Chiapas: Foreigners out!
cities. They also aspire to a Mexico which espouses democracy, freedom and justice
Whereas the EZLN fights to defend
Mexican media and government have recent weeks, Mexican immigration national sovereignty, the Mexican Federal demanded the expulsion of foreign agents have begun stopping tourists in
Army functions to protect a government which has destroyed the material bases of sovereignty and which has offered the country not only to large-scale foreign capital, but also to drug trafficking.
It is not only in the mountains of southeast Mexico that neoliberalism is being resisted. In other regions of Mexico, in
Latin America, in the United States and
Canada, in the Europe of the Maastricht
Treaty, in Africa, in Asia and in Oceania, pockets of resistance are multiplying. Each has its own history, its specificities, its similarities, its demands, its struggles and its successes. If humanity hopes to survive, and to improve itself, its only hope lies in these pockets which are created by the excluded, the marginalised and those who are considered "disposable".
observers from Chiapas state
One television program claimed that foreigners were present in areas held by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and participated directly in the rebel leadership. The popular weekly political magazine Proceso says the programme was produced in collaboration with the Interior Ministry.
In January the International Red Cross was told to leave Chiapas, though Representative Philippe Gaillard protested that "providing humanitarian aid to displaced refugees is not interference in Mexican domestic political affairs." Danielle Mitterand, widow of the deceased French president, has also been warned by Immigration officials.
the street and interrogating them at length. Some restaurants in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas are reportedly refusing service to foreign tourists who look like observers of the conflict.
President of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called the government's approach "hypocritical." "They go to Washington and hand over the nation's wealth, they accept recommendations from the International Monetary Fund on economic policy, but when it comes to Chiapas, then they want to look very nationalistic."
Others charge the campaign is both xenophobic and racist for presuming that Chiapas Indians would not be
In the past year more than 200 foreig- fighting for their rights, were it not for the
So what we have here is a drawing of a pocket of resistance. But don't attach too much importance to it. The possible
16 International Viewpoint #299 ners have been deported for alleged political activities in Chiapas. And, in prodding of foreigners. *
Source: MLNA/PG