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Indigenous Alliance Urges
Economic Sanctions Against Mexico

From Brenda Norrell
Indigenous Wire
Wednesday, April, 29 1998

Copyright © 1998 Indigenous Wire
All Rights Reserved


TUCSON, Ariz. - The Indigenous Alliance Without Borders, Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras, urged the United States and Canada to impose economic and trade sanctions against Mexico as the situation in Chiapas worsens and human rights violations increase in severity.

"Many more Indigenous people will be hurt if the governments of the world do not put pressure on Mexico to curtail the violence," said Jose Matus, Yaqui ceremonial leader and Indigenous Alliance cofounder.

Maria Garcia, Tarascan and spokeswoman for the tribes in Sonora, Mex., said the expulsion of international observers in Chiapas is meant to blind the eyes of the world to murder, rape and torture.

"They do not want any witnesses," said Ms. Garcia, a Tucson- restaurant owner opening Cafe Cultural in Tucson May 9 as a center for Indigenous resistance and the arts.

In Chiapas, international observers are being expelled as paramilitary and pro-government forces ransack autonomous Mayan villages. Four women and two men were kidnapped in the village of El Bosque.

In Diez de Abril, three Norwegian observers were bundled into a police truck, hoods placed over their heads and one of them punched repeatedly in the kidneys. Jose Alfredo Mendez, a village teenager, was beaten with rifle butts and thrown into prison with blood streaming from his face, The Irish Times reported April 27.

Although President Zedillo signed a development pact to funnel $177 million to social projects in Chiapas, human rights observers say it is no more than a bandage on a cancer. Fighting to save their land and survive on fields of corn, Mayans say Mexico is a country which treats Indigenous people as animals in a zoo.

Mr. Matus said, "The Mexican government is making itself look bad by throwing out witnesses who may or may not be supporters of the Zapatistas."

Mr. Matus urged European countries to join with the United States and Canada, participants in NAFTA, to impose economic and trade restrictions.

"The uprising in Chiapas was the result of NAFTA," Mr. Matus said of the effect of the trade agreement on Mayan farmers.

O'odham in Mexico Gov. Joe Garcia, participant in peace talks between the Zapatistas and Mexican government since 1994, said President Zedillo's recent peace plan presented to the Mexican Congress is an example of the president's disrespect for the voice of Indigenous peoples.

Gov. Garcia said Zedillo's peace plan violates the San Andres accords and was carried out without input from the Zapatistas.

"Indigenous Nations are autonomous Nations and autonomy is not a word the Mexican government wants to hear."

"We want to control our own lives," Gov. Garcia said.

Mr. Matus, director of the Arizona Border Rights Project and member of the human rights group Derechos Humanos, urged international observers worldwide to increase their pressure on their own governments to apply pressure and economic sanctions on Mexico.


Indigenous Wire is a service of Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras,
Indigenous Alliance Without Borders. Telephone: 520-770-1373.


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