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Today's
Stories
December 21,
2007
John Ross
New Massacres Loom in Mexico
Dick J. Reavis
A
Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss
December 20,
2007
David Rosen
Mitt
Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer
Alan Farago
The
Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage
Crisis
Laura Carlsen
Standing Up to NAFTA
Ashley Dawson
The Return of the Bread Riot
Wayne Smith
and Jennifer Schuett
Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates
Website of
the Day
How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter
December 19,
2007
Saul Landau
Is
the NIE Bush's Watergate?
Paul W. Lovinger
Hillary the Hawk
Norman Solomon
The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck
Dave Zirin
George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice
Marjorie Cohn
Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes
Sen. Russell
Feingold
The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation
Sonja Karkar
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine
Anthony Papa
Open the Drug Gulags
Christopher Ketcham
Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions
Davey D
Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop?
Website of
the Day
When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV
December 18,
2007
R. F. Blader
The
Politics of Teen Pregnancy
George Wuerthner
Gunning for Wolves in Idaho
Steven Higgs
Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped?
Vijay Prashad
Encounters with Ghadar
David Macaray
The Free Rider Problem
Ralph Nader
Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays
Eva Liddell
Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home
Martha Rosenberg
While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters
Dave Lindorff
When Impeachment is Out of Print
Peter Morici
The Consequences the Trade Deficit
Website of
the Day
Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America
December 17,
2007
Mike Whitney
Staring
Into the Abyss
Tom Barry
Planning
the War on Immigrants
Uri Avnery
A
Gaza Masada?
Greg Moses
Crossing the Line in Texas
Allan Nairn
Terrorism; Counter-
Terrorism: Excuses for Murder
Patrick Bond
South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers
Stephen Lendman
Police State America
Charles Jonkel
Grizzly Right of Way
Laray Polk
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza
Stephen Fleischman
Pawns in Their Game
December 15
/ 16, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
People's Penny for the Magna Carta
Howard Zinn
Bomb After Bomb
Standard Schaefer
The Greening of Big Tobacco
Raymond J.
Lawrence
Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas
Alan Farago
Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine
Saul Landau
Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists
Jenna Orkin
Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the
Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up
Ahmad Samih
Khalidi
Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct
Robert Fantina
Politics By Photo-Op
Missy Comley
Beattie
Resistance Amid the Ruins
Ramzy Baroud
Of Mormons and Muslims
James L. Secor
A Vision for China's Future
Elijah Wald
Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten
Website of
the Weekend
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support
December 14,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him
John Ross
Iraqi
Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax
Jacob Hornberger
Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened?
Allan Nairn
"Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes
Dave Zirin
The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners
Dave Lindorff
The First Cut is the Deepest
Misty MacDuffee
Toxic Grizzlies
Ben Terrall
What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine?
Dr. Mustafa
Barghouthi
Prerequisites for Peace
Website of the Day
Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"
December 13,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Shrinking
the Dollar from the Inside-Out
Mike Whitney
Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding
Ron Jacobs
Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy
Norman Solomon
The USA's Human Rights Daze
Peter Morici
The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch
Sandy Mayes
Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia
Franklin Lamb
The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling?
Jacob Hornberger
Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It
Nadim Rouhana
An Interloper in My Own Land
Dave Zirin
On Pigskin and Petrol
Website of the Day
Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support!
December 12, 2007
Allan
Nairn
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian
Phones
Alan
Farago
How Sprawl Eats Its Young
Ray
McGovern
Torture, Lies and Videotape
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts
Evan
Jones
The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell
Doom for the US Farm Belt
James
Petras
An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers
Joel
Hirschorn
The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine
Joshua
Frank
Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention
Sherry
Wolf
Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul
Dan
Bacher
Survey of a Fish Graveyard
Website
of the Day
Men Eating Bugs
December
11, 2007
Patrick
Cockburn
What's Really Happened During
the Surge?
