[Nettime-bold] On satellite images of the Selva and thickening plots + DETERIORATING Chiapas

["ricardo dominguez" <rdom@thing.net>]

[ [[ WE NEED OBSERVERS. IF YOU HAVE A COUPLE OF
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Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 09:02:31 +1000
To: chiapas-i@eco.utexas.edu
Subject: On satellite images of the Selva and thickening plots

Originally published in Spanish by La Jornada
_______________________
Translated by irlandesa

La Jornada
Monday, March 25, 2002.

US, World and Transnational Agencies Want to Clear
Indigenous Out of Montes Azules

Hermann Bellinghausen, correspondent.

Northern Selva Lacandona, Chiapas.
March 24.

Never before have the interest and actions of the United States government,
large
transnational companies and some world agencies (which range from the UN to
Conservation International, and include all levels of the federal
government.the
Mexican one) been so obvious in the Selva Lacandona and in Montes Azules.
Environmental, bioprospecting, eco-tourism and birth control (eventually,
sterilization of indigenous women) programs are acting as the spearhead
for a far-reaching strategic and military project.  According to Mexican
officials,
it is an "international security" matter, a problem of "serious
ungovernability,"
a "war operation."

According to calculations by the Chiapas state government, approximately
half of these communities are EZLN support bases.  Others belong to the
ARIC-Independent, two more to the PRI, and one to the CIOAC.  This gives
the question an even more immense political dimension.  Over the last few
years, various independent agencies have described the environmental
concerns of the Mexican and US governments in the Selva Lacandona
as being military and geo-strategic "alibis."

The Collective of Information and Analysis of the Selva Region, an
independent observation agency in the region, released two
comprehensive documents which report recent events in the area
and denounce the imminent dislocation of dozens of indigenous
communities in and around Montes Azules. These documents
analyze the "strategic regional focal points of the occupation-handing
over of the humid central mountainous massif" of Chiapas and the
scenarios of "expulsion-relocation-re-concentration" of the communities.
A large part of this information had already been made public, and,
in those cases where it was not, it is in agreement with other sources
consulted by La Jornada.

It is a plot with many threads, and at the core are crouched strategic
and commercial interests that are putting the nation's sovereignty
at risk and creating fear and anxiety in the indigenous communities,
which are in danger of being attacked and violently dislocated.
Yes, legally.

To the Patios of Nueva Palestina

If the point of the plot is not in the demands which were presented
by Lacando'n representatives last September 12, where could it be?
On that date, using information and aerial photographs provided by
Conservation International-Mexico and the US government agency
AID [Agency for International Development] - the Lacando'n demanded
that Governor Pablo Salazar Mendiguchi'a expel, using the Army, all
the settlements and clearings in Montes Azules.  They said, however,
that they would view as a gesture of good faith the withdrawal of villages
in the lake area (Suspiro, Ojos Azules and Ocotal), in the northeast of
the biosphere reserve.

It is precisely there that Conservation International (CI) has been
supporting work groups, and it has taken an extraordinary interest
in the lakes.  The photographs which the Lacando'n displayed were
taken by the fixed digital camera from the airplane which the international
agency maintains in the region.  In just April of 2001, the CI - in a hotel
in Tuxtla Gutie'rrez - presented to friendly NGOs the geographic
information system that had been donated by the USAID, which is
based on satellite images provided by NASA, with a focus of
up to 10 by 10 meters.

The collective stated, in its detailed investigation, that the CI and the
USAID used the village of Nueva Palestina, in the Selva Lacandona,
as an example.  They showed shots from a satellite of the patio
of an indigenous' house, where flowerpots and a completely
identifiable woman could be distinguished.  They also showed
the airplane, with USAID markings, and the routes it used for
monitoring the entire Selva Lacandona (not just the Biosphere
Reserve).  Lastly, they stated that they are carrying out a flight
once a week through the region.

Conservation International had demanded, in May of 2001,
that the Zedillo and Albores governments take all necessary
measures for the immediate dislocation of those populations.
It was in late September, however, when a first group of Americans,
in vehicles with trailers, managed to enter into the lake area.
The researchers had left the area during the first weeks of
January of 1994.  The Army has maintained a camp close to
El Suspiro since 1995, which has been "protecting" the
researchers' activities, the collective states.

