Paramilitary violence is not new in Chiapas. The
men who make up the units now referred to as
paramilitaries used to be called pistoleros (hired
gunmen), or white guards. They were generally indi-
viduals hired from outside local communities to
protect the interests of wealthy and powerful
landowners. Today, however, these private soldiers
come from within the communities where they oper-
ate. And although the government denies the exis-
tence of these groups, there is overwhelming
evidence that political leaders in Chiapas linked to
the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) are providing them with weapons and logistical support.
In the municipality of Chenalh6, where 45 indige-
nous people were massacred last December, we doc-
umented the existence of 246 members of
paramilitary groups. In addition to Acteal, where the
massacre took place, another 16 Iocalities-contain-
ing a third of the villages and half the population-
have been the target of paramilitary violence. Those
who participate in these paramilitary groups are
almost exclusively young men frustrated by landless-
ness and unemployment. The long-standing crisis in
agrarian reform, coupled with demographic growth, have created a situation in which these young men,
especially those who are married and have families, are forced to wander in search of work. Like their
parents, they survive on their wits and by occasion-
Andres Aubry is an anthropologist and historian based in San Crist6bal, Chiapas, Angelica Inda is Director of the Historical Archives at the Diocese of San Cristobal. This article originall appeared in La Jornada on December 23, 1997. Translated from the Spanish by Fred Rosen.
ally stealing food and animals from Samuel Sanchez weapons give them
neighboring farms. Because they Sanchez, a PR! a power and status
own no land and have no reliable deputy to the which neither they
means of subsistence, they are Chiapas State nor their landless
forced to live outside the law. Their known leader of parents have ever dislocation from community life the ‘Peace and enjoyed before. also means that they have no rea- justice” paramili- The paramilitaries
son to attend assemblies, and thus tary group. are active through- have no part in communal decision- t out the indigenous
making processes. Their criminal regions in northern and eastern behavior, therefore, is at least in % 7 Chiapas, where the presence of the
part a product of the government’s j I I 1 Mexican army assures them perfect economic, agricultural and labor J impunity. Their objective is to dis-
policies. mantle all civilian groups that sup-
Because of their itinerant life in porttheZapatistaArmyof National
search of work, and their estrange- Liberation (EZLN). They do so by ter-
ment from community life, these rorizing communities, forcibly dis- landless young men have no sense placing the civilian population, and
of communal responsibility. They disrupting their livelihoods. In
have never experienced the civic Chenalho, for example, the para-
education that comes with the pen- militaries not only killed unarmed
odic assemblies in which the collective destinies of civilians, but destroyed productive facilities, harvests their communal lands, villages or municipalities are and even farming to
ols in order to deprive members of
decided. Their only teachers have been those who dissident communities o
f the possibility of future
instructed them in the proper use of their weapons. income. The paramili
taries attacked the Acteal vil-
Joining paramilitary groups has offered these young lagers at the beginning of the coffee harvest, more-
men a quick solution to their economic desperation. over, in a year when prices were expected to be high,
The heavy war tax they collect every two weeks from with the aim of remo
ving entire communities of agni-
all adults living in their areas of influence gives them cultural produc
ers from the sources of their livelihood.
regular income, and their war booty of animals, crops The tragic irony i
n Chiapas is that the very forces which
and household items is far more than what they could have deprived these
landless youths of their livelihood
obtain by stealing from neighboring farms. Being a are now using them to
rob their own communities
paramilitary also confers prestige. Their sophisticated of a future.
