Nettie Wild, Tom Hansen - Paramilitaries in Mexico (1999)

Philip Babbage: This week on Making Contact.

Nettie Wild: In Zapatista territory, the Mexican military rumbles through the communities, sometimes twice a day, sometimes twice a week. And you can see how much American-made hardware is down there.

Tom Hansen: The Zapatista vision of social and political change is really a new vision. Their position is to establish democratic participatory structures within communities and then let the communities decide what that platform is going to be.

Philip Babbage: Currently, there's a ceasefire among Zapatista guerrillas and the Mexican But the Mexican Army continues to attempt to intimidate these rebels, with at least 30,000 troops stationed on the edge of their camps. And communities sympathetic to the Zapatista cause have been targeted by paramilitary units with tacit support from the Mexican military. On this program, we take a look at what's been described as a hidden war against these communities. I'm Philip Babbage, your host this week on Making Contact, an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas, and the world we live in.

Speaker 4: I'm a member of the Mexican Army.

Philip Babbage: In some conflict zones, there are media representatives, international observers, and perhaps government officials who are able to report back to the rest of the world about what's going on. In Chiapas, for example, major media outlets have intermittently covered the Zapatista uprising, which began January 1st, 1994. Leaders of that movement say that media coverage and international awareness of their plight is virtually the only thing stopping the Mexican government from attacking them. military from moving in and annihilating them. But what if no one is watching? What then? Just north of the conflict zone in Chiapas, that was exactly the situation until Canadian filmmaker Nettie Wild began filming the struggle of a small Mexican village against paramilitary troops. Many of the villagers were Zapatista supporters, while a handful was allied with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Mexico's most powerful political party, known as the PRI.

Nettie Wild: We become very involved in the story of a group of 2,000 people who are scared out of their village. They wake up one morning, they look out their windows of their houses, and they realize that all the families that are aligned with the ruling party are being trucked out of the village. They're being moved out of the village. Every single one of them. And so everybody else, all of whom are being accused of being Zapatistas, some of whom probably are, many of whom are just kind of caught in the middle, they think, uh-oh, what does this mean? This probably means we're going to be attacked. So the majority of the villagers take off. There's 2,000 of them. And when we ran into them, they had been— it was 4 months after they had left. They were living, camping out in a little tiny village, which, before they had arrived, had 800 people in it. Now there were 2,800 people. They were literally starving, and they had to get back. We end up going back with them. They asked us if we would go back with them in their attempt to go back to their village. And they were very straightforward. They were using our camera as protection. They needed something, some outside eyes to accompany them back, to stop— To stop the violence. They didn't know what. If there were going to be bullets, maybe it would stop the guns.

Speaker 4: So in a sense, you were acting as international observers almost.

Nettie Wild: Yeah, yeah. So we decided, yes, we would go back with them. It was so interesting, too, because when we first came into their village, we had run into a couple of their representatives beforehand. And we follow them as they go to the church for help. Can the church help them go back to the village? They go to the Zapatistas. Can the Zapatistas help them go back? And they get very polite. No. Not because the church and the Zapatistas don't support them, but they're stuck. The Zapatistas were stuck in the middle of peace talks. The church, the local priest in that area had had Molotov cocktails thrown at him. He had death threats. If he had gone anywhere near that village, in fact, it would have been like the spark that would have sent it all off, started another armed conflict. And so when we arrived, When we came into this village, because we'd gotten a note had been sent to the town where we were saying, yes, we're going to make an attempt to go back. Do you want to come back with us? When we came into this village, all these people came streaming out of the fields. They were really happy to see us. And then we started to realize that they, in turn, started to realize that we were just a film crew, that we weren't a human rights commission, that we weren't somebody that the bishop had sent. We weren't, you know, at the head of a—

Speaker 6: Right.

