead. A few
                children, concealed beneath the corpses of their parents
                and relatives, survived. Some of the survivors had
                wounds caused by bullets that had been doctored to
                explode on impact.

                With the camp emptied, the gunmen looted every shack,
                shooting into the air as they went. This process
                continued until 4:30, when they drove away in their
                pickup trucks.

                The shooting could be heard in Polho, Chimix, and
                Majomut, all villages within a few miles of Acteal. A
                police transport stationed on the road between Polho and
                Acteal heard the dense and prolonged firing, but failed
                to investigate.

                In the afternoon, reports of the shooting reached Father
                Gonzalo Ituarte of the National Commission for Mediation
                in San Cristobal. He immediately contacted Chiapas's
                secretary of government, a man named Tovilla.
                "Everything is under control," he was told. "There was
                some shooting there, but we have agents in Acteal right
                now and everything is okay."

                This deception was to be followed by others, as reported
                later by the National Human Rights Commission. In the
                first cover-up, state authorities tried to alter the
                scene of the shooting, removing the corpses before
                Justice Department officials arrived. They piled the
                bodies in a truck and drove them to Tuxtla Gutierrez,
                the capital of Chiapas. (The bodies were later returned
                to Acteal, where they now rest.)

                But when the first of the wounded reached San Cristobal
                in the early hours of December 23, the magnitude of the
                massacre was revealed. Acteal became a synonym for
                infamy.

                In the aftermath, the attorney general declared that the
                deaths at Acteal had been the result of a family
                conflict, or perhaps of community strife. The attorney
                general's statement was then used to justify the
                military buildup that followed.

                The Zapatista rebellion

                Those killed at Acteal were the latest victims in a
                conflict that began in January 1994 with the appearance
                in Chiapas of the Zapatista rebels. After a brief period
                of hostilities, the government of Carlos Salinas
                appointed a peace commissioner, and negotiations to end
                the conflict began. The first round of talks was
                concluded in March 1994 with a series of loosely defined
                agreements.

                However, the EZLN had reserved the right to consult with
                its supporters on the substance of the agreements, which
                most observers felt did not address the main causes of
                the rebellion. Most saw the agreements as an attempt by
                the Mexican government to maintain the status quo while
                buying time. The end product was rejected by the vast
                majority of Zapatista supporters.

                The impasse that followed lasted until December 1994,
                when a major non-violent mobilization of the Zapatista
                rebels demonstrated the wide degree of support their
                movement had obtained in the state of Chiapas. With the
                support of a broad network of communities, the EZLN was
                able to break out of its encirclement by the Mexican
                military without firing a single bullet.

                Also in December 1994, Ernesto Zedillo succeeded Carlos
                Salinas as president of Mexico and, following the advice
                of hardliners in the government, launched a large-scale
                military offensive against the EZLN in February 1995.
                However, the response to that offensive was so negative
                at home and abroad that the government eventually agreed
                to a new round of negotiations.

                The ground rules for this set of negotiations took
                months to define, and the talks resumed in late 1995.
                The legal framework, the "Law for Peace in Chiapas,"
                recognized the EZLN as a "non-conformist group" and
                tacitly acknowledged that just causes led to the
                uprising. That law, still in force today, was supposed
                to suspend all penal procedures and military operations
                against the EZLN. Further, the law mandates the
                implementation of confidence-building measures to
                facilitate the advancement of the peace dialogues.

                The new talks included one session on the rights of
                indigenous peoples, a second on justice and democracy,
                and a third on economic development. The first session
                ended with the signing of the Agreements of San Andres.
                Indigenous organizations from all over Mexico (including
                many that had been invited as advisers by the federal
                government) exerted pressure to obtain the government's
                signature on the agreement, which granted indigenous
                peoples the right to autonomous governance of their
                communities, within the overarching framework of
                Mexico's Constitution.