Diana
Johnstone
The Next Kosovo War
Paul
Craig Roberts
It's Waco All Over Again: Preventive Detention and the Constitution
David
Macaray
Impasse in Hollywood
Ralph
Nader
Gail Collins Versus the Underdogs
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo Britons to be Released: a Mixed Result
Martha
Rosenberg
No Holiday for High Risk Sex Workers
Steve
Champion /
Anthony Ross
Words for Our Brother, Tookie Williams
Kim
Nicolini
Tangled Up in Dylan
Michael
Dickinson
Say Goodbye to Purgatory: Pope Rat Gets Indulgent
Website
of the Day
A Charming (and Worthy)
Pitch
December 10, 2007
Uri
Avnery
How They Stole the Bomb From Us
Debbie
Nathan
The Perils of Journalism and Child
Porn
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Is There a Left Here Left?
If So, What Can It Do?
Steve
Kelly
Cheap Chips, Counterfeit Wilderness
Donna
J. Volatile
Welcome to the Revolution
December
8 / 9, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Coup Against Bush and Cheney
Brenda
Norrell
Seize the Land, Chain the Peace Activists
Saul
Landau
The Ruins of Empire
R.
F. Blader
A Rape in Every Drink?
Ray
McGovern
Spinning Iran's Centrifuges
Allan
Nairn
Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in
Indonesia
Linn
Washington, Jr
Spotlight on Death Row
Paul
Craig Roberts
When Will Bush Come Clean?
December
7, 2007
Sean
Penn
Piano Wire Puppeteers
Arthur
Versluis
Mining Water in the Desert
M.
G. Piety
Racism and the American Psyche: Some
Thoughts on Race and Intelligence
Pam
Martens
Banksters Gone Wild
Alan
Farago
Will the Free Market Kill Suburbia?
Sprawl and the Credit Crisis
Allan
Nairn
It Takes (Out) a Village
Col.
Dan Smith
Bush, Iran and the Politics of Doomsday
Alice
Slater
The Iran Opening
Robert
Weissman
The Story of Stuff
Website
of the Day
Something
About Mitt
December
5, 2007
Mike
Whitney
Why the CFR Hates Putin
Sharon
Smith
The Anti-War Enablers: Tom Hayden
and the Dead End Democrats
James
Petras
Venezuela in the Aftermath
Ron
Jacobs
The Iran Charade
Dave
Zirin
Kicking a Dead Man: the Sliming of Sean Taylor
John
V. Whitbeck
Two States or One? Time to Choose
Peter
Zinn
Covered in New Orleans
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Impeach Pelosi Instead
Alan
Farago
The Credit Bomb Detonates in Florida
Heather
Gray
US Meddling in Australian Politics
Website
of the Day
A Donner Summit Night Before Xmas
December
4, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in
Ann Arbor
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme
Court
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Lies at the End of the American
Dream
Ray
McGovern
No-Nuke Iran
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Admiral Mullen and the Defense Budget: When White Elephants are
Too Small
Allan
Nairn
The Regime Still Stands in Burma, Where "the People Just
Want Food"
Russell
Mokhiber
The USA v. Al Arian
Nikolas
Kozloff
As Chávez Falters: Raising the Stakes for the South American
Left
John
V. Walsh
Peace Movement Paralyzed
Ghada
Ageel
Will Peace Cost Me My Home?
Stephen
Soldz
The Facts be Damned!: Psychologists' President Defends Psychologist
Involvement in Interrogations
Website
of the Day
Hands Off the People of Iran
December
3, 2007
Tariq
Ali
Venezuela After the Referendum
Bill
Quigley
New Orleans: Bulldozers for the Poor,
Tax Credits for Developers
Eric
Walberg
The Bible and Middle East History
Uri
Avnery
After Annapolis
Marjorie
Cohn
Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed
Dave
Lindorff
Vengeance Isn't Sweet
Stephen
Fleischman
Homeless in Paradise
Martha
Rosenberg
Perp Walks for the Mink Clad on Chicago's Mag Mile
Website
of the Day
So Just Lead!
December
1 / 2, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Emblems of the Bush Age: Adrift
in a Sea of Booze
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and
the Future of the Rocky Mountain West
Mike
Whitney
"Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore": an Interview with Nir
Rosen
Shemon
Salam
A Visit From the FBI
Roger
Burbach
The Battle in Bolivia
Benjamin
Dangl
New Politics in Old Bolivia
Brian
M. Downing
The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front: How Much Credit Goes to
the Surge?
