Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
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The Crusades recalls the period during the Middle Ages when armies waged religious war for gold and glory as much as for God, when nations invaded each other for idealistic and individualistic tenets. Centuries later, religious battles still rage in places like Belfast and the West Bank-and, some say, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. But other claim this so-called crusade is actually an exaggerated government charade, similar to the ancient holy wars only in its sack-and-pillage, divide-and-conquer politics.

On Jan. 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect, armed indigenous Maya overtook San Cristobal de las Casas, a large colonial city in the heart of indigenous Chiapas, protesting government apathy in fighting the poverty and injustice that Mayan communities face daily. Thus began the conflict between the ruling-party government of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) and the EZLN (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional) rebels, named for Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata, and sometimes supported politically by the leftist PRD (Partido de la Revolucin Democrtica), one of the PRI's two main opposition parties. For four years, this undeclared war has been the object of intense international scrutiny and debate, a major issue in domestic Mexican politics and a source of much human pain.

In Chiapas, this pain did not begin in 1994. Centuries of political, physical, economic and spiritual domination by a pantheon of players has left Chiapas in a terrible predicament. One of the largest states in Mexico, it ranks eighth in population with 3.6 million inhabitants (1997). According to 1990 census data, 22 percent of those inhabitants speak an indigenous language, the second highest rate nationwide. Of those, nearly a third, or a full 7 percent of the state's population, speak only their indigenous language and no Spanish, the largest percentage of any Mexican state. Chiapas also has the lowest school attendance rate and highest illiteracy rate, at 30 percent of those over 15, with only 23 percent possessing post-elementary school education.

While the people are uneducated, poor, culturally isolated and living primarily in small rural communities with little or no infrastructure, Chiapas is one of the Mexican states most abundant in natural resources, with profitable agro-industry and ranching, the richest aquifer resources nationwide, and major government investment in raw material. Ironically, the state and its inhabitants, historically displaced and robbed of their lands, have long supported wealth in other regions, while frustrating officials and the academics who feel the indigenous agrarian way of life impedes modernization and progress.

Chiapas is also unique in its religious demographics. Last year, 67.6 percent of the state's inhabitants identified themselves as Catholics, compared to 89.7 percent nationally. The percentage that claim to be Protestant or evangelical is the highest in Mexico. Lately religious affiliation has graduated from being just another demographic affected by the conflict in Chiapas to become a cause.

Many chiapanecos deny there is a religious crusade. Religious expression can be merely symptomatic of deeper antagonism. But the religious tinge to the Chiapas conflict is emphasized by some scapegoating officials as dialogue with the EZLN stagnates and fingers point following the massacre of 45 men, women and children in the town of Acteal on December 22, 1997.

Nevertheless, religious rancor exists, with two main groups of players: parish Catholics loyal to the diocese and a variety of evangelical Protestant groups. Other participants include a group of dissident Catholics and the "traditionalist" Catholics who practice a syncretism of Catholicism with ancient indigenous beliefs tied to the land and cycle of life. Acteal is a case study in confusion and political posturing. Some say the massacre was the revenge of Protestant Presbyterians on politically neutral diocese Catholics for allegedly killing some of their own. Others say a religiously mixed group took revenge on PRD/Zapatista supporters for killing dissenters. Many say it was an unprovoked attack on an indigenous community by a paramilitary group backed unofficially by the PRI government as part of an active, systematic strategy to intimidate rural indigenous communities in Chiapas.

As in any conflict, the oppressed are not without division. Evangelicals often support the PRI, but the PRI-linked paramilitary groups are generally led by anti-diocese Conservative Catholics. Chiapans loyal to the diocese tend to support the PRD and Zapatistas. In fact, Bishop Samuel Ruz of the Diocese of San Cristobal has been accused of being pro-Zapatista and biased in his role as president of CONAI, a governmental commission designed to mediate the conflict. The PRI-supported anti-evangelical and anti-diocese municipal leaders of San Juan Chamula have expelled more than 32,000 mostly-Presbyterian evangelicals in the last 20 years, starting long before the EZLN's appearance.

