[News] Chiapas: The Reconquest of Recuperated Land
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Apr 28 14:36:57 EDT 2010
Chiapas: The Reconquest of Recuperated Land
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2469-chiapas-the-reconquest-of-recuperated-land
Written by Mary Ann Tenuto
Wednesday, 28 April 2010 09:16
The farm truck pulled off a dirt road into the
ruins of an old and very large former plantation.
It parked on the expanse of crumbling tile patio.
Twelve Chiapas Support Committee delegation
members, plus the driver, climbed out and entered
a building painted rust and turquoise for a
meeting with members of San Manuel's autonomous
council, staff of the Compañero Manuel Grocery
Warehouse and two municipal education promoters.
The former plantation, or finca, was claimed by
indigenous rebels belonging to the Zapatista
National Liberation Army (EZLN) during their
January 1994 Uprising. The rust and turquoise
building was just one end of the plantation
owner's jungle mansion, now used as a grocery
warehouse by the Zapatistas of San Manuel
autonomous county. A new farming community called
Nueva Arena has been established on the land. The
Zapatistas refer to the land claimed in 1994 as
"recuperated land." Chiapas NGOs estimate that
campesinos from several organizations recuperated
between 250,000 and 300,000 hectares of land in
1994. That translates into somewhere between
600,000 and 750,000 acres of recuperated land.
It is precisely this recuperated land that is now
in dispute between the government (fronting for
corporate interests) and the Zapatistas. This was
the dominant theme throughout the time I spent in
the state of Chiapas, Mexico from March 16 to
March 30, 2010, with a delegation of twelve people.
"It's All About Territory"
Once everyone arrived, we began to receive
educational briefings from non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) working in Chiapas. Our
first talk was at the Center for Economic and
Political Investigations for Community Action
(CEIPAC, its Spanish acronym). The CEIPAC
analysts focused on how one part of the current
counterinsurgency strategy is aimed at
re-claiming the land recuperated in 1994. The
government wants the land back in order to
implement the Mesoamerica Project, a massive
development plan stretching from southern Mexico
to Colombia, which proposes a re-colonization of
the land by transnational corporations. "It's all
about territory," one analyst told us. For
example, February 20th (20 de Febrero) community
illustrates one method of reclaiming land.
February 20th is located in The Canyons region of
the Lacandón Jungle, in Ricardo Flores Magón
autonomous Zapatista municipality. Its
inhabitants belong to different organizations.
Some belong to the EZLN and they occupy 100
hectares of land. Others belong to the
Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and
Campesino Rights (OPDDIC, its Spanish acronym).
Still another group belongs to the Association of
Rural Collective Interest (ARIC, its Spanish
acronym). OPDDIC and ARIC members jointly occupy
130 hectares. The folks who occupy the 130
hectares went to the government's Agrarian Reform
agency and said they occupy all 230 hectares of
land. The government gave them title to all 230
hectares for a new ejido called Nuevo Oxchuc.
Why? Because they agreed to enter the ejido into
the land-titling program called PROCEDE, a
program for privatizing ejido land titles so that
individuals can sell, or otherwise alienate,
their land. Prior to the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), ejido land could not be
alienated (sold, or taken by a bank for default
on a loan). According to Article 27 of the
Mexican Constitution, ejido land was communally
owned, a result of the Mexican Revolution of
1910. Article 27 was changed in preparation for
NAFTA so that ejido land could be privatized. The
Zapatistas refuse to enter into PROCEDE and they
are defending the 100 hectares in question with
an occupation by supporters from other communities.
Something similar is happening in Bolom Ajaw, a
community with land adjacent to a virgin
waterfall that connects to the Agua Azul Cascade
tourist area. Bolom Ajaw is a Zapatista community
on recuperated land. A former ranch, it was
claimed as a result of the 1994 Zapatista
Uprising. Approximately 200 Zapatista support
bases have occupied Bolom Ajaw since 2001. They
have been continuously harassed and attacked for
the past four years or so by PRI members from the
adjacent Agua Azul ejido. On January 21, 2010, 57
PRI members invaded Bolom Ajaw land, carrying
pistols, machetes and radios. They began to
construct 3 cabins. That was just the beginning.
