:: SUMMARY

Following the resolution of the federal Supreme Court (SCJN) regarding the constitutional reform on indigenous matters, the conflict in Chiapas has moved into a new phase. Indigenous organizations and civil society have shown their opposition to the resolution, while the EZLN has kept silent.

This silence does not mean the end of the struggle for indigenous peoples’ rights. On the contrary, it represents a strategy that aims at building autonomy from the communities, through concrete actions. Autonomy is the focus of the Feature in this report.

There is no single model for autonomy, but rather various ways to understand it and practice it. In each case, the construction of autonomy presents communities and society at large with difficulties and challenges; one of them is the need to overcome conflicts resulting from diversity between different experiences of autonomy.

Four months after several Zapatista civic leaders were assassinated in their autonomous municipalities, the investigations have not made any progress and the accused are still at large. There are different interpretations about the violent events of July and August. Whether or not all the events were part of a larger strategy, they all occurred in a highly tense environment. They are the result of unresolved conflict, a conflict that leads its participants to interpret events through the logic of war.

Twenty-seven members of the armed group Development, Peace and Justice (Desarrollo, Paz y Justicia) were detained in September by the Attorney General’s Office of Chiapas. This fact, together with internal divisions that have arisen over the last two years, has weakened the organization; yet it still represents a source of tension in the Northern region.

Human rights organizations have criticized the decision of the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) to dissolve the Special Unit for Crimes Committed by Suspected Armed Groups without having resolved the problem of paramilitaries in Chiapas.

Mobilizations were organized in Mexico on October 12 to protest neo-liberalism. In Chiapas, popular organizations joined forces to block roads, close borders and protest against the indigenous reform, the government’s economic policy, the Puebla-Panama Plan and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. That very same day the National Consultation against the FTAA started in Mexico as part of the regional and continental movement to change the face of globalization. The indigenous peoples have acquired a significant role within this movement.

President Vicente Fox faces a hostile parliamentary opposition as a result of his obliging foreign policy with the United States. More recently, there were also tensions around the debate over the federal budget for 2003. The opposition has strongly criticized planned cuts in social spending.

The revisionism on the period of dirty war in the 1970s and 1980s undertaken by the Special Attorney General’s Office appointed by the Executive, could bring about the end of impunity to two once untouchable institutions currently under criticism: the Armed Forces and the Institutional Revolucionary Party (PRI).

In an effort to improve the Army’s public image, Military Justice condemned retired Generals Quirós Hermosillo and Acosta Chaparro with crimes related to drug trafficking. It will also try them soon for the murder of 143 people in Guerrero during the dirty war. Nevertheless, national and international human rights organizations have strongly criticized Military Justice for taking these crimes under its jurisdiction, since they were originally denounced to the Special Attorney General’s Office.

October marked the first aniversary of the assassination of the human-rights lawyer Digna Ochoa. The case has not yet been cleared up.

RECOMMENDED ACTIONS:

1. Write to President Fox expressing the hope of the international community that the Mexican State will revise the constitutional reform concerning indigenous matters in order to make it compliant with the San Andres Accords and with the ILO’s Convention 169.
2. Call upon the ILO to demand from the Mexican State legislation on indigenous peoples in compliance with Convention 169.
3. Urge the government of Chiapas to urgently investigate, in an impartial and effective manner, the violent events of August, and bring the guilty to justice.
4. Disseminate information such as this report about the situation in Chiapas and Mexico.

Please write to:

Lic. Vicente Fox
Presidente de la República
Residencia Oficial de los Pinos
11850 México D.F., México
Fax: (+52. 55) 55 22 41 17
http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/?P=17

Dr. Juan Somavia
Director General
Organización Internacional del Trabajo
4, route des Morillons
CH-1211, Geneva 22, Suiza
Fax: (+41.22) 917 90 10
cabinet@ilo.org

Lic. Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía
Gobernador del Estado de Chiapas
Palacio de Gobierno, 1º piso
29009, Tuxtla Gutiérrez
Chiapas, México
Fax: (+52.961) 612 0917

:: UPDATE

CHIAPAS: THE SILENCE OF RESISTANCE

The conflict in Chiapas entered a new phase after the September decision by the federal Supreme Court (SCJN), which upheld the constitutional reform on indigenous matters. Following critical reactions to the resolution by various groups (see SIPAZ Report, August 2002), the dominant feature in this period is the silence of the EZLN (Zapatista Army for National Liberation).

