Building in the Face of Repression:

An Interview with
Community Development Worker
Mariana Mora

For almost two years, Mariana has lived in San Cristobal de las Casas and worked in the surrounding indigenous communities that are now the target of a fierce government campaign. Mariana has documented this campaign through photographs, featured throughout this web site, and articles analyzing the events of the December massacre in Acteal (see the February 1998 issue of Z Magazine.) The following is an interview ISLA conducted with Mariana in which she discusses her work with women in the region, the aftermath of the massacre and relentless government raids, and the possibility of peaceful construction within Chiapas' newly formed civilian communities.

M a r i a n a : I work with a non-governmental organization (NGO) in San Cristobal, Kinal Antzetic, whose name means land of the women in Tzeltal. This is a NGO that focuses on production in the highlands with indigenous artisans. Out of economic necessity, women began organizing and later expanded the work to meet health, education, and other social needs. I work in the Altamirano region in Ocosingo in the autonomous municipalities "17 de noviembre" with women's self-sufficient production cooperatives, mainly vegetable gardens, bread-making, sewing, store collectives, and artisan groups. We work to improve women's accounting and administrative skills and to integrate these collectives at a regional and municipal level. We also help them systematize their strategic plan.

I S L A : How many women participate?

M a r i a n a : In the municipality of "17 de noviembre," there are seventy communities of about 25,000 people, with at least one women's collective in each community. The municipality is divided into three regions. Indirectly it's a large number of women that participate. Directly we work with about 30-35 women.

I S L A : So capacity building and leadership development is a big part of the work you do. How successful has the project been so far?

M a r i a n a : The work is really new since the municipalities have existed for only two years. We've been going through a series of evaluation meetings and found it's a lot easier to measure progress in terms of the logistical aspects. Women are beginning to appropriate the work. Often they are the ones with the least access to education and formal skills. When they start a collective, the men often quickly take over and begin managing it. In the last six to eight months in these communities, men are taken a lesser role and women are taking on the administrative and analytical work for their collectives. This is something new, especially in the Ocosingo region where women have very little opportunities and rights. In Ocosingo if a woman is sick she tells her husband what the symptoms are, he goes to the doctor, gets the medicine, and then gives it to her. In general, women don't participate in assemblies or community meetings. This project is the first of its kind in the region, and it's been very interesting to see how women change their roles.

I S L A : What are the connections between these communities and the EZLN / Zapatista movement?

M a r i a n a : The call for autonomy was one of the EZLN's demands during the first round of peace talks entitled "Indigenous Rights and Culture" in February of 1996, when the Zapatistas signed an agreement with the government. Since then the government has refused to recognize this agreement, although Mexico's fifty-six indigenous groups were given certain rights to autonomy and self-determination. Part of this demand is the search for regional autonomy, not as a separation from the nation state, but as a form of integration. The idea is that people locally can decide how they want their communities to be developed; how they want their health and educational systems formed based on their own cultures.

The communities of these regions mostly support the EZLN, and their organizational structure originally stems from the Zapatista movement. On the local level there is a transition from the political/military structure inherent in the rebel army to a civilian base structure. All of these communities' governing structure is civilian.

I S L A : Has the aftermath of the December massacre in Acteal and the operation of paramilitary groups in the region directly affected the project and women's participation in the communities?

M a r i a n a : The Acteal massacre on December 22nd was the beginning of a premeditated governmental campaign. This campaign did not stop the government from carrying on with low intensity warfare, which has not been very low intensity at all. Like a rabid dog's first taste of blood, the campaign has been accelerating and the autonomous municipalities are its main target.

Many people have asked me, "Why would the government, after almost four years of little media coverage on Chiapas, risk putting the issue back on the front pages with a massacre?" The answer is that these newly formed communities are doing really well. The communities are becoming more of a threat and that's why the government is willing to put itself out on a line and risk its public image.

The Zapatistas, as has been their tradition all along, have been constructing in silence. The people have a story, which originally comes from the Popol Voh. A younger brother and some older brothers find a beehive at the top of a tree. The older brothers climb to the top and the younger brothers stay behind. The agreement is to give the younger brother honey. But, the older brothers go to the top of the tree and eat all of the honey. The younger brother gets really angry and asks for his share. Instead, the brothers throw down chewed up beeswax. Angrier still, the younger brother moulds the beeswax into four gophers, which represent the four corners of the earth. He puts the gophers under the soil and they begin to eat away at the tree's roots until the tree falls down and the older bothers are killed.

The elders in the communities tell you this is a story of struggle and shows how one is supposed to struggle. It's also a story that the EZLN used when they were recruiting people, referring to eating at the roots of power until the power structure falls.

In the past two years since the accords have been signed, the EZLN has been constructing these autonomous municipalities, with their own parliament system and their own commissions. Out of 110 municipalities in Chiapas, forty-two have declared themselves autonomous. One-third of the state has some form of autonomy or self-government, which poses a direct challenge to the power structure. According to Hector Diaz Polanco, an Anthropologist who was an advisor to the EZLN during the peace talks, of the two thousand municipalities in Mexico one third have at least thirty per cent indigenous population. The call for autonomy and self-determination then could potentially affect one third of Mexican national territory. Again, this is a direct threat and contradicts a lot of Mexico's current economic and political plans.

To counteract the threat, the government began this campaign with the December 22nd massacre. During January it ransacked communities and tried to take them over. In February, the communities decided not to flee into the mountains when the army entered. They didn't want to flee, like they had earlier, and return to the total destruction of their communities. So they decided to stay. The men left and went up to the mountains to avoid provoking the army, and the women stayed and fought back. The news showed powerful scenes of women armed with sticks and stones, pushing the soldiers back, and making them retreat. The army did not expect to be faced with a wall of civilian women. By being the public face, women have taken a key role in protecting their communities.

