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CHIAPAS - "He was a good son. Why was he killed?" Alonzo said through his tears. On May 7 his son, Antonio, and two others were killed when a truck was ambushed by four men wearing ski masks and carrying automatic weapons on a lonely road near Tzajalchen, a small community in the highlands of Chiapas.

All the victims were indigenous Mayans, but of differing political persuasions. The motive for the crime was thought to be robbery. Since Antonio was, like himself, a member of the non-violent Christian group Las Abejas (The Bees), Alonzo was particularly distressed about the violent way his son died

The other victims, from a community aligned with the Mexican government's PRI party, were a mother and her son-the driver of the truck. The woman's husband suffered a head wound and his small daughter still carries a bullet in her back. At a memorial prayer service with the CPT group, the little girl's grandfather reported that several family members have been killed in violent incidents over the last five years. "We indigenous people are killing ourselves," he said.

On Sunday, May 28 an eight member CPT delegation and CPT's Chiapas team followed a fourteen-hour pilgrimage that included visits to the victim's families to express condolences and pray for peace. The journey included an exhausting climb up a slick, muddy road that could not be negotiated by a truck.

Gifts of candles, white flowers, and Mayan crosses were presented and both families expressed gratitude and hope that their stories and the pain of life in Chiapas would be told to the President of Mexico and to people in other countries.

The team also planted a Mayan cross and flowers in prayerful silence at the site of the ambush and prayed with the people at the autonomous (Zapatista-supporting) community of nearby Pohlo for their protection against injustice.

Pohlo is the home of a 67-year old man who was accused of the atrocity by one of the survivors, but who was reportedly leading a prayer service at the time of the incident. In the wake of the accusations, the community of Pohlo has experienced increased harassment by Public Security (state police).

The ambush occurred in the context of the low-intensity war being waged by the Mexican government in the state of Chiapas. With a third of the Mexican Army, several police forces, and dozens of paramilitary groups operating in the state, there are guns everywhere and an atmosphere of fear and impending violence pervades the peasant communities of the highlands.

About 10,500 displaced people in the highland county of Chenalho, where the ambush took place, are living in extreme poverty, afraid to return to their own communities or even to go and harvest their fields which in many cases are visible from their place of refuge.

Members of the CPT delegation were Art Arbour, Nathan Bender, and Diego Mendez of Toronto, ON; Matthew Bailey-Dick of Waterloo, Ellis Brown of Kitchener, and Isobel McGregor of Nepean, ON; Claire Evans of Chicago IL; and Dorothy McDougal of Fredericton, NB. CPT members are Anne Herman (Binghamton, NY), Scott Kerr (Downers Grove, IL), Rick Polhamus (Fletcher, OH), Pierre Shantz (Blainville, PQ), and Lynn Stoltzfus (Harrisonburg, VA).