From: PAT.LAUDERDALE@ASU.Edu Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 09:09:06 -0700 (MST) Subject: From: the International Commission of the FZLN. (fwd) To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK A colleague in Chiapas asked me to post this message. Most people sending messages on this issue have been prudent so I post this one since it is a useful summary of some 30 other messages even though it does not contain information on the "spy" network in the government of Mexico - that network received the most media attention over the weekend. Sincerely, pat lauderdale Forwarded message: We want to inform you that the situation of the conflict in Chiapas deteriorates day by day like product of the political pressure and provocations that the Mexican government develops and that the possibility of open war is dangerously close. A brief summary of the serious cases of repression of these last days shows the cynicism and impunity with which the government is acting. The 11th of April, hundreds of police, soldiers and agents of Migration made searches, scares and attacks in Taniperlas, headship of Autonomous municipality Ricardo Flores Magon, municipality that was constituted the day before. Like product of that action, 11 Mexicans (among them two observers of human rights) and 12 foreigners were detained. The former have been already transferred to the Cerro Hueco penitentiary, in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, adding the list of political prisoners who are found in that jail. The latter were deported to their countries of origin, in one more show of xenophobia the government seeks to deport the eyes and ears of the world from Chipas. In the context of those events, journalists Oriana Elicabe (of AFP) and Paschal Gorriz (of AP) were attacked in the airport of Tuxtla Gutierrez, by Chiapan police, when they covered the information on the deportation of the detained in Taniperlas. The 13th of April, a manifestation of inhabitants of Taniperlas demanded the withdrawal of the police and assailed the army resulting in 2 wounded indigenous. At this hour (12:20 hours of the 14th of April, Mexican time), we are informed that another 11 companeros of the community of Taniperlas who were also detained and taken to Ocosingo, in practice have disappeared, in that they are not in Ocosingo, nor San Cristobal, nor in Tuxtla Gutierrez. To this is added new information regarding the impunity within which the paramilitary groups of the region act. Today is denounced that this past 17th of March, the paramilitary group Peace and Justice assassinated Trinidad Cruz Perez, in the autonomous municipality of Work, in Palenque, Chiapas, after having been submitted to tortures. In other parts of the country, the situation of oppression has also become serious. The last 10th of April, when the inhabitants of several communities gave a visit to the municipal headship of Matlapa, San Luis Potosi (in the north-center of the country), to demand the fulfillment of the San Andres Accords, they were repressed violently; the operation was realized with the participation of police effectives from the judicial police and the federal army, who, between insults and interrogations intimidated, aggravated and privated of liberty six companeros for four hours. A day later, were detained of new account the companeros Javier Copado, Luz. Ma. Saldana and Miriam Sanchez, members of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation, that works in the indigenous communities of the region. They were detained by the military and Federal road police at the military checkpoint that is in the road of Actla and were led to Ciudad Valles, where they are kept illegally detained under the argument that they carried with them documents of a subversive kind. Said documents are diverse papers of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation, totally legal. In journalistic notes of dates 10, 12 and 13 of April of 1998, one is informed that presumed agents of Federal Judicial Police (PJF) and of the Judicial Police of the state of Morelos (in the center of the country) assassinated 5 native farmers of the state of Puebla, minors, that were cutting wood in the community of Hueyapan, Morelos. The victimas were found with signs of execution, one of them in Ocuituco, Morelos, and the four others in Jolalpan, Puebla. According to an eyewitness of the acts, who was 50 meters from the place where the woodcutters were apprehended, he saw as they shot his companeros and lifted them up into their light trucks (compacts), one of them with the abbreviations of the Procurator General of the Republic. Up to this point a brief and without doubt incomplete radiogragph of the most recent governmental repression in Mexico. In this way, even though it seems that the presidential initiative of indigenous law was obstructed in the Senate and that so far will not pass, the provocation is transferred directly to Chiapas. The National Indigenous Congress has announced that it will mobilize its forces to stop these aggressions and will constitute 20 autonomous municipalities in the states of Veracruz, Oaxaca and Guerrero. On their part, the different autonomous municipalities from Chiapas are in red alert and have announced that they will defend their process of organization; there are rumors furthermore of a great movement of troops, that soon the army and the police will enter to dissolve them. We must be very alert everywhere. Please, do not lose contact and use any public that you have to denounce the situation and to demand: the freedom of the political prisoners; the cease of attacks on the indigenous communities; the cease of deportations of international observers, the fulfillment !ya! of the San Andres Accords, as the way to deactivate the threats of war and a return to the search for a peace with justice and dignity. We will continue to be in contact. International Commission of the FZLN -- Zapatista Front of National Liberation: -> http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln/ (English) http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln/ (Spanish) <-