San Cristobal : The Political climate

Although the fighting is generally associated with San Cristobal, four years ago a short lived civil war broke out in Ocosingo (near Tonina). Although the fighting only lasted for about one week, it brought to a head, an uneasiness which had been steadily building. It would be rude of me to state the reasons for this uprising due to my lack of knowledge on the subject, however, the people of Chiapas are basically fighting against oppression. This oppression against the Chiapas Indians and Mayans has existed since the 1500s when the Spanish first arrived in Mexico.




		Protest signs supporting Marcos and the Zapatista movement : in front of the Cathedral of San Cristobal next to the Zocalo.

The reasons
Unfortunately, the Chiapas Indians are poor, uneducated farm people who have been oppressed by the Spanish, the government and foreigners. They have been considered by other Mexicans as lower class citizens and were stripped of their religious beliefs. However, relatively recently Christianity has either taken a back seat or stands along side the Mayan religions of the various Indian communities (see San Juan Chamula page).

This fighting caught the attention of international headlines and has continued to be mentioned as the infamous 'Marcos' spreads the word of his people. The Mexican government and its army were caught by surprise by the attack on the 1st January 1994 and have since tried to secure the situation by building a large military facility in Ocosingo and appear to have control of the situation.

However, they can not stop the Chiapas Indians from supporting the cause. The Zapatista movement, led by 'Marcos' has the continued support of the Chiapas Indians, along with the support of various foreign governments. This support can be seen in the markets where hundreds of Marcos dolls and tee-shirts are openly sold. Some market stalls were completely devoted to selling Marcos paraphernalia.

Our experience & the Massacre
We arrived in San Cristobal on Christmas eve. On our journey from Tonina we drove past hundreds of Mexican military who were also heading in our direction. Although we do not know exact numbers, we encountered a different military vehicle every ten minutes or so over the course of hours of driving. At the time we did not know why so many soldiers were on the move. As we were traveling in a foreign country and couldn't speak much Spanish, we were oblivious to any news from the outside world. I simply assumed that they were returning after a military exercise for Christmas day. We later found out what the movement was for.

When we arrived in San Cristobal we found a large group of people standing around a large cross in front of the Cathedral of San Cristobal (next to the Zocalo). They appeared to be praying so we assumed that it was some Christmas related gathering. We subsequently found out, after talking to my mother in Australia, and searching through foreign news reports on the Internet that approximately 45 people had been killed in a Massacre near San Cristobal. The people outside the church were morning these deaths.

At the time this was of a little concern to us as it was unsure as to who was responsible. It seems that the government may have been responsible for the death of the Zapatisa sympathisers and family. The fighting therefore isn't likely to end yet. Although the news reports suggested that the fighting was in Tuxla (our next destination) it turned out that after scouring the streets of San Cristobal to find an English speaking person to explain the situation that the actual town was about 30 minutes from any main roads and was not near our next destination and it fortunately did not affect our journey.

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