August 16, 1999

Protest Over Occupation: Demonstration Against Siege of Amador Hernandez Dispersed With Tear Gas

From: irlandesa <irlandesa@compuserve.com>
Reply-To: chiapas-l@burn.ucsd.edu
Originally published in Spanish in La Jornada
________________________
Translated by irlandesa

La Jornada
Monday, August 16, 1999.

Hermann Bellinghausen, correspondent. La Realidad, Chiapas August 15.

The Mexican Army this morning used tear gas to disperse a peaceful protest that was being carried out by tzeltal indigenous in the community of Amador Hernandez, in the municipality of Ocosingo, over the military ocupation, begun on the 12th in that region.

At least three campesinos and one member of the Civil Observation Committee who arrived yesterday suffered the effects of the gas. This took place after two military helicopters landed, carrying 50 more troops. These were added to the 500 who burst in on the 12th - by land and by parachute - to Amador Hernandez, in the valley of the same name, at the edge of the Montes Azules biosphere reserve.

According to information provided by campesino representatives of La Realidad this afternoon, there are now 550 federal army troops occupying the community of Amador Hernandez, where the situation is quite tense.

The objective of the military mobilization is allegedly to protect the road works currently being carried out between the military fortress of San Quintin and the abovementioned community, which is surrounded by three mountain ranges (Corralchen, Santa Cruz and Montes Azules), and which is inhabited by EZLN support bases and members of the ARIC Independent, who have opposed the unusual military occupation from the outset.

It appears that the troop movements are trying to protect one of the ends of the Trans-Selva Highway the federal army is building across the biosephere reserve. This has already caused concern among various observers in Chiapas, as well as among institutions engaged in the study and protection of the natural resources and great richness still existent in one of the few virgin spaces that survive in Mexican lands.

"They're going to take all the valuable wood of the Montes Azules out of there," a suspicious specialist recently commented to this reporter, reviewing the supposed path of that highway, whose construction has not yet been made public. Saturday night, here in La Realidad, Subcomandante Marcos denounced the incursion. Following that, a group of participants in the National Encuentro in Defense of the Cultural Heritage went to the scene of the incidents. According to the information that has become available, they have now experienced their baptisim by tear gas.

Official reports being circulated in Chiapas today maintain that the only problem is that the "zapatista towns are opposed to the building of the roads."

During recent weeks, one has been able to observe unusually feverish road construction of roads within the mountains, that has gone into the deep regions of the Selva Lacandona. The mountain residents of Ocosingo and Las Margaritas have repeatedly expressed their opposition to, and surprise concerning, the construction of roads that the communities have not asked for and that will be, according to all indications, for exclusively military purposes.

According to zapatista spokespersons, the purpose of these roads and the aggressive incursion into Amador hernandez, is to surround the zapatista communities and the EZLN "behind their backs," and to dig in, literally, to one of the richest and most secret oil reserves in the northern hemisphere of the American continent.

In the early nineties, a French exploration company detected important hydrocarbon deposits in the Amador hernmandez valley. First the European company was notified of this, and then the United States government. Only later was mexican petroleum and the Mexican government informed.

The French engineers, in fact - according to the recollections of campesinos from the area who were interviewed by la Jornada four years ago - reported the findings by satellite telephone, so that the nexican government would not be the first to find out.

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