The Return of the Impassive American

In October, while President Fox was visiting New York and
meeting with George W. Bush, a delegation of US diplomats
traveled from Mexico City to the Montes Azules.  There was a
military attache', the person in charge of economic and
commercial affairs and the one in charge of political affairs
at the US Embassy in Mexico.

They met with Ignacio March, the CI director in Mexico, and,
after visiting the Selva, they spoke with the traditional doctors
of Los Altos, members of Compitch (an independent organization
which, incidentally, had just stopped a US bioprospecting
project in their communities).  The people from Compitch
heard them say to the commercial attache' from Washington
in our country:  "I'm here representing my government and
our companies.  We want to do bioprospecting in the Selva
Lacandona, but we're also interested in doing it in all of
Chiapas and all over the world.  Our interest is, basically,
commercial and strategic."  That same day - oh irony! - Vicente
Fox was meeting with Bush in Manhattan.

The US delegation returned to Chiapas in November, and
it met with state and federal officials.  The collective states
that there were exhaustive meetings, and the diplomats
expressed "insistent questions about the Selva and the
activities of the EZLN."  And, with that elephantine tact which
those guys up in Washington have, they explored the possibility
of a military government - they didn't say whether interim or
not - by Salazar Mendiguchi'a.

In late November, the Los Angeles Times and the Houston Chronicle
published special supplements on Montes Azules.  They showed
photographs of forests in flames.  They assumed that it was a
 "regional security" issue.  In December, the former head of National
Security and present Mexican delegate on the UN Security Council,
Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, accompanied by the heads of the PGR
and Profepa, stated that there are "real" environmental "terrorist
activities"
 in nine regions in the country.  The State would shortly, he
announced, be deploying "all their force on a military scale" in
those regions, since it was a "war operation."

The location where the "ungovernability" would be dealt with
in a priority manner was revealed a few days later by the head
of Profepa (environmental ombudsman designated by the Executive):
Montes Azules.  Also at the end of the year, Semarnat announced
that in 2002 the border with Guatemala (which surrounds
the north of the Selva Lacandona) would be sealed, and
the Sedena set up a new military control point in Taniperla
(on the other side of the Montes Azules).

And so, on the afternoon of January 9 of this year, a hundred
soldiers conducted two Public Ministry agents from Ocosingo
across the lake to the zapatista community of Laguna El Suspiro.
They entered the village, and, in the name of the government,
offered money to the women there "so that they would leave here."
 They promised to pay them the maize and oranges which
the soldiers had "expropriated" from them five years ago.
 "Take the payment, if you don't, then we'll have to see
you here again real soon."

That was, in 2002, the "first" notification of expulsion to a
community.  Since then, military overflights have multiplied
above the communities inside the Montes Azules and in
the Autonomous Municipalities of the ca~adas of the Selva
Lacandona.  In some cases, officials from Semarnat and
Profepa have arrived.  On February 21, five emissaries
from Profepa were detained in Santa Elena by hundreds
of campesinos from the Union of Unions of Agua Azul,
 when they were heading towards Nuevo Guadalupe Tepeyac.
The indigenous demanded negotiations, and they refused to be dislocated.

Days later, the Ricardo Flores Mago'n Autonomous Municipality
denounced threats of military expulsion which were being
experienced by communities in the northeastern part of the
biosphere reserve and of the Selva Lacandona.  The
independent authorities said that they would defend their lands.

The ARIC-Independent has repeatedly proposed that, instead
of being dislocated, it should be the comuneros in the region
themselves who are entrusted with the management and
preservation of the forest, as established by Convention
167 of the ILO, which was signed by Mexico.  This convention
was the foundation of the San Andre's Accords of 1996, but
not of the indigenous law which was approved by Congress last year.

This month the threads of the plot have continued their course.
The National Forestry Commission (Conafor) announced, in
Zapopan, Jalisco, that its Director General would be participating
in the Second United Nations Forum on Forests, which was
held between March 12 and 15 in New York.  Together with
the former PAN governor and current head of Conafor, Alberto
Ca'rdenas, participating in the Forum were the Departments
of the Environment, .Foreign Relations and the Economy.

