Dear friends,

Please find below a copy of our latest update from
Chiapas with the following news:
1. Corporate colonisation in Chiapas stalls peace
process
2. Zapatista prisoner support
3. Urgent appeal: prominent human rights lawyer Digna
Ochoa assassinated in Mexico
4. EZLN, Marcos on shadows and light
5. Solidarity for Portugese activist arrested in
Chiapas, held at detention centre in Mexico City

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Saludos solidarios

Chiapaslink


With thanks to Estacion Libre, Chiapas95, Enlace
Civil, La Red de Defensores, IMC Chiapas.

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1. Corporate colonisation in Chiapas stalls peace
process

Only six weeks after the Zapatistas historic March for
Indigenous Dignity which mobilised hundreds of
thousands across Mexico last March, federal
leglislators threw a spanner into the peace process by
approving a revised version of the San Andres Accords,
which waters-down key aspects of indigenous autonomy.

At the heart of the debate is the question of who will
control the adundant natural resources found in
indigenous territories, above all in the Zapatista
autonomous municipalities in Chiapas. The original
accord, signed in 1996 between the EZLN and the
Mexican government, grants indigenous communities
collective control of resources found on their lands.
These include oil, water, minerals and massive
biodiversity.

In almost diametric opposition to this agreement is
the infamous “Plan Puebla-Panama” (PPP) which fits in
nicely with the revised constitutional reforms
promoted by Fox and his pro-business party the PAN.
The thrust of this multi-million dollar development
plan is what we are seeing all over the world: the new
corporate colonialism. From Mexico’s central state,
Puebla, through six central American countries down to
Panama – with a specific focus on Chiapas - the
project includes the expansion of motorways, ports,
airports and railway systems to increase trade flows
in and out the region; the construction of
‘maquiladoras’ or sweat-shops in the region; the
further encroachment of the private sector in
agriculture; increased access for transnational
pharmaceuticals to the “genetic resources” of
Mesoamerican rainforests which can then be patented;
and “energy projects” involving gas and oil production
and the building of hydroelectric dams. The revised
law conveniently subordinates community control of
land use and ownership to national private property
law.

Resistance to the PPP is growing rapidly as more
information about its content is being shared. In
June, for example, at the “First Week for Cultural
and Biological Diversity”, representatives from 184
organisations from 15 countries expressed their
complete rejection of the PPP calling it "a new type
of colonialism allowing transnational businesses to
benefit while the underclass suffers." If approved in
their original form, the San Andre's Accords would
create a formidable obstacle to corporate designs on
Mexico's Indian lands. But above and beyond this
legislation, corporations have a long battle ahead of
them, facing some of the most radical and organised
communities in the world.

The military has not withdrawn from the 7 bases, but
actually relocated to old and new bases and
checkpoints. 3 of the “withdrawn” bases remain under
government control and the lands have not been
returned to neighbouring Zapatista communities.

According to the Chiapas Community Defenders, over 104
military operations have taken place between April and
July of 2001, while paramilitary harassment and
attacks have only increased. In fact, 11 members of
the government-created and sponsored paramilitary
group Paz y Justicia (those responsible for the
massacres in Acteal of 45 unarmed civilians in 1997)
were released after serving only 5 months in prison.

****************************

2. Zapatista prisoners support

9 Zapatista political prisoners remain incarcerated in
Chiapas, Tabasco and Queretaro under false charges
(names below). The Zapatista political prisoner
organisation La Voz de Cerro Hueco considers them to
be hostages of the government, pawns to be used to
force the Zapatistas to cave in on their demands.

SALVADOR LOPEZ GONZALES
ALEJANDRO MENDEZ DIAZ
GUSTAVO ESTRADA GOMEZ
RAFAEL LOPEZ SANTIZ
FRANCISCO PEREZ VAZQUEZ
ANGEL CONCEPCION PEREZ GUTIERREZ
CARRILLO VAZQUEZ LOPEZ
SERGIO GERONIMO SANCHEZ SAENZ
ANSELMO ROBLES SANCHEZ

Please send letters of support, in Spanish if
possible, to:
La Voz de Cerro Hueco
Av Diego Duguelay 36c
Barrio el Cerrillo
San Cristobal de las Casas
Chiapas, Mexico
Email:  bajlum_vozcerrohueco@hotmail.com