On January 12th during a civilian march, public security forces started firing into the crowd and killed a woman from the community in the town of Ocosingo. After this the army retreated in its campaign for two months. On April 10th, the municipalitiy of 110 communities had an inauguration party. PRIistas, independent campesino organizations, international and national observers all participated. There was a big party and at eleven that night they received word that the army was going to enter. At four thirty that morning over one thousand elements of the army and national security forces stormed into the community with fifty tanks, helicopters, and commando units. They surrounded the community, destroyed all of the new buildings, including murals in which the whole community had participated. They grabbed twelve foreigners and nine Mexican nationals. They have since been held on a series of fabricated charges like cutting down 1200 fruit trees and stealing 20,000 pesos worth of coffee. They were also charged with rebellion and betrayal to the nation. They are now in Cerro Hueco a jail for political prisoners. Since then seven other people, mainly health workers, have been arrested and charged with similar things.

On May 2nd the army stormed the Amparo Aguas Tintas community, and arrested about sixty men who were signaled out by PRIistas. They have threatened to do this same thing in all of the municipalities. What the communities have been doing more recently is to concentrate members into the head of the municipality in an attempt to protect them. The government has threatened to dismantle all of the communities, saying they are illegal and those participating are involved in rebellious activities.

I S L A : What do you think of the opinion that the EZLN is poorly equipped and can offer little protection to the communities? Should the EZLN bear some of the responsibility considering the Mexican government's violent history?

M a r i a n a : I agree that a rebel army such as the EZLN cannot militarily fight against seventy thousand troops in the state of Chiapas. You have one third of the entire Mexican army concentrated in one state. Seventy thousand troops are more than the Salvadoran army had during its entire civil war. That's not including the special police force or paramilitary. With all of the heavy artillery that the military has, there is no way that the EZLN can win militarily. It's completely disproportional.

In that sense the Mexican army uses its troops to threaten the communities. You have thirty overhead flights a day in many communities, with helicopters flying over so low that you can see the people's faces in them. There are constant troop movements, and the army uses tactics like poisoning the river. One time the army was practicing aerial bombings and they dropped black bags full of venomous snakes in the cornfields. It's basically psychological warfare. I don't think the EZLN expected it to get to this point.

I S L A : The U.S. press often covers the political differences between PRIista and Zapatista sympathizers within the indigenous communities of Chiapas. What's been your experience of this in your work?

M a r i a n a : It's really interesting, because in the communities that I've been to which are split they've never really had a lot of problems until the military moved in. Taniperlas is the best example of this. Up until April 10th the PRIistas participated in collective decision-making. The PRIistas even agreed to have the autonomous municipality established in that region. They also made agreements about how they didn't want a military presence in their community. Obviously there were political differences, but in general they co-existed peacefully. When the military started their counter-insurgency tactics it polarized these communities - now brothers have killed brothers.

I S L A : In your article in Z Magazine you mention that the Mexican special forces are trained in Guatemala, which in turn have been trained in the U.S. Can you talk about the U.S. role in Chiapas?

M a r i a n a : It is clear that the Mexican military uses U.S. made weapons. There are M-16s and black hawk helicopters. In some cases the U.S. has denied that this artillery is used in Chiapas. There are photographs that document otherwise. There have been seven thousand Mexican military officials trained in the United States in the past few years. Six hundred have been trained at the School of the Americas.

In Chiapas, the army is using the Colombian model with fifteen years of experience in training and constructing paramilitaries. Paramilitary formation in the region is going to take generations to overcome. It's something that when the military retreats is going to leave scars in the communities for years to come. It's also a way for the government to wash itself of any responsibility. Part of the goal is to train paramilitary groups, give them life, and then let that life carry out its own decisions. A year ago no one in the communities was talking about the paramilitary groups except in the north where "Paz y Justicia" operates. Now everyone is talking about them, with community members being forced to join. It's an incredibly painful process for people that three or six months ago lived happily together.

I S L A : Given where the Mexican government is taking the conflict, how do you see the future of the project you're involved in? What are the women's dreams and hopes about their future?

M a r i a n a : The war is like a chupacabra, where the idea is to suck the blood and the life out of the people in the community without having to physically kill them. I think that the strongest form of resistance in this kind of war is to continue constructing. And I think that's something that the communities, even with the soldiers in their faces, have continued to do time and time again. So even now, even though they are in maximum red alert where things could explode at any moment, they're still continuing with their workshops, their work in collectives, and with their meetings. The communities want to be able to control their own futures and to live according to their traditions.

Women's collectives are doing this and providing support to each other through all of this. In "17 de noviembre" we've been doing a series of mental health workshops on how to withstand the low intensity warfare. The collectives play a fundamental role for the women to be able to express themselves and counteract the damaging effects.

Currently, there are still meetings and workshops, though things often get suspended and the situation is definitely unstable. It hasn't prevented them from continuing to build their futures though. This is the only way they will be able to withstand low intensity warfare.

I S L A : How can people in the U.S. support these communities?

M a r i a n a : With the target on foreigners, the Mexican government and army are removing international observers. This is so that no one bears witness to the army's human rights violations. Now is the time to go to Chiapas to see what the situation is like, and of course continue writing letters. The only thing that has kept the EZLN alive during these four years is the international presence and support. It plays a fundamental role. Without that the Zapatistas and the communities would have been gone a long time ago.

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Copyright 1998 -- ISLA