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TITLE: Weekly News Summary |
AUTHOR: |
PUB: Mexico Solidarity Network |
DATE: January 1-7 |
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January 1-7 Contents: Chaos in Tabasco: Old, New Legislatures Name Different Interim Governors
EZLN Celebrates Anniversary Of Uprising; Army Fortifies Positions In Roberto Barrios, Cuxulja
The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) celebrated the seventh anniversary of its uprising on New Year's Day with a mass rally of rebels and sympathizers in the "Aguascalientes" of Oventic, a Zapatista stronghold in the highlands north of San Cristóbal de las Casas. During the celebrations, Comandante David read a rebel communiqué in which the Zapatistas recognized that the military withdrawal from the community of Amador Hernández on December 22 was "a positive signal" from the government. However, the Tzotzil commander reminded President Fox and "civil society" that the remaining "good faith" preconditions which the EZLN says must be met before negotiations can begin - the withdrawal of the Army from its positions at Roberto Barrios, Guadalupe Tepeyac, La Garrucha, Cuxuljá (Moisés Gandhi), Jolnachoj (San Andrés), and Río Euseba (La Realidad); liberation of all the Zapatista political prisoners in Chiapas, Tabasco, and Querétaro; and congressional approval of the unmodified COCOPA initiative for constitutional implementation of the San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture - remain unfulfilled (although the Army did withdraw from Jolnachoj shortly before David read the statement, a fact acknowledged in a separate communiqué). David further called on national and international "civil society" to pressure the Mexican government to honor the above demands, and to accompany the Zapatista commanders when they travel to Mexico City next month to try to convince Congress to accept the COCOPA initiative. In a series of additional communiqués dated on January 1 and 3 and signed by Subcomandante Marcos, the rebel spokesperson again reiterated the request for compliance with the EZLN's three "good faith" demands, which "really are nothing but three answers to another three questions," he said: "Is the government to commit itself to the path of dialogue and negotiation? If so, than it should demilitarize seven locations. Does the government recognize the Zapatistas as a partner in the process of dialogue and negotiation? If so, then it should not treat us as criminals. Is the government prepared to recognize the indigenous peoples as Mexicans and as indigenous? If so, then it should be spelled out in the Constitution." The EZLN also announced the creation of a "Zapatista Information Center," under the care of human rights activist Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, to serve as a "communications bridge" between "civil society" and the EZLN, specifically for information relating to the upcoming journey of the Zapatista leadership to Mexico City. For those interested in putting themselves in contact with the Center, the address is the following: Avenida Ignacio Allende No. 22-A Barrio San Antonio San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México (52-67) 82-159 and (52-67) 82-373 Meanwhile, on December 31, the Mexican federal army withdrew completely from its base in Jolnachoj, located in the highlands municipality of San Andrés Larráinzar. The withdrawal, ordered by President Fox, occurred just hours after hundreds of Zapatista supporters held a protest at the base against the military presence in the municipality. Of the remaining five positions whose demilitarization is demanded by the EZLN, it was initially rumored by sources within the federal army itself that troops were preparing full withdrawals from La Garrucha, Cuxuljá, Río Euseba, and Roberto Barrios this week. However, it appears that the base at Cuxuljá (near the community of Moisés Gandhi) received an influx of 200 new soldiers this week, while in Roberto Barrios the General in command told the press that his orders were "to stay here, hold out, and not withdraw." The barbed-wire fence around the encampment at Roberto Barrios was also reinforced on January 1, and additional troops were said to have arrived there as well. Military checkpoints, supposedly dismantled as of December 1, have also reappeared on public thoroughfares in several key regions of the conflict zone, including Roberto Barrios (Palenque) and Amparo Aguatinta (Ocosingo). END
Fox Criticized On Chiapas Strategy
Hardline criticisms of President Vicente Fox's handling of the Chiapas situation have begun to surface more frequently in recent days. While PRI legislators and governors have already meted out their share of attacks on Fox's apparent policy of engagement with the rebels, the president has also now begun to take the heat from members of his own party, National Action (PAN). Fox was publicly criticized this week by PAN deputy Carlos Raymundo Toledo - a member of the COCOPA - for "giving in too much to an intransigent Zapatista Army." Toledo then called on the government to "harden" its position against the rebels and said Fox "should establish new demands to force the armed group to restart negotiations." Peace Commissioner Luis H. Alvarez, for his part, apparently refuses to recognize recent Zapatista communiqués - establishing a set of clear, specific, preconditions for dialogue, and recognizing government moves on those conditions when such occur - as "concrete responses" to the current government policy in Chiapas. Alvarez told the press that while the EZLN "still has not given a concrete response" to the measures taken by the Fox administration in Chiapas, he hoped that "someday" negotiations could be restarted. Alvarez also backtracked on earlier declarations, now saying that the government has made no move to guarantee the security of the Zapatista delegation, including Subcomandante Marcos, which will travel to Mexico City in February. Meanwhile, excerpts from a report drafted in late November by a number of active Mexican Army generals regarding a suggested political and military strategy in Chiapas for then president-elect Fox has been made public through the efforts of MILENIO journalist Carlos Marín. (It should be noted here that while Marín published the excerpts as "a detailed plan of action of the federal government," he explicitly stated that the suggestions made in the document were personal opinions of the