Guadalupe Bolom, a Tzotzil-Tzeltal Maya and Presbyterian, directs the Escuela Dblica de Formacin Integral in San Cristobal, a community religious center where locals, both Catholics and Protestants (Mennonites, Pentecostals, Baptists, Christ Unitarians and Lutherans), attend lectures on self-esteem, human rights and health. Bolom says the conflict in Chiapas is political, not religious. "Of course there has been persecution [of evangelicals]," he said, "But the press and the government sometimes [mistakenly] say the [armed] conflict is between Catholics and evangelicals." Bolom claimed Chamulans expel evangelicals not because they do not respect ancient indigenous cultural traditions as some Chamulans said, but rather because evangelicals stop drinking alcohol, bad business for caciques, an indigenous term which in Mexico often means powerful local leaders who dominate the town and own liquor-selling establishments. "People free themselves from vice, start working more, have a nice house, and the caciques get mad," he said. Others, of course, might disagree. Evangelicals are known for severe intolerance for traditional indigenous beliefs.

Bolom converted from Catholicism 15 years ago. He says many indigenous people are converting because of poverty, since there is no money for doctors or medicine, evangelicals pray over the sick, and when the sick recover, "that very thing makes one believe in God." What about practitioners of ancient Mayan religion? "There are very few Maya traditionalists left," claimed Bolom. "[The religion] is very mixed with Catholicism-there no longer is a pure, natural culture." Chamulans often practice ancient holistic rites with plants and animals in Catholic churches before images of Catholic saints. To Maya traditionalists, this often represents an adaptability by their culture, rather than displacement.

Like many, however, Bolom believes the killings at Acteal were the vengeful culmination of a community feud over access to land, a valuable commodity. He heard the killers were both Catholic and Protestant, but the massacred were Zapatistas supporters. He blamed politics over religion. "The Presbyterian Church makes a big mistake when they say the best party is the PRI," he stated. "Many pastors preach this, but I don't agree with the mechanization and closing of people's minds. Both parties have defects and virtues." He added that many evangelical churches and organizations are overly spiritual, preaching about the soul and heaven without concern for reality.

Overemphasis on the abstract and the afterlife is what concerns the Rev. Lucius Walker, a Baptist minister for 40 years and cofounder of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizing in 1967. Dedicated to a biblical mandate to actively help those in need and promote worldwide justice, Walker has been to Chiapas repeatedly since 1994 and minimizes the religious conflict. "[The bishops] as Roman Catholics seem to have a very positive relationship with the indigenous religious communities," he said, "I think the conflict is not religious, it's political and economic. If the government implemented the San Andres Accords, they'd be surprised how quickly the religious problems go away." The San Andres Larrinzar Accords, signed Feb. 16, 1996, by the EZLN and Congressional negotiators, outlined the Zapatistas' demands for indigenous community autonomy and respect for their collectivist legal and economic ways of life. The accords, never implemented, gradually faded from discussion after President Ernesto Zedillo's counterproposals were rejected by the EZLN.

Walker is concerned about the ultra-fundamentalism of many Protestant groups in Chiapas, because they give followers false hope and distraction, preaching about saving souls and otherworldly matters rather than helping improve a community's social, political and economic reality. Such one-dimensionality is harmful, he said, and gives people an escape rather than a mandate to take action for their own sake. "In a lot of poor communities, in the U.S. and other parts of the world, this takes people's attention away from their ugly reality that they think they can't change," he said.

In an eerie statement reminiscent of Conquest philosophy, evangelical pastor Esdras Alonso was quoted in the Mexican news magazine Proceso as saying: "We finally reached where the Catholic Church couldn't in 500 years. The armed conflict in Chiapas favored us, since it turned everything upside down and weakened caciques and the PRI structure that is today losing control of San Juan Chamula. We knew to take advantage of the conflict... The evangelical presence will soon be the majority in this zone." Currently there are 7,000 pastors in 5,000 Protestant temples in Chiapas, consisting mostly of Presbyterian, Nazarene, Baptist, Biblical, Apostolic and Pentecostal denominations. Proceso further quoted Alonso as saying, "Unlike other churches ... like Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, we don't go only for the conquest of souls. We try to be a participating social force. In this sense we are a sleeping giant about to awaken."

This giant is restless, feared, and at odds with Catholics, who said evangelicals are responsible for closing, destroying or profaning more than 30 Catholic churches in recent months, evangelicals said they were closed by cacique-led Catholics opposed to Bishop Ruz. Catholics allegedly burned two Protestant churches last April. Six important evangelical leaders have been murdered in the north in the last two years, supposedly by caciques for freeing people from profitable vices. And Bishop Ruz provided shelter for expelled Chamulan evangelicals, thereby coming under fire from dissident Catholics consisting primarily of powerful families who disagree with Liberation Theology and the diocese's work with the poor and indigenous.

