The group arrives in San Cristóbal de las Casas

We arrived from the Campo to San Cristóbal this past Tuesday, and since then we have had an exhausting but fascinating week meeting with different organizations, exploring the city, and getting sick. Our first day we got up early to meet with an organization called the Center for Economic and Political Research and Community Action (CIEPAC). We sat spellbound for three hours as Miguel Pickard explained the role of his organization in carrying out research on how economic policies and projects in Chiapas impact local communities. He had an incredible way of tying together much of what we’ve been learning about migration, the drug wars, US economic policy and militarization, and we all left having had numerous ‘light bulb’ moments as pieces fell into place in our minds.
That afternoon, in preparation for the next day’s trip to Acteal, we met with a group (The Human Rights Center Fray Bartolome de las Casas), which carries out research and provides legal support on many human rights abuse cases committed against citizens by the Mexican police, military and paramilitary groups. Through the discussion we learned about the tragedy that occurred in Acteal in 1997 where paramilitaries massacred 45 people (mostly women and children), and, to this day, the community still awaits justice to come to the perpetrators of the massacre. Within the tragedy we must acknowledge the role the United States played, as many of the tactics the paramilitaries were using were acquired at military schools in the US such as School of the Americas. Given the amount of US military aid pouring into Mexico at the time, it would not be surprising if the arms used in the massacre were paid for with US taxpayer money. Military aid is still on its way to Mexico in the Security and Prosperity Plan of North America, proposed by President Bush, allowing for the likelihood of more atrocities, like Acteal, to be carried out in the future.
Although we spent the afternoon learning about Acteal, it did nothing to prepare us for the emotions we would feel upon arriving to the site. The Pillar of Shame, a totem of human misery to commiserate December of 1997, greeted us as we unloaded from the van. Walking through a massacre site that had taken place within our lifetime was so strange and overwhelming. I kept thinking back to this penny activity we’d done on the first day of Heather’s class in which we’d been handed a penny and had to say what had happened to us in the year the penny was made. What had that coppery 1997 meant to me? To the community I was walking through?
It was so empowering to meet with the Abejas to see how, in the face of such a tragedy, the community had fought back (non-violently) and had continued its resistance by declaring itself an autonomous community and by not receiving government aid.