Acteal at Ten: Peace, No Matter the Cost

Ten years ago, on December 22, 1997, the infamous massacre at Acteal, a small and very poor Tsotsil indigenous village in the highlands of Chiapas—populated in large part by homeless refugees at that time—left 45 women, children, and men savagely murdered by paramilitaries. Ten years ago surviving members of the nonviolent organization Las Abejas (“The Bees”) had to begin a long process of mourning their loved ones while also coming to grips with the fact that they had been specifically targeted in federal, state, and local governments’ counterinsurgency tactics designed to crush the Zapatista movement—even though they themselves were not Zapatistas. Ten years ago Las Abejas had to recommit themselves to the long and difficult labor of taking a stand for indigenous justice, while knowing better than anyone the ultimate cost they might pay.

Thus they say: “We opt for peace, no matter the cost, no matter the consequences.”

(Forty-five candles, lit at the beginning of the International Conference against Impunity, commemorate the victims of the 1997 Acteal massacre. Photo by Robert M. Saper.)

Ten years ago, Witness for Peace heard the devastating news and the courageous story of Las Abejas. We recognized the link in tactics at Acteal with U.S. counterinsurgency training, demonstrated at that time by Mexico’s support of paramilitary groups in Chiapas who were trained by some of the hundreds of Mexican officers who graduated from the US Army School of the Americas or who were instructed by the Green Beret 7th Special Forces Group at Ft. Bragg. Thus began our U.S. policy work in Mexico and our ongoing collaboration and support for Las Abejas and their courageous option for peace.

Their efforts continue, and indeed there are many who remember and offer their support.  Several thousand were present for the 10th anniversary celebration at the “Sacred Land of the Martyrs,” and in the days leading up to the event, hundreds of internationals descended on Acteal to take part. At the International Conference against Impunity, convened and hosted by Las Abejas (blog in Spanish at http://acteal.blogspot.com/) on December 20 and 21, there were 220 attendees who showed up for the speaking events and workshops; they included visitors from 13 foreign countries and 53 Mexican and international organizations. Speakers who offered an analysis of the eroding human rights situation in Mexico included leaders of prominent organizations, many of them Witness for Peace partners, as well as the much-loved and revered bishops Samuel Ruiz Garcia (retired bishop of San Cristobal) and Raul Vera Lopez (former auxiliary bishop of San Cristobal, current bishop of Saltillo), who read from “Acteal at 10 Years: Remembering so We Don’t Forget” (link to document in Spanish), the declaration written by the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (FrayBart) which demands that the government (both federal and state), because of its support for rural paramilitary groups, be held responsible for Acteal.

(Bishops (from L to R) Felipe Arizmendi, Samuel Ruiz, Enrique Diaz and Raul Vera bow their heads in silence as Maria Vasquez Gomez (center) and other members of Las Abejas remember those who died at Acteal. Photo by Robert M. Saper.)

Events concluded festively on December 22 as the crowded open-air auditorium filled to capacity, with many onlookers having to find seats perched on the mountainside in order to get a good view. Tsotsil men with leadership functions from the 5 different municipalities in which Las Abejas are present, clad in the black wool of their chuks and the colorful ribbons of their headdresses, seated themselves facing the altar on one side, and the Mayan Women of Las Abejas, dressed in colorful handwoven designs and often covering their heads with woven prayer shalls, sat opposite them. The Acteal choir welcomed all with song, and with a huge banner depicting the heritage and the struggles of Las Abejas as a backdrop, the current bishops Enrique Diaz (Diocese of San Cristobal) and Felipe Arizmendi (Archdiocese of Tuxtla Gutierrez), as well as Samuel Ruiz and Raul Vera and 20 or so priests and deacons who have long been involved with popular struggles in Chiapas, listened as Maria Vasquez Gomez—who lost 9 family members in the massacre—and several other women stated their demands: respect for women’s rights and participation both inside Las Abejas and in larger society, the end to impunity, and peace in the region and in the world.

During the liturgy that followed, the names of all 45 persons killed in the massacre were solemnly read aloud as their surviving family members carried Mayan crosses to the altar in their memory. Many tears accompanied the prayers of remembrance as they were lifted upward by the fragrance of pine and smoky copal. “Peace, no matter the cost,” is a matter of deep sadness in Acteal, but it has an authenticity there quite unlike that of any other place.

