The Demands of the Dead (13 page)

“The EPR,” Evelyn said. Very different politics than here.

"What are the differences?"

"One: the EPR are seeking power. Two: They don't like the poetry. Three: The EPR isn't indigenous. Four: the EPR did a lot of fighting and confronting the army and police.

“The government used the EZLN and the EPR to play 'good guerrilla/bad guerrilla'. Unfortunately, the guerrillas fell for it somewhat. They started a public war of words, which we won.”

I noted to myself that Evelyn had just referred to herself as a Zapatista. She continued:

"Since the EPR lost the war of words, they went back to fighting where they were strong. On a single night, they attacked a police barracks in Acapulco, a government palace in Tixtla, they did a drive by in Altamirano, they took over a radio station, bombed a bank, shot up a city hall in Tlaxtiaco, killed police in Huatulco, attacked dams and power stations, and shot up an army truck."

"Where was all this?"

"Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, Mexico State, and Michoacan."

"All over the country."

"And Chiapas, too. They didn't shoot there, but they blockaded the highways for a while."

"They invaded Zapatista turf, then."

"Yes. And the EZLN didn't like it at all. They told the EPR publicly that they didn't ask for their help and didn't want it, and that the EPR had endangered them as well.

"Tell me more about the attacks."

"I think 15 killed and 23 wounded are the figures. Some police, some guerrillas, and some innocents. Militarily, they were very good. All the attacks occurred within an hour of each other. All over the country. The EZLN could not pull that off."

"So what happened next?"

"Nothing. The EPR made no major attacks since they announced a freeze on attacks later that year."

“Other guerrillas, muscling in on Zapatista territory, trying to draw a response, maybe start a more general conflict?”

Evelyn was starting to speak when the video, and all the background noise, suddenly went silent. She stopped herself.

The party was breaking up. Time to go back to camp.

We all went more or less straight to our sleeping bags. Evelyn and Susana were awake and chatting with each other across the room when I drifted off.

In the morning, the guy from the store, whose name was Emi, short, no doubt, for Emiliano and named after Zapata himself, brought the two white folks I’d seen the night before at the video to our camp house, interrupting our breakfast of bean soup and bread. Emi, now wearing a ski mask, introduced me to Joane and Charles, Quakers who were observers from a faith-based human rights initiative. They were here in Chiapas for a year and offering me the chance to go to the encampment outside the military base?

I left Evelyn and Susana behind, grabbed my notebook, and walked the mountain trail with my new friends. At some point the trail joined up with the trail I’d walked a few days before. We passed the spot where the murders happened. I waited for someone to say something. No one did. I wasn’t going to make conversation. All I really needed was a statement from a Zapatista. These Quakers were nice people, I was sure, but they wouldn’t be able to tell me if Gonzalez and Diaz were paras and they wouldn’t be able to tell me anything I didn’t already know. What they might do was introduce me to a Zapatista who could tell me what happened.

The video from the night before had prepared me for tense action, and there was tension, but the camp was just four canvas tents and a fire pit, where the two Quakers and three or four community members – today, just two masked men - would stay to watch the base and be seen. The soldiers and Seguridad Publica would bustle around, take pictures, come and resume their patrols.

When we arrived the two Zapatista men were hanging around outside by a fire pit that hadn't seen fire since the night before. I recognized them in spite of the masks, and them me. They were the two men I’d seen when I was retracing the last trail the murdered police had patrolled. Emi introduced us. Antonio and Rodolfo. Rodolfo was the older one. He was the one who wanted to talk to me. We stepped into the tent and sat on the floor. Antonio came along to listen as well.

“May I see your credentials, please.”

I produced them.

Rodolfo read Raul’s letter slowly, then passed it to Antonio. They were strong, solid men, Rodolfo mid-forties, Antonio mid-thirties, though I was working mostly from memory of what their faces looked like behind the masks. Rodolfo wore a red golf shirt and brown pants, with rubber boots. All of it worn down. Antonio had the same stuff in different colors.

“What questions can we answer for you?”

“May I quote you officially, in my report?”

“Yes.”

“As whom?”

“As Rodolfo. Myself and Antonio are charged with this small camp and the community’s relations with the army base.”

“Are you elected to this?”

“Yes. I was appointed by the community to this role for two years. I am charged with carrying out the wishes of the community. If the community doesn’t like the way I perform my duties, I can be recalled at any time.”

“So you make decisions about how to relate to the army and police here?”

“No. I implement the decisions made by the community.”

“What if something changes, and you need to make a decision?”

“We try to think of things in advance. If we must, we will discuss decisions made in emergencies afterwards. But important decisions are made in meetings with the community as a whole.”

“What about a decision to change from this strategy of nonviolent confrontation to military actions?”

“You are talking about the attacks on the officers of Public Security?”

“Yes.”

“Such a decision would have affected this entire community. In fact, it would have affected the entire region. We would have had long discussions.”

“Did such discussions take place?”

“No.”

“Let me ask you that again, more clearly, if you don’t mind? You are saying that the Zapatistas were not responsible for the killings?”

“The Zapatistas were not responsible for the killings.”

Antonio passed a canteen of water around. I fished around in my bag for photos.

“Do either of you recognize the murdered men?”

“Yes,” Rodolfo answered, without even looking at the photos. “They worked here. We get to know many of the Public Security officers’ faces.”

“Can you tell me if they were operating as paramilitaries?”