                In March 1996, the second session opened with the active
                participation of many advisers-including the author-who
                had been invited to participate by the Zapatistas.
                However, unhappy with the outcome of the first session,
                the government had by this time decided to sabotage the
                peace process (see "Trashing the 'Law for Peace,'" page
                25). As a result, the EZLN decided in August to suspend
                the talks, declaring that it would not return to the
                negotiating table unless the government took steps to
                comply with the agreements that had already been
                reached; unless it ended the expansion of the military
                presence in Chiapas as mandated by the Law for Peace in
                Chiapas; and unless it fully empowered its negotiating
                team to conclude substantive matters.

                This is where the story begins to link directly to
                Acteal. In August 1996, the government began
                implementing a counterinsurgency strategy, probably
                designed by the Center for Research on National Security
                (CISEN), a federal political intelligence agency.

                The regional expression of the government's strategy is
                the State Security Council, an agency that analyzes
                rural conflicts and social movements to help channel
                social investments and development resources to
                sympathizers. Following a CISEN-designed plan, the State
                Security Council created municipal security councils in
                Chiapas which were supposed to facilitate information
                exchanges and coordinate relief efforts in case of
                natural disasters. In reality, these councils have been
                used to distribute resources and money for weapons, and
                to identify possible recruits from among the young
                landless rural laborers to build up local paramilitaries
                sympathetic to the aims of the national government.

                Tracing the exact origin of the weapons used by the
                paramilitaries is extremely difficult because of the
                complex chain of intermediaries used to distribute them.
                Despite this, evidence in the form of testimonies and
                written requests demonstrates official involvement. This
                writer has obtained copies of various requests for
                money, weapons, and communications equipment addressed
                to the municipal authorities of Tila, a town in northern
                Chiapas, from the local PRI-dominated council in San
                Francisco Jimbal.

                No matter the exact route used to distribute the
                weapons, the outcome of the government's
                counterinsurgency strategy has been the appearance of
                armed paramilitary groups throughout the Los Altos
                region of Chiapas. Acteal was the inevitable result of
                the creation and arming of these paramilitaries.



                The strategy leading to Acteal

                Professional politicians seem incapable of understanding
                the origin or nature of the Zapatista uprising. Misery
                and destitution, the marginal existence and the daily
                presence of death, corruption and injustice,
                deterioration of state institutions-all of these help
                explain the genesis of the revolt in Chiapas. Yet at the
                highest levels of the Mexican government there is an
                inability to comprehend.

                Acteal was the predictable result of the Zedillo
                government's counterinsurgency approach to this
                situation. There are three closely interrelated
                components in this approach. The first rests on a strong
                military presence in Chiapas in order to neutralize and,
                if possible, destroy the EZLN. The second consists of a
                facade of being actively engaged in a peace process. The
                third element is the growing set of paramilitary groups
                that are the backbone of the counterinsurgency war in
                the North and Los Altos regions of Chiapas.

                With governmental encouragement, the paramilitary groups
                multiplied rapidly. The first two-Paz y Justicia and Los
                Chinchulines-appeared in northern Chiapas in 1995,
                operating from the communities of Tila, Tumbal, and
                Sabanilla. In 1996 and 1997, other groups emerged-the
                Tomas Munster, the Movimiento Indigena Revolucionario
                Anti-Zapatista, the Mascara Roja, the Fuerzas Armadas
                del Pueblo, among others. The exact number is difficult
                to determine, but in the county of Chenalho alone,
                anthropologists Andre Aubry and Angelica Inda recently
                found 255 armed members of paramilitaries in nine
                localities. The most important of the groups, based in
                the hamlet Los Chorros, was the main source of the
                gunmen who attacked the refugees in Acteal.

