Paramilitaries in Chiapas - Report Pt.3/3 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Published in Spanish by Prensa Nuevo Amanecer Translated by irlandesa Monday, May 24, 1999 20:10:03 +0000 PARAMILITARIES IN CHIAPAS - Part 3/3 ******************************************* LOPEZ Y RIVAS [Part 3 of 3 Parts] Military Passivity Viz. the Paramilitaries In a confidential report obtained by this legislative group, the Mexican Military Intelligence Service follows the paramilitary groups in Chiapas step by step and observes their political tendencies, the behavior of their leaders and the armed activities of these organizations. In the document, the Peace and Justice group is characterized as a front of ejiditarios, campesinos and authorities from the municipalities of Salto del Agua, Tila, Tumbala, Yajalon, Sabanilla, Chilon, El Limar and Nuevo Limar, PRI in nature, and whose mission is to "counteract the radical activity of PRD and EZLN cells." According to the Military Intelligence Service, Peace and Justice was formally founded on August 5, 1995, for the purpose of "repelling possible attacks by presumed EZLN cells and defending common interests affected by PRD activism, sponsored by religious persons attached to the Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas." The document notes that "some members of Peace and Justice resort to weapons in order to confront groups that are threatening their safety (EZLN cells), even in order to defend their property." Peace and Justice, the military document states, is made up of 1500 members. Their main leaders are: Marcos Albino Torres Lopez, Tila councilperson, EZLN deserter. Diego Vazquez Perez, professor from the ejido of El Limar. Rafael Martinez Martinez, Tila councilperson. Eulalio Martinez Vazquez, of El Limar ejido. Samuel Sanchez Sanchez, local PRI Deputy. The military document also identifies Peace and Justice delegates in different regions of the organization: Delegates in Tila: Manuel Jimenez Lopez, Jose Manuel Torres Lopez, Pascual Garcia Garcia, Alonso Garcia Lopez, Crispin Mena Gonzalez and Gabriel Cruz Flores. Delegates in Salto del Agua: Cristobal Arcos Diaz, Juan Sanchez Torres and Domingo M. Diaz. Delegate in Yajalon: Pedro Diaz Lopez. Delegates in Tumbala: Miguel Marcos Mayo, Pedro Arcos Velasco, Martin Lopez Arcos and Manuel Jimenez Perez. Delegates in Sabanilla: Rogelio Gomez Sanchez and Jesus Gomez Perez. The document under consideration also details the meeting of military chiefs with members of the Socama organization, one of the recognized bases of the Peace and Justice paramilitary group. The document states that the military chiefs receive campesino organizations that are in rivalry with organizations sympathetic to the EZLN. A meeting is described of Socama leaders with military chiefs in order to denounce purported pressures and crimes of groups tied with the parish priests of the Diocese of San Cristobal. The Functions of Paramilitaries in Counterinsurgency Paramilitary groups are now the active counterinsurgency force in Chiapas. While the Army has been deployed as a passive containment force, the paramilitaries have set about harassing, through armed actions, zapatista support bases, groups of displaced who sympathize with the EZLN or who are allied with the PRD, agrarian leaders and bishops and priests from the Diocese of San Cristobal de Las Casas. An obvious question in this regard would be: Why are paramilitaries, and not military personnel, those who are using arms to weaken communities sympathetic with the EZLN? The answer is very simple. The Mexican Army suffered a great loss of prestige through their actions against zapatista forces during the first days of 1994. Images such as those of indigenous massacred in the Ocosingo market created a bad impression of the Mexican Army with the national and international public. The pressures on the Mexican government were not long in coming. The President at that time, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, ordered a unilateral halt to the fighting, since his advisors had convinced him of the great disadvantage in operational percentages the EZLN had relative to the Mexican Armed Forces. From January 13, 1994, the Army and the Air Force began a cease-fire, and they began carrying out only operations of psychological warfare, electronic warfare and demonstrations of force against communities located in the conflict zone. The federal and state governments nonetheless saw the need to create a counterweight, in order to balance forces viz. the EZLN, given the impossibility for forces belonging to the military institutions of the country to continue being openly be involved in armed actions. Information sources belonging to the Second (Intelligence) and Third (Operations) Sections of the General Staff of National Defense have confirmed that the strategic plans of the Rainbow Task Force contain the following courses of action: - To always deny the belligerent nature of members of the EZLN and to treat them as rebels or traitors, as and how established in Mexican military doctrine for domestic security and restoration of order. - To carry out electronic war operations against the EZLN and their sympathizers, using specialists in this area from the Mexican Army, in order to intercept their radio, telephone and radio-telephone communications, and in this way to remain apprised of the guerrilla group's intentions. To determine the hours of message transmission and the frequencies used in order to carry out signal interference. The main purpose of these measures is to prevent the transmission and reception of signals by members and sympathizers of the EZLN. - To carry out psychological warfare operations (propaganda and counter-propaganda), which include operations in social work in order to detect the indigenous communities that could be passively or actively supporting the EZLN, or, where appropriate, the state and federal governments. - Demonstrations of force. They involve the establishment of Mixed Operational Bases (BOM), made up of persons from various government departments. Members of the Army will be present in these BOM's, with the excuse of enforcing the Federal Firearms and Explosives Law. For their part, the Federal Judicial Police will maintain a presence with the excuse of preventing all types of federal crimes, while the state police (Public and