unnamed generals who authored them; the document should thus not necessarily be construed as a position paper of the Mexican Defense Department.) The suggestions in the document, titled "Chiapas 2000," are of a much more political nature than a military one. The generals suggest that peace in Chiapas should be achieved through dialogue and negotiation with the EZLN, that the "conflict zone" should be demilitarized as soon as possible, and that the San Andrés Accords signed between the rebels and the government in 1996 should "be implemented immediately," with the exception of those elements of the agreement which "go against the interests of the Federation, such as the parts which refer to the ownership of the minerals and petroleum which is found underground in Chiapas." The generals also suggest a need for ending the practices of corrupt political operatives in Chiapas and upgrading the Chiapas economy from "colonial" to "sustainable." Furthermore, they note, for peace and reconciliation to take hold in the state, it will be necessary to fully investigate and prosecute all massacres and political assassinations committed in Chiapas, and to take measures to strengthen "civil society." If these points sound similar to Zapatista demands, it is not a coincidence: the report suggests beating the insurgency by "taking away their banners." However, the document also suggests simultaneous moves to de-legitimize and isolate the EZLN, in part through the aforementioned policies, and in part through a massive informational campaign to "expose the true image" of the rebels as an armed group of delinquents involved in organized crime, and of Subcomandante Marcos as a criminal who, "shielding himself in the demands of the indigenous peoples," has become "immensely rich" through criminal activities. The generals' plan further entails setting up a communications policy "similar to that of the EZLN," utilizing the internet and the international press in order to counteract the "almost absolute domination of positions favorable to the EZLN" in the sphere of international public opinion, while restricting access of all foreign observers to the conflict zone and engaging in a smear campaign against prominent Zapatista allies in Chiapas, including priests of the Diocese of San Cristóbal, over their alleged sexual orientation. END
Chaos In Tabasco: Two Interim Governors Named
Tabasco drifted into political chaos this week just days after a federal electoral tribunal annulled the results of that state's gubernatorial elections. PRI candidate and official winner Manuel Andrade was to take office on January 1; but the decision of the tribunal to throw out his election on account of fraud, but without naming another victor, left the decision to the state legislature to appoint an interim governor to rule until such time as new elections could be held. The PRI-controlled lame-duck legislature, meeting in special session the last few days of December, first decided to write a constitutional amendment allowing the new interim (and thus un-elected) governor to rule for eighteen months, rather than six. It then, on December 31, named PRI federal deputy Enrique Priego Oropeza as Tabasco's new governor. On January 1, however, a new legislature took office. Their first act - after most PRI legislators walked out following a fistfight between PRD and PRI members - was to declare that Priego Oropeza, as a federal deputy who had not actually been granted leave from the Federal Congress in order to assume another political post, was therefore constitutionally ineligible to become interim governor. The legislature thus named Adán Augusto López Hernández, state secretary-general of the PRI, as the true interim governor, at which time the PRI legislators returned in order to involve themselves in yet another fistfight on the floor of the legislature. Priego Oropeza, meanwhile, backed by former governor Roberto Madrazo and by the national PRI leadership, refused to step down - even though the candidate named to replace him is a fellow state PRI leader and is said to be his best friend. Since then, negotiations between the two sides have all but broken down, and a very odd political showdown seems to be approaching between two PRI interim governors: one backed by the national PRI as well as by most of the state party, and who has received tacit but tentative recognition from President Fox; and the other, who before January 1 was the state leader of the party which committed the electoral fraud against the opposition (PRD, PAN, PT), and is now strongly backed by the PRD, PAN, and PT as the "real" interim governor. The PRD, meanwhile, as has become customary in such cases, announced it is suing Priego Oropeza and ex-governor Madrazo, and called for a mega-demonstration to be held in Villahermosa on January 7. END
In the latest turn of events in the three-month long dispute etween the PRI and the PRD for control over the local overnment of Zinacantán, in the Chiapas highlands, hundreds of RD sympathizers, two of whom were armed and wore ski-masks, stormed the municipal presidency building on January 3, demanding the ouster of official PRI mayor Andrés Sánchez Pérez, whom they accuse of corruption. The demonstrators locked all the doors to the building with chains and demanded that the state legislature create a plural interim municipal council. The locks and chains to the building were removed without incident moments later by authorities, although the demonstrators warned they would "return as many times as is necessary." The state PRD, meanwhile, issued a statement disavowing any participation in the events, and demanded an investigation. On the 86th anniversary of the Agrarian Reform law, president Vicente Fox Quesada declared that the measure "has fulfilled its function," that "the objectives today in the countryside are very different," and that "all legal proceedings currently in progress" on land redistribution "should be terminated." Fox added that the country's goals for the rural sector are "to make every ejido plot a productive, high-income unit" with individual ownership, such that each campesino will be "free to sell his parcel, rent it out, or use it in some other fashion." Sources: La Jornada, Milenio, El Universal, Proceso, Milenio Semanal. This report is a product of the Mexico Solidarity Network. Redistribution is authorized and encouraged provided that the source is cited. Comments: e-mail:msn@mexicosolidarity.org END |