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The Second Front

The revolution may soon be coming to Guerrero. The southwestern state which includes the resort city of Acapulco is now becoming the "second Chiapas", as police and citizens trade ambush for ambush, and execution for execution.

Deliberate murder is nothing new in Guerrero, a mountainous area with a tradition of insurrection, frontier justice, clan feud, and despotic rule. With its' mixture of desperate rural poverty, flashy seaside resort communities and entrenched drug producers, Guerrero is a seething cauldron of disparate economic classes. Under the governorship of the Figueroa family, father and son, for many a "sexeno" (the six-year period an elected official serves), Guerrero is the classic example of oligarchic rule in modern Mexico (see this column, "Mexico Electronico").

Reuben Figueroa Alcocer rules Guerrero through a combination of intimidation, bribery, flattery and election stealing. A lifelong member of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the party of President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, Reuben Figueroa's politics are so dirty that many PRI deputies are calling for his resignation. However, as one local PRI deputy put it to me, "Figueroa believes that he owns Guerrero. He doesn't think he has to listen to anyone else, so he doesn't". Embattled and isolated, Figueroa is creating exactly what the Zapatistas, trapped in the mountains of southern Chiapas, have been longing for: an independent local uprising that becomes a major second front in the civil revolt (see this column, "Let The People Decide"). That this would happen eventually, somewhere in Mexico, has never been in doubt for the Zaps. The question was, would it happen in time to save their bacon. It now appears that the stalling tactics the EZLN has been employing for over a year may f inally be paying off.

In three months during the summer of 1995, between 50 and 70 people are said to have died in the continuing struggle between Figueroa's police and peasants of varying political persuasions.

On June 28, police opened fire on a group of unarmed campesinos traveling from their mountain villages to a protest march in a regional market town. Seventeen men and boys were killed. The National Human Rights Commission, a quasi-governmental body, investigated that incident and called it an unprovoked attack. The Commission recommended that Figueroa fire one of his assistant governors, the head of the Dept. of Public Security, the head of the State Police, and several others in positions of authority. Figueroa agreed to follow the Commission's recommendations, but compliance was slow. Although everyone knew that the orders came from Figueroa, the Commission did not name him as a responsible person: a political move tacitly acknowledging his power and his vengeful temper.

In July, a peasant leader and most of his extended family (13 people including a 2-year-old and two 12-year-olds) were cut down by men dressed in military or paramilitary clothing, using R-15 assault weapons similar to those issued by the police. A surviving teenage boy, left for dead, told the Commission that the murderers said "we are The Law", and made them all get out of their pickups and lie on the ground before executing them. A week later, five motorized state police were ambushed and killed.

In August, an organization known as "500 Years of Indigenous Resistance", composed of a broad spectrum of agrarian self-help and peasants' rights groups, began a stepped-up campaign to form civilian militia in the mountain villages to protect local folks against marauding bands of police. Also in August, several PRD leaders were assassinated, and an attempt was made on a Judicial Police official strolling in a park in broad daylight in the middle of Acapulco.

In September, "500 years" issued an ultimatum to Figueroa's police: stay out of our territory. Henceforth, the announcement said, certain named municipalities would be guarded by armed civilian militia, and any attempt by the motorized police patrols of the state government to enter those territories would be met by hostile fire.

In the fourth week of September, a column of State Motorized Police traveling in a district "posted" by "500 years" were ambushed, and seven state and local officers killed. A large but undetermined amount of cash was taken (according to some officers who escaped). It is widely believed that the money was to be used to buy drugs: as in most of Mexico, the police are major transporters and protectors for drug growers and dealers. It is unclear whether the money or their mere presence was the motive for the attack.

In the week or so following the police ambush, at least eight peasants were executed. On the beach, four young men in their twenties were found bound, gagged, and shot in the back of the head. It is thought that they happened upon a gang loading drugs for shipment north. Again, these shipments are often made with the watchful help of the local authorities. In the mountains, four more campesinos were executed, in front of many witnesses. They had been threatened by a notoriously vicious member of the state police, and were shot by men dressed in military clothing without badges or insignia. They were outspoken opponents of the ruling regime.

Quoted in a newspaper article, an official of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) pointed out that least 30 of the victims were known and outspoken opponents of the Figueroa government. Further, of these 30, witnesses claimed in 21 cases that the murderers were uniformed members of the state or federal police or the army, or employees of the local caciques (village PRI leadership).

By the last days of September, Figueroa and his people began to blame all the killing on "outside agitators". They said that "someone" had been identified as a Zapatista organizer sent to foment trouble in Guerrero. They claimed that the Zapatistas were there to give protection to the drug growers in order to get rich, and all the political talk was just a smoke screen. It was, they said, simply a matter of law and of order. In other words, they have decided to get tough.

On the last day of September, Figueroa announced that the Army was being deployed in the Atoyac region of Guerrero, "to stop the violence that is resulting from the narcotics traffic". The municipal president responded with mixed feelings. The Army was there in June of last year, she said, and while it is true that crimes against the citizenry diminished while they were in place, it is also true that the Army disarmed "humble peasants" before they retreated, leaving them unable to defend themselves. In no way, she stated, was there any reduction in the narcotraffico.

The cynics among us are tempted to explain this move in terms of sharing the spoils: that Figueroa, unable to control the growing anarchy, has been forced to give up some of the drug money to the Army, whom he hopes will help maintain him in power against an increasingly angry and desperate populace.

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