La Jornada
September 21, 2001
By Hermann Bellinghausen

Salto de Agua, Chiapas. The very first attack by paramilitaries against zapatista sympathizers took place in this municipality, in early 1995, in the community of Lote 8. As has the most recent, on August 20, in San Jose' Basca'n, where four families were expelled by PRIs from the Emiliano Zapata Ejidal Union, with the complicity of the PRD organization Kicha~ob.

Meanwhile, the Network of Community Human Rights Defenders of Salto de Agua-Palenque denounced the destruction of a stretch of highway leading to the community of Roberto Barrios, "which is being repaired by the population belonging to EZLN support bases." The act, discovered en flagrante, was perpetrated by Peace and Justice members of the Puyipa' ejido.

The Network has denounced attacks "by Peace and Justice paramilitary groups, who are taking threatening actions and inflicting damages on the local population, without the rightful intervention by state and federal law enforcement officials." In a public denunciation, dated September 13, the Network stated: "Given that it has been denouncing the presence of paramilitary groups, and documenting the actions which these groups are constantly undertaking -- and which have been increasing over the last few months -- it raises its most vehement protest over the inadequate attention given by the Specialized Unit for Investigation of Armed Groups, of the Department of Justice of the Republic, to the activities of paramilitary groups in the state of Chiapas, encouraging their impunity."

Exiles Without End

It is odd, traveling about this municipality -- traditionally in PRI power -- to see that the visible electoral excitement belongs to all the other parties: the PRD, PAN, PT, PVEM. The tricolor is the least visible. Nonetheless, the assessment of some observers, like the parish priest of Salto de Agua, is that the PRI could win for that very reason. "The opposition is very divided," he said. In addition, the confusion of the old and new PRIs, calling on all the other parties, to find the best fit, could exacerbate abstention on October 7, which is already predicted to be high. Or it could culminate in post-election "incidents" between the various official groups, whether associated with Peace and Justice or not.

Father Carlos Salcedo Palacios agreed to talk with La Jornada, and he also offered us a delicious and exotic River Tulija' turtle soup, which had been a gift from some Salto de Agua parishioners. Even though he arrived in this parish a year later, he recalled that Loma 8, in the part belonging to Toquiapa Basca'n, was the first place where deaths, threats and displaced occurred, in February of 1995.

Driven by the national clamor which followed Zedillo's military offensive on February 9, indigenous from civil society declared "that they were all Marcos." For four years the group remained concealed in a small mountain clearing. Now they have returned, with four deaths in their sorrow and much uncertainty regarding their security and future.

Father Salcedo believes, however, that the situation in Salto de Agua is less serious now. The number of displaced families is less than it was a few years ago. A group of displaced founded a new town in Tumbala', and other displaced have been sporadically returning.

In this municipality, the Fray Bartolome' de Las Casas Human Rights Center has noted the continuation of displaced families in San Jose' Tzibalch'en, La Trinidad, the town of San Marcos and Jilumil. But now the newly displaced form San Jose' Basca'n must be added. They are not the same ones who lost their homes and relatives, in the same place, six years ago.

According to Salcedo, the phenomena of the displaced occurred simultaneously here and in the neighboring municipality of Tila. There was the great concentration of exiles in Jolnichtie' (Tila). Families from Progreso and Nueva Preciosa began an exile which, at least for the people from Progreso, has still not ended. "There were prisoners from Salto de Agua, they were in Cerro Hueco. The government of Julio Ce'sar Ruiz Ferro washed their hands of the violence. In August of 1997 the violence intensified, there were more displaced."

In 1998 began the process of the return of the "self-displaced," as they are officially called: families from Tila and Salto de Agua, who are returning without their rights, in order to gather together, to organize and to protest. "They had to stay extremely quiet, so they wouldn't take their houses away from them," the priest said.

Salto de Agua was once an important train station for the Coatzacoalcos -- Me'rida line, one of the few railway enclaves on indigenous lands in Chiapas. Today the station is a cemetery for trains, a place for games and mischief, hardly a shelter for fugitives. A girl is doing her work seated on a piece of a stone bench, on what had been the platform. It produces a sensation of immobility, as if time had ceased running in the municipal seat. But it is an illusion: life in Salto de Agua goes on and changes, rapidly, dangerously, just like in the rest of the northern region of the state, where the exile of the indigenous in resistance has not ended, and nor have the causes which provoked it.

Damaged Road

As for the case of the road in Roberto Barrios (the most recent of several incidents which have taken place there this year), the ejidal authorities convoked civil and agrarian authorities from the Puyipa' ejido, which is where the attackers -- Juan Di'az Alvaro and Pascual Di'az Alvaro -- were from.

There, informs the Defenders' Network, "Se~or Miguel Arcos Alvaro, who identified himself as a Peace and Justice delegate, appeared in front of a group of 15 persons."

Those responsible for the damages, and the delegate from that paramilitary group, "agreed that the road which is being built will benefit all communities in the area, and they agreed to the use of rocks and other materials for such purpose. They committed themselves, through an act of agreement, to repair what had been destroyed." The victims, however, denounced: "In addition to not repairing the destroyed road, the Peace and Justice group issued threats that they are organizing themselves to kidnap and disappear the zapatista support bases. They are also threatening to hijack the Roberto Barrios community van and accuse them of committing crimes in front of the Public Minister in Palenque."

They are demanding that municipal and state authorities intervene in order to secure the fulfillment of the agreement for repairing the damaged road, and "they hold the delegate from the Peace and Justice paramilitary group responsible for any acts of violence."