Several weeks later, on February 6, PRI members
from Agua Azul ambushed a group of Zapatistas in
Bolom Ajaw. The Chiapas Attorney General reported
1 PRI member dead from a bullet wound and 11
injured by bullets. The Zapatista Junta in
Morelia reported 1 Zapatista shot and gravely
injured, while the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas
Human Rights Center (Frayba) reported 3
Zapatistas injured by bullets. The PRI members
are suspected of still belonging to the
Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and
Campesino Rights (Opddic), a paramilitary group,
although they claimed having left that
paramilitary grouping in a much-publicized media
show more than a year ago. The state Attorney
General believes the Zapatistas fired weapons,
thus violating the 15-year truce. The Zapatistas
are claiming that they were not armed and say
that the PRI death and injuries were caused by
friendly fire. According to a detailed report now
available from Frayba, PRI members were in
several parts of Bolom Ajaw and were shooting
from different positions. It states that some PRI
members were caught in the crossfire and injured
by the flying bullets, as were 2 Zapatistas. The
government has responded by heavily militarizing
the area around Bolom Ajaw, thus protecting the
PRI members who remain on the property. The
intent of the PRI members from Agua Azul is to
take over Bolom Ajaw's recuperated land (which
becomes more valuable every day), privatize it,
and then sell it to resort developers.
An elaborate plan to convert the Agua Azul area
into a "world-class resort destination" shows the
importance of the Bolom Ajaw property. The
government plan includes a Boutique Hotel, a
European 5-Star Hotel, a Conference Center with
golf course, and a Lodge overlooking the
waterfall on Bolom Ajaw's property. But of
course, one would have to helicopter into the
Lodge due to its remoteness! (The Lodge has a helipad.)
Norton Consulting, which advises governments on
the market possibilities for resort and real
estate development in North and Central America,
South America, the Caribbean and Europe, actually
has photos of the spectacular Agua Azul Cascades
region on its web site (See,
<http://www.nortonconsulting.net/>http://www.nortonconsulting.net).
Norton advised the Mexican government's National
Fund for Fomenting Tourism (Fonatur) and
collaborated on these very elaborate plans with
EDSA, an architectural firm in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida. Simply stated, the Mexican government
wants to turn the Agua Azul region into a
world-class resort destination as part of the
Mesoamerica Project and the Zapatistas of Bolom Ajaw are in the way.
The San Cristóbal-Palenque Toll Road
The key to Agua Azul's development as a
world-class resort destination is the San
Cristóbal-Palenque Toll Road. Absent a
super-highway between San Cristóbal, Agua Azul
and Palenque, the Boutique Hotel, 5-Star European
Hotel and the Lodge with helipad will all be
empty. However, the toll road has become a
flashpoint of conflict between pro-government
communities (in favor of the toll road) and
pro-Zapatista communities (opposed to the toll
road) located along its anticipated trajectory.
Although no road construction is yet visible, the
controversial project has already generated two
deaths, numerous injuries, political prisoners,
death threats, displacement and torture.
One of the communities taking paramilitary abuse
because of its militant stand in opposition to
the toll road is Mitzitón, an ejido that borders
on both the current highway to Agua Azul and the
Pan American Highway between San Cristóbal and
Comitán. The highway to Comitán is being widened
and that construction, also part of the
Mesoamerica Project, is well underway. Mitzitón's
ejido assembly voted to join the EZLN's Other
Campaign and also voted to resist the passage of
the toll road through its land. Other Campaign
members in Mitzitón have experienced non-stop
paramilitary activity, including murder and
torture. It would not be surprising if an attempt
were made to take their ejido land by fraud, with government complicity.
We were in the offices of the Fray Bartolomé de
las Casas Human Rights Center as yet another
chapter in the Mitzitón saga unfolded. One of the
ejido's council members, Manuel Díaz Heredia, had
been detained the night before and taken to a
state prison by the Mexican equivalent of the FBI
on old and false charges. The ejido assembly
voted to hold 2 state police and 3 state
government employees as hostages in response.
They also voted to put up a roadblock on the Pan
American Highway demanding their compañero's
release. Frayba staff members were in Mitzitón,
where negotiations with the government were
taking place, as well as at the state prison
checking up on the ejido authority's situation.