This silence, that some interpret as an omission, is seen by others as part of a political decision to build their own project of autonomy without depending on the institutional aspects of the State, which has not met their demands. For some observers, the indigenous peoples tested how long they could wait from the three democratic powers, and now they have embarked on a long-term process to strengthen and develop the various forms of autonomy, starting with their own reconstruction as peoples. (See Feature). The major challenge posed by this project is the unity of the indigenous movement –a task that remains to be taken up.

Although silence is understood as part of a resistance strategy, some observers believe that the EZLN will probably wait for the opportunity to launch a political initiative addressed to the whole Mexican society.

In the meantime, the Zapatista resistance takes place in the framework of unavoidable tensions with local authorities as well as with formerly allied organizations that are currently disputing territorial and political control. People also get worn out from resistance and in some cases they even quit, or are being expelled when they do not accept the demands that come with it.

November 17, nineteen years after the founding of the EZLN and for the presentation of the magazine Rebellion, Subcommander Marcos broke his silence by making public a letter in which he dismisses the three main parties and responds to those who say, “The Zapatistas are finished.” “The only thing that’s finished or running out for the Zapatistas”, Marcos wrote, “is their patience.”

The victims from August: military objective?

Four months after several civic leaders were assassinated in the autonomous Zapatista municipalities (see SIPAZ Report, August 2002), the investigations have not made any progress and no one has been detained. The accused are still at large.

There are different interpretations about the violent events from July and August. According to the Attorney General’s Office of Chiapas (PGJE), there is no clear link between the deaths, which resulted from different motives derived from community conflicts. For some observers close to the state government, it responds to actions from the local PRI party, trying to destabilize the government of Pablo Salazar in order to regain political ground for the Parliamentary elections in 2003.

Social organizations and those in the opposition read these events, at an early stage, as part of the federal strategy to remove communities settled in the rich and coveted Montes Azules Biosphere. Later, many coincided in their interpretation of the aggressions toward the Zapatistas and of the increased military presence the days before, as a way to test the intention of military response on the side of the EZLN shortly before the resolution of the SCJN (which was already foreseen).

Whether the events were part or not of a planned political strategy, what is undeniable is the context of high tension in which they have occurred. They are the result of a conflict that is neither dealt with nor resolved, and that leads groups to use the logic of war to interpret events.

A month before the fifth anniversary of the massacre at Acteal (12/22/97), 19 Tzotzils were sentenced to 36 years in prison for the crime. Twelve others are expected to receive the same sentence. The Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (CDHFBC) insisted on the need for investigators to uncover the massacre’s intellectual authors, including officials of the state government at that time and military and police units.

In San Juan Chamula county, violent confrontations between traditional Catholics and Evangelicals were reported. A November 14 ambush in the community of Tzetelton left seven traditionalists with gunshot wounds. The PGJE, which is investigating the events, stated that they were more the result of disputes over political control than religious intolerance.

In spite of this tension and conflict in the state, president Fox reiterated in his recent tour in Europe that “there is peace in Chiapas and with the Zapatistas”, statements which drew criticism from the opposition.

Peace and Justice: detentions and divisions

The events in August reopened the debate around the existence of paramilitary groups in Chiapas. Among the Zapatistas and other opposition groups, the word ‘paramilitary’ tends to be used in a broad sense to allude to armed-groups opposed to the EZLN. Governor Salazar insists that the armed-groups operating in Chiapas are not paramilitary in the strict sense, because they do not receive support from state institutions (as was the case with the former government). Human Rights activists, on the other hand, say that there is collaboration between those groups, some local PRI chiefs (which control local government structures), the Army and the security forces. This would be the case of a group known by the acronym OPDIC, linked to congressman Pedro Chulín, and also of Los Aguilares, a group of bandits and mercenaries.