Greg
Moses
Night of the Living Redneck: a Texas Horror Story
Sonja
Karkar
The "Never-Never" Peace Conference
Saul
Landau
Ethics and Evil in South Boston
Margaret
Kimberley
Black America Left Behind
John
Ross
What are the Prospects for a New Mexican Revolution?
Reza
Fiyouzat
Exit on the Left: When Che's Children Visited Iran
Judith
Scherr
Berkeley Turns Right for the Holidays
Lance
Olsen
Of Forests and Finance: Logging for the Wealthy
Christopher
Brauchli
Mr. Bush and the Despots
Robert
Fantina
Iraq as U.S. Colony
Dan
Bacher
Fish Triage on Prospect Island
Michael
Donnelly
Remembering How to be Human: John Trudell and the Music of Urgency
Website
of the Weekend
Appalachian Voices
November
30, 2007
Peter
Stone Brown
The Re-Packaging of Bob Dylan
Wajahat
Ali
The Volatile Mistress: an Interview with Javed Jabbar, Pakistan's
Former Minister of Information
Allan
Nairn
Cold-Blooded Celebrity: Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers
Alan
Farago
The Sorrows of Suburbia: Politics, Sprawl and the Housing Crash
John
Ross
The Death of Latin America's First Revolution
Corporate
Crime Reporter
America's Corporate Crime Capitals
Lucia
Alvarez
Diego Gonzalez
Argentina's Political Future
James
Rothenberg
The Iraqi Miracle
Website
of the Day
Bio-Bling?
November
29, 2007
R.
F. Blader
The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe
Ismael
Hossein-Zadeh
Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran
Stephen
Soldz
War on the Couch: Fear, Aggression and Empire
Sheldon
Richman
Iraq 3.0
George
Wuerthner
Forest Fires, Lies and Chainsaws
Felice
Pace
Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis?
Col.
Dan Smith
The Meaning of Annapolis
Harvey
Wasserman
Terror Target Nukes
Nikolas
Kozloff
Primetime Hate Debate: Lou Dobbs, Immigration and Campaign '08
Paul
Krassner
Huffington Post Bloggers Go On Strike!
Dave
Lindorff
News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela?
CP
News Service
The One State Declaration
Website
of the Day
A Native View of Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
November
28, 2007
James
Petras
CIA Destabilization Memo Surfaces
on Venezuela
Jeff
Halper
Annapolis: When the Roadmap is a One
Way Street
Pam
Martens
Crashing Citigroup
Peter
Morici
Economy in Crisis: Avoiding a Recession
Mohammed
Khatib
Separate and Unequal in Palestine
Helen
Redmond
The Horror and the Hope: Health Care in America
William
S. Lind
In the Fox's Lair: Quiet Before a New Iraq Storm?
Ben
Tripp
We, the People: a Trope for All Seasons
Liaquat
Ali Khan
Pakistan: First, Restore the Constitution and Reinstate the Judges
Jeff
Berg
Holbrooke Says Bush Won't Attack Iran
Website
of the Day
The Lies of Joe Klein
November
27, 2007
Joe
DeRaymond
On the Road to the Torture School
Paul
Craig Roberts
Meet the Only Two Candidates Worse Than Bush and Cheney: Hillary
and Rudy
Marjorie
Cohn
Remembering Victor Rabinowitz
Mike
Whitney
A Dollar the Size of a Postage Stamp
Ron
Jacobs
The Myths of Military Progress
Col.
Dan Smith
The Pentagon's "People System" Still Doesn't Work
Ralph
Nader
Family Learning
Karim
Makdisi
Annapolis and the Unholy Alliance: the View from Beirut
Christopher
Ketcham
Memo to Hollywood Writers: Strike Until You Drop
Ronan
Bennett
Martin Amis Does a Coulter
Website
of the Day
Celebrating the Uncensored Media
November
26, 2007
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Heading for Annapolis
Paul
Craig Roberts
The End of All That
David
Macaray
Enter Mediator
Sameer
Dossani
Pakistan's Wounded Dictator
Roger
Burbach
The Final Battle in Bolivia
Mark
Scaramella
Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire
Brian
McKinlay
Howard's End
Rick
Kuhn
The Fall of a Racist Union Buster
Binoy
Kampmark
Ruddslide and Dull Alec
Monica
Benderman
What Do You Know of War?