The Frayba Center has decided that it will
accompany communities in their decisions as to
how they want to deal with situations of
conflict. If the community wants the Center's
participation in negotiations or conflict
resolution, then they will help resolve
situations in accordance with traditional
justice. If a community decides to mount a
militant response to a conflict situation, the
Frayba Center will accompany them in that
decision and its consequences. Manuel Diaz
Heredia was released from prison the following
day after a judge ruled there was a complete lack of evidence against him.
The Jungle
Our delegation also received a presentation from
Miguel Ángel García Aguirre and Moisés Hernández
of Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste, an NGO that
emphasizes ecology with social justice and
focuses on La Selva (The Jungle) and its several
parts: the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, Las
Cañadas (The Canyons), the Lacandón Community and
Marques de Comillas. The Lacandón Jungle is an
important "lung" for carbon exchange in North
America. It is also enormously rich in
biodiversity. In fact, Mexico ranks fifth in
having the most biodiversity in the world. Mexico
ranks sixth in the world for cultural diversity,
having a population approximately 40% indigenous.
Corporations covet land in the Jungle for:
genetic material (bio-prospecting), spectacular
beauty (tourism), vast expanses of land
(mono-crop agriculture), plentiful sources of
sweet water (bottling) and its oil.
The re-occupation of recuperated lands is also
happening in the jungle, but the tactics vary by
region. February 20th community, where PRI
members obtained title by fraud, is in the
Canyons region of the Lacandón Jungle. In the
Montes Azules Biosphere, under the guise of
"conservationism," a cabal from Profepa (the
federal environmental prosecutor's office), the
state police and various federal police agencies
are green-washing the forced displacement of
indigenous peoples. Not only do they remove them
from their lands and homes at gunpoint, they burn
their houses, crops and belongings, leaving them
with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Any
money found in homes or community stores is
stolen. Harvested crops are confiscated or
burned. The most recent of these forced
displacements occurred on January 21 and 22, 2010
in the communities of Laguna San Pedro and El
Suspiro (also known as El Semental), both in the
Montes Azules. I cannot erase the image photo of
police setting fire to the humble thatched-roof
house in Laguna San Pedro from my mind!
The history of land ownership in the Montes
Azules is already long and twisted, but most
recently, the government gave title to the Montes
Azules and a surrounding area known as the
Lacandón Community to a group of 66 indigenous
families whose origins are in dispute and called
them Lacandóns for convenience. In their most
recent request, the Lacandóns asked for the
eviction of 8 communities and the government has
agreed. Laguna San Pedro and El Suspiro were the
first two of the eight. The plan is to develop
eco-tourist facilities on these lands to become
part of the Ruta Maya, a mega-tourist project
within the Mesoamerica Project. The Ruta Maya
(Maya Route) is a plan to connect archaeological
sites and places of natural beauty throughout
Mesoamerica by developing roads and lodging for
tourism. We're talking massive tourism here!
While in San Cristóbal, one can see the huge
tourist buses packed with folks from other parts
of Mexico, or from Europe or Japan. Some say that
the Palenque airport, currently undergoing a
major expansion, will accommodate direct flights from Europe when completed.
Co-existence of Autonomy and Counterinsurgency
The CIEPAC analysts described the construction of
Zapatista self-government (autonomy) in 38
autonomous municipalities (counties) and the 5
regional Good Government Councils. The
development of autonomous government implies
developing schools, education promoters, health
promoters and health programs, clinics and
income-producing projects to support the new
government structures and institutions. Although
sometimes difficult to conceive, the construction
of autonomy is taking place amidst the resistance
to counterinsurgency. This was dramatically
driven home during our meeting inside the rust
and turquoise Compañero Manuel Grocery Warehouse.
The Grocery Warehouse was an economic development
project supported by several solidarity
organizations. Its purpose is to bring grocery
items from the city and make them available to
residents of the outlying rural areas. By
purchasing in large quantities and having a place
to store the items, they can buy at wholesale
prices. The warehouse then sells to the little
community stores for a small profit. The
community stores raise the price a little and
rural farmers still save money because they don't
have to pay for transportation into town to buy
their needed items. Profits from the Warehouse
support the functioning of the municipal
government. It has been very profitable at times
and modestly profitable at others. A government
warehouse now competes with it.
