About 30 University students listened with empathetic ears yesterday to tales of devastation faced by the indigenous peoples of Chiapas, Mexico. Lynn Stoltzfus, a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams, spoke of the destruction of the Mexicans' homes and their imprisonment.
Stoltzfus spent the last year and a half in Chiapas working and living with indigenous communities, specifically those of Chenalho County. He described his experiences in a lecture at Minor Hall called "The Struggle for Peace with Justice and Dignity: Chiapas, Mexico." The event was sponsored by Critical Mass, a student-run magazine that focuses on leftist politics.
Stoltzfus primarily was involved with the Mexicans' government, paramilitaries and the Zapatistas National Liberation Army.
A 1993 college trip to Central America inspired Stoltzfus to join the struggle.
On the trip, he saw poverty, injustice and U.S. support for a repressive military regime, Stoltzfus said.
"It's out of that [experience] that I've looked for a way to respond to [the situation]," he said.
In his lecture, Stoltzfus focused on the relationship between the indigenous people and the Chiapas government.
In 1995, the Zapatistas, a civilian organization fighting for the rights of indigenous people, expected to negotiate with the government to change the Mexican constitution. The group hoped the government would recognize the rights of indigenous people, Stoltzfus said.
But instead of sending in negotiation teams, the Mexican government sent an army to arrest Zapatistas leaders.
"This has led the indigenous people to mistrust the police and military," Stoltzfus said.
A massacre of 40 indigenous people while they prayed in a church also added to regional instability. Members of the military came in and shot them, but the local police did nothing to protect them.
"There were police on the road right above where the massacre took place," he said. "They heard the shots, took cover and then left."
Stoltzfus said Mexican President Vicente Fox's plans for modernization also threatens the region.
Fox's goal is "to give everyone a job, a phone and a Volkswagen Bug - make them entrepreneurs basically," he said.
Nicholas Graber-Grace, a second-year College student and member of Critical Mass, grew active in the cause after viewing the site of the massacre and seeing the devastation in Mexico - experiences that prompted him to bring Stotlzfus to the University.
"I wanted to be [the indigenous community's] voice here," Graber-Grace said.
Several civilian organizations, such as las Abejas and Zapatistas, are now targeting what they see as a corrupt justice system, selective assassinations
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