By Gloria Muñoz Ramírez (La Jornada, Saturday September 29, 2007)
Today the most alarming offensive of the past decade is being implemented against rebel Zapatista territory. Perhaps this offensive is comparable only to that which took place between 1997 and 1998 when the PRI led a bloody military and paramilitary campaign against the indigenous communities in resistance. After the Acteal massacre, and subsequent to government efforts to dismantle the Zapatistas autonomous municipalities, thousands of individual and collective voices—within Mexico and throughout the world—were raised in order to voice their rejection of that savage attack.
Today the circumstances in Mexico are different. The media is totally absent and there are no longer abundant voices to rise against impunity. But the climate in Chiapas is as tense as it was then. The autonomous authorities of the Municipality of San Andres Sakamchen de Los Pobres have been threatened with death by the self-named paramilitary group “OPDDIC Rojo.” The excuse used by these paramilitaries is that the Zapatista council is about to inaugurate an autonomous municipal market and a grade school within one of the buildings that was recuperated by the Zapatistas in 1994. Simultaneously, in the Northern part of Chiapas, the Zapatista good government council in the region has denounced the harassment in the autonomous municipality of Akabalna by a paramilitary group made up of some 50 armed and uniformed people belonging to the ranks of the PRD and the PRI and whom receive open support from the Mexican military and the Chiapan state police. These threats have taken place because this paramilitary group wants to kick the Zapatista bases of support off lands that were previously recuperated and which today make up the community of Nueva Revolucion.
Another action against territory recuperated by the Zapatistas took place in Bolom Ajaw. There an alarming situation occurred that openly demonstrated a joint strategy between the federal and state governments, the paramilitary groups and local and national media (which insisted on reporting the story that an "armed confrontation" had taken place between "Zapatista militia" and the townspeople.) The truth is that members of the OPDDIC (paramilitaries) wounded three unarmed civilian Zapatistas as part of a strategy to displace 41 Zapatista families from 339 recuperated hectares, land that the government insists on using for “ecotourist projects."
In addition, this week the PRD in Chiapas was able to unite Zapatistas, members of the PRD, and members of the PRI against it and in rejection of the continued contamination of the river in the community of “Los Mangos” (in Pantelho), caused by the drainage system that was built by the PRD mayor Armando Cruz who has become infamous for "performing his duties remote control from San Cristobal de Las Casas, for his corruption, and for his total inefficiency."
The tension in Chiapas grows day by day. The silence of the media is alarming, as is the indifference, be it deliberate or not, of many sectors of the national and international community. In 1997 there were early warning signs. Today, just as 10 years ago, the Zapatista communities resist and construct, against violent winds and high tides, that other world that is possible and that has inspired the entire planet.
Translated from the original in Spanish by El Kilombo Intergaláctico