QUERÉTERO (29 March)--One way of resolving the problem of the conflict-ridden aftermath of the Acteal massacre last December, Sub-Commandante Marcos stated memorably via a video transmission in early March, "is to acknowledge that there is a war in the Mexican southeast, and that it is a war between the memory of the Indian peoples and the oblivion of the government."

Memory and oblivion - and a government not only seemingly oblivious to its own lies but trying hard to instill collective loss of memory in its citizens. It's hard to open a Mexican newspaper or switch on the TV at the moment without seeing vying versions of the fate of the "desplazados" - those indigenous Chiapanecos subsisting in refugee camps, too afraid to return to their homes and farms after December's massacre by the paramilitary group "Peace and Justice."

Postive, officially-sanctioned images show clothing, food and medicines being delivered to the camps, and people (like those made destitute by the Oaxaca hurricane last year) ironically choosing from more clothes and toys than they had ever had access to in their lives.

Lavish government promotional campaigns on television paint a wonderful new picture of indigenous people receiving immunisation and healthcare, schools being built and furnished, truckloads of construction materials being placed in the hands of the grateful dispossessed.

But it's probably better to never take on face value anything a government pays to have publicised about itself, particularly a government with a Secretary of External Relations who can declare quite openly: "Unfortunately the Internet and the television got the word out about Acteal before the government could give its own version."

The news is so saturated with information about Chiapas at the moment that there are plenty of lines to read between. Some don't even need that - breathtaking double standards and glaringly obvious disinformation campaigns speak for themselves.

Currently, a big indicator of the real situation lies in the summary deportation of dozens of foreigners - journalists, priests and tourists - from Chiapas itself. Many others are under investigation as immigration officials look at possible visa violations and try to decide how foreign tourists might be breaking the law. It is illegal in Mexico for foreigners to become "involved in national politics;" and the Federal Executive has the power to unilaterally expel any foreigner, with or without just cause (a right, incidentally, contrary to Articles 9 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rightsbut in Mexico, for most people, that's the least of your human rights troubles) . The government is fuelling xenophobic flames by repeatedly charging that foreigners are overstepping the boundaries and flagrantly meddling on the side of the Zapatistas, often, apparently, by simply being in Chiapas.

"They don't help us to achieve peace and only obstruct our efforts to lower tensions," Emilio Rabasa Gamboa, the government's negotiator for Chiapas, claimed in February.

These "efforts to lower tensions" include the now notorious TV Azteca program screened mid-February in which Lolita de la Vega, a TV anchorwoman, commandeered a helicopter to La Realidad in Chiapas and landed there hoping to grab a few soundbites of Zapatista guerillas. As the New York Times reported the story a few days later:

Ms. de la Vega's footage showed that she and her crew were greeted by several people who looked non-Mexican, who demanded to see their press credentials, photographed them, took one of their video-tapes and eventually asked them to leave.

In an interview, the newswoman said she felt she had been "kidnapped" by the strangers, who she concluded were foreign members of the Zapatista army.

"We saw that it wasn't an Indian movement. Foreigners were in command of our Indians," she said. "It brought back memories of the Spanish conquest."

(It says something about the cultural paradigm of the country that a phrase like "our Indians" can go unnoticed and unchallenged in this context, doesn't it?) What Ms. de la Vega failed to report, of course, gives another side to the story. A Mexican journalist in La Realidad at the time revealed that all was not what it seemed.

The helicopter the anchorwoman commandeered displayed no logos of TVAzteca - in fact it was an unmarked Chiapas government helicopter, probably very familiar to the frightened and solidly pro-Zapatista villagers. It is hardly surprising that they thought its unnannounced arrival in the town was part of a government attack. The journalist reported that the villagers asked "several foreigners, who were part of a "peace camp" of international observers in the community, to mediate for them with the television crew."

They approached, being surreptitiously and without consent filmed by the camera crew in the helicopter, and levered a branch into the helicopter's rotors, preventing it from taking off again until they questioned what was going on. The highly charged confrontation between the news crew and the foreigner mediators was all captured on video, until the foreigners realised they were being illegally taped and asked for the cassette to be handed over. The camera man, with a quick sleight of hand no doubt practised for just such an event, handed over a dummy tape and the crew choppered back to the studio with their scoop.

And it was a scoop, in the sense that it pinpointed an area of high tension in the country at the moment - international attention focussed on something the government would like to keep well under wraps.

It offered a microcosmic example of the polarized opinion of the Mexican people - from the "interfering troublemakers" xenophobia of the denouncing Ms de la Vega to accusations from others that all the government is now doing is trying to force foreign witnesses out of areas where the army would dearly love to send in the troops.