Brenda
Norrell
Return to Alcatraz
Website
of the Day
Ghostworld by DJ Spooky
November
24 / 25, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson,
MD
Robert
Fisk
Darkness Falls on the Middle East
Saul
Landau
Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P.
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal
Environmentalism
Rannie
Amiri
Beirut's Black Friday
Christopher
Brauchli
Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace
Daniel
Gross
The Gap and Black Friday
Mike
Whitney
"A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions"
Marjorie
Cohn
Iran and the 2008 Elections
David
Rosen
Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans
David
Michael Green
If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom ....
Kenneth
Rexroth
When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in
Afghanistan
Muhammad
Iqbal
Trans. Shahid Alam
Ghazal
Website
of the Day
Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill
November 23, 2007
Gary
Leupp
Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat
Valley
Laura
Carlsen
Coming to Terms with Diversity in
Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP
David
Macaray
Keeping Labor Unions Out
Andy
Worthington
Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden
Clifton
Ross
Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant
Seth
Sandronsky
Battling Sodexho
Dan
Bacher
Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation
William
A. Cook
The Myth of Middle East Peace
Website
of the Day
Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short
Film
November
22, 2007
Alan
Farago
Who Lost America's Everglades?
Greg
Moses
A Thanksgiving Basting
Dave
Lindorff
Impeachment is Back on the Table
Mike
Ely
Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving
Omar
Azfar
Gore for President of Pakistan?
November
21, 2007
Vijay
Prashad
Our Dictator, Their Democracy
Martha
Rosenberg
Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Epiphany on the Glacier
John
Ross
The Last Days of Mexican Corn
Brian
McKenna
Cancer Terrorists Unmasked
Stephen
Soldz
Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo
Monica
Benderman
Needing Peace
Ben
Terrall
Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar
Website
of the Day
Mercy for Animals
|
December
21, 2007
Ten Years After
Acteal
New
Massacres Loom in Mexico
By JOHN ROSS
The men milled about on the shoulder
of the mountain road, their faces hooded and masked. Christmas
was just three days away but first they had some killing to do.
When the signal was given, they picked up their weapons--at
least five AK-47s were included in their arsenal--and began firing
downhill into the trees. A detachment of 40 state police officers
posted at a school 200 meters down the road seemed to take no
notice.
After an hour, the shooters
advanced downhill, firing their weapons as they pushed forward
through the wounded trees. At the bottom of the hill, the dead
were spread around a wood plank chapel where they had been fasting
and praying for several days. Most were women, their dead children
still clinging to them. The shooters continued down the ravine,
taking their time, killing their victims slowly, slicing them
open with machetes. Four of the women were pregnant. Marcela
Capote, the wife of the catechist, was nearly at full term and
they hacked open her womb and yanked out the baby inside and
dashed its skull against the rocks. They told each other that
they had come to kill "la Semilla"--the seed.
Although the press regularly
reports that the number of those massacred at Acteal was 45,
"Las Abejas" ("The Bees") have always said
46 of their comrades died December 22nd, 1997, including Marcela
Capote's baby. Last year, on the ninth anniversary of the massacre,
they upped the count to 49 to honor the three other pregnant
women murdered by the paramilitaries--21 women, 15 children,
nine men, and four unborn babies.
The Abejas are a devoutly Catholic
association of Highland Maya--Tzotziles, "the people of
the bat"--based in rural Chenalho county where they have
acquired a well-deserved reputation as excellent coffee growers
and honey gatherers. Their formation during a bitter land battle
in the early 1990s was mid-wived by San Cristobal de las Casas
Bishop Emeritus Samuel Ruiz Garcia and they have always shared
Don Samuel's liberationist leanings.
Although the Abejas backed
the demands of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EXLN)
when they rose in armed rebellion in the highlands in 1994, they
did not support the rebels' use of violence. Nonetheless, by
the 1997 coffee harvest with paramilitary gunsills from surrounding
communities--mostly affiliated with the then-ruling PRI party--stealing
their crops and their farm animals and burning Abeja families
out of their homes, they appealed to the pro-Zapatista village
of Acteal for protection and were given a piece of land down
below the highway, "Los Naranjos", where they would
be massacred December 22nd, 1997 by their persecutors.