The warehouse staff explained to us that the
warehouse was supplying free food to the rotating
guard in Casa Blanca, a disputed piece of
recuperated land that campesinos belonging to the
PRI would like to take over. In September 2009,
PRI members from an adjacent ejido attacked Casa
Blanca in an attempt to take it over. They were
armed with guns, machetes and clubs. In the
confrontation that followed, one PRI member was
killed, 8 Zapatistas were injured, 8 Aric members
were injured and 7 Zapatistas were taken
prisoner. Those taken prisoner were brutally
tortured for 36 hours. After this attack, San
Manuel mounted a plantón (occupation) with 250
Zapatistas to guard the land. That guard has now
been reduced to 25. The problem this presents to
the warehouse staff is that there is no money
from sales to replenish their stock. They are
looking for a way to expand the line of products
carried by the Warehouse in order to compensate
for the counterinsurgency's drain on its profits.
It is not clear what the government wants with
Casa Blanca. It is located in the Las Tazas
Canyon, which is the valley of the Upper Jataté
River. At one point, as a project within the Plan
Puebla-Panamá (before it was renamed the
Mesoamerica Project), the government had plans to
dam up the river and convert the corn farmers
into fish farmers. But archaeologists raised a
fuss (there are remnants of archaeological sites
scattered along the river) and it seemed like
those plans were dropped. Perhaps those plans
were not cancelled, just put on the back burner
until the fuss died down. What is certain is that
the government wants something in this canyon. It
has fostered and protected paramilitary groups
for at least the last eight years and there were
once 4 military camps guarding just this one
canyon. There are only two military camps now.
The other two pulled out when they believed that
they had trained enough paramilitaries to keep the Zapatistas under control.
The Jataté River is a white water river, perfect
for kayaking. It is beautifully portrayed in
Sacred Monkey River, a book by Christopher Shaw
describing his kayaking experience on the Jataté.
Perhaps the Las Tazas Canyon is wanted for
tourism. A brand new two-lane highway to Monte
Líbano is currently under construction. It passes
by the turnoff for the Las Tazas Canyon. On the
other hand, perhaps the canyon is coveted for its
abundance of sweet water (unpolluted fresh
water). In addition to the river, there are
natural springs, aquifers and, according to some,
an underground river, making it very attractive
to corporations that monopolize water sources so
they can bottle water for a profit. Thus it's
hard to predict whether corporations envision a
Jataté Hilton Lodge and Kayaking Club in the Las
Tazas Canyon or a Ciel bottling plant. (Ciel
bottles and sells purified water in Mexico. Coca-Cola owns it).
Rural Cities?
As the counterinsurgency continues its efforts to
re-conquer land recuperated by the Zapatistas, it
would seem appropriate to ask where the
indigenous people will go if the government is
successful in obtaining this land for corporate
exploitation. The government and the World Bank
have just the answer: Sustainable Rural Cities
(SRC). Remember the "model cities" in Guatemala
and "strategic hamlets" in Viet Nam? The Chiapas
version of these counterinsurgency mechanisms is
already under construction in Los Altos. The SRC
of Santiago El Pinar is being built on the slopes
of a mountain, right next to San Andrés
Sakamch'en de los Pobres, the autonomous
Zapatista municipality in which the Caracol of
Oventik is located. Another SRC is planned for
the Jungle and a third in the Northern Zone. They
are intended to compete with the Zapatista
Caracols and their eventual result, if
successful, will be to remove the indigenous
peasantry from its territories and disrupt its
way of life and production, thus giving
indigenous land to corporations and making the
peoples dependent on those corporations to maintain a new urban way of life.
Virtually unreported in the mainstream press,
human rights abuse and repression go unpunished
in a low-intensity war to re-conquer recuperated
lands and displace indigenous peoples. Some
analysts with whom we spoke stated that the
Lacandón Jungle is the starting point for the
Mesoamerica Project, which will then affect
Central American countries and Colombia.
Throughout both hemispheres of the American
continent and the entire world, megaprojects
involve the four wheels of capitalism: plunder
(theft), repression, scorn and exploitation.
Mary Ann Tenuto is a founding member of the
Chiapas Support Committee in Oakland, California.
She may be reached by email at: <mailto:cezmat at igc.org>cezmat at igc.org
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20100428/8e0a204b/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list