Nettie Wild: You know, hundreds of press. It was just a film crew. And the look of disappointment in their faces was unforgettable because they realized they were completely alone. And that was the story that we were starting to tell, was that what happens when civilians, you know, they are inspired by what the Zapatistas are saying and they not take up arms, but they take up the ideas?

Speaker 7: Right.

Nettie Wild: Then who's there for them? And what they were discovering is they were there on their own.

Philip Babbage: As you will hear in the following audio excerpt from Wald's film A Place Called Chiapas, Wald and her crew discovered that there were direct ties between paramilitary troops and the Mexican Army. The excerpt picks up just as the film crew encounters the villagers for the first time.

Nettie Wild: I followed dark rumors of fear and violence to the north of Chiapas. Here, villages are deeply divided between Zapatista supporters and villagers who work directly with the ruling party and profit from it. Some of the government supporters have created paramilitary groups. They work with the military, but sometimes—

Speaker 6: ¿Cómo te llamas?

Nettie Wild: —they work outside of it, too. One of the groups, ironically, is called Paz y Justicia—peace and justice. Anyone who opposes them, they call Zapatistas. Informado 21, le informa. Finalmente le informo que el ballet concierto. We circle around roads controlled by the Peace and Justice paramilitary and then walk into the tiny village of Homajillo. We find 2,000 Zapatista sympathizers, who, in fear of the Peace and Justice group, have abandoned their village.

Speaker 6: Now they are marooned here in Homa Hill, an hour and a half away.

Nettie Wild: They've become refugees in their own country. One morning, the refugees woke up to find the state police evacuating all ruling party supporters from their home village. Manuel García and Manuel Pérez were afraid they were going to be attacked. They fled their homes. There's supposed to be a ceasefire, but these people have been forced to flee their village. They are Zapatista supporters, but if they go home, can and will the Zapatistas protect them? I begin to realize my camera is framing the gap between rhetoric and reality. The Cholul Indians— that's where— the area where we were— they're extraordinary people. And when they meet to make a decision, they all get together and they all talk at once. So you have this extraordinary— I guess it's the sound of democracy. It's, you know, 200, 300 people all All talking at once. And then all of a sudden, they stop, and it appears they've made a decision. And out of this kind of scrum, somebody came forward and said, well, even though it's just you, we would like to go back. We'd like you to come with us. And when we go back, we'd like to send, in fact, a kind of front group of 4 representatives to go back with you. And we'd like you to present the issues to whoever is still in our village, because they didn't know. if it was going to be the paramilitaries alone or the paramilitaries plus the state police or the Mexican military or whatever. And I said at the time, I can barely pronounce the name of your village, let alone know what your demands are. Maybe we could rethink this. And so they went back into their hubbub. And they came out of it. And between the two of us, these two groups, my crew and And this group of people, we had this extraordinary discussion about the role of the media. Hmm. It was the most pragmatic discussion you could ever imagine. And out of it, we came out with a game plan. And when we went back into that village, we had our different roles kind of chiseled out. They would present their demands. They decided that a group of 500 women without children and men would go back together with us, that there would be 4 representatives, that the 4 The representatives would present the demands, i.e., we want to come home, and that the film crew— we felt good about asking one question. We thought that as outsiders, we had the right to ask one question. And that was to whoever was there, will you provide security? Will you guarantee the lives of these people should they return to their homes? So there we are. We walked— even to get into this village, we had to hire mules and walk in for for 2 days to get around the paramilitaries who had blocked all the roads. Eventually, we, with the 500 people, we tromped through the jungle, and we come around the kind of bend, the turn into the village. It's the first time they've been there in 4 or 5 months. We round the corner, and there we see it. The state police have built bunkers. Bunkers? They have automatic machine guns on tripods that are pointing out into the entrance of the village. And behind them are the paramilitary groups. Hmm. And there in the frame, we had basically the lie. Mr. Zedillo says that his government is not working with the paramilitary groups. And there it was. They were. And so the first instant— this is a big scene in the film. And the first instance in the film, in this scene, The commanding officer of the state police, his number one objective is to get us to turn off our camera because he's caught with his pants firmly down around his ankles and he knows it.

