La Jornada
August 23, 1999
Juan Balboa, correspondent

August 22, Valle del Tulija, Chiapas -- The Mexican Army is using children to spy on zapatistas and to attract indigenous women from the community. The minors "become servants" to the soldiers for the promise of money, and they are used as runners between army commanders and leaders of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, some of them leaders of paramilitary groups.

This emerged from statements recorded from 15 representatives from the same number of communities, who make up the Ricardo Flores Magon Autonomous Municipality. They denounced that the State Public Security Police themselves are supporting zapatista opponents in order to prevent the children of EZLN sympathizers from going to school in some communities.

Those responsible for the rebel municipality's political work in the communities of El Limonar, Cintalapa, La Culebra, Lacanja Tzeltal, Arroyo Granizo, Censo, Obidio Garcia, La Arena, San Jose Patihuitz, Lindavista, San Jeronimo Tulija, Jardin, Montes Azules, Laguna Ocotal and Taniperla - state that it is the children and women who are being most affected by the presence of the Mexican Army in the indigenous communities.

They estimate that at least one third of the indigenous women (daughters of PRIs or paramilitaries) in each of the communities where there is a military presence, have become pregnant by the soldiers. They calculate that there are more than 100 towns with Army camps.

The representatives from the communities of El Limonar, Taniperla and San Jeronimo Tulija, among others, accuse the military of bribing children in order to attract indigenous women, sisters or relatives.

They indicate that the soldiers tell the minors: "Bring your little sister, there's a lot of money here." In those four communities, there are a dozen women who have been made pregnant by the soldiers, and the hounding goes on every day. The patrols are continuous in El Limonar. The soldiers, they say, are bring guided by Manuel Cruz and Jorge Gutierrez Mendez.

In the town of Cintalapa, prostitution has increased to an alarming extent. The arrival of some one thousand soldiers, who are allegedly reforesting, caused the number of prostitutes in the town to triple.

However, that is not all, says Raquel, a zapatista representative from that town. She says the patrols have increased, a second camp was set up near the spring, and they are supporting zapatista children being denied entrance into school.

In Lacanja Tzeltal, military commandos keep watch over zapatistas going to their fields. Aided by Domingo Osorio Mendez, the soldiers go into the homes of EZLN sympathizers, and the PRI ejiditarios themselves are threatening the rebels at the general assemblies.

In Arroyo Granizo, employees of the Ocosingo municipal government dress up as soldiers and police in order to guide the federal Army in their incursions into the mountains and on their patrols in the town. They detain indigenous along the roads and ask them, at gunpoint, where Subcomandante Marcos is.

Government Support for Paramilitaries

Rodrigo, zapatista representative from El Censo, accused Juan Villafuerte Monterrosa - inter-institutional coordinator for the interim government of Roberto Albores Guillen - of supporting the training of paramilitaries in El Censo and Taniperla.

In Obidio Garcia, La Arena, San Jose Patihuitz, Lindavista, Jardin and Montes Azules, they all say that the patrols in those towns increased a month ago. They also denounce that armed groups are being formed by indigenous in the area.

In Laguna Ocotal, paramilitary groups, headed by Pedro Chulin Jimenez, cut the cables of the electricity boxes in the zapatistas' houses and threatened to cut off the water supply. They point to Chulin as being the man who is recruiting people for paramilitary groups. They also say he visits those communities where there is no military presence, in order to get the residents to accept the establishment of military camps.

The zapatista representative in San Jero'nimo Tulija stated that soldiers are hiring children to steal animals in the community. He confirmed that the majority of the PRIs' children "are acting as servants" to the soldiers. "Every morning the soldiers march, shouting that they're going to get the zapatistas," he said.