According to a series of articles in La Jornada, Mexico's progressive daily newspaper, U.S. government officials are side by side with those of Mexico in pressing for the eviction of indigenous communities living inside the Lacandon Community and the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. Apparently, both U.S. economic and military interests are involved in this issue.

BACKGROUND

In 1972, the president of Mexico granted ownership and control of an enormous amount of land in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas to a group of indigenous people known among anthropologists as the Lacandons. They have been portrayed by their protagonists as the original inhabitants of the forest and the direct descendants of those Maya who built the ancient city- state of Palenque, now a world-famous archaeological site.

The Tseltal, Tzotzil, Tojolobal and Chol Maya of the region say that those called the Lacandons are not the original Lacandons of Chiapas, but Carib Indians who migrated from Campeche and gained favor with anthropologists and, subsequently with the president of Mexico (by liberally granting logging rights to the government).

The government granted 614,321 hectares (1,517,371 acres) to 66 Carib families (who had only requested 10,000 hectares), renamed the Caribs--the Lacandons-- and named the area the Lacandon Community. This is not only an excessively large amount of land for so few families, a virtual latifundio, but the land grant was made in spite of the fact that a number of communities had already been established inside this territory by other indigenous peoples who had also applied for land rights through agrarian legal procedures and that there was more than enough land for everyone.

In 1978, knowing that there were already established communities inside the area, the government created the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve as an ecological preserve, setting aside another 331,200 hectares (818,064 acres) for that purpose. Some communities were relocated at that time. Others have remained until this day.

RATIONALE

The rationale for the impending eviction of these communities comes from several sources:

1) an ecological concern for the Montes Azules; and,

2) a lawsuit filed by the Lacandons. The Lacandons filed suit (advised by Conservation International) on September 12, 2001 to have other indigenous peoples removed from their territory (the Lacandon Community).

The ecological concern comes from a variety of sources: international conservation groups, various agencies of the Mexican government, some Chiapas government officials working with the feds, U.S. government officials, multinational corporations and paramilitary groups.

The current urge to evict is reminiscent of Fall, 2000 when fires were raging throughout the forests of Central America. Conservation groups and the PRI government blamed the slash and burn method of agriculture used by indigenous peoples for the fires, which they alleged were also raging in the Lacandon Jungle and, consequently, demanded the immediate removal of communities from the Montes Azules. When scientists from UNAM pointed to satellite photos showing that no fires were burning in the Montes Azules, the threat of eviction subsided but has never completely gone away because the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, indeed the entire Lacandon Jungle is now coveted by a variety of interests.

INTERESTS: Overt and Hidden

The Montes Azules, which means Blue Mountains in English, has an enviable array of biodiversity. Biotechnology researchers want to do scientific research inside the Montes Azules and patent what they find. The Maya who live there object to patents because they view nature as something to be used collectively for the benefit of everyone, not something to be patented for the benefit of the few. Thus, the biotech researchers want the indigenous people out of the way.

University of Georgia researchers are one example. They are acting on behalf of U.S. government agencies (National Institute of Health, Department of Agriculture, National Science Foundation, etc.). Some pro-Zapatista researchers near the Montes Azules report that the U.S. project called ICBG-Maya is up and running again near the Montes Azules after purporting to pull out of Chiapas entirely. The project seeks to patent traditional medicinal plants and is run in conjunction with an organization named Ecosur in Chiapas. Ecosur reportedly has an official U.S. government contact to coordinate with the ICBG- Maya project. He was recently seen in San Cristobal.

Conservation International (a U.S. non-profit) is alleged to be a major player in the move to evict indigenous communities from the Montes Azules. It is in the conservation management business and seeks a contract to manage the Montes Azules. It already has one ecotourism center in the southern part of the Montes Azules. It receives funding from USAid, a government funding agency, as did the ICBG-Maya project. According to one La Jornada article, USAid is also urging the evictions.

Conservation International is said to have close ties to the biotech researchers and various U.S. multinational corporations wanting to exploit the vast natural resources of the Lacandon.

At the urging of the U.S. and Mexico, the United Nations recently declared that the world's forests are a matter of international security. (Anyone who damages the forest is now an eco-terrorist.) This declaration is also being used as a rationale for the evictions.

A hidden U.S. interest involves an eight-lane super- highway planned right through the middle of the Montes Azules (conservation indeed!). It is part of the Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP) to develop all of Mesoamerica (Middle America). This is more than an access road for tourists, researchers or conservation managers. It is a road linking the entire Mesoamerican biological corridor all the way to the Amazon Jungle of Colombia. It will facilitate the movement of heavy military equipment to insure the pacification (military domination and control) of this new free trade area (NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA).

Make no mistake! U.S. military deployment throughout Latin America exists for the purpose of controlling, by force if necessary, neoliberal globalization and the social disorders which that engenders; i.e., the RESISTANCE!

COUNTERINSURGENCY ASPECT

The plan to evict communities from the Montes Azules has a regional counterinsurgency aspect. Many of the communities affected by the Lacandon Community and the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve are bases of support of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN or Zapatistas). In the northern part of the Montes Azules, the Zapatista communities belong to the Autonomous Municipality (County) of Ricardo Flores Magon. In the Southern part, they belong to Tierra y Libertad. We think that it was no coincidence that both of these autonomous counties were among those dismantled by the local PRI government in 1998! (and placed under paramilitary control). The eviction and relocation of these communities would substantially disrupt the autonomous institutions and functioning of two large Zapatista regions, dispersing the population and thereby weakening their resistance.

When this issue first arose in 2000, it was reported that the military defenses of the EZLN were located inside the Montes Azules and that these civilian communities encircled those defenses. Assuming this is still true, the move to evict must be seen as a counterinsurgency move - breaking up a large and strong autonomous municipality (Flores Magon) and further isolating the military defenses of the EZLN.

The Zapatista communities have vowed to resist any efforts to evict them. Many communities belong to the ARIC-Independent, a large peasant organization, inside the Montes Azules and the Lacandon Community. ARIC-Independent has also stated that its communities will not leave. This poses a huge political problem for the Chiapas government. There is heavy pressure on Governor Pablo Salazar to evict and relocate the communities in both the Montes Azules and the Lacandon Community.

U.S. envoys have visited Chiapas and openly participated in talks about the state?s economic development with state and federal government officials. It was no coincidence that Governor Salazar went to Washington, D.C. recently for a brief private chat with president Bush as the time for evictions drew near. The Bush administration is pushing hard for the opening of Chiapas to U.S. economic interests. Indigenous peoples live on land not only rich in biodiversity, but also in natural gas, oil, uranium and water for energy. The multinational energy corporations want that land (and its rivers) to construct dams and to drill for oil and natural gas.

CONCLUSION

The only remaining question is whether the Mexican government is willing to withstand the public outcry from civil society that the use of military (or paramilitary) force would surely cause. As of June 1, 2002, a representative of the Fox government said they intended to evict some of the communities inside the Montes Azules.