Speaker 7: And then—

Speaker 4: Obviously, you didn't turn off the cameras, though.

Nettie Wild: No, we didn't turn them off. And eventually, the people, the women really wanted to get back into the village to see if their houses still existed. Never mind if they got to stay. They just wanted to know if there was anything to come back to. And so eventually, perhaps because the camera was there, the paramilitaries and the state police allow the refugees and our crew to go to take a look at the houses. We go and we start taking a look at the houses, and they're completely and utterly destroyed.

Philip Babbage: We'll have more from filmmaker Nettie Wild later in this program.

Speaker 7: You're listening to Making Contact. A production of The National Radio Project. This radio program can be heard across North America, in South Africa, and on the internet. You can also hear us on Radio for Peace International Shortwave. If you want more information about the subject of this week's show, call The National Radio Project. It's toll-free, 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts.

Eric Hamako: And for more information about this week's show, visit our website at www.thenationalradioproject.org.

Speaker 7: 800-529-5736. We also welcome comments and suggestions for future programs.

Philip Babbage: In June 1999, human rights groups reported that the Mexican military and police had stepped up repression and intimidation against Zapatista and suspected Zapatista communities. In light of this, international observers have traveled to Chiapas in an attempt to prevent further violence against these communities. which are often unarmed. Starting last year, however, the Mexican government began deporting international observers. Tom Hansen, an American, was one of the first observers to be kicked out of Mexico. Making Contacts' Eric Hamako has more.

Eric Hamako: To support the indigenous people of Chiapas, an international coalition of over 70 human rights and economic justice organizations has formed the Mexico Solidarity Network. According to the Mexico Solidarity Network's U.S. coordinator, Tom Hansen, As popular resistance to the military and paramilitary occupation has risen, so has government and paramilitary repression.

Tom Hansen: There's at least 12 paramilitaries that we know of now. When I say we know of them, some of them have printed up t-shirts with their names on them. In one case, 2 years ago, they received a $400,000 budget line in the state budget. They walk around openly with heavy weapons, M16s and AK-47s. And in a country with very strict gun control, this wouldn't be possible without the active collaboration of the local and state police forces. They're armed and trained by the Mexican military. And this has been documented over and over again by low-level military personnel who have testified to the fact that they've taken part in the training. Most of their weapons were produced in the United States, either sold to the Mexican military— Right. Under contracts that are licensed by our State Department or given to the Mexican military under the auspices of fighting the drug war. The big joke there is that there weren't any drugs in Chiapas, in the indigenous communities, until 60,000 Mexican Army troops arrived, and they brought cocaine and marijuana and heroin with them. But in any case, they've also— what the troops can't do or are unwilling to do for publicity reasons during the day The death squads and paramilitaries do at night. They set up roadblocks all over the state of Chiapas. They collect what they call tolls. They're basically bribes. Anybody who's not affiliated with them who wants to pass a road, for example, to take chickens or eggs or corn to market to sell, they need to pay a percentage of what they're taking to the death squads and the paramilitaries. And they in order to even take their produce to market. Many of the communities, especially in the northern region of Chiapas, have been completely terrorized by the presence of these paramilitaries. There are— people are afraid to go out and work their crops. There's— as a result, there's widespread malnutrition and all of the health problems that accompany that kind of malnutrition. There's a law that's being promulgated right now. It's in the process of being promulgated by the government. governor of the state of Chiapas, to offer an amnesty to all these paramilitary groups. The idea is to bring them even more firmly under the control of the local and state police forces and the army, actually within the command structure of those bodies. So the paramilitaries have had a devastating effect on people all over the state.