(Women and men of Las Abejas at various points during the commemoration activities. Photos by Robert M. Saper.)

Actions

During the International Conference against Impunity held on December 20 and 21, participants worked in small groups to formulate the next phase of action aimed at addressing the lingering threat of violence (although they are relatively dormant, armed paramilitaries persist in the region without any government effort to disarm them), working for the respect of indigenous and women’s rights, clarifying the facts of the case and counteracting official attempts to downplay the massacre, and demanding that the public hold the highest levels of government accountable.

In the final declaration of the Conference two very concrete measures were adopted.  The first is the creation of a truth commission in order to confront prominent mainstream media attempts to downplay the involvement of the government in the massacre. In this process, Las Abejas hope to create a documentation resource center (populated with videos, interviews, and documents) that will preserve the memory of the massacre for future generations and firmly establish the truth so that reconciliation can begin in the communities in and around Acteal.

A second concrete measure is Las Abejas’ demand that Mexico implement the recently promulgated UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into law, a step that would officially bind government and politicians to recognize autonomy and self-determination for native peoples, as well as to acknowledge officially collective and communal rights. Mexico voted in favor of the declaration at the UN General Assembly, but there has been little if any discussion of how Mexico plans to incorporate it into national policy; failures in the government’s commitment to the 1996 San Andres Accords leave many doubting the possibility of any meaningful legislation. However, if and when there is an international convention to draw up concrete pieces of international legislation, the UN declaration could be cause for a new kind of international pressure for establishing social justice for native peoples.

However, inasmuch as this concerns U.S. citizens, there is a problem: the United States did not vote in favor of the declaration on the classic liberalist grounds that all individuals are equal before the law (surely the unspoken reason is the cost of owning up to the sins of our history of genocide against native peoples in our own country). Without the U.S. becoming a signatory to the declaration or a related convention, there is little official room for U.S. citizens to make an argument about our foreign policy as it affects indigenous claims to land, resources, culture, customs, and—when you consider redress for the massacre at Acteal—maybe even life itself. When we reflect on our involvement in counterinsurgency tactics against indigenous peoples (and when we consider the poverty of and blatant disregard for the self-determination of Native Americans in the U.S.) it should be clear that pressuring our government to recognize the UN declaration is a moral imperative and one of the best ways we can be in solidarity with Las Abejas in their struggle for justice.

International participants at the convention also proposed the following initiatives to promote overseas visibility of, awareness of, and solidarity with Las Abejas:

• Improving collaborative relationships between Las Abejas and the international organizations that support them.
• Collaborating with Las Abejas in the diffusion of information (contributing to their blog, assisting with translation of their communiqués to other languages, using multimedia) and sharing with Las Abejas accounts of solidarity actions taken by the international organizations that support them.
• Facilitating exchange opportunities for members of Las Abejas in other countries (encounters with other native peoples, speakers tours, and other forms of interaction and spreading the word).
• Writing letters pressuring the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to hear and try the still-pending case of government impunity in Acteal (the case was submitted by FrayBart in 2005).
• Writing letters requesting that Yale University dismiss former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, Director of the Center for the Study of Globalization, on the grounds of his complicity in planning and permitting the massacre.

  (Readers can find out more about these latter two actions at the website of the film “A Massacre Foretold” under the section called What You Can Do.)

Ultimately, for those of us from the United States, our solidarity action with Las Abejas—and the many other people in Latin America who suffer military and economic violence—must involve confronting and denouncing U.S. trade policy in the hemisphere and the military support, training, and funding our government uses to secure its interests.

(A surviving family member of one of the Acteal victims, carrying flowers and a traditional Mayan cross in memoriam. Photo by Robert M. Saper.)

Further Reading

See “Las Abejas Civil Organization: 10 years After the Killings in Acteal: ‘We’re Still Hungry for Justice, Thirsty for Peace’” on the NarcoNews Bulletin

See “Ten Years Later, It’s Time to Recognize the U.S. Government’s Responsibility for Acteal” on the NarcoNews Bulletin

See Darrin Wood’s historic (and heavily censored) article “Bury My Heart at Acteal” on the Global Exchange website