And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: The web site given at the start of this message is a valuable one for orientation of military and paramilitary sites in Chiapas. The several maps and the text provide other information about the state as well, and is well worth a look. Pat -- This message is forwarded to you as a service of Zapatistas Online. Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 14:28:36 -0800 Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Kerry Appel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Multiple recipients of list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Fw: Comments on maps http://www.spanweb.org/mapas.html I was thinking while I was looking at those maps of Chiapas that it is important to bear a few things in mind. 1. The Zapatistas rose up in January of '94, mostly in the area of Ocosingo and San Cristobal de las Casas, and then spread by December of '94 to the areas shown (which are also the areas of Mayan presence). 2. The Mexican Army first had a military encirclement of the Zapatista zones and then invaded and occupied those areas in February of '95. 3. Mexican officers being trained at various military schools in the United States increased greatly in early '95 (and has continued to increase). 4. With the exception of the paramilitary group "Paz y Justicia", which already was in existence prior to '94, the rest of the paramilitary groups sprang into existence and operation subsequent to early '95 and continue to grow in numbers, strength and activities. These paramilitary groups are operating in the areas with the highest presence of Mexican Army units (with officers recently trained in the US in "counterinsurgency"). Note: During this same time that all of these paramilitary groups are being developed the Mexican government was also engaging the Zapatistas in a dialogue for "the recognition of the rights and culture of indigenous peoples". It seems to me to be too bad the government didn't put more resources and enery into implementing the resulting accords and less into military occupation and the development of death squads. 5. The zones with the presence of internally displaced persons are the same zones with the presence of Mexican Army and paramilitary groups. In fact, these maps, if dated and made into transparencies, could be laid over each other and would pretty much tell the story; -popular rebellion -military invasion and occupation -development of paramilitary groups (death squads) -massacres and othe forms of violence by the paramilitaries resulting in refugee camps 6. In spite of the military occupation, the development of paramilitary groups, the human rights violations, the many other attempts to erode the Zapatista's base of support, and the Mexican government's failure to implement the signed accords for indigenous rights and culture, the autonomous zones and regions continue to be developed by the indigenous communities. It would seem to me that anyone looking at these maps and thinking about the information which I listed above could fairly easily see that the Mexican government's claims that the Mexican Army's role is to "fight drug trafficking" and "preserve the peace" are completely bogus. It is pretty difficult to see in these maps anything to lend credibility to the Mexican government's claims that they are seeking dialogue or that there are "conditions in existence for dialogue". In fact these maps pretty much illustrate just what is Low-Intensity-War. Kerry Appel -- To unsubscribe from this list send a message containing the words unsubscribe chiapas95 to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Previous messages are available from http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html or gopher://eco.utexas.edu. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
