Old world pressures on Mexico's rulers back.
This is the third time that local people have blocked neo-liberal plans to privatise the environment. The first project which pro-
Members of parliament from Mexico's ruling PRI have asked the Minister of voked popular resistance was the construc-
Foreign Affairs to protest to the Danish government, after a group of Danish tion of a cable car, which threatened to
MPs [from the Red Green Alliance] wrote to Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, damage the pre-Columbian pyramid Tepoz asking him whether the Mexican government wished to solve the armed teco. The second protest blocked the construction of a scenic train route which would
The MPs urged Zedillo to approve the proposals for constitutional reform in have damaged the delicate equilibrium of the the field of indigenous culture and rights developed by the Concorde and high-mountain micro-region.
Pacification Commission (COCOPA). PRI members of parliament called this an
The government has used repression and
"inadmissible act". Senator Adamor Rodriguez Lozano said that the Danish endless negotiations to try and defeat the
MPs' letter could not be tolerated, since it attacked the sovereignty of Mexico popular movement. Local teacher Gerardo and insulted the country's executive and legislative powers. "Under no
("Galo") Demeza, has spent over 12 months circumstances, as a senator and as a Mexican," he said, can I accept that a in prison, falsely accused of the murder of group of legislators from other countries come and challenge popular
Pedro Barragan, who died in a confrontation sovereignty, and give us lessons in democracy."
between Los Ratones (The Rats) an armed
One week later, 120 Italian MPs, representing all political groups, wrote to gang of government thugs and the local
President Zedillo asking him "to lift his veto on the constitutional reform on the population.
rights and dignity of the indigenous communities, as proposed by COCOPA.
Other leaders and members of the Tepoz-
According to a statement issued by the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC tlan Unity Committee have been arrested,
- Rifondazione) on 6 February, COCOPA "is an expression of the Federa but then released following popular protests.
Parliament, and includes representatives of all Mexico's political parties"
Nevertheless, more than 170 detention orders
COCOPA's proposals were formulated "after the peace accords signed against Tepoztlan residents are still valid.
between the Mexican government and the EZLN (Zapatistas) in February
This small town has acted in the spirit of the Zapatista Commune of 1914, when
The initiative was presented in the Italian Chamber of Deputies by represenpeasants in Morelos joined the rebels of the
Southern Liberation Army of Emiliano
Zapata in a struggle for land, which involved organising self-government in the townships.
22 International Viewpoint conflict in Chiapas or not.
tatives of Rifondazione.
Source: La Jornada, 30 January and 7 February
Multi-class, multi-ethnic movement