In the ten years since the
killings shocked a shaken nation, the Abejas have become a moral
touchstone reaching far beyond the Chiapas highlands. Liberationist
Catholics make pilgrimages to Acteal where a chapel covering
the graves of the martyrs has become a shrine. Each year on
the anniversary of their sacrifice, a memorial Mass presided
over by Bishop Ruiz or his former coadjutor  Raul Vera
or the current bishop of San Cristobal, Felipe Arizmendi, draws
thousands to this anonymous bend in the ill-paved highway that
connects up the county seats of Chenalho and Pantelho. Nobelist
Jose Saramago mourned here, as did former U.N. Human Rights Commissioner
Mary Robinson and the late U.S. author Susan Sontag. In their
grief and dignity, the Abejas have come to symbolize for many
the cruel suffering of Latin America's indigenous peoples.
Horrendous as it was, the Acteal
massacre was not the most lethal in a history that is stained
with such mass killings--the Conquistadores and the Revolution
saw to that. Under the governance of President Ernesto Zedillo,
four massacres occurred between June 1995 and June 1998 that
took a total of 87 lives. Acteal was not even the bloodiest
mass killing in recent Chiapas memory--that dubious honor goes
to the massacre by the Mexican military of at least 60 Indian
farmers at Golonchan in 1979 during the regime of PRI governor
Juan Sabines, whose son, also named Juan, is the current governor
of the state.
But because the Zapatistas
have a national and international network and the horror of the
killings at Christmastime attracted the glare of Big Media, Acteal
became synonymous with human rights abuses in Mexico. Bill Clinton,
former French premiere Lionel Jospin, and the late Pope John
Paul condemned the murders, so agitating Zedillo that he accused
the world leaders of intervening in Mexico's affairs and subsequently
deported 400 non-Mexican human rights observers from Chiapas
in a xenophobic rage.
Now as the tenth anniversary
of the Acteal massacre approaches, the martyrdom of the Abejas
is being called into question by an orchestrated chorus of revisionist
voices bent on altering the narrative and absolving then-president
Zedillo, the PRI, and the Mexican military of any culpability
for the notorious mass killings, and, instead, shift the blame
to the victims--the Abejas and their Zapatista allies.
Last spring, the national committee
of right-wing president Felipe Calderon's PAN party called for
the reopening of judicial proceedings against more than 80 persons
convicted of participating in the slaughter. Most are evangelicals
whose release is being demanded by their churches and the PAN
is accused of an opportunistic ploy to attract this fast-growing
constituency by Luis Hernandez Navarro, op ed editor at the left
daily La Jornada and a former Zapatista advisor.
To compliment the PAN gesture,
Hugo Eric Flores, a spokesperson for those convicted, will soon
publish "The Other Injustice" to coincide with the
anniversary of the killings--the book posits that the prisoners
were railroaded by federal and state prosecutors to tamp down
the visibility of the scandal and that rather than a massacre,
the Abejas were caught in a deadly crossfire between Zapatistas
and anti-Zapatista "self-defense" fighters, the "pojwanejetic"
in Tzotzil.
Perhaps the lead voice in this
revisionist choir is a high profile journalist and author, Hector
Aguilar Camin (he has his own late night show on Televisa) whose
three-part series "Return to Acteal" published in Nexos,
the glossy highbrow monthly he co-edits, seeks to debunk the
Zapatista "legend" that the "mal gobierno"
(bad government) was responsible for the murders of the Abejas.
Aguilar Camin was the house intellectual during the reigns of
Carlos Salinas (1988-94) and Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000) and
has had a continued presence under PANista Vicente Fox (2000-2006)
and his successor Felipe Calderon. "Aguilar Camin always
serves the princes," sneers Hernandez Navarro.
Aguilar Camin's lengthy chronicle
not only redeems Zedillo, who now heads Yale's Institute for
Globalization Studies, but also neglects overwhelming evidence
of his government's involvement in the events of December 22nd,
1997, instead ascribing the cause of the massacre to long latent
"inter-communal" and religious disputes that he suggests
are inherent in Highland Maya culture and which were exacerbated
by the Zapatista uprising.
