The famous Lacandon jungle of Chiapas was the site of a massacre yesterday. Nine indigenous campesinos are reported killed, including an 8 year-old and a newborn "not even baptized, yet", according to his father.
What happened was that the Zapatista Liberation Army (EZLN), which controls some swatches of the state, had been bringing indigenous campesinos down from mountainous areas to the jungles below to "cultivate the land". The Zapatistas "consider cultivation the best way to protect the jungle". Right. Slash and burn and create a corn plant jungle? Anyway, the local Lacondon indigenous campesinos, who have lived in the jungle near the Guatamalan border for centuries, objected. The two groups went after each other yesterday with guns, machetes and clubs, murdering babies.
And, still in Chiapas yesterday, two more indigenous campesinos were shot dead near Ocosingo in a confrontation over a few hundred square meters of land. Locals went after some "squatters" who had moved in and renamed the land "New Palestine". Probably some religious overtones in play there as well as a fight amongst the proletariat over territory.
Power to the people!.
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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Chiapas, Mexico, Zapatista Liberation Army, EZLN
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