“Any political movement that does not support its
political internees is a sham movement”
Ojore Lutalo, political prisoner


*********************************

3. Urgent appeal: prominent human rights lawyer Digna
Ochoa assassinated in Mexico

With deep sadness and anger we received the news of
the brutal murder of Digna Ochoa, 37, in Mexico City
on Friday 19th October. She was a leading Mexican
human rights activist who has tirelessly defended
several members of the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation detained in prisons in Chiapas, Tabasco,
Veracruz and the State of Mexico, as well as Rodolfo
Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, two ecologists from
Guerrero state who have been jailed since May 1999 on
weapons and drug convictions for defending powerful
logging interests.

A threatening note left by her side was directed at
the Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Centre, where she
had worked before fleeing the country for six months
last year after a series of threats. It said:
"Bastards. If you carry on like this you will also be
touched. This is a warning, not a trick."

Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible,
in Spanish, English or your own language, to the
addresses below:
- deploring the killing of human rights lawyer Digna
Ochoa on 19 October in Mexico City;
- insisting that the authorities order an exhaustive
and independent investigation into the killing, taking
steps to ensure that vital evidence that could help
identify those responsible is preserved;
- expressing concern for the safety of members of
PRODH and human rights lawyers, Pilar Noriega and
Bárbara Zamora, who worked with Digna Ochoa, and
urging the authorities to give them appropriate
protection, in accordance with their own wishes;
- pointing out that the international community will
be closely monitoring the progress of the judicial
investigation into the killing of Digna Ochoa, and
asking them to ensure that it is conducted in
accordance with international human rights standards,
that those responsible are brought to justice, and
that they take thorough and effective action to end
attacks and harassment of human rights defenders in
Mexico.

President of the Republic
Lic. Vicente Fox Quesada
Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Residencia Oficial de "Los Pinos"
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec
México D.F., C.P. 11850, MEXICO
Fax: +52 5522 4117 (confirm on tel. 5522 7600)/5516
9537
Email:  vicente@fox2000.org.mx;  presidencia@gob.mx

Attorney General of the Republic
General Rafael Marcial Macedo de la Concha
Procurador General de la Republica
Procuraduría General de la República
Reforma Norte esq. Violeta 75
Col. Guerrero, Delegación Cuauhtémoc
México D.F., C.P. 06300, MEXICO
Fax: +52 5 346 0983/626 4419/346 0906/626 4426/346
2776

Attorney General of the Federal District
Mtro. Bernardo Bátiz Vázquez
Procurador General del Distrito Federal
Gabriel Hernández # 56, 5º piso, col. Doctores,
México D.F. 06720, MEXICO
Faxes: +52 5 345 5529

Minister of the Interior
Lic. Santiago Creel
Secretario de Gobernación
Secretaría de Gobernación
Bucareli 99, 1er. piso, Col. Juárez
Delegación Cuauhtémoc
México D.F., C.P.06600
MEXICO
Fax: (+52 5) 703 2171 / 546 5350 / 546 7388
E-mail:  santiagocreel@compuserve.com

COPIES TO: diplomatic representatives of Mexico
accredited to your country.
Embassy of Mexico
42 Hertford St
London W1Y 7TF
Tel. 020-7499 8586
Fax 020-7495 4035
Email  mexuk@easynet.co.uk

Human Rights Centre
"Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez" A.C., (PRODH)
Serapio Rendon 57-B
Col. San Rafael, 06470
México D.F. MEXICO
Edgar Cortez / Alfredo Castillo
Tel: (52 5) 566 7854, 546 8217
Fax: (52 5) 535 6892


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4. EZLN, Marcos on Shadows and Light


To the relatives of Digna Ochoa y Pla'cido:

To the members of the Miguel Agusti'n Pro Human Rights
Center:

Brothers and sisters:

I am writing you in the name of the old ones,
children, men and women of the Zapatista Army of
National Liberation.

We have just heard of the assassination of Digna Ochoa
y Pla'cido, so long foretold and so irresponsibly
discounted. The crime which blotted out this life
reaches and is enough to shock any honest person into
indignation. When social fighters are eliminated, the
Powers hold parties, sport their best finery, and let
drop a few coins so that their charity might purchase
indifference. There is no change above other than
that dictated by fashion, and, below, injustice and
poverty are repeated in faces and steps. There will
be sadness and anger below, but no longer will there
be impotence.