                Typically, these groups were organized and supported by
                local members of Mexico's ruling party, the PRI (the
                Partido Revolucionario Institucional). Their methods
                included outright theft, the levying of "special taxes"
                to purchase weapons, and the firing of their weapons
                just over the rooftops of the houses of those who failed
                to comply with their demands. If families fled, their
                frail wooden houses were looted and then burned to the
                ground. If people remained but refused to "cooperate,"
                they were often kidnapped or killed. In many cases, the
                paramilitaries used the proceeds from the sale of looted
                goods to buy more weapons.

                The paramilitary groups have taken a heavy toll. No one
                has an exact figure for the casualties in this war of
                attrition, but a conservative estimate would be 1,500
                dead in the two years leading up to the massacre in
                Acteal. The number of villages and hamlets in which the
                paramilitaries operated has not been counted, but the
                National Mediation Commission (conai) has evidence that
                more than 60 communities have been subjected to
                harassment, thefts, shootings, and burnings.

                According to conai, by December 1997 the number of
                refugees in the northern part of Chiapas was 6,120; in
                the area of Chenalho (the central part of Los Altos),
                the figure was 9,207, or almost 30 percent of the total
                population of that county. The numbers have increased
                since the killings at Acteal.

                Most of the refugees in the North are prd (Partido de la
                Revolucion Democratica) sympathizers, while the majority
                of those in Los Altos are sympathizers or supporters of
                the Zapatistas. Some refugees are even supporters of the
                PRI who have refused to pay the paramilitaries' special
                taxes. This group includes 300 people from Los Chorros
                and Canolal, who are now refugees in San Cristobal.

                The refugees cannot safely return to their communities
                to rebuild their homes as long as the paramilitary
                groups operate. Conditions in the camps are desperate.
                The refugees have little food or medical assistance, and
                their camps are in the bitter cold of the highlands-some
                are located 7,600 feet above sea level, in an area that
                has the heaviest rainfall in all of Mexico. Infant
                mortality, a chronic problem in Chiapas, must be
                extremely high in the camps. On a tape recording I made
                of interviews with refugees in a camp near Polho, the
                voices of the refugees, eager to tell their stories,
                were drowned out by the coughing of the children.

                Why Acteal and Chenalho? Why didn't the paramilitary
                groups emerge in the nearby Canyons region, where the
                Zapatistas have strong social support? Anthropologists
                Aubry and Inda believe there are two critical elements
                in understanding the appearance of the paramilitary
                groups.

                The first is electoral logic: The paramilitary groups
                became active in the North and in Los Altos, where there
                were 18 municipalities in which the prd had harvested
                good returns in the last elections. The paramilitaries
                were organized, in part, to help skew elections through
                intimidation. In contrast, the paramilitaries were not
                active in the Canyons, because there were fewer
                municipalities and thus fewer elections to be lost.

                The second element was the ready supply of landless and
                unemployed young men. In just a few days, a lonely lad
                with no prospects for education or a decent job could
                become "someone" just by joining a paramilitary group.
                He could carry a weapon and everyone would "respect"
                him. A little training-more to build esprit de corps
                than to develop weapons expertise-and he would be ready
                for action.

                How did Acteal fit into this strategy? And why were the
                non-violent Las Abejas attacked? Aside from electoral
                considerations, one possible reason was to deliver a
                message-there would be no neutrality in the war against
                the Zapatistas. All neutrals would be regarded as
                enemies. This message of terror still reverberates
                throughout the North and Los Altos, despite the
                government's recent public relations blitz designed to
                calm fears.

                Las Abejas is devoted to non-violence, and it is
                particularly close to Bishop Samuel Ruiz, who heads the
                Mediation Commission. By attacking Las Abejas, party
                chiefs and caciques (rural bosses traditionally linked
                with the ruling party) are also attempting to undermine
                by terror the popular support enjoyed by the bishop and
                weaken his role as mediator.

