Catholic Church Was Instrumental In Rebellion Early Days
by Diego Cevallos
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by Diego Cevallos |
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(IPS) SAN CRISTOBAL --
At
least five of the 24 Native leaders of Mexico's Zapatista guerrilla movement, who this weekend began a two-week march to the capitol, have served the community under the Catholic diocese here.
The pastoral work carried out since 1960 by bishop Samuel Ruiz, who was tagged as "red" by conservative groups, left its mark on the birth of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), agree observers. "That is what some say here (in San Cristobal), to the point that they believed Father Samuel himself was one of the guerrillas," a nun serving this southern Mexico diocese told IPS, requesting that her name be withheld. Several sources affirmed that of the 24 EZLN commanders headed toward Mexico City -- the "Zapatour" that got underway on Feb. 25 in San Cristobal and is slated to reach the capital March 11 -- five were active in the Church. San Cristobal, a city of 140,000, was occupied on Jan. 1, 1994, by poorly armed rebels demanding justice, democracy and respect for the rights of Native peoples, who account for at least 10 million of Mexico's 100 million people. Seven years later, the 24 Zapatista leaders are making the same claims, calling their convoy through 12 states as they meander towards Mexico City a "march for dignity," not a "march of peace," as President Vicente Fox has been publicizing it. In the 1980s, before joining the EZLN, commanders Tacho and Daniel, native Tzotzil Indians, Moises and Zebaedo, both Tzeltals, and David, a Tojolbal, were catechists, seminarians or students of Catholicism. The charismatic Subcomandante Marcos, the only mestizo (mixed-race) leader of the EZLN, did not have to organize much when he arrived in the jungles of Chiapas in the mid-1980s because the local Native population had already been organized by the Church, stated Lazaro Hernandez in 1997, a former deacon of the diocese and former guerrilla. "I'm not sure about that, because I've only been here five years, but some brothers have mentioned those names," responded the nun when IPS asked her about Hernandez's assertion.
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Investigations
show that Ruiz, who retired in 1999 after serving as bishop of San Cristobal for more than 30 years, knew of Marcos' arrival in the Chiapas jungles and even supported his endeavors in social organizing.
Ruiz, who had to retire from his post upon turning 75 as indicated by the statutes of the Vatican, is a follower of what is known as Liberation Theology. He told the Mexican weekly Epoca in 1992 that "the kingdom of God can pass through political channels, as is the case in Nicaragua." He was referring to the Sandinista revolutionary movement that in the 1980s was victorious against the dictatorship of the Somoza family, a movement that included the efforts of numerous Catholic priests. But some testimonies by members of the Native community who were close to Ruiz's work indicate that just prior to the short-lived EZLN uprising on Jan. 1, 1994, the bishop announced his opposition to the use of arms in the struggle for Native rights and distanced himself from Marcos as a result. "There are no religious elements in the structure of the EZLN. In this state (Chiapas) the Catholic Church has carried out profound social works, but its efforts are in the opposite direction of armed struggle," the Zapatista leader told The New York Times in 1994. This led to philosophical clashes between the rebels and the Church. We said "the armed struggle is going to be necessary and we must prepare for it," Marcos explained. Catechists are generally well respected in the Native communities of this southern state and hold influence, which the leaders arriving from the city reportedly took advantage of in order to co-opt them into the guerrilla movement. Ruiz and other Latin American priests were, since the 1960s, the driving force behind Liberation Theology, a line of thought that advocates the liberation of the people from poverty and opposes the idea that the religious work of the Church should be limited to the personal realm of the faithful. The controversial approach of this theology brought Ruiz a number of problems in Chiapas as well as accusations from the Vatican, where Pope John Paul II condemned Liberation Theology. But it also won the Mexican bishop great prestige among progressive sectors of society, which proposed his name for the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, it allowed him to position himself, following the EZLN rebellion, as a mediator between the guerrillas and the government. But in 1998 the authorities accused him of siding with the rebels, leading the bishop to step down from that role. The diocese of San Cristobal, currently headed by bishop Felipe Arizmendi, who is considered a moderate, receives thousands of dollars annually in humanitarian support from non-governmental organizations in industrialized countries. The Church archives at the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center indicate that the ecclesiastical mission here has 31 priests, 137 nuns, 105 deacons and 8,000 catechists. The social work of religious workers in Chiapas, one of Mexico's poorest states, sparked numerous attacks against the diocese by the Ernesto Zedillo government (1994-2000). In that period, the government expelled seven foreign priests after accusing them of inciting rebellion, charges that won the Zedillo administration criticism from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which said the priests' rights had been violated. In San Cristobal the rights of Catholic priests and nuns have been trampled for the mere fact that they are engaged in social work, Marina Jimenez, of the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center, commented in an interview with IPS. Now it seems that several of the catechists trained by Ruiz and who later joined the Zapatista movement no longer speak of God, but continue denouncing the social injustices the Native peoples suffer. They are now on their way to the capitol to make sure those in power listen to them.
Albion Monitor
February 26, 2001 (http://www.monitor.net/monitor) All Rights Reserved. Contact rights@monitor.net for permission to use in any format. |