They also say that the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR) lacks the will to thoroughly investigate and prosecute such groups. In fact, the operations that resulted in the detention of several of their members were of state and not of federal responsibility. Confirming these criticisms, in November the PGR announced that the Special Unit for the Handling of Crimes Committed by Armed Civil Groups (a division created after the massacre of Acteal) would be disbanded –this in spite of the fact that, as the CDHFBC stated, “The serious problem of paramilitaries has not been resolved and the truth about them is still unknown.”

Twenty-seven members from the armed-group Development, Peace and Justice (DPJ) were detained in Tila in mid September following an order by the State Attorney General’s Office. Among them was the leader Sabelino Torres, accused of being the main culprit in several crimes: robbery, kidnapping, illegal possession of arms restricted for military use and murders. Among the detainees is Carlos Torres, former mayor of Tila, accused of diverting municipal funds to the armed organization.

These detentions, together with that of the leader Diego Vazquez last February, could indicate the end of DPJ, at least in its old composition. The organization also started disintegrating due to its internal divisions. The fist breakaway group founded in 2000 the Regional Union of Land and Forest Indigenous Communities (UCIAF), which is strong in the municipality of Sabanilla; recently another group broke away, the one known as Regional Union of Peasant and Indigenous Communities (URCCI), formed by the legal sector of the organization that manages economic programs from the government.

Globalization of resistence

As planned, mobilizations took place in several Mexican states on October 12. In Chiapas, networks of Zapatista civil society, social, indigenous and peasant organizations blocked roads, closed borders, organized demonstrations and showed in a variety of ways their rejection to the indigenous reform to the Constitution, to the economic policy of the government, to the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP) and to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The protest also included some Central American countries.

The First Chiapas Meeting Confronting Neo-liberalism took place from October 9 to October 12 in San Cristóbal de las Casas. It was organized by NGOs and social organizations from Chiapas with the objective of drawing up a common plan of action around the following themes: food security, fair trade, land, pesticides and genetically modified foods, dams, privatization of energy and water, biodiversity and biopiracy, maquiladoras, immigration, PPP, FTAA, indigenous rights and autonomy, militarization, etc.

On October 12 the National Consultation against FTAA also started in Mexico. It will end in March 2003. This consultation is part of the continental campaign aimed at preventing the ratification of this free trade agreement promoted by the United States. In Chiapas the consultation has received enthusiastic support by social organizations and civic networks.

Meanwhile, there has been an increase in several parts of the state of protest and resistance actions against the announced construction of almost ten hydroelectric dams as part of the PPP. It is foreseen that these dams will have highly negative environmental and social impacts, damaging the ecosystem and displacing communities. At the same time, the resistance of the Chiapas population against the Federal Electrical Commission (CFE) continues, protesting the high rates of electricity.

This resistance places Chiapas as part of the regional and continental movement against a model of ‘development’ that has already shown it does not bring any benefits for the peoples. In that struggle, the indigenous peoples are gaining a growing significant role. The dominant model of globalization is seen by them as a threat not only to their identity but to their very existence as peoples.

With respect to the PPP, it seems to have moved to an impasse following the government’s decision to keep a low profile on the issue, placing it under the control of Foreign Affairs. Nevertheless, critics say that with or without the name PPP, the works planned as part of it are already under implementation and they will have the foreseen negative effects.

The lack of information and transparency around the negotiations of PPP and FTAA creates great distrust and refusal on the side of the population. And it allows a glimpse of the kinds of conflicts that will arise in Chiapas -and in the region- in the near future.

Transition or rendering the country ungovernable?