                The killers could have chosen to attack the community of
                Acteal proper, where some refugees from Zapatista
                communities were temporarily located. But they chose the
                refugee camp instead. This does not mean, however, that
                there won't be any paramilitary attacks against
                Zapatista-allied communities in the near future. This
                could be the next stage, but it would require tactical
                changes and perhaps the appearance of death squads=AD=ADthe
                next step toward an inexorable escalation of violence.
                This stage, which would lead to the selective
                elimination of EZLN leaders and key advisers, must be
                prevented at all costs or it will contaminate beyond
                hope any chance for a rapid solution to the conflict.



                The role of the army

                In late January, the federal government launched an
                ambiguous initiative nominally designed to defuse the
                crisis in Chiapas. A central point of the initiative was
                a pledge to use the army to disarm "clandestine or
                illegal groups"-that is, the paramilitaries. As the
                Bulletin went to press, it still remained unclear
                whether this also meant the Zapatistas.

                According to the Law for Peace in Chiapas, the
                government must disarm the paramilitaries, regardless of
                the new initiative. One hopes that the army will
                actually play a positive role in creating favorable
                conditions for continued negotiations by taking weapons
                away from these criminal gangs. But the government has
                issued many comforting statements in recent months and
                years regarding the conflict in Chiapas without
                following through.

                In fact, a close reading of the pledge suggests that the
                only weapons the army will take away from the
                paramilitary groups will be army-issue machine guns and
                explosives. The paramilitaries will continue to possess
                rifles, pistols, shotguns, machetes, and other tools of
                mayhem and intimidation.

                After all, the paramilitaries are largely creatures of
                the federal government-and of the army. Any lingering
                doubt about the paramilitaries' role in the defense
                ministry's counterinsurgency strategy vanished in
                January with the disclosure of "Chiapas '94," a defense
                ministry document disclosed by Proceso, a Mexican
                newsweekly. The authenticity of the document has not
                been denied by the military.

                The document discusses, as one line of action, the
                "secret organization of certain sectors of the
                population, among which ranchers, small private
                landowners, and individuals characterized by their high
                sense of patriotism . . . will be employed under army
                orders in support of army operations." It outlined plans
                for training "self-defense groups" and paramilitary
                organizations, describing them as the backbone of
                military and "development" operations. It also included
                instructions on how to create self-defense groups where
                they do not exist.

                In claiming the authority to organize these groups, the
                Mexican military went well beyond its constitutional
                limits, and no one was to blame more than the head of
                the armed forces, President Zedillo himself.

                Forced to respond after the Acteal killings, the federal
                government insisted that all responsibility for the
                creation and training of the paramilitary groups resided
                with state police and security officials. But it is
                impossible to believe that the Mexican army was not
                involved. That the paramilitaries carry military-issue
                weapons-the very weapons that the army is now supposed
                to round up-is one indication that regular army units
                have been involved with these groups all along.

                Further, to ascribe the creation of the paramilitaries
                to the state government was disingenuous at best.
                Political institutions in Chiapas are in dismal
                disarray, and the state is for all practical purposes
                under federal control. Since the conflict started in
                1994, six provisional, substitute, or interim governors
                have been paraded through the governor's palace in
                Chiapas. Under these circumstances, it is impossible to
                think that the army, probably the best organized
                structure in Chiapas, with 45,000=AD60,000 troops now
                stationed there, could be ignorant of what had been
                going on.

                In fact, the operations of paramilitary groups in
                northern Chiapas and Los Altos have reflected the
                federal government's two-pronged strategy. On the one
                hand, the paramilitaries' covert actions relieved the
                army of the shameful task of terrorizing civilian
                populations. On the other, the regular army remained
                available for use against Zapatista strongholds (after
                Acteal, 3,000 fresh troops were flown in from
                neighboring Yucatan and Campeche).

                It is inconceivable that Commander-in-Chief Zedillo was
                ignorant of the rise of the paramilitary groups. He has
                visited Chiapas on at least eight different occasions
                since taking power in December 1994, and he has been
                repeatedly alerted about the rising paramilitary groups.