The Conafor explained in a bulletin that the Forum's objective
was to "promote the management, conservation and sustainable
development of all kinds of forests," as well as to "strengthen
the political commitments made in that regard."  Without
specifying exactly what those commitments were, the
Conafor communique' announced that "with the President
of the Republic, Vicente Fox Quesada, having declared that
the forestry issue is a matter of national security, the head
of Conafor will be proposing on that stage, in front of the
representatives of 188 countries of the UN, that forests
be considered a matter of international security."

While the Forum was going on in New York, on the 13th the
Commission of Forests and Selvas of the Chiapas Congress
passed a law that had been proposed by Governor Salazar
Mendiguchi'a, weeks before, which imposed severe sanctions
on those who fell or burn trees.

And so, where are the US agencies in the case?  In February,
Dr. Ernesto Enckerlin, of the National Commission for Protected
Areas, admitted that the government had been pressured by
environmental NGOs, among them the CI, to expel communities
 from the Montes Azules.

The CI has insisted that it does not involve itself in the country's
agrarian or political affairs, although it "provided" photographs
to the Lacando'n in order to "provide a basis" for their legal demands.
The same NGO, in their Maya Selva project, has a population
and environmental program, whose objective is to contain
the "overpopulation problem."  Along with the IMSS and Mexfam,
the CI is holding reproductive health and gender workshops
with women in the Selva.  It has been testing various
contraceptive methods "in order to see which works best,"
according to officials.  Lacando'n women are excluded,
because 'there are very few of them left."

<<<>>>MORE<<<>>>

>From: pablo gonzalez <aztlan71@yahoo.com>
>Subject: Fwd: RIGHT NOW!
>Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 22:00:15 -0800 (PST)

Pablo Gonzalez, Department of Anthropology
Universidad de Tejas(tlan) en Austin(tlan)
Mexican Borderlands Program
{El/La Xicanism@ es El/La Zapatism@}

Hello EL,

I haven't written to this list in a long time for many reasons
of which none are equal to my own laziness and disorganization,
 however, I have decided to try and write a quick message
to let you all know that I think THE SITUATION IS
DOWN HERE IS DETERIORATING VERY QUICKLY
and we are going to need your help in the upcoming weeks.

In the last few days there has been what seems
to be a series of attacks that when added up can
only mean a coordinated strategy on the part of the Mexican
Gov. against the EZ. First, as was posted to this list,
about a week and a half ago Pablo Salazar started
viciously attacking Miguel Angel de Los Santos,
claiming that Miguel was stealing the money that
was paid to the families he has represented. The
governor has now turned his focus on the Red
de Defensores as an organization itself claiming
that it is a group that has built a lucrative business
doing human rights work (these attaks would otherwise be
normal except that they are so vicious and so constant:
Pablo Salazar makes statements about the Red on
the radio at least once a day: curiously enough,
the Red is the only human rights group made up
of all indigenous people with no money whatsoever)). ]
Second, last week government officials started talking
about displacing the bases of support that are in the
Montes Azules Bioreserve an action that is going to be
carried out by the PFP and would remove over 35
inidgenous communities (thousands of people) in
the Autonomous Municipality of Ricardo Flores Magon
from their lands. Third, this weekend there was an attack
on the Bases of Support in the Autonomous Municipality
of Morelia by a newly formed paramilitary group, this
group also made a particular point to attack the foreign
observers present in this municipality. Forth, the bases
of Support in the Northern Zone of Chiapas have sent
out an urgent communique saying that the paramilitary
group Paz y Justicia is up, active, and moving again in their
region and that they have recieved info. that P y J are
looking to strike at the bases of support at any moment.

All of these things add up to no good and it would
seem that the strategy that is going on here is
first neutralize the NGO's and international presence in
Chiapas and then to plan a head on strike against
the communities themselves. I hope I am mistaken
but I have been here long enough to know when things
are looking serious.

WE NEED OBSERVERS. IF YOU HAVE A COUPLE OF
WEEKS AND YOU CAN GET DOWN HERE OR
YOU HAVE A TRUSTWORTHY FRIEND WHO CAN
DO THE SAME LET ME KNOW ASAP!!!!!!


Alvaro



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