At the inauguration of a new legislative period in September, President Vicente Fox presented his second government report to a hostile Congress and to a public whose opinion has become increasingly critical and unhappy with the results of his administration.
One of the main reasons for the opposition’s discontent has been Fox’s relationship with the United States. The PRI and PRD parties have accused the administration of being the most obliging ever to the country’s powerful northern neighbor. At the center of these critiques is the Foreign Affairs Minister, Castañeda, who has been blamed for taking Mexican-Cuban relations (historically very close) to the edge of breaking diplomatic ties.
Some observers have even talked of rendering the country "ungovernable" when referring to the multiple and simultaneous areas where the Fox administration is failing to show capacity to attend and resolve efficiently.

While the resistance from the opposition and from the Mexican Union of Electrical Workers (SME) to his constitutional reform to legalize private investment in the electrical sector was growing, Fox had to face another powerful union, that of the workers in the petroleum industry. The union threatened to paralyze the country if its salary demands were not attended to. In reality, the underlying conflict was the ongoing judicial investigation into the diversion of 640 million pesos from the state petroleum company, PEMEX, to the union; these funds were used for the electoral campaign of the PRI candidate, Francisco Labastida, in 2000.

But, what became known as Pemexgate, turned into a boomerang for the president and he had to face his own electoral scandal. There is an investigation undertaken by the Federal Electoral Institute –which has not yet concluded- about the presumed illegal origin of millions of pesos used in the electoral campaign by the group Friends of Fox.
Another factor adding to the tension has been the debate over the federal budget for 2003; the opposition and the National Conference of Governors (CONAGO) have harshly criticized the Executive branch for cuts it is planning for social spending and for revenue designated for states.

Civil society is organizing against prevailing economic policy. In November more than 40 workers’ organizations formed the Mexican Union Front to resist labor reforms and privatizations, and an ample spectrum of social organizations announced the formation of a united front to struggle against neoliberal policies.

Storm on the horizon

Two coming events could further complicate the already difficult scenario. One, tariffs for food products among partners of the North America Free Trade Agreement will be removed at the beginning of 2003. Manufacturers and peasant unions have announced that the measure will be disastrous for Mexican agriculture, which is already unable to compete with subsidized production from the North. Although the government has announced special measures to counteract the negative effects, the forecasts are very pessimistic.

Two, the revisionism from the period of the dirty war in the 1970s and 1980s undertaken by the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Social and Political Movements of the Past appointed by the Executive branch, could bring about the end of impunity to two institutions which were untouchable in the former regime and are currently critized: the Armed Forces and the PRI.

The Army seems to be trying to clean its public image. Accordingly, it decided to condemn retired Generals Acosta Chaparro and Quirós Hermosillo (detained two years ago for links with drug trafficking) at the same time when a whole battalion was dismantled in the North of the country for the same reason.

The same generals will soon be tried for the murder of 143 people in Guerrero, during the dirty war. Although the accusations come from denounces documented by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) and filed to the Special Prosecurtor’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office for Military Justice (PGJM) brought the investigation under its jurisdiction. This has generated criticisms from national and international human rights organizations, who say that Military Justice offers no guarantees and has been a source of impunity for crimes committed by the military.

October marked the first aniversary of the assassination of the human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa and the case has not yet been cleared up.

:: FEATURE

AUTONOMY: SOURCE OF CONFLICT OR THE ROAD TO PEACE?

“Autonomy is not a new word, it just took us a long time to realize that it is there where our dignity resides”
(Representative of the Autonomous Municipality of San Andres, October 2002)

Historical Background

Since the 1980s, the demand for autonomy has become the central claim from the continental indigenous movement, representing the way to exercise the peoples’ right to self-determination. Since the creation of the Mexican State, various experiences of autonomy have taken place in its territory as a means of resisting the state structure, which ignores cultural and social diversity.

The struggle of the Yaqui People in Sonora, the movement of COCEI (Workers, Peasants and Students Coalition from the Isthmus) in Tehuantepec, the Community Police or the Council of Nahua Peoples from Alto Balsas (both in Guerrero), the Tojolab’al autonomy in Chiapas, are all examples of autonomy existing before December 1994, when the EZLN (Zapatista Army for National Liberation) broke the military siege establishing 34 autonomous municipalities. Since then these municipalities coexist with the constitutional municipalities.

