Copyright © 2000 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

CHIAPAS - On Sunday, March 19, the second Sunday of Lent, the Chiapas Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) and members of the X'oyep community of the Bees (Las Abejas)-- a civic society of pacifist poor farmers-- will construct a "tent" on the grounds of the Mexican Army camp which borders the X'oyep community. CPT members intend to maintain a presence of fasting and praying in the tent for the duration of Lent. Members of the Abejas will join the CPTers in the tent.

The Chiapas Tent for Lent campaign, under the theme of "Lent: Return to God's Path," highlights the continuing condition of displacement. The Chiapan conflict has resulted in the displacement of over 10,000 here in Chenalho county alone. The majority of the X'oyep Abejas are displaced from six different communities from which they fled, fearing attacks from government-supported paramilitaries.

Tent for Lent acknowledges the role of the Mexican military in planting the seeds of paramilitary violence and fostering division. The campaign of fasting calls on us all for a Return: a return of the displaced to their homes, a return of the soldiers to their barracks, a return to right relationships, and a return in our hearts to a centering on God's path of love.

Actual and threatened paramilitary violence has been key component of the low-intensity war waged against the poor by the Mexican power structure. Following the Zapatista uprising in 1994, the Mexican military promoted the formation of paramilitary groups, providing both training and equipment. Paramilitaries, allied with the Mexican government, receive preferential financial and other assistance as they work at preventing and destabilizing campesino organizing through terror: a prime example in Chenalho county was the December 1997 massacre of 45 Abejas in Acteal.

Immediately following this massacre, the Mexican Army established a number of Social Labor, or Civic Action, camps under the pretext of "aiding and providing stability" to the so-called "internal conflict" between communities (paramilitary and others.)

Ordinary soldiers in these camps have told CPT they believe they are helping to provide a valuable community service. While some may question why they carry assault rifles as part of their their social work, they explain that they stay in the army because it is simply a good-paying job in a country with a high rate of unemployment.

The Chiapas team's Lenten activities join the larger CPT Tent for Lent campaign coming out of CPT's work in Hebron, West Bank (Israel/ Palestine). The campaign calls on people of faith to take action to witness against the Israeli-government's continuing demolition of Palestinian homes and confiscation of Palestinian land while ostensibly in the middle of peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Lent is a time to fast and reflect, to peer behind the veil of conventional wisdom and look at the truth. We are called to disregard the proclamations of peace that are scattered like so much confetti by people in power, and expose the naked greed behind their words. Like Jesus, we are called to proclaim our allegiance to the Kingdom of God, to expose the systems of domination that say it is acceptable for the people with the most guns to dispossess and exploit the weak.

And Lent is a time to remember that Easter will come. To remember that Jesus understands how to turn these systems upside down.