                Now his government says it will disarm the
                paramilitaries. That remains to be seen, of course.
                Unwilling to implement the signed peace accord, unable
                to follow through on its word, the government's
                credibility is close to zero.



                No-change changes

                In the immediate aftermath of the killings, a few people
                at the bottom of the chain of command in Chenalho were
                fired.

                Later, the governor of Chiapas and his staff resigned. A
                substitute governor-number six since the conflict
                started-was hastily put in place. At the federal level,
                the president asked for the resignation of the interior
                secretary and nominated a new representative to the
                peace talks. As Gilberto Lopez y Rivas, spokesman for
                the Congressional Commission on Concordance and
                Pacification, put it, "Mr. Zedillo has fired everyone he
                could. The next in the chain of command to be changed is
                the president himself."

                In fact, Zedillo has yet to fire his defense secretary,
                but the point is that many believe that the list of
                personnel changes has merely served to appease domestic
                and foreign critics rather than to signal a fundamental
                change in direction. Mac McLarty, President Bill
                Clinton's envoy, said in early January that Clinton was
                satisfied with the prompt action taken by Zedillo. The
                move was less successful with the European Parliament,
                however, which warned that sanctions against Mexico
                might be invoked in the future.

                Similarly, the actions of Mexico's Justice Department
                appear to be limited to making scapegoats of low-level
                officials while those in the higher echelons of
                government escape unscathed. With the responsibility of
                federal authorities in the organization and arming of
                paramilitary groups now established, Zedillo has sent
                the wrong kind of message to the nation by forcing the
                resignation of his interior secretary instead of
                arraigning him on charges related to the crimes of the
                paramilitary groups.

                The cabinet changes are not likely to alter the
                government's strategy. Before and after Acteal, the army
                continued to harass the EZLN, principally by searching
                and sometimes ransacking homes in towns and villages
                known to be sympathetic to the Zapatistas, while leaving
                areas controlled by the paramilitaries alone. All of
                this was in clear violation of the Law for Peace in
                Chiapas.

                The army's presence and behavior in Chiapas is also a
                clear violation of the Mexican Constitution. According
                to articles 29 and 129, any military interference in a
                state must be preceded by a congressional declaration of
                emergency powers. The army is explicitly forbidden by
                the Constitution from carrying out ordinary police
                functions.

                The defense secretary has argued that the army was
                simply enforcing a federal law on firearms, but that law
                does not authorize the army to enter communities and
                homes to make warrantless searches, and it does not give
                the army the right to establish military checkpoints on
                civilian roads or to establish permanent bases in and
                around Zapatista communities. The Law for Peace in
                Chiapas also prohibits these maneuvers.



                The future

                The government has been unable to solve this conflict,
                which first came to world attention on January 1, 1994.
                Over the past four years the conflict has grown larger,
                not smaller. It has also become much more difficult to
                disentangle.

                Precious time has been lost with a long sequence of
                mediocre government negotiators who worried mostly about
                their own personal and political agendas while the
                conflict slid out of control. The main objective in all
                the negotiations was to disarm the Zapatistas, not to
                deal with what caused their appearance in the first
                place.

                Within two months of coming to power, Zedillo opted for
                a course proposed by hardliners, and he launched a
                large-scale military and police offensive in Chiapas. He
                has continued to say that the peace dialogue is the only
                way to go, but the deliberate sabotage of the peace
                talks, the actions of the army and security forces, and
                more recently the government's covert support of the
                paramilitaries, are constant reminders of Mr. Zedillo's
                initial preference for a military solution.

                Today it seems unlikely that the negotiations will
                resume soon. And it is almost unthinkable that they will
                resume in their old format, under the Law for Peace in
                Chiapas. The government realized in late 1995 that the
                law was an obstacle to its military options, and it may
                have decided then that the dialogues in San Andres had
                to come to a standstill.