Since April 2001 the EZLN has remained silent to protest the approval of the constitutional reform dealing with indigenous rights and viewed as “a betrayal.” The ruling of the federal Supreme Court in September 2002 denying appeals against the reform leaves no room for a quick resumption of the peace process.

This deadlock in dialogue does not mean, though, that the Zapatistas and the other indigenous organizations have become paralyzed. Since 1994 they have aimed at constructing autonomy through actions, a process that, though not always visible, becomes stronger with time.

The main indigenous organizations from the country seem to share this approach. Following the resolution of the Supreme Court, the National Encounter of Indigenous Peoples (Guerrero) and the Third National Forum in Defense of Traditional Medicine (State of Mexico) called on the indigenous peoples of the country to strengthen the expressions of autonomy. At the VI Workshop on Analysis and Strategic Planning of the CNI (National Indigenous Congress) a decision was taken to continue with the “policy of silence” (agreed upon with the EZLN) and to return to their respective communities “not as defeated but ready to reinforce the defense of our territories and our identity.” To build up autonomy also implies creating one’s own rules and regulations, taking into account the reform of secondary laws that it is expected will follow in cascade after the constitutional reform.

For the National Indigenous Institute (INI), there is a new and different indigenous demand, consisting on the internal reconstruction of the peoples, on their self-affirmation as collective subjects with an ethnic affiliation and with their own cultures.

What do we understand under autonomy?

“I do not fully know the word autonomy. Maybe to be autonomous is to be free, I don’t know. I will better tell you how we are working and then you will say whether that is autonomy or not”
(Representative of the Trinitaria area, October 2002)

Autonomy has been the subject of tireless debate. Sometimes there are theoretical discussions about what autonomy is and what it is not. Maybe the confusion is a result of diversity: we can talk about one autonomy, but there are multiple forms to implement it.

According to a representative from the municipality of Tila (Chiapas), for autonomy to exist, “the people must exist, that is to say, an established group of human beings who constitute a settlement. This people has its own characteristic way of being: house, dwelling, language, clothing, forms of organization, direct relationship to the earth, education of children, health, religion, in summary a way of living. Self-determination is the capacity to establish political, social, economic and cultural conditions in order to become autonomous”. (October 2002)

Those opposing the recognition of autonomy argue that this can lead to the “balkanization” of the country and transform communities into static entities, closed, backward and full of traditions that violate fundamental individual rights. In response, the Comandante Ester from the EZLN clarified in the Congress of the Union (28.03.01) the kind of Mexico that the Zapatistas want: “(…) a Mexico where we the Indigenous will be Indigenous and Mexican; where the respect for differences and the respect for what makes us equal will be in balance; where differences will not be a source of death, detention, prosecution, mockery, humiliation, racism; (…) where in the crucial times of our History, all women and men will stand above our differences and prioritize what we have in common, that is, that we are Mexicans”.

Others see indigenous autonomy as promoting inequality before the law. In response to this particular view, Adelfo Regino of the CNI said: “We, the indigenous people, do not want exemptions, we do not want privileges. We do not want or wish to separate from this country or to place ourselves above the law. The only thing we are asking for is the recognition of what is already a fact in our communities. (…) What we want (…) is the recognition, then, of an already existing reality, and that finally there will be what some call ‘juridical pluralism’”. (Congress of the Union, 28.03.01)

Respect for indigenous customs and traditions is one of the most controversial issues surrounding the recognition of autonomy. There are criticisms of those customs that discriminate against women and that could perpetuate the existing inequalities. It is important to remember, however, that in the San Andres Accords (ASA), respect for human rights was established as a condition for the recognition of indigenous customs.