The Roman Catholic Church remains a major force in Chiapas, with three dioceses encompassing 48 parishes and four missionary centers. However, the faith has changed in a way that requires more commitment. Padre Felipe Toussaint, General Vicar of San Cristobal, said, "In some places, being an active Catholic implies entering into opposition with neighbors and even one's own family. Government campaigns are generating anti-parish Catholicism in some sectors." In addition, the government has expelled foreign priests. Any religious conflict in Chiapas is not unique to the region, he said, but rather a characteristic of the entire country, where increasingly aggressive evangelicals aim to convert Catholics.

Toussaint said that in every exchange with other churches and religious groups, all have agreed the conflict is not religious, but political and military. "The state government has invested a lot in publicity to make the political conflict look religious," said Toussaint, "It's evident that a radical political conflict such as that lived in Chiapas crosses all dimensions of human life and, therefore, affects religion. What would be serious would be religious leaders using religious space to favor a certain political tendency or integrating religious elements in political choices." In fact, some Catholic leaders are not so worried about the expansion of evangelicals as by their propensity to manipulation by political forces.

In a visit to Chiapas in April, President Zedillo spoke to mayors of 32 municipalities and to hundreds of indigenous people, asking CONAI to show its true intentions, doubting that the commission is truly interested in assisting the indigenous. He was quoted on the April 29 front page of conservative newspaper Ocho Columnas as saying: "What is their motivation, is it ambition for power, religious ambitions, that have very little to do with the solution of human pain embodied in poverty and violence?" Zedillo on other occasions has publicly denounced violence as a solution to the conflict, saying that the government does not believe in, nor use, such methods, nor "theology of violence," subtly pointing the finger at Liberation-Theologists and Bishop Ruz.

This runs contrary to reports of government violence and repression. Following the gradual expulsion of 201 foreigners for alleged political involvement in Chiapas during 1996 and 1997, the world's attention was caught by a single incident which captured government efforts to bury parts of the truth. On April 11 during a pre-dawn raid of the hamlet of Taniperlas, 12 foreigners were forcefully removed, intimidated with threats of violence, and deported the next day without due process guaranteed by international law. Officials accused them of helping establish an illegitimate autonomous township and thereby violating Mexican constitutional article 115, which reserves the authority to establish municipal districts for state governments.

The day before, deportee Michael Sabato, an American citizen who spent much of the last three years doing independent volunteer work in Chiapas, finished installing a water system in a nearby community, and stopped for the night in Taniperlas, in the autonomous municipality of Ricardo Flores Magn, on his way out of the area. The next morning, police and military stormed the town, beat Sabato, three companions and eight other foreigners with U.S.-made M-16s and deported them for allegedly helping found the rebel municipality, which was established months earlier.

Sabato, married to a Mexican national, is prohibited from ever returning to Mexico. He believes he was deported for witnessing what the military did in Taniperlas. Contrary to what government officials said about police being unarmed, respecting a truce begun months earlier and not working with paramilitary groups, Sabato claimed he saw unprovoked soldiers seal off Taniperlas and burn homes and coffee fields in tandem with police carrying fully automatic weapons. He is now lobbying the U.S. Congress to reconsider military funding for Mexico, overturn his expulsion and examine the application of Mexican constitutional article 33, used to justify the expulsions, which may violate international treaties. Meanwhile, after expelling a group of 40 Italians on May 9, and reiterating that law-abiding foreigners are always welcome, Mexican officials have since placed severe restrictions on international observers.

Sabato also believes the government wanted to test the hard line against foreigners. Two months earlier, high-profile television reporter Lolita de la Vega, wife of an influential former politician, visited Zapatista stronghold La Realidad on Friday, February 13 in an army helicopter and broadcast footage Sunday on her evening program, Hablemos Claro. She told the press that she saw numerous foreigners and that they were the ones in charge. However, no foreigners with weapons appeared in the news footage and de la Vega never left the helicopter, which frightened locals and tore the roof off a school upon takeoff, injuring two children.

The PRI, ruling for over 70 years, is declining in power and has now lost the majority in Congress. Mexico City's mayor is PRD and so is the city's legislative assembly. Distorting the roles of the players in the Chiapan conflict, a major issue on the domestic agenda, critics say, benefits the staggering party. They point to an official rhetoric that has gradually refocused the conflict from the PRI and its army versus the EZLN, to conflict between communities, so the government appears the conciliator and ceases being a protagonist.

This divide-and-conquer counter-insurgency strategy, of blaming foreigners and scapegoating churches, empties dialogue of meaningful representative discussion about the real issues. The religious crusade in Chiapas, critics say, is only a PRI-orchestrated charade that exacerbates the problem.