Eric Hamako: In February 1998, 4 heavily armed men kidnapped Hanson off the streets in Chiapas and took him to a prison. where he was held incommunicado for 24 hours. The Mexican government then deported him, claiming he had violated his tourist visa by observing government peace talks with the Zapatistas in 1996. At those peace talks, the Mexican government agreed to the establishment of indigenous-controlled autonomous communities. Each community would control its leadership locally and govern itself according to its traditional customs. But months later, the government refused to implement the agreement. When the Zapatistas self-implemented the Accords, declaring 38 indigenous communities autonomous, government, military, and police forces, and paramilitary organizations began responding with brutal force.

Tom Hansen: Last spring, the government began to dismantle these autonomous communities, because they saw it as a threat to their power. They sent in anywhere from sometimes 700 or 800, sometimes as many as 2,000 army troops Local and state police forces, often accompanied by the paramilitaries and the death squads in the area. They would arrest the community leadership, occupy the community to the point where community members were practically held hostage. They were afraid to leave their homes. Often they would set up their barracks in the church or in the school in the community. And they dismantled 4 autonomous communities last year. In the 4th one, they went in at 2 or 3 in the morning, and they terrorized the people so much that they thought they were all going to be killed. I mean, this was not too long after the Acte L massacre, and there were shots fired, and eventually 9 indigenous people were killed by, by the army. Because of the outrage over that particular incident, these outright invasions of autonomous communities stopped for a little while. But over the past 3 weeks now, since June 1st of this year, We've seen another increase in military and police activity. We've seen at least 11 communities that I know of, and there may be more, that have been invaded by anywhere from 200 to 700 or 800 combined military and police forces, again, accompanied by the death squads and the paramilitaries. At least one person has been killed. There have been several dozen arrests of community leaders, arbitrary detentions, you know, detentions for no reason other than their political activities.

Speaker 6: And there have been several dozen arrests of community leaders, arbitrary detentions, you know, detentions for no reason other than their political activities.

Tom Hansen: And it's, again, a way for the government to say, we're not going to respect indigenous rights. We're not going to respect these accords that we signed. And we're not going to respect the establishment of these autonomous communities.

Eric Hamako: But concerned citizens in Mexico, Canada, and the United States continue to work for justice, inspired by the democratic ideals of the Zapatista movement.

Tom Hansen: The Zapatista vision of social and political change is really a new vision. Sort of the traditional left in Latin America and in the United States and Europe, the sort of traditional Marxist-Leninist left has been to establish a platform and then line people up behind it. The Zapatistas take a whole different position. Their position is to establish democratic participatory structures within communities and then let the communities decide what that platform is going to be. So it's kind of like— it's kind of like turning the whole thing on its head. The Zapatistas say, for example, that they don't want to take over state power in Mexico. They just want to exercise power locally. They want to have control of the natural resources and the politics and the economics in their own communities. Their vision is that they don't have answers for what to do in Mexico City or New York City or Washington, D.C. or San Francisco. What they say is people need to get together in those communities, get organized, demand their rightful place in the decision-making process, and then decide how they want to organize their lives, how they want to participate socially, politically, and economically. So it's a vision that I think has inspired many of us.

Eric Hamako: Tom Hansen, U.S. coordinator of the Mexico Solidarity Network. For Making Contact, I'm Eric Hamako.

Nettie Wild: What's being put forward there is a challenge to all of us to analyze the systems under which we live.

Philip Babbage: Filmmaker Nettie Wild.

Nettie Wild: And saying, OK, look, there's a whole bunch of people down here that have to change the system in order to survive it. So We're leading the way because we have no choice. But we need the support of all the rest of us in Canada and the US. Without it, they're dead in the water.

Speaker 4: I wonder if you could talk about some of the larger forces that are working against the Zapatista movement and its supporters. One, that there's evidence the United States has supplied the Mexican military with arms and technical training. And, 2, the Mexican government is cracking down on international observers. Last year, they kicked out a handful of international observers, some from the United States. Can you talk about those 2 issues?