The EZLN represented a true change in this respect since the Zapatista women issued their Women’s Revolutionary Law in 1993, initiating a struggle for their rights which has influenced other indigenous organizations. In this way the claim for autonomy represents for many indigenous women the possibility to transform the situation of oppression in which they live: “We say that autonomy is a way of implementing democracy, and in a democracy all voices are important, their rights must be respected, that is why the indigenous men should not deprive us from our spaces, from what we are entitled to, otherwise they would be doing the same that the mestizos do to our peoples, to trample on our rights (...) Autonomy is by definition a matter of liberation, that is why men, women and autonomous societies must change, must become more democratic, must recognize internally the liberation of women”. (Margarita Gutiérrez and Nellys Palomo in “México: experiencias de autonomía indígena”, by Aracely Burguete).

La autonomía en camino: modelo multifacético

“We learned from our history and from our own struggle that liberty is won, first and foremost, by practicing it”.
(Leopoldo de Gyves, in op. cit.).

The process of strengthening autonomy in Chiapas started without waiting for the implementation of the ASA. The Zapatista autonomous municipalities, the multiethnic autonomous regions and other municipalities and indigenous communities are taking decisions on how to organize themselves economically, politically and culturally. In each case autonomy appears with a different face.

The Zapatistas exercise autonomy without establishing any relationship with the government –as long as the ASA are not observed– and without participating in elections. The municipalities elect their own authorities and implement their own educational, health and economic projects with the support of Mexican and international civil society. In this case, autonomy means resistance against a government that they do not recognize.

External participation allows for the establishment of solidarity networks and for the involvement of those who, due to distance, could feel that this is a faraway conflict. On the other hand, an excessive dependency on external support could jeopardize the survival and development of the projects.

Another experience of autonomy is the Multiethnic Autonomous Regions established in December 1994. Unlike the Zapatista municipalities, they do accept government programs and they also take part in elections. These differences have resulted in the estrangement between both projects. In the same way, the acceptance or not of government funds is a source of divisions in the communities, which on many occasions have ended in expulsions or in abandoning resistance.

In the Forum on Autonomy organized by the Peace Network (see SIPAZ Activities) in San Cristobal de las Casas (October 2002), representatives from various Chiapas municipalities shared their different experiences of autonomy with NGOs.

In the free municipality of Nicolás Ruiz, the backbone of their autonomy is a government ruled by their customs and traditions, as well as internal rules and regulations approved by consensus at a general assembly. In La Trinitaria the construction of autonomy relies to a certain extent on economic independence, i.e. through the development of their own project for production and commercialization of organic coffee. For others what is crucial is to start strengthening autonomy from the interior of their own families.

Obstacles and Challenges

The construction of communal, municipal or regional autonomy presents many challenges, among them: “to keep a greater relationship amongst the different municipalities; to build an integral autonomy including all its manifestations (political, social, educational, economic, productive); to generate processes from the personal to the collective and vice-versa; to acknowledge the rights of women and their role in the construction of autonomy; to achieve respect amongst groups, communities and peoples (unity within diversity), as well as to maintain resistance without falling to counterinsurgent provocations”. (Conclusions of the Forum on Autonomy, October 2002).

These challenges arise in a particular context (economic, social, political and military) at the national and international level which, combined with community divisions, could hinder and limit the accomplishment of autonomy projects: “The dirty war supposedly implemented from the highest levels of government has divided communities, where the communal reference is being displaced by that of the organization which then becomes the most important one. The challenge of these autonomies is to see how the organizations come to an agreement in order to implement resistance projects to face the common enemy. The various organizations, independently of their political affiliation, live together in a territory where they share roads, water sources, sport-grounds, infrastructure, conflicts for land, leadership, authorities and government, etc., which fight for power. This implies the risk for constant confrontations. In other regions, though, where the positions are nearer and there are agreements even with members of the PRI party, autonomies do work. On the other hand, some social organizations that do not belong to the EZLN and that share the territory want to dominate following their own logic. This results in the confrontation of projects and of the different approaches. In this respect, the line of power of civil, military and traditional authorities also plays a role”. (Bulletin Chiapas al Dia, CIEPAC, 06.05.98)

Autonomy can become the way toward the achievement of conditions for peace through the construction of greater social justice in the communities, provided internal confrontations are overcome: “There is something in common amongst all the experiences of construction of autonomy: fear of divisions. We have to accept ourselves as we are, recognize the diversity within each of us and that in our life journeys we are constantly learning”. (Representative of Chalchiutan, Forum on Autonomy, October 2002).