                By overtly violating the Law for Peace in Chiapas with
                an extraordinary military buildup and by taking actions
                against Zapatista communities, the government tried to
                obliterate whatever remained of the legal framework for
                the negotiations. This was a dangerous gamble. Not only
                was this a clear provocation against the Zapatistas, it
                also undermined the independence of the legislative
                branch of power.

                The notion that the Zapatistas can be easily destroyed-a
                popular idea with both civilian and military
                hardliners-is erroneous. A rapid surgical operation to
                capture or kill the Zapatista leadership is, of course,
                quite possible. But it would not put an end to the war.

                It is true that the military strength of the EZLN is
                small compared to the army, and there are few places to
                hide. But official data show that the population of the
                areas that strongly support the Zapatistas exceeds 1.3
                million people. Perhaps 30 percent of this total
                (400,000 people), are serious adherents. Their
                geographical distribution alone should be enough to
                reveal the folly of believing that a military venture
                would "solve" the conflict.

                Within the political space in which the conflict is
                developing, there are other problems. The EZLN
                demonstrated in 1997 that it enjoys widespread popular
                support-31 counties have what are known in Chiapas as
                "autonomous councils," which are a duplication of the
                governing political and administrative units in those
                areas. The councils are a popular response to the
                corruption and inefficiency of the PRI's local
                authorities.

                The councils are also an intelligent political rejoinder
                to Zedillo's thoughtless backtracking on the agreements
                of San Andres. In the process, EZLN influence has been
                extended in the North, in Los Altos, in the southern
                Sierra Madre (Motozintla, near the border with
                Guatemala), the Soconusco region, and in two important
                corn-producing regions, Venustiano Carranza and La
                Fraylesca. If the government's war on the Zapatistas was
                designed to deny the rebels political maneuverability,
                it has been a resounding failure.

                Everything indicates the Zedillo administration has been
                obsessed by the idea of "winning" a war by decapitating
                the enemy, as if the indigenous peoples in Chiapas would
                return meekly to the passive role widely attributed to
                them by racism and ignorance of Chiapas history.

                Time is running out in Mexico. The war of
                counterinsurgency in Chiapas has failed and the massacre
                shows how irritated and frustrated the political and
                military establishment is with the current situation. In
                their desperation, the hardliners will try anything.

                The government's initiative in late January promised
                much: Disarming the paramilitaries, at least to a
                degree. Completing the official investigation of the
                massacre. Restructuring the police forces in Chiapas.
                Improving the administration of justice in Chiapas. And
                eliminating all "non-authorized taxes," a measure
                presumably directed at the paramilitaries.

                Some of the specific actions sounded good, too,
                particularly a pledge to "discuss the relocation of army
                units" in Chiapas, and the promise of humanitarian aid
                to refugees and to help them return to their
                communities.

                But other proposed actions sounded cynical and
                mischievous, particularly a promise to "eliminate
                duplication" in municipal government functions. That
                expressed a clear intent to go after the autonomous
                councils, which are central to the Zapatista movement.

                Two fundamental problems also cast doubt on the
                government's initiative: First, the government's
                principal objections to the San Andres accords still
                stand, particularly the agreement on indigenous
                autonomy. This is tantamount to continued rejection of
                the already signed accords. Second, in the announcement
                of the initiative no reference was made to the Law for
                Peace in Chiapas; in other words, the government's new
                initiative ignores the fact that there is already a
                legal framework in place for the negotiations.

                At the end of January, hardly anything about the
                government's peace initiative was clear. It may lead to
                something positive. Or it may be little more than a
                public relations ploy by the spinmeisters in Mexico
                City.

                So far, President Zedillo's discourse regarding Chiapas
                brims with contradictions. He does not yet appear to
                have a strategy for a peaceful resolution to the
                conflict. In addition, the economic crisis that was
                revealed as Zedillo began his term has not been
                resolved. Indeed, recent drops in oil prices have
                worsened it. Zedillo cannot buy much more time and he
                does not have a lot of leeway.

