Chiapas Observers

I appreciate The Times’ coverage of the Mexican “draconian response” to civil rights observers of all persuasions in the beleaguered Chiapas province (May 9). But I must ask: Why are opposition forces described as “left wing,” as the Zapatistas and their sympathizers inevitably are? Is it because they are seeking limited autonomy? Land reform? Self-determination?

Would you describe our pre-Revolutionary War protesters or our Founding Fathers as “left wing”? It seems so utterly simplistic. Are our own indigenous people, who throughout U.S. history fought for rights and self-determination and a plot of land that was permanently theirs, “left wing”? Such labeling is calculated to scare up visions of the “red menace.”

And why not note that the Zapatistas, at least so far, have not countered the violence against them; the aggressor continues to be, solely, the PRI government.

ROBERT BROPHY, Los Alamitos