Part Two
“Caciques” rule the highlands of Chiapas
The region of San Juan Chamula, in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, has
been a major source of hostilities against evangelical Christians for more
than thirty years. Besides the very small town that bears the same name,
which is nestled in a bowl-shaped depression in the mountains, Chamula also
represents the largest municipality in the highlands region. It encompasses
87 other, separate villages or communities, each with its own heirarchy
of “caciques” (or gangster-style, political bosses). These traditional,
rural leaders usually control most, if not all, of the local businesses,
governments and land.
The power of the caciques often keeps the rest of the community in a “state
of virtual servitude,” stated Pedro C. Moreno, International Coordinator
of The Rutherford Institute, during a U.S. Congressional hearing on worldwide
persecution of Christians. This cultural legacy spans centuries. For instance,
during the colonial Spanish era, the natives who failed to attend Catholic
mass were whipped, and the caciques did the whipping. “For hundreds
of years, they have exploited their own people of race and language,”
says Abdías Tovilla Jaime, director and legal consultant of CEDECH,
the State Committee of Chiapas for Evangelical Defense. “(Modern) caciques
are not interested in maintaining cultural values, but in their businesses,
and their economic and political interests. They have imposed customs and
festivals that are very expensive to celebrate.”
For example, everyone in each community is expected to participate in and
contribute to the local, syncretistic festivals, which involves buying candles,
fireworks and posh, a locally-made, hard liquor — all enterprises that
caciques control. “In the state of Chiapas, the economy is dependent
on the sale of ‘posh,’” according to Moreno. In this way,
Tovilla says, the caciques “cause families to be indebted, even those
without food or houses.”
Consequently, many of the indigenous people became seasonal workers in the
coffee plantations on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, hoping to earn enough
money to pay their debts. While there, they were exposed to evangelical
Christians. A large number of them were converted, and they brought the
gospel back to their communities in the highlands. “Thus, the Protestant
faith is a new form of religion that upsets the interests of the caciques,”
explains Tovilla. A substantial economic loss for the caciques is represented
by the large number of people who no longer buy the candles, fireworks or
posh.
As a result, Moreno said, “caciques resort to persecution,” which
began to be documented in January, 1966, over thirty years ago. This persecution
primarily has taken the form of forcefully expelling the evangelicals from
their native communities, including the destruction of their homes and belongings.
Evangelical believers also have been beaten, raped, kidnapped, threatened,
jailed, ridiculed and forbidden to practice their religious beliefs. Many,
too, have been murdered (see Part 1 of this series).
But the fundamental motivation behind the expulsions, according to Tovilla,
is really not religious at all. Instead, he says, it is “economic,
political, and agrarian, because Chamula has little arable land; so when
(the evangelicals) are expelled, their land remains for the caciques.”
Between thirty- and thirty-three thousand evangelicals have been expelled
from their own lands since 1966. The majority of them have resettled along
the outskirts of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, due to its close proximity
to Chamula. Now they live in neighborhoods with names like Paraíso
(Paradise), Getsemaní (Gethsemane), and Nueva Esperanza (New Hope).
Yet expulsions have been officially prohibited since 1993, according to
Tovilla. For this reason, the caciques have begun to use other tactics.
“The face of the problem has changed. Now the caciques are terrorizing
the people so that they leave,” says Tracey King, a short-term missionary
with the Reconciliation and Mission Program of the Presbyterian Church USA,
who is assisting CEDECH in San Cristóbal. Tovilla explains that the
caciques have adopted “the armed method,” and that a large portion
of the money that goes to Chamula ostensibly for public works is actually
used to buy arms. “They can’t expel, but they can kill,”
says Tovilla. However, he points out that the Acteal massacre in December
was not directed against evangelicals.
Another aspect of their new tactics, which is a “useful means of control
for the caciques,” declares CEDECH, is “withholding education
(from) the children of the evangelicals. In some cases, this practice has
been allowed to go on for more than four years.” Government authorities
have not responded, and the schools in several villages remain closed.
And even though expulsions were officially “prohibited,” they
still continue. As recently as December 12, 1997, ten evangelicals, including
one pastor, were forced to sign a document stating that “by their own
will they abandon the community in order to not generate more problems,”
and that “having changed religion they violated an internal agreement.”
Furthermore, the document states that “the assembly (of local leaders)
declares that if anyone of the community changes his religion, he must abandon
(the community) voluntarily to prevent generating problems of this type.”
The document permits the evangelicals to visit their families in the village
once a month, provided they do so “in a peaceful manner and without
religious proselytism.”
This latest episode had begun on October 18, when 23 Presbyterians in the
village of Saltillo (in the municipality of Las Margaritas) began to receive
threats. Later that month, as they fled from the community, one of the men
was detained and beaten. On December 8, the group returned to Saltillo for
the purpose of reaching an “agreement with the rural authorities (caciques),”
according to CEDECH. “But instead, they were imprisoned. On the fifth
day of their imprisonment, December 12,” they signed the document “to
officially guarantee their expulsion. ...They are now living in the city
of Las Margaritas, trying to survive with what little they have left.”
A church there is helping support them, King says.
“It is especially grave,” states a report from CEDECH, “because
there had been signs of growing tolerance and less violence. ...One can
only hope that it is an isolated incident...and not a renewal of the horrible
religious persecution.” However, it was not an ‘isolated incident.’
Another evangelical family was likewise expelled from the village of Jolbón
in San Juan Chamula. According to CEDECH, this expulsion “broke the
existing peace agreements between the municipality’s caciques and the
evangelical Christians.”
- end -
Copyright © 1998, by Lee Cuesta