Not unsurprisingly, Aguilar's
version invokes the Zedillo government's much-discredited "White
Book of Acteal" issued weeks after the massacre that pinned
the onus on "disputes inherent in highland Maya culture"
and traced the route to Acteal from a family conflict back in
the 1930s. The White Book was compiled by Zedillo's attorney
general to provide a more "anthropological" assessment
of the murders.
Anthropologist Aida Hernandez
Castillo, then director of the CIESAS research institute in San
Cristobal, recalls being offered funds by Zedillo government
investigators to study "the manner in which the cultural
practices of Chenalho can help us to understand the rituals of
war utilized in the Acteal massacre" (sic.) Sensing that
the investigators were trying to whitewash the government's role
in the killings, CIESAS refused to participate in the study.
Aguilar Camin's sources for
his revisionist chronicle are instructive: the aforementioned
White Book and bulletins from the Attorney General's office where
the White Book was concocted. The writer also borrows liberally
from Gustavo Hirales, an ex-Marxist guerrillero in the 1970s
who was tortured and defected to the "mal gobierno"
where he fingered former comrades and prepared scenarios for
intelligence agencies. Hirales' "Road to Acteal",
based on his dispatches from Chiapas for a government-run newspaper
and published on the heels of the massacre, endorsed the White
Book's "inter-communal" skew and accused the Zapatistas
of inciting homicide in Chenalho.
Also cited by Aguilar: an unpublished
manuscript by Hirales's ex-guerrilla crony Manuel Anzaldo, whose
political faction had been given a franchise to exploit a sand
and gravel bank that the EZLN claimed belonged to a nearby Zapatista
village. Anzaldo's Internet page, "The Farmers Information
Service" (SIC by its Spanish initials) spread anti-Zapatista
venom throughout the highlands during the hostilities in Chenalho.
But the vertebrae of Aguilar
Camin's narrative is Flores's "The Other Injustice"
which argues the Abejas were killed in a gun battle between the
EZLN and its enemies and that the 83 prisoners being held for
the killings are as innocent as the driven snow.
In assembling "Return
to Acteal", Hector Aguilar Camin disregards in-depth reports
on the situation in the Chiapas highlands regularly issued between
1995 and 1997 by the San Cristobal-based Fray Bartolome de las
Casas Human Rights Center of which Bishop Ruiz remains the guiding
spirit, maintaining that the information is "loaded"
in favor of the Abejas and the EZLN.
The "FRAYBA" negotiated
disputes between Zapatista autonomias and official municipalities
during that period and meticulously documented the skein of killings
that gripped Chenalho between May and December 1997 in which
35 Indians were gunned down (18 associated with the PRI, 17 with
the EZLN and/or Las Abejas.) Despite the wholesale mayhem, no
local, state, or federal government raised a hand to stop the
bloodshed. "They just let Acteal happen," concludes
Hermann Bellinghausen, a veteran correspondent who covered the
killings day by day for the left tabloid La Jornada.
Responses to the Nexos pieces
were sharp and swift. The Abejas accused Aguilar Camin of being
"the voice of the killers." La Jornada assigned Bellinghausen
to write a 21-part series exposing the gross distortions in "Return
to Acteal." The Jornada reporter recalled that in the days
following Acteal, Aguilar Camin had written a front-page letter
to the leftist daily accusing it of "black and white journalism."
"No one in his right mind can accuse Zedillo of engineering
this crime," Aguilar avowed.
Despite the writer's exculpation
of Zedillo, there is overwhelming evidence that his government
committed crimes of omission and commission at every level before,
during, and after the Acteal massacre and that the killings of
the 49 Indians constitute a crime of state.
Acteal was, indeed, the bitter
fruit of the Chiapas Strategy Plan, a counter-insurgency plan
cooked up at the Seventh Military Region in the Chiapas state
capital of Tuxtla to combat the uprising in the 37 municipalities
where the EZLN had influence by arming and training "patriotic"
paramilitary units. The Chiapas Strategy Plan was implemented
by General Mario Renon Castillo, a graduate of the Center for
Special Forces at Fort Bragg North Carolina in counter-insurgency
warfare.
