CONTEXT -- Underlying Causes

The Acteal massacre, and ongoing repression in Chiapas, must be understood in the context of the Zapatista Uprising that began January 1, 1994. Once the fighting stopped (on January 11, 1994), the EZLN entered into a negotiation process with the Mexican government to address the historical, underlying injustices that characterize the lives of a majority of the Mayan-indigenous peoples that live in the Chiapas highlands and the eastern regions, referred to as the Lacandon Jungle.

The underlying injustices include: endemic racism; lack of access to adequate health, education and housing; lack of access to land and fairly paid work; lack of access to a fair justice system and real political participation; and, the impunity with which State security forces and private sector paramilitary groups carry out widespread acts of intimidation and repression.

After the initial media attention died away, the peace negotiations came to a halt in mid-1996. Though the peace process stopped, the Zapatista Uprising had a liberating impact on thousands of marginalized rural communities. Across the State (and throughout Mexico to some extent), community groups were formed to educate themselves about their rights, and to becoming active in demanding respect for and guarantee of the same. Many of these new groups (such as the "Las Abejas" group in Acteal, nine of whose members were killed in the massacre) support the ideals of the EZLN.

In response to the increasing "Zapatista" activism of the previously impoverished and silenced sectors, the powerful sectors of Chiapas society became more entrenched in their use of repression to resist change. The common denominator of these anti-Zapatista groups, referred to as "priistas", is their almost organic link to the long ruling PRI Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Since mid-1994, the Mexican government, military and other security forces have been carrying out a military-repression strategy of "low intensity warfare". Bishop Samuel Ruiz, of San Cristobal de las Casas, told an international human rights delegation that the Acteal massacre was the 25th incident of multiple repression since mid-1996. Regularly, throughout Chiapas, there have been cases of illegal detention, political prisoners, death threats, politically motivated beatings, political assassinations and disappearances; the majority of victims are so-called Zapatista sympathizers.

This is "textbook" low-intensity conflict; behind the apparent isolation and randomness of each incident, one sees clear patterns of systematic repression. Until the Acteal massacre, this low-scale repression received little international attention.

In incredulous efforts to cover up the systematic repression in Chiapas, high-ranking Mexican officials have argued that the December 22nd massacre was the result of local feuds between neighboring indigenous villages. Though there are elements of community and indigenous divisions involved in this massacre, the underlying causes of the massacre are the same underlying causes of the Zapatista Uprising itself.

Less than one month after the massacre, at the annual World Economic Forum (held in Davos, Switzerland in January 1998), Zedillo told the gathering of national leaders and representatives of 300 of the world's largest private investment and commercial institutions, that Mexico's economy had stabilized since the 1995 devaluation, and that Mexico provided a good environment for investments. Jose Angel Gurria, Secretary of the Treasury and Public Credit, told the Mexican press that investors and businessmen in Davos expressed no concern for what was happening in Chiapas. (La Jornada, February 4, 1998, p.23)

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1 Intro
2 Context
3 Pohlo
4 Needs