Posted by rdom on December 15, 1997 at 12:29:03:
PARAMILITARY GROUPS WOULD HEAD THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION, STATES THE
"SUBCOMMANDER". THE SITUATION OF THE DISPLACED FROM CHENALHO IS " A
MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH". ALERT. HE ASKS SOCIETY'S URGENT HUMANITARIAN
HELP FOR THE INDIANS.
COMMUNIQUE FROM THE CLANDESTINE INDIGENOUS REVOLUTIONARY
COMMITTEE-GENERAL COMMAND OF THE ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION,
MEXICO.
December 12, 1997
To the people of Mexico:
To the people and governments of the world:
Sisters and Brothers:
The CCRI-CG of the EZLN informs the national and international public
opinion about the current situation of thousands of Zapatista Indians
persecuted, murdered and evicted from their land in the county of San
Pedro de Chenalho, Chiapas.
FIRST. More than 6 thousand people displaced by war are the result of
the attacks of the paramilitary bands and the state police, both
directed by the state government, with the federal government's
blessing.
Only in the community of Xcumumal there are more than 3 thousand 500
Indigenous refugees. They are totally isolated, since they remain
surrounded by the white guards and policemen from the state public
security corps.
The Chenalho Zapatistas are living in the open and are suffering from,
besides the lack of housing, clothes and food, illnesses which have
already reached epidemic proportions.
SECOND.- The state and federal governments and the Institutional
Revolutionary Party, far from stopping their wave of aggressions, are
trying to avoid solving the main problem of Chenalho, which is the
eradication of their paramilitary groups and the return of the displaced
people to their communities. While it pretends to establish a dialogue,
Chiapanecan PRI followers are undertaking the plunder and destruction of
the evicted's property. Coffee, cattle, clothes, and domestic utensils
are being distributed among the paramilitary as the bounty of a war
which, up until now, has only seen shooting coming from one of the
sides, that of the government and its political party.
With this attitude, the PRI shows its true face: That of the enemy of
the Indian peoples and one of the executors of the total extermination
policy that, coming from the federal government, is being carried out
against the Zapatistas.
THIRD.- These past few days, the national and international press has
shown to Mexico and the world the grave situation the Zapatista
Indigenous population of Chenalho suffers. What was seen through the
media is only a small sample of the gigantic show of intolerance and
criminal actions with which the Revolutionary Institutional Party and
the state and federal governments pretend to humble the Zapatista
rebeliousness.
FOURTH.- The undeniable fact that Zapatista Indians are being murdered
and persecuted, without responding to the aggressions, has generated a
public opinion unfavorable to the Mexican government. In order to swim
against this unfavorable current, the state and federal governments, and
their paramilitary groups, plan to physically attack the Vatican's
representative, Justo Mullor, during his visit to Chiapas.
FIFTH.- The paramilitary and governmental plan is to present these
murder attempts as if they were being carried out by EZLN commandos, and
for that purpose they are equipping their hired assassins with EZLN
uniforms and badges.
The recent "appearances" of armed groups, supposedly Zapatista, in the
county seat of Las Margaritas and in other places of the Chiapanecan
geography, are nothing but planned provocations to prepare the following
stage.
Faced with this state of affairs we say that, like from the start of the
dialogue, the Zapatista troops remain in their mountain barracks and
that they are not and have not undertaken any offensive movements or any
movements outside of their positions.
SIXTH.- Besides implicating the EZLN in the projected aggression (which
could escalate into an attempted murder)against the Papal Nuncio, the
government is trying to make the public forget about the attack "Peace
and Justice" perpetrated against Bishops Samuel Ruiz and Raul Vera, on
November 4, 1997, and distract world attention from the news the case of
the thousands of Indians displaced in Chenalho by the PRI bands has
recently awakened.
SEVENTH.- Instead of keeping on concocting complicated plots, as a
pretext to fully use the military option, the federal government should
put a stop to its paramilitary groups, allow the thousand of people
displaced by war in the entire Chiapas territory to return to their
communities and keep without delay its word, given in San Andres
Sakam'chen of the Poor.
That is the way to contribute to the dialogue, and peace could then stop
being a rhetorical figure in the Zedillista discourse.
EIGTH.- The EZLN calls upon the national and international civil
society not to be fooled by the Mexican government war games and to
demand the end of the Indigenous peoples extermination and the
enforcement of the San Andres Agreements.
The EZLN makes an urgent call to the national and international civil
society to come to the help of our brothers from Chenalho.
The current situation is dramatic, it's a life or death situation for
thousands or rebel Indians who still believe that their struggle is not
against other Indians, but against the system which condemns them to
death and oblivion.
democracy!
liberty!
justice!
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
For the Clandestine Indian Revolutionary Committee-General Command of
the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.