Least there be any question,
the "pojwanejetics" who attacked the Abejas were themselves
trained by an Mexican Army corporal, officially placed "on
leave" who had been ordered to show the paramilitaries how
to use their newly-acquired weapons. Mario Perez Ruiz told the
court he thought he would be killed if he refused to carry out
the orders of his superiors.
Aguilar Camin, on the other
hand, denies military involvement in the attack on the Abejas
and describes the "pojwanejetic" as a "self-defense"
squad that developed "spontaneously" in reaction to
the Zapatista uprising.
Evidence that the "mal
gobierno" and its state and local affiliates were up to
their necks in the Acteal massacre abounds. The PRI municipal
president of Chenalho bought the weapons that would be used against
the Abejas. The weapons were transported by police through military
checkpoints and distributed to the killers--the police even donated
their uniforms to the "pojwanejetic."
On the day of the lethal assault,
a detachment of state police witnessed the killing and did nothing
to stop it. A noontime phone call from the San Cristobal diocese
to Governor Julio Ruiz Ferro's office advising his Secretary
of Government (Ruiz Ferro was on vacation in California) of the
on-going massacre at Acteal elicited a promise to investigate.
But there was no investigation.
When the wounded began to arrive
in San Cristobal on the night of the 22nd, Chiapas state security
chief Jorge Enriquez Hernandez and the under-Secretary of Government
Uriel Jarquin drove to Acteal where they ordered the bodies of
the Abejas stacked and burnt before the press appeared the next
morning but the police took too long and daylight forced them
to load the corpses in dump trucks and drive them to the state
capital for "autopsies."
Forced to resign as governor,
Ruiz Ferro, who had full knowledge of the dangerous standoff
in Chenalho and refused to intervene, was promoted by Zedillo
to agricultural attaché at Mexico's Washington embassy
and is now reportedly a functionary of the Calderon regime.
Putting Indians on Indians--there
are more than a million indigenous peoples in Chiapas, a third
of the population--has always been the fulcrum of PRI control
of the state.
As noted, 83 people have been
processed and convicted for the Acteal massacre. All of them
are Indians. No state or federal official has ever been indicted
for the killings. Two generals, who served as police commanders
and were charged with dereliction of duty, fled the state and
have never been brought to justice. Zedillo is at Yale. The
Indians are in jail.
Are they the real killers?
All 83 are charged with murder and using prohibited firearms
which seems a stretch--no more than 40 "pojwanejetics"
took part in the massacre (Aguilar Camin insists it was only
nine.) Two key leaders of the paramilitaries have been freed.
Antonio Santis Lopez who organized the death squad is alive
and free in Chenalho. Antonio Vazquez Secum, who contracted
the killers after his son was murdered, either by his own comrades
because he refused to kick in to the paramilitaries' gun fund
or by Zapatista sharpshooters because he was driving a pick-up
filled with the Abejas' stolen coffee, was sentenced to 25 years
in prison but was released when he fell ill and died shortly
before the tenth anniversary of the massacre.
In 1999, United Nations rapateur
Asma Jahngar, now under house arrest in her native Pakistan,
visited Chiapas to take testimony from witnesses. The U.N. official
interviewed some of the prisoners and concluded that many of
the Indians had been rounded up and framed to get Zedillo off
the international human rights hook. "At least that's they
way they do it in my country" she observed to this reporter.
Ten years after Acteal, the
paramilitary scourge is still a malignant feature of the Chiapas
landscape. Groups like "Red Mask" (the name the pojwanejetics
took in Chenalho) and the incongruously named "Peace &
Justice", responsible for over 100 murders in the north
of the state, have just changed their initials. The Popular
Organization for the Defense of the Rights of Indian Farmers
(OPDDIC) is the latest avatar of the Chiapas Strategy Plan, staging
intermittent attacks on Zapatista autonomous communities in the
lowlands.
Three times in November, the
OPDDIC invaded the tiny rebel hamlet of Bolom Ajaw, firing long
guns and slashing the villagers with their machetes in an effort
to drive 70 families off land they have reclaimed from the hacienda
where they once slaved. "If you don't leave here, we will
cut your bodies to pieces and throw the pieces in the river,"
one paramilitary threatened. The violent attacks in Bolom Ajaw
spark fears that they are prelude to another Acteal. Just as
it did ten years ago, the mal gobierno does nothing.
Contact: johnross@igc.org
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