Sunday, February 18

The day started out cloudy as Max, Rita, and I headed in a taxi to the Christian base community of Acteal, to pay homage to the victims of the massacre of December 22, 1997. As we passed Chamula, we saw a group of men in traje (traditional dress, used especially for ceremony) in a procession along the road, with music, an announcement apparently of carnaval celebrations. Past the San Andrés turnoff, we headed off to the northeast, Chenalho district, through beautiful, misty landscape.

On to Acteal. For those who don’t know, Christian base communities follow the Liberation Theology which arose from the second Vatican council meetings of the 1960s in which Pope John Paul XXIII argued for a catholic practice that helped rather than hurt the poor. Liberation Theology was precisely articulated in Gustavo Gutiérrez’ 1971 book on the subject. Meetings of Latin American clergy in the late 1970s led to the establishment of Christian Base communities, which despite their commitment to pacifism were almost immediately targeted as enemies by US president Ronald Reagan, due to their resistance to the US support for right wing dictators in the wars that engulfed Central America. The Bishop Samuel Ruiz of the Diocese of San Cristobal was a purveyor of Liberation Theology and many Christian Base Communities following this line developed in Chiapas, especially among the disadvantaged (oppressed and repressed) Maya populations. Although the movement is entirely pacifist, the leaders of communities, a gerentocracy as June Nash puts it, both Ladino and Maya, were threatened by its autonomy. These leaders had long been on the PRI payroll and any distancing from their authority and potential diminishing of PRI votes was a problem. Also land was becoming ever shorter in supply. Those that did not follow the herd were always potential targets for such economic rivalries.

The Christian Base Community of Acteal was founded as a result of increasing harassment, including assassinations, by the PRI-supporting paramilitary group known as Paz y Justicia (Peace and Justice). The liberation theology followers petitioned for protection but were denied by the non-Maya PRI government of Chenalho. They gathered together on the ejido of Acteal for mutual support. Meanwhile, a retired and an active army officer, the former with US training, attracted a group of landless largely teen-aged males into a paramilitary organization called the Mascaras Rojas (Red Masks). They supplied uniforms, high powered weapons, and eventually transportation. Even the mayor of Chenaljo involved himself in the training. On December 22, 1997, while the so-called Abejas (Bees) were attending mass in the tiny church of Acteal, led by the catechist, between 60 and 70 of the Red Masks surrounded the church and began shooting. Many fled, though the catechist encouraged them to continue praying for peace. The killing lasted at least four hours, as the paramilitaries sought out those that had fled and hidden from them. The goal was to leave no witnesses. The result was 45 dead, mostly women and children.

There are many hypothesis on what precipitated the attack on that day and no consensus. But investigations have shown that the PRI authorities were responsible for training and arming the young men. Also, they seem to have been misled into thinking that the Abejas were part of the Zapatista movement, and thus were a military threat. Also, while most theories about why these young men were goaded into a massacre assume the governmental use of publicity to show the Maya in general or the Zapatistas in particular needed a stronger military opposition. But the evidence is that when the paramilitaries finished, the police, who had been watching from 200 yards away, moved in to hide the bodies and clean the blood from the church. The massacre was revealed and publicized by Bishop Samuel Ruiz and the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Centre (which he founded, and which is now known by the nicknames Fray Bart or Freyba). The government first denied it, then pretended there were only a few victims. When the government admitted the extent of the tragedy, it blamed the event on religious difference rather than accusing the paramilitaries in its employ.

Back to our visit. We traveled along a road that is washed out in several places and clearly has no government support for its upkeep, unlike the tourist routes. We were in fog and mist much of the time. Arriving at Acteal, we looked at the monument on the roadside, an attenuated cone of writhing people with skeletal bodies and agonized faces. We went down the concrete steps to the level of the church and other municipal buildings. Arriving at the bottom, we encountered a group of male Abejas dress in traje for ceremonial activity. They informed us that we could not visit without permission from Freyba in San Cristobal, which would involve this organization sending a letter to Acteal. We looked puzzled and disappointed, so another man came over and offered to take us on the tour. We went first to the tiny clapboard church and were shown some of the bullet holes. We then went to the cenotaph. There is a large amphitheatre under which is an equally large hall, at the bottom of which is a concrete floor that covers the remains of the 45 victims. Resting on this floor are a priest’s lectern and a kind of altar with the names of the deceased below an image from Palenque. Three paintings hang on the wall. Photographs were not acceptable today so I include a photograph of one of the three paintings taken from flickr. On flickr are also several photos of two buildings with murals that have now been completely repainted. By the time we left it was raining pretty hard, and this in the dry season!

On our way back we stopped on the main street of San Pedro Polho to see a famous church with mural paintings on the exterior. However, a trinket market was going on, and the stalls were hiding the murals from view. Oh well.

We next stopped in Chenalho, the cabecera or head town of the district. The carnival atmosphere was dimmed by the cold rain, but there was a women’s basketball game taking place in the court in the zocalo. Before that we passed a building in which a dance was taking place with a large number of men in traje .

Back in San Cristobal, we spent the afternoon shopping and preparing for the potluck dinner and talk. Our speaker was Alonso Mendez, brother of the landlord with whom we mainly deal. Their mother was a Polish Jew from New York City, and their father was at Tzeltal Maya from Tenejapa. Alonso noted that he received his bachelor’s degree in the US but after reading Maya literature he was anxious to pursue his Maya heritage in more depth, and moved to Palenque. His web-biography says that he worked in ceramic reproductions of ancient works, but he was hired to help with Ed Barnhart’s Palenque mapping project and has joined the Maya Exploration centre headed by Barnhart, giving many tours through the Maya region. Alonso has also become interested in ancient Maya astronomy and particularly astronomical alignments of buildings at Palenque. In his talk, he gave a background on the ancient Maya but the main thesis was that important Palenque buildings are often aligned to solar or lunar events that occur on the day of the year in which an event mentioned in the associated inscriptions took place. He is particularly interested in alignments dealing with the solar zenith passages and the anti-zenith or nadirs ½ year later. Alonso invited Anna Sofar, a fellow archaeoastronomer who is working on Chaco Canyon monuments and who carried on a lively discussion with Alsonso.