                The way in which attempts to solve the conflict in
                Chiapas unfold are of historic importance to Mexico. If
                a military solution is ultimately imposed, the military
                will gain greater power and autonomy throughout Mexico,
                and whatever remains of the rule of law will vanish. In
                spite of the 1997 elections, the country's transition to
                democracy will be aborted.

                If, on the other hand, a just and viable solution can be
                attained through a rational negotiating process, then
                the transition to the democracy that Mexico needs could
                become a reality.



                The fog of war

                Although the president inaugurated it only last summer,
                the new road leading to Acteal is marked by potholes,
                treacherous curves, and places where the asphalt has
                caved in. It is not difficult to understand why the road
                is in such bad shape. The heavy military transports that
                constantly use it are just too much for its flimsy
                construction.

                As I leave Acteal and climb from the ravine toward the
                road, funeral services start at the 45 graves down
                below. One of the catechists sings a sad lament in
                Tzotzil, and I awkwardly search for my tape recorder.
                The sight of cheap pink and green plastic sandals in the
                mud where the carnage took place is still fresh in my
                mind's eye. And the biting cold reminds me and probably
                everyone in Acteal of the tension and dangers ahead.

                With deceitful quiet, the night and the thick fog
                descend on the camp, relaying a disturbing message of
                urgency, reminding everyone that already the small,
                little-noticed war in Chiapas is changing Mexico.





                                        SIDEBAR:

                              Trashing the "Law for Peace"



                After failing to capture the head of the Zapatistas in
                February 1995, the Mexican government gave in to
                domestic and international pressure and began
                negotiating with the Zapatista rebels. In March of that
                year, Congress approved the "Law for Peace in Chiapas"
                (the Law for Dialogue, Conciliation, and a Dignified
                Peace in Chiapas), which recognized the Zapatista
                National Liberation Army (EZLN) as a "group of Mexican
                citizens, in their majority indigenous people, who
                expressed their nonconformity in an armed movement in
                January 1, 1994."

                The law implicitly acknowledges that just causes led to
                the uprising. The law also established that the EZLN and
                its negotiators would not be molested by the authorities
                during negotiations, and that only the Congressional
                Commission on Concordance and Pacification and the
                non-governmental National Mediation Commission could
                declare the negotiations to be broken.

                A unique feature of the peace process was the direct
                participation of a variety of civilian advisers in the
                negotiations. The government was taken by surprise
                during the first round of talks when its own advisers
                rallied to the Zapatista cause, leading to the
                "Agreements of San Andres" in February 1996. The
                cornerstone of these agreements is the right of
                indigenous peoples to autonomous rule.

                In response to the Zapatista's success in the first
                round, a number of factors undermined the second round.
                Every meeting in the second round of talks coincided
                with acts of violence. Zapatista sympathizers were
                constantly harassed; violent deaths occurred every week.
                Acts of provocation increased whenever negotiations in
                the village of San Andres were due to take place.
                Meanwhile, government officials began backing off from
                the agreements made in the first round.

                The government delegation failed to present any
                meaningful positions in the second round of talks. When
                the talks became a monologue, the Zapatista delegation
                announced that it was suspending negotiations until the
                government ended the growing military presence in
                Chiapas and complied fully with the agreements.

                Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo continues to say that
                he will honor the agreements, but he adds that
                transforming their promises into legal texts requires
                "technical" changes. In late January, the Zedillo
                government said it would abandon most of its
                "objections" to the agreements. But the remaining
                objections are fundamental, particularly those related
                to autonomy for indigenous peoples.- A.N.
                Alejandro Nadal is a professor of economics at El
                Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City and is a member of the
                Bulletin's Board of Directors. In 1996, he served as an
                economic adviser to the Zapatista negotiating team.


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