Often people who feel themselves victims of low-intensity war ask foreign peacekeeping groups, agencies such as the Red Cross, Peace Brigades International and various other organizations to stay around and observe what happens, or to act as bodyguards to people whose lives are explicitly under threat. Much to the fury and exasperation of civil and military authorities, this requested presence often gives an international profile to events which those authorities would prefer to keep covert. (It should be pointed out here that this is not the same as tourists flooding San Cristbel de las Casas looking for Zapatistas to be photographed with - as one Mexican quite reasonably pointed out to me the other day: "Why do so many North Americans come here wanting to join the "revolution", as if it's Disneyland? Haven't they got armed indigenous and civil insurrection in their own country? Why don't they go and join the Montana Militia?")

But those deported have hardly been hardcore revolutionaries, bent on undermining Mexican law and order. One North American recently deported covered the peace talks in 1996 using an official press credencial issued by the agency of the Mexican Congress that organised the negotiations.

Another, 67 year old Father Michel Henri Jean Chanteau Desillieres, a French priest with the Diocese of San Cristobal who has served the indigenous communities of Chenalho for the past 32 years, was expelled from Mexico for having voiced his opinion that the federal government was responsible for the massacre of 45 of his parishioners in Acteal last December. Chanteau, said the Undersecretary of Immigration Affairs, was deported to France because he had "undertaken unauthorised activitiesand publicly made political declarations thereby becoming involved in the internal political affairs of our countryaccusing the government of the massacre and of using it to eliminate the Zapatista bases."

For telling the truth, in other words.

Meanwhile, the group who did receive official sanction to be here -the International Civilian Human Rights Observation Commission [CCIODH], who visited Mexico during the first two months of the year - promises to give the Mexican government far more of a headache than the odd tourist-sympathiser ever could have. A spokesperson for the group claimed upon leaving that "there are elements and conditions, in accordance with international legislation, to accuse the Mexican government of genocide. In Chiapas, the will exists to exterminate a population group for ethnic, religious, and political reasons. The signs we have seen in Chiapas indicate to us that a violent, rather than a peaceful, solution to the conflict is in the making."

It seems tragically ironic that even as the government sturdily denies this is true, it continues. One Chol refugee, JosÈ Tila Lopez Garcia, walked six hours from his northern Chiapas encampment to give a testimony to the commission. As he returned on foot to his community the following day, he was ambushed and assassinated. Others in his group were wounded, but could still provide eye-witness accounts of the heavily-armed para-military group responsible - yes, Peace and Justice, the group responsible for the December massacre.

Garcia's testimony, though, was part of more than 100 hours of thousands of denunciations received by the Commission, in which "all sectors and actors involved in the conflict" gave evidence..except, revealingly, the general in charge of the Seventh Military Region, the Defence Secretary and the President, who refused to meet with observers.

What must be really infuriating the Government at the moment is that several members of the CCIODH are members of the European Parliament, and the final report issued by the group is expected to be presented before that legislative body in an attempt to put additional diplomatic pressure on the Mexican government before ratifying a long-awaited free trade agreement between Mexico and the European Union.

No doubt Lolita de la Vega will have something to say. (Damn foreigners and their human rights, standing in the way of decent profiteering!)

Although military operations in the southeast jungle region of Chiapas were generally suspended during visits of the International Civilian Human Rights Observation Commission, land and air operations of the Mexican Army began again almost immediately once they'd left. On February 24th, a 50-unit military convoy was observed entering the army base in occupied Guadalupe Tepeyac, and military helicopters and airplanes resumed low surveillance flights over La Realidad. Very low surveillance, according to residents. These aircrafts fly only a few meters above the ground and the duration of their flights last hours and are repeated throughout the day. From their own homes, people are able to see the "very faces" of the pilots and passengers of the helicopters as well as the machine guns which are pointed downward.

In another strange twist, the Attorney General's Office (PGR) in Mexico has released its own report on the massacre, and for a government which prides itself on openess and peaceful outcomes to this whole damn mess, it makes for peculiar reading. Motives for the crime? All problems and tensions in Chenalho were created by EZLN, claims the PGR.

And the actual massacre? "Personal revenge". There is no suggestion that pro-government paramilitary groups may have played a part (in fact, the word "paramilitary" only appears once, fleetingly, in the report).

So it's all being taken care of by the experts. The Supreme Court has decided to reject the request of 39 non-governmental organizations to intervene in the Acteal investigation. No thanks. It would be "inconvenient" for the Supreme Court to open its own line of enquiry. And hey, we've already put the former mayor of Chenalho in prison. The governor's resigned. Everything's under control.

(By the way, the preliminary report of the PGR's investigation into the Acteal massacre can be accessed in both Spanish and English at the PGR's official website: www.pgr.gob.mx ).