The crime committed against Digna will most certainly
cast a shadow over the steps of all those men and
women who have made the defense of human rights their
path and goal.

But we must everywhere build that collective light
which will dispel that shadow, and which will prevent
the clock from once again marking the yesterdays of
impunity, cynicism and indifference, which are nothing
but the clothing of forgetting.

We cannot find the words which would serve, at the
same time, to hurt and to relieve the grief which is
veiling our, and your, eyes, but not our course.
Anyway, our silence goes as timid embrace, because you
know that you are accompanied in silence as well.

Vale. Salud and long life to she who carried vocation
and destiny in name.

For the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee
- General Command of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

>From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.

Mexico, October of 2001.

(Translated by irlandesa)

*************************************
5. Solidarity for Portugese activist arrested in
Chiapas, held at detention centre in Mexico City

Wednesday, Octobre 24, 2001

Jose Alberto Bettencourt’s letter to La Jornada
outlining what happened to him and his treatment in
Mexico City at the hands of immigration.

translation to english by imc chiapas

I am writing from the Immigration Detention Centre in
Iztapalapa, (Calle
Agujas), Mexico city, where I have been held since the
10th of October. I am
a Portuguese citizen and I was detained in San
Cristobal de las Casas while
chatting with some people who were putting up posters
against the war in
Afghanistan. The municipal police arrested me without
any cause and then
accused me of helping to put up the posters. I was
taken to the Immigration
Offices. Then they told me that I would not be charged
with anything but I
was held there all night. The immigration officers
listened to me and gave
me an order to leave the country within 10 days. On my
way home I was once
again detained on the excuse that there was some
irregularity. I was not
allowed to call my lawyer. After seven hours of
psychological pressure while
the migration officials went here and there, filling
out papers without
saying anything to me other than threatening to hand
my case over to the
police, I was taken to Tapachula in the back of a van.
Meanwhile the police
had spoken to the press, starting a campaign against
me. They created
connections between me and Bin Laden which ended up
being published back in
Portugal.

I was accused of participating in political acts,
being illegally in the
country as well as the falsification of documents
owing to the fact that
when I entered the country in Cancun, on the 23rd of
July, the immigration
officer gave me a tourist card for 30 days, I asked
for ninety and the
officer wrote 90 over the 30 in the number of days
section. Now, under the
circumstances, I asked them to confirm this in Cancun
but it turned out that
the officer had not changed the papers that remained
in the offices. Could
that be because I did not give him the 100 dollar
bribe he asked me for? I
was taken to Mexico City where I am right now and
where I have been visited
by more migration officials to get me to confess my
link with supposed
political networks. The arbitrariness of my situation
upsets me and I will
not lie to help immigration to make a case against me.
Now I do not know
where I stand, because without any proven case, I know
not whether I will be
expelled, extradited or freed as even the general
secretary of the
Portuguese Embassy has not been informed of any
decision. Under these
circumstances, I am asking for the investigation into
the number of days on
my visa to be speeded up and for the National
Immigration Institute to give
me the decision they promised I would have a week ago.

I also wish to draw attention to the overcrowding we
are subjected to in the
Immigration Detention Centre where I am at the moment.
Where, surrounded by
noise 200 people are confined to a block designed for
100. It would be good
if some human rights organisation could get the twelve
year old minor, the
deaf-mute and the four people who should be in a
psychiatric hospital, out
of here. Only yesterday while the Hindus who are also
detained here were
celebrating Nauratri (a religious festival) one of the
guards threw a stone
at the skylight and injured someone.

It is contradictory that a country such as Mexico that
makes tourism a
priority treats its visitors with so little respect
and violates their human
rights, as well as, in the much vaunted fight against
terrorism they should
train their police and immigration officials to
distinguish between
important and/or dangerous cases and people, and learn
the difference
between these and people who are, in some way,
implicated in calls for
peace.

I ask for help and solidarity from all those people
and organisations that
are moved by this issue and demand a prompt solution
to my case.

Jose' Alberto Bettencourt






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