Nettie Wild: Well, I'm not an American, so I'm not as well-versed on the specifics of American military aid to Chiapas as some of my American colleagues are. But overall, you have a— you do have an enormous amount of American Financial aid to— and hardware to the Mexican government and Mexican military, ostensibly to fight the war on drugs. You don't have to be a rocket scientist, however, to figure out that an enormous proportion of the Mexican military is now stationed in Chiapas. And while there are checkpoints there that are dealing specifically with, and have been for years, the trafficking of drugs coming up Through— over the Guatemala border, the vast majority of that hardware and expertise is pointed at Mexican civilians. In Zapatista territory, the Mexican military rumbles through the communities, sometimes twice a day, sometimes twice a week. And if you're an arms expert, you can see how much American-made hardware is down there. The Zapatistas are— Are extraordinary in their dance with political theater, to leapfrog over this cinturón, as they say, or belt, of 30,000 Mexican soldiers and a government-controlled media. And so what they do is they try to get their ideas out on the internet. The New York Times has called them the world's first postmodern revolution because of their ability to— deal with this new media. But they also do these extraordinary events which, in creating something that has enough momentum, they're able to kind of break down and break through all these surrounding forces. Like, for instance, again, in our film, you'll see them— at one point, they have an encuentro, a gathering, in which they invite international Guests and national guests from other parts of Mexico to come down and talk about what the new paradigm will be. And so they invite 3,000 people. There's so many people coming down that all of a sudden— and many of them are bringing cameras, and some of them, you know, there's CNNs there and all the networks and all the rest of it. They create so much of a hoo-ha that the Mexican government can't Stop it. Otherwise, they'd be stopping the networks. They'd be stopping key intellectuals. Eduardo Galeano was there. Mrs. Mitterrand, Prime Minister Mitterrand's wife from France, was there. They don't want to stop these people. So all of a sudden, you've got 3,000 people in the jungle talking about how to, as they say, bring democracy to Mexico. And if they can create enough of a critical mass, then They can break through. They can break through. The ideas can break through. And it presents a huge challenge to the Mexican government.

Philip Babbage: So whatever happened to the villagers who were run out of their homes by the Peace and Justice paramilitary units? Here's more from Wald's film, A Place Called Chiapas.

Nettie Wild: In the north of Chiapas, The refugees enter their village for the first time in 5 months. The state police have set up their guns in bunkers outside the schoolhouse.

Speaker 6: No venimos armados.

Nettie Wild: Members of the Peace and Justice paramilitary emerge from behind the state No sé por qué se fueron ustedes.

Speaker 6: Eso lo están sufriendo. Muchos estamos sufriendo.

Nettie Wild: The Peace and Justice paramilitary finally allow the refugees through. After several hours, I put my camera down. Peace and Justice attack us with rocks. Our translator is hit twice. My eyes! The refugees cannot return to their homes. Determined not to give up, they remain on the outskirts of their village. For 4 weeks, the refugees camp on the edge of their village. Finally, tired of waiting for government politicians, the Zapatistas, and the peace talks, the refugees decide to risk moving back into their houses. Manuel García and his family cross the river and start rebuilding their home. They are still surrounded by the Peace and Justice paramilitary, the Mexican Army, and the state police. They are still waiting for peace to start.

Philip Babbage: That's it for this edition of Making Contact, a look at the hidden war in Chiapas. Thanks for listening. Laura Libati is our managing director, Peggy Laws, executive director. Our production assistant is Shereen Meraji. Norman Solomon is senior adviser. Our national producer is David Barsamian. And I'm your host and managing producer, Philip Babbage.

Speaker 6: Thank you.

Philip Babbage: If you want more information about the subject of this week's program, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts. That's 800-529-5736. Making Contact is an independent production. We're committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. If you have suggestions for future programs, we'd like to hear from you. Our theme music is by the Charlie Hunter Trio. Bye for now.