Judicial Security) will be deployed with the excuse of preventing common crimes. In addition to this, there will be constant movements of Army troops in the conflict area, openly and deliberately carrying high-powered weapons for the purpose of terrorizing the residents. - Support for the creation of armed groups (paramilitaries), made up of civilian members of indigenous communities, willing to take up arms against those members of the indigenous communities who sympathize with the EZLN, as well as to carry out their training and indoctrination. Under this doctrine, EZLN members and sympathizers will be considered as natural adversaries, who could put the existence of communities that members of those paramilitary groups belong to, in danger. It is important to stress that the communities in which these groups have been detected are very sympathetic with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and that their residents receive considerable support from the state government as well as from the federal. The most significant government support was that which was given to the Peace and Justice group on July 4, 1997. At that time, the then governor, Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro, committed himself in writing to delivering 4,600,000 pesos for the purpose of "supporting agricultural and livestock activities." The agreement was signed in the presence of General Mario Renan Castillo as honor witness, who was the Commander of the Seventh Military Region at the time. - The construction of highways in the conflict area, using military forces for that purpose, in order to lessen the effects of the geographic factor against members of the Armed Forces. The premise of this factor, according to the Irregular War Manual of the Sedena is: "The geographical milieu chosen, in which to carry out the guerrilla's armed efforts, is of capital importance, since it will constitute the scene of the struggle. The great mountainous, hidden, steep areas, with large natural obstacles, and lacking in the communications channels necessary for the carrying out of regular operations, constitute the ideal terrain for the guerrilla's activities, as long as said terrain has sufficient range to absorb groups of guerrillas in different places." In other countries paramilitary groups have played an essential role in counterinsurgency areas of the State. Colombia is perhaps the most advanced contemporary example of the paramilitarization phenomenon. It should be remembered, however, that Mexican paramilitary groups are closer to the Central American version of "death squads" who ravaged the populations of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in the 80's. The Colombian paramilitaries are associated with, and financed by, the drug cartels, and they fight directly in the lands controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Forces. The paramilitary offensive seeks to confine the guerrillas in their zone of influence, preventing their access to the sea, and cutting off their access channels for weapons. Instead of being successful, the paramilitaries have preferred to wipe out the FARC support bases. In the department of Antioquia alone, paramilitaries were responsible for the deaths of 189 civilians in 1998. Self-defense groups, organized by the Colombian Army, left 408 victims among the civilian population. In the last two years there have been 455 cases of forced disappearances, for which the paramilitary groups have also been responsible. These private armies, whose creation has been stimulated by the Colombian government since the 80's in order to destroy the guerrilla organizations, have proliferated in the most important cities and rural areas of that country. Financed by landowners and drug traffickers, the paramilitaries indiscriminately attack civilians and guerrillas, and they have become the clandestine vanguard of the countrinsurgency war. The Colombian press has revealed, with incontrovertible evidence, that the Colombian Army, on the recommendation of CIA advisors, has integrated members of paramilitary groups into the structure of the national military intelligence. In some battles, FARC forces have fought against contingents of combined forces from the Army and the paramilitary groups. In Mexico, paramilitaries were one of the most important arms in the fight against political dissidents, student movements and guerrilla groups between 1965 and 1983. The government created The Falcons as an organization of civilians, mostly young gang members, who were trained and directed by military chiefs, designed to annihilate the urban guerrillas. This group had their general barracks at the Military Camp Number 1 in Mexico City, and it was responsible for the killing of Mexican students on June 10, 1971. Another of the paramilitary groups that have existed in the history of Mexico counterinsurgency is the White Brigade, created by President Luis Echeverria Alvarez at the end of his term, in 1976, and it was in charge of exterminating urban guerrilla organizations. It also used Military Camp Number 1 as its center of operations, and it had the best members, who were selected by police and military forces in the country. The White Brigade was dissolved in 1983, when they began showing evidence of heavy infiltration from drug trafficking in their ranks. Various agents from the Federal Security Board and the Investigations Division for the Prevention of Crime - two of the bodies participating in the White Brigade - later appeared as protectors of Mexican drug traffickers. Contemporary paramilitaries in Mexico also seem to have ties to drug trafficking. One of the most notorious cases is that of the PRI community Los Platanos, which is infamous because a paramilitary checkpoint detained a US military attache in 1998, and because several marijuana plants were destroyed by the Army in that same community in 1999. The economic resources obtained from drug trafficking can be used to finance the purchase of armaments, clothing and equipment for paramilitary groups acting in the state of Chiapas. As has already happened in Colombia, there is the risk that the planting, cultivation and trafficking of drugs will be allowed in the state, in order to finance the paramilitary groups. - end - NUEVO AMANECER PRESS-PRENSA NUEVO AMANECER-N.A.P. 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