Enough bitter irony? Not quite. The twist that really takes the cake happened only this last week, when amid much publicity and self-congratulation the government announced at an international writers conference that Mexico City is now one of the world's 23 cities which offer themselves as refuges to persecuted writers. And not only to writers, stressed CuauhtÈmoc C·rdenas, but everyone victimised by "fear of ideas, intolerance, and violence in its thousands of forms."

Making Mexico City a Refuge City, the government maintained, was a serious commitment, "and we'd like to extend this to encompass the whole of the country, a practice which has become our tradition - that of Mexico as a country known and recognised as a land of asylum and home to those persecuted by repressive dictators and those afraid of free thought, of the expression and debate of ideas, of political activity, of democratic practices, of the meeting of diversity." [Mexican daily La Jornada, 20 March]

Salman Rushdie's written response, praising the campaign as a "generous and appropriate decision" was well-publicised, although Latin American writers actually attending the conference did not miss the paradox of the occasion.

"If I can be allowed one more interjection," said Portugese writer JosÈ Saramago in one speech, "I would say that the indigenous of Chiapas do not find refuge in Mexico."

Carlos Fuentes, too, while expressing hope for the future of "open countries which protect the persecuted," put into words what recent events have made all too obvious: Mexico at the moment is anything but an example of tolerance and freedom of expression. "We're celebrating this to oppose all forms of intolerance - the hatred of foreigners, patriotic exaltation or clamour against interventions which tolerate the powerful but condemn the weak falsely accused of interference, of acts of solidarity, of opinion and of information".

Some commentators assert that with the current expulsion of foreigners and military harrassment and clamp-downs on indigenous people, the country's xenophobia and racism has never been stronger. Paradoxically, strong indications suggest that North American fascist leader Lyndon LaRouche finances and promotes ultra-right groups in Mexico, and is closely linked with the MSIA (the Iberian American Solidarity Movement) including with the ruling party's (now former) federal deputies in the Chiapas region. In fact, in 1995 representatives from the MSIA, together with members of "Peace and Justice" (that name again!) travelled to France and Germany at the invitation of the La Rouche-linked Shiller Institute to "talk about" the Zapatista movement.

The flavor of these "discussions" is indicated by a January press release by the MSIA: "The only leaders of paramilitary groups that exist in Chiapas are Samuel Ruiz [the region's Catholic bishop-ed.] and his swarms of narcoterrorists....Commandante Sammy [sic] and associates such as David Fernandez [director of the Centre for Human Rights in Chiapas-ed.]are nothing but traitors to Mexico," adding ominously "the MSIA does not issue death threats." [emphasis added-ed.]

What's more, the book produced by "Peace and Justice" in 1996 Chiapas - The Course of War re-states LaRouche's bizarre charges that the Zapatistas and their sympathisers are nothing but a "British terrorist conspiracy thought up by Queen Elizabeth II, which tries to destabilise markets and create republics or divide the country."

Be careful of simply laughing this kind of thing off as loony right-wing posturing. This theory has had a geniune influence on Latin American armies, and the Mexican Army in particular. In 1996 the Mexican Army published five thousand copies of LaRouche's book Conspiracy and converted it into a soldiers' training manual, attempting to paint EZLN as "the Shining Path of the North" according to David Fernandez. [Shining Path is the name of a violent Stalinist cult in Peru--ed.] MSIA has also accused the bishop of San Cristbal of "collaborating and disguising the invasion of a foreign army who want to control and sieze a part of national territory, and large amounts of Mexico's strategic natural resources".

Strategic natural resources? You don't have to scratch far to see what's underlying the struggle to assert control here--nor to see what lies behind the death squads and their U.S. fascist allies. Indigenous resistence and demands for autonomy - particularly those organised into forces like the Zapatistas - directly threaten the overriding interests of free trade goals and military repression. Interior Minister Francisco Labastida Ochoa has insisted that foreign investment "is the only way to raise the standard of living in Chiapas," and that public and private investment strategies would be part of the government's "new peace plan".

Mexican President Zedillo, when he expressed his horror that this event should have occured last December, was quick to point out that he was mainly horrified by what it might do to Mexico's business and economic status. If anything should happen to the all-important balance of trade, he seemed to suggest, well, we all know who to blame - those pesky Indians with their powerful foreign friends stirring up trouble.

And the "new peace plan?" After weeks of heralding the government's commitment to the process of dialogue and consensus with the country's indigenous, Zedillo recently announced that his government was abandoning ship on peace initiatives with EZLN. In fact, in speaking about "rights" the regime has blithely refused to give those at the receiving end of the conflict even the right to be heard.

