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CHIAPAS, MEXICO - Eleven Christian Peacemaker Team delegation members from Canada and the United States performed street theater followed by a prayer of confession in the central plaza of San Cristobal, Chiapas on Friday, July 27. The street theater illustrated aspects of North American consumer and government involvement in the conflict in Chiapas. With the vigil, the three Canadians and eight Americans asked for forgiveness for the ways all North Americans contribute to the violence.

The theater followed the path of money from consumers through corporations, governments, and the military. It illustrated the experience of a North American consumer and a Mayan coffee grower who is a victim of both economic and political violence. Buffeted both by low coffee prices paid by international corporations like Nestle and by paramilitary violence funded in part by military aid from the United States to the Mexican government, the coffee grower is displaced from her land. When the consumer becomes aware of the human costs not reflected in the purchasing price, she calls on her fellow North Americans to join her in a prayer of repentance.

A crowd of about 100 locals and tourists in the Plaza de la Paz witnessed the event. "Using theater connected with people in a new way," said delegation leader Paul Neufeld Weaver. Edgar Carreto, a local Mennonite volunteer living in a Mayan village commented, "It is important that the people here see that internationals know what is going on in Chiapas. Using theater like that also allows indigenous people who don't understand Spanish to understand what is going on."

Delegation member Scott Albrecht from Waterloo, Ontario observed, "As a Canadian it is easy to blame U.S foreign policy, but Canadian consumers are just as complicit."

On Thursday in a less public action, the group visited the Majomut military base nestled in the mountains of Chenalho county. The base is surrounded by several communities of internal refugees, which the delegation had visited over the previous four days. After being denied a meeting with any officers at the base, the group held a vigil praying that both the displaced and the soldiers would soon return home.

Delegation members were Scott Albrecht (Waterloo, ON), Tricia Brown (Newberg, OR), Judy Nault (Victoria, BC), Bill Rose (Tampa, FL), Brett Shull (Oakland, CA), Carol Spring (Palo Alto, CA), Charles Spring (Palo Alto, CA), Stewart Vriesinga (Clinton, ON), Ben Weller (N. Manchester, IN), Paul Neufeld Weaver (Worthington, MN), and Barbara Williamson (Evanston, IL).