In Progress

The author is an American who has been traveling, studying, and supporting human rights work in Mexico and Central America for the last six months. In January this year, he joined a Civilian Encampment for Peace, popularly called peace camps, in Morelia,, an area controlled by the Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion Nacional or Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). The following is his account of how the Zapatista women and children in this village faced an army blockade, a military action that is becoming terrifyingly common in many Zapatista villages in Chiapas.

The Civilian Encampments for Peace began in Chiapas in March of 1995 after the February offensive against the Zapatista communities by the Mexican military. The peace camps are meant to establish a continuous international presence of "neutral" observers to deter the army from acting against the communities and to monitor and record the military's presence in the communities. Among the groups that coordinate sending people to spend, time in the peace camps are Global Exchange (a human rights organisation based in San Francisco that builds people-to-people ties between First and Third World nations), Enlace Civil (an organisation in San Cristobal that promotes sustainable development in indigenous communities), and the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Center for Human Rights (also based in San Cristobal).