It is necessary to overcome confrontations and distances among the various experiences of autonomy in Chiapas so that diversity will cease to be a source of conflicts. Furthermore, the capacity to construct alternatives must be shared and in this way resistance and non-violent struggles will be strengthened and conditions for peace will be built through concrete actions.

In addition, transforming Mexico into a multicultural and multiethnic country through the recognition of autonomy requires that it include the non-indigenous population: “Autonomy is also part of the new relationship between the peoples, the State and the national society. It is a cornerstone for the construction of a new democratic country as demanded by all Mexicans. Autonomy is a universal value not restricted to the indigenous peoples. It is necessary to explore new expressions of autonomy for the various communities and collectivities that are part of our nation”. (CNI, “Never again a Mexico without us!”, 11.01.98).

:: SIPAZ ACTIVITIES

September – November 2002

Accompaniment

• Northern Zone: The SIPAZ team visited a number of communities in Tila, in the Northern zone of Chiapas. In spite of the peace agreements signed in El Limar and Miguel Aleman, the situation was particularly tense following the detention of several members of Development, Peace and Justice. We also met local authorities in Tila and government officials in Yajalon, who are in charge of that town council. Responding to a request of the Miguel Agustin Pro Human Rights Centre, we visited its lawyer in Palenque.
• Brigades: we took part in two brigades, which visited the autonomous towns of Olga Isabel (Chilón) and Ricardo Flores Magón (Ocosingo). Zapatistas had been assassinated in these localities in August.

Contacts and information

• We coordinated the visit to Chiapas of the Minister from the German Embassy and met with the new United Kingdom Ambassador in San Cristóbal de las Casas.
• The team received various delegations, journalists and other international visitors, in order to inform them on the current situation in Chiapas and on SIPAZ work.
• We took part in the Encounter of Mother Earth in Ocosingo in early September, together with a broad spectrum of organizations from the area.
• SIPAZ had a series of meetings in Mexico City with advisors, NGOs and embassies.
• We participated as observers in the First Chiapas Encounter Facing Neo-liberalism, which took place in San Cristóbal de las Casas, from October 9 to 12.

Inter-religious Dialogue

• We met with religious actors from San Cristóbal de las Casas, from the town of Chenalhó and with the Plural Ecumenical Group.
• The project Peacebuilding exchange project between religious leaders from Chenalhó and the Peace Commissions from Nicaragua continues being implemented. A new stage of training started in November with a workshop in Yabteclum, after several months of introducing the communities to the project.
• We took part in a workshop on Culture, Spirituality and Peace Theology in San Cristóbal de las Casas on October 4-5.
• The team continues participating in the preparation and facilitation of ecumenical prayers for peace in San Cristóbal de las Casas.

Peace Education

• SIPAZ co-facilitated a series of workshops on Conflict Transformation for students at the Centers for Community Development (CEDECOs) in San Cristobal de las Casas and Las Margaritas.
• In October we took part in a workshop on Positive Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding, organized by the government of Chiapas with the support of the Friederich Ebert Foundation.
• SIPAZ continues to take part in the Peace Network. This is a space for action and reflection that aims at supporting reconciliation and peace processes amongst organizations and communities in Chiapas. In early October this Network organized a micro forum around the issue of Autonomy.
• We participated in the follow-up meetings of the First National Encounter for Peace with Justice and Dignity that had taken place in San Cristóbal de las Casas in July. One of the goals of these meetings is the organization of a second encounter planned for early 2003.

International

• In October the SIPAZ International Outreach Coordinator met several NGOs and solidarity groups in Washington DC and in New York. The SIPAZ Chiapas Office Coordinator met various organizations in France in November.