Zedillo's government made a unilateral decision last week to launch the federal government's initiative on constitutional reform regarding indigenous culture and rights after discarding any consultation with indigenous people. In doing so he has missed a unique and historical opportunity to establish a new agreement between the State and indigenous citizens, and illustrated yet again his government's contempt of agreements to which they have already signed their commitment. (Hence the fulsome television campaign publicising the new government initiative - it's all being taken care of on your behalf, so there's no need to ask any more questions.) He may try blaming EZLN again for blocking peaceful resolutions, but EZLN's playing a much wiser game than Zedillo's government at the moment, one that in the face of all this disinformation just firmly and repeatedly states the truth.

"The government has NEVER sought a peaceful and political solution to the problem," an address from EZLN bluntly told the Commission on Concordance and Pacification in early March. "It has always resorted to deceit and treachery in order to avoid a serious commitment to the path of dialogue. In spite of its press conferences, official reports and appearances in international forums, this is known in Mexico and throughout the world.What remains unsaid by the government of Mr. Zedillo is that the negotiation is stalled because the government never carried out what it signed. The actual situation of crisis in Chiapas is due to the fact that it seeks out a war of extermination and not a peaceful solution. With its "new" strategy, the Ministry of Governance mocks all of you."

What was the point, this statement asks, "in negotiating for months if the government was going to present its own proposal and not the one agreed to? Why, after two years have passed since they were signed, does the government set the agreements aside and present a unilateral vision of the indigenous question?

"Because the government has never intended to fulfill the agreements nor to commit itself to dialogue and negotiation. If today the government decides to make public its denial of the agreements, to pass over them, to convert into law its own definition of the indigenous demands, it is because it wants public opinion to favor a repressive action..There is much evidence that the government has provided which show that it aspires to resolve the Zapatista rebellion militarily. The novelty is the audacity with which it pretends to involve the legislative commission of which you are a part."

"This government only believes in political means and the law to solve conflicts" Zedillo claimed when questioned over his decision. "This is a demonstrated decision it is what Chiapas asks for and needs, and what all Mexicans demand and deserve."

Peace in Chiapas, he went on, is "a challenge for all" and is not reached "by feeding anarchy and promoting false solutions which would involve a return to authoritarianism".

Authoritarianism, presumably, of the type meted out to those who dare to demand autonomy and recognition in Chiapas, which makes Zedillo's "commitment" ring even more hollowly.

Authoritarianism at the hands of the 70,000 federal troops and security forces currently stationed in that state, waiting for their next chance to keep the peace as they've been trained to, with military issue expanding bullets and a corrupt collusion of secrecy and impunity.

The next conflict in a long tradition of conflict - 500 years, more or less - is waiting in the wings. What the events of the last few months are leading to, the EZLN statement warns, is "the encircling of the EZLN as a preparatory step to the military-police offensive" .

And as for being blamed for "intransigence" and stonewalling the peace process: "The lack of recognition of indigenous rights is what is undemocratic because it denies the original inhabitants of these lands, rights which history owes them. It is the economic, social and political model imposed by the Zedillo government that attacks national sovereignty and fragments the nation. It is the lack of fulfillment of the San Andres Agreements which promotes chaos. It is the warlike vocation of the government which provokes bloody confrontations."

It is hardly surprising that Zedillo's promise of "political means and the law" is met with indigenous cynicism and mistrust. Like "peace and justice", they're words which are liable to mean the opposite of what they say. And like Zedillo's signature pledging to act upon established accords, there's every chance that their implementation will be another abuse of power and trust, another travesty.

Meanwhile, in the camps of Chenalh, some 10,000 displaced people wait--people who were already refugees when they fled the para-military, people used to living in cardboard shacks and sleeping on the ground. And they wait.

Not just for the promised trucks to arrive carrying medicine and bedding and building materials. Not just for needles and thread so they can begin embroidering articles to sell, or seeds so they can plant small corn patches. But for a civil society which allows indigenous people to return to their homes and farmlands without being in fear of death. "We've done enough crying," one woman says. "God has seen everything that has happened."

And whether they're there to try to maintain the peace, report the events or just take photos, foreigners at present are being hounded, harrassed and deported by the government which is more than happy to pat itself on the back as a world-recognised beacon of freedom and justice. You might like to use this to your advantage, if you find yourself stopped by government security forces in Chiapas and told to leave the country. Tell them you're a writer being persecuted for your belief in freedom of speech, interested in the democratic process and the debate of ideas, and you've come to fabled Mexico for sanctuary. You may not succeed, but it might put a branch in their rotors.

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SeeingRed staffer Cate Kennedy, an Australian, is a prize-winning fiction writer and poet living and working in Mexico.

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