INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS NOT WELCOME
Since the Zapatista rebellion began on January 1, 1994. Mexico has deported more than two hundred foreigners, and "requested" the departure of many others. All have been accused of "meddling" in Mexico's political business. Those expelled have included human rights workers, journalists, students, and numerous foreign Catholic priests from the San Cristóbal de las Casas diocese, headed by the controversial Bishop Samuel Ruíz Garcia.
There has been an increase in expulsions in the early months of 1998. Several have been high-visibility expulsions with maximum potential to serve as examples to others who would travel to Mexican cities to engage in "political activity" forbidden under the conditions of tourist visas. The reason for the rash of expulsions is obvious: both Mexican and international human rights organizations and church groups have instantaneous access to electronic media- thanks to the Internet and connections with home organizations around the world. The result is an almost xenophobic campaign against foreigners who damage Mexico's reputation by spreading "bad news" about human rights violations.
The expulsions come at a time when Mexico is the focus of worldwide scrutiny for human rights abuses by the military; police problems brought on by the decline of the PRI, Mexico's ruling party; and reverberations stemming from the massacre of 45 unarmed refugees, mostly women and children, at Acteal three days before Christmas. Meanwhile, foreign investors are being courted.
At stake is pending passage of a free trade agreement between Mexico and the European Union, as well as the success of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passed January 1, 1994 - not coincidentally the same day as the beginning of the Zapatista rebellion.
Since February of 1998 there have been at least eight foreigners deported. Maria Darlington, of North Carolina, was deported February 10. Ms. Darlington has been a regular visitor to San Cristobal and surrounding areas of Chiapas for at least fifteen years. Responding to a request that she report to the immigration office in San Cristobal, she was "secured" and taken to Mexico City, where after a hearing (of sorts) she was within hours put on a flight for the United States. The reason for her deportation was that she was accused of "illegal activities" on her tourist visa. The immigration authorities showed reporters a clip from a video tape showing Ms. Darlington holding a "political" sign at a march by Zapatista supporters in 1997. Although she was forced to abandon her vehicle and personal belongings in San Cristobal, Ms. Darlington said she was well treated during her deportation process. But she denies any improper activities.
Another deportee, Tom Hansen formerly of Pastors for Peace, was grabbed at a hospital in the town of Altamirano February 18 by heavily armed men who refused to identify themselves. Mr. Hansen had been distributing video cameras to Zapatista support committees as part of a new "Youth Project" he has started. He was threatened repeatedly on his long and roundabout trip to the state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez, and subsequently to Mexico City where he was held overnight in a filthy jail cell. Hansen was refused the right to an attorney, and was not permitted to speak to U.S. Embassy personell. Members of the embassy staff called several times but each time they were told that Hansen was "busy." He was deported the next day. Hansen was told that the reason he was expelled was that he participated in the Intercontinental Gathering Against Neoliberalism in August 1996 and was an observer at the 1996 peace talks between the government and the Zapatistas.
A European human rights fact-finding group of about two hundred people arrived in Chiapas in mid-February and began a two week tour of the so-called "conflict zone." The group is not an official organization of the European Union, but "the 200" will report their findings to the European Parliament, and to the Mexican and other national governments. One man interviewed by "the 200," a Chol Indian who walked six hours to reach the meeting point, was ambushed and killed on the way home in reprisal for giving testimony to the foreigners.
The most bizarre example of anti-foreigner activity occurred February 15 when Mexico City anchor-woman for Azteca TV, Lolita de la Vega, and her film crew borrowed a helicopter from the Chiapas governor and landed unceremoniously in the middle of the Zapatista village of La Realidad. The helicopter crew and Ms. Vega were met by members of the San Cristóbal diocese-sponsored Peace Camp. At the request of the villagers, the Peace camper demanded to see the press credentials of the crew, then confiscated the film and demanded that the helicopter leave. When the helicopter took off it ripped the roof off the school house, injuring two young children.
TV Azteca's lead story that night on Ms. Vega's "Hablemos Claro," (Let's speak clearly,) was the La Realidad story. The TV broadcast fanned the flames of the current xenophobia that has gripped the Mexican government. Ms. Vega's version — the main version to reach Mexican viewers — was that the foreigners whom the TV crew encountered in La Realidad were "foreign members of the Zapatista army." According to Ms. Vega, "We saw that it wasn't an Indian movement....Foreigners were in command of our Indians." It was not stated that many of the Indians do not speak Spanish, and had asked their foreign friends to intervene. (NYTimes,2-18-98) Fortunately for the sake of accuracy, reporter Hermann Bellinghausen, of La Jornada, a Mexican daily newspaper, was also present in La Realidad during the helicopter incident and could set the record straight.
Robert Edwin Schweitzer, an art curator and free lance journalist from Factoryville, Pennsylvania, was expelled February 17. Schweitzer, who was traveling in Chiapas on a tourist visa, admitted taking photos in indigenous villages and observing peace talks, but said he had not taken part in any activities not permitted under his tourist visa. The terms of Mexico's tourist visa permit "cultural activities."
On February 27, 1998 Father Michel Henri Jean Chanteau was seized by immigration officers at his parish church in Chiapas and expelled from Mexico because of "unauthorized activities." Although a citizen of France, Father Chanteau had been working for the past 32 years in Chenalho. That municipality includes the community of Acteal, where 45 indigenous refugees were massacred by paramilitaries on December 22, 1997. San Cristóbal diocese authorities were not informed of Father Chanteau's situation until after his deportation. Immigration authorities said that Chanteau's out-spoken statements to the press were the reason for his expulsion. Father Chanteau has frequently stated that the Mexican government was responsible for the killings in Acteal.
On Friday the 13th of March another Frenchman, Ahmed Bakoura, was expelled. Mr. Bakoura, a member of a Zapatista support group in Marseilles, France, was accused of encouraging indigenous participation in political and other "unauthorized activities." On the same day three foreign women, a German, a Swiss, and a U.S. citizen, were taken into custody in the small Chiapas village of San Jeronimo Tulija, where they had gone to investigate a clash between residents of the village and the army. The three women were taken to Mexico City for deportation proceedings, but were later released under orders to leave Mexico within nine days.
According to an Associated Press article dated March 17, the U.S. citizen, Jennifer Pasquarella, a 19-year-old student from Seattle, was taken from her hotel room by officials who refused to identify themselves. She, with the other two women, was taken to Mexico City, forced to sign a confession of illegal activity, then abandoned in Mexico City without money or belongings. She "admitted that she has sympathy for the Zapatista rebels...but she said she never had any contact with them, nor was she supporting their armed struggle."
"The situation is just becoming so intense militarily and foreigners have become the scapegoat," Ms. Pasquarella told AP: "(Government officials) want to scare people. They don't want anyone to witness the crimes they're actually committing." (AP,Niko Price, 3/15/98)
Since February 10 when Maria Darlington was expelled there has been a series of well-publicized (in Mexico, not in the United States) expulsions of foreigners from Chiapas. In the normally serene garden-like zocalo, the town square of San Cristóbal de las Casas, where indigenous women sell hand-made shawls and craft items, and magazine sellers mind their wares, a quite different atmosphere exists today than formerly. Uniformed immigration officers stop anyone who appears to be a tourist, and ask with deceptive politeness for passports and other identification. Tourists who do not have their papers with them are questioned and accompanied to their hotels to retrieve the documents. Some people are given an order to leave Mexico within five days — most do so, anonymously and without the fanfare of the highly visible cases the authorities use as examples to other tourists who might become involved in "political activities." — Pat Dreger
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