Mexico’s Real Terrorists Bear the Flag : Chiapas represents all those betrayed by their government.

Having had the experience of being arrested and jailed in Chiapas, having been turned over to and mistreated by the Mexican army, and having been beaten and almost killed at the hands of the Mexican secret police, I feel a need to speak about the rebellion taking place there.

The uprising of the indigenous people in Chiapas in no way surprises me. What does surprise me is that these people have for so long endured their horrific condition, a result of purposeful neglect by the government and racist oppression by the large landowners. The brutal attempt by the Mexican government to suppress the uprising is also no surprise. Official corruption, white-collar crimes, fraudulent elections, incessant bribery, police brutality and drug-trafficking run rampant in Mexico. But when poor people stand up for their dignity and human rights, authoritative indignation in the form of official armed violence is the prompt response.

My knowledge of Chiapas comes from having lived for six years in the mountains of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, where I was accustomed to ride my horse across the border into the towns of Chiapas to buy provisions. My experience of Chiapas was both wonderful and sad. Never in my life have I met a more loving and generous people than the Mexican campesinos. Those with only one meal were willing to share it. A stranger had a place to stay. But it was always sad to see how these same people suffered.

Through my work as a Catholic priest among the peasants of Guatemala, I slowly realized that all legal means for attaining the rights of the poor had long been exhausted. After painstaking deliberation, I joined the Guatemalan Revolutionary Movement. I concluded that the movement was not violent per se, but was the only means left to the people for standing up to the institutionalized violence of the government. And since the Catholic Church had always sent its chaplains into the official armed conflicts of the wealthy, no matter how unjust the cause, I thought it appropriate that I, as a priest, should be part of a truly just armed conflict.

Those who enter the first stages of a revolutionary movement are not suicidal. They generally are people who have little to lose except their lives, and willingly give of themselves in order that their children and those that follow might have more. In conversations with the comandante of the Guatemalan movement’s forces, a man who was to give his life, I learned of the commitment of people in taking the only dignified step left to them.

When my participation in the movement was discovered, I was condemned by ecclesiastical and governmental authorities and expelled from Guatemala. I spent the next four months “underground” in Mexico, much of that time in Chiapas, again witnessing Mayan Indians living in conditions similar to those of their people in Guatemala. One day, as I left San Cristobal de Las Casas, the focal point of the present uprising of the Zapatistas, I was arrested by border police and jailed. I then had the brief privilege of existing at the level of the indigenous poor and of gaining further insight into their oppression. From the jail I was taken to the army base in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the state capital, gaining additional insight into the plight of the poor who, forced into the military, are trained to fight against their own people. Turned over to the secret police, I was nearly murdered, saved only through the kindness and courage of a Mexican priest.

The uprising in Mexico is an infant compared to the war that the Guatemalan government has been waging against its people and their revolutionary forces, now in its 33rd year. Many seers and American business investors say that the revolt in Mexico will be short-lived. I doubt it, having seen the capacity of the people.

Since it is no longer politically correct to use the term communists for the revolutionaries of southern Mexico, with what despicable label will we insult the poor and oppressed who are now standing up for their rights? Terrorists seems to be the politically acceptable word. As the Mexican government claims that “professional terrorists” are leading the “simple Indians,” what then do we call the real professional terrorists of the Mexican government and military who order bombings of civilian populations and summary executions of peasants?

It is unfortunate that the original inhabitants of that beautiful land are forced to take up the gun. Their present effort may be contained by the promoters of “progress,” but since “free trade” is commonly known to be simply another step in putting the interests of the wealthy over those of the poor, I feel sure that what is happening now in Chiapas is only the beginning.