I could see Rodolfo squinting behind the mask. Masks didn’t really hide very much at all. They might work from far away, or in crowds of masks, but sitting like this with them, the masks might as well have not been there.

“One of them was. He kidnapped a family and threatened them last year. They were kidnapped, then released. The father was in the fields, working with the oldest son. The mother, the youngest son, the 2 daughters, and the grandmother were all kidnapped, marched into the jungle, and beaten, then marched to the road, and left there.”

“Could I speak to them?”

“No.”

I didn’t really need to anyway. I understood, though. My every move was being watched, and word would get back from everyone from the Zapatista military command to the US Embassy, with Public Security and the Army in between. If I interviewed that family, they could get in even more trouble.

“Did they file a denunciation? Did they report it?”

“Yes, you may have their statement, if you want.”

“Thank you.” I probably did have it already. It probably stated nothing other than what he had just told me.

“How did they know it was him?” I asked.

“We eventually identify everyone who attacks us.”

“Obviously he wasn’t the only kidnapper?”

“No, there were six. The rest were indigenous loyal to the PRI.”

The PRI was the ruling party in Mexico, with old, deep, dirty patronage fingernails sunk deep in the countryside.

“So he was the leader of the group?”

“Yes, we think so.”

Only one question left.

“Which one was it?”

“Diaz. It was Hernan Diaz.”

I thought so. But I said. “Thank you.”

I spent the rest of the day at the encampment. At dusk Emi came to walk me back to the community. Rodolfo and Antonio had gone home earlier. Two masked Zapatista women had relieved them so they could have dinner with their own families and come back later. The Quakers stayed.

Evelyn and Susana were hanging out at the store. I said hi but I didn't join them: I wanted to look at some of the papers. I went on to our camp house, squatted on the wooden bed and read by the light bulb, which tonight was acting as a major killer of moths and flies.

Raul had actually given me a copy of the denunciation of the kidnapping Diaz had done. It was quite standard, and factual:

‘We of the community in Rebellion Hatuey denounce the happenings of early this morning, when one of our families, including two women and three children, were abducted at gunpoint. They were tied up and threatened by members of the paramilitary...’

It went on to explain the dates, the threats that were made, the background of the military occupation and the paramilitary violence. It denounced that this occurred very close to the military base that was supposed to protect them from this sort of thing. It didn’t mention that one of the cops was involved in the attack. I guess they were saving that information for later. I wondered how Commander Beltran would explain it.

I trusted Rodolfo's account and the denunciation. I believed that Diaz was a paramilitary kidnapper. But I wasn't sure that the Zapatistas hadn't killed him – kidnapping a grandmother created a pretty powerful impulse for revenge, including, for example, in me. But Rodolfo hadn't said a bad word about Gonzalez, the other victim. Would the Zapatistas accept an extra kill as collateral damage? I didn't think so.

But the Zapatistas had a self-interest in telling me what they had told me. I could not just accept it as true. Maybe my relief at getting the secretive rebels to talk to me was biasing me to believe their accounts. They say that happens with journalists, so thrilled to get to talk to a CEO or President that they believe what they are fed. I could not afford to fall for it. I was a neutral investigator. My currency was objectivity.

I put the papers away and stretched out on the hard, cold wood.

I heard engines, footsteps, voices in the village. I looked around and could tell from the shapes in the dark that Evelyn and Susana were not in the camp house. I found my flashlight and watch. 4am.

I dressed quickly and rushed outside, chilly and still drowsy. I saw flashlights and people running to the store, where the light was on. I ran up the hill.

No Evelyn, no Susana. Emi and four other men from the community were there. People were running back and forth from the store, speaking rapidly to Emi in Tzeltal.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

Emi looked at us. At me. Coldly.

“Antonio and Rodolfo were arrested.”

“When?”

“Three hours ago.”

“For what, Emi?”

Emi shook his head at me. “For the murders of officers in Public Security.”

Antonio and Rodolfo had been asleep at the encampment, with the Quakers. 70 Public Security officers, 20 soldiers, and 30 Federal Preventive Police showed up at midnight to arrest them. The Quakers had tried to talk, and then to physically prevent the arrests, but with that much force, it just wasn’t happening. The Quakers ran back here, reported, and had since gone to the church.

The community was on red alert now. They were calling in their allies in the Defense Network. Evelyn and Susana were already on their way back to San Cristobal to raise the alarm and contact the lawyers and the press. Emi and the men he was with were drafting the denunciation. The people running back and forth were coming and going from the church. They were deciding whether to return to the base in force, to take some kind of action.

Why didn’t they wake me up?

I wasn’t going to ask, but I suspected it was distrust, again. The presence of these two week observers was a deterrent, sure. But if the army wasn’t deterred, it wasn’t deterred. And unlike Evelyn and Susana, who were known, trusted Zapatista supporters, I was unknown, untrusted, and wouldn’t be much help to the community in trying to ensure its security from further breaches, in following up the arrests with human rights and legal communities, or in formulating a response.

Except that I might, actually, be of help of a different kind.

After all, Antonio and Rodolfo were taken the same day they talked to me.

I made a plan.

The Quakers were at the church. This store was right on the road. I told Emi my intentions. He told me I should go to the church and tell them there. He sent a man with me to translate for me and tell them Emi thought it was a good idea.

While my translator walked smoothly, I stumbled in the dark, the flashlight throwing off my night vision and my feet unable to find footing. I was cold, from hastily dressing and because I hadn’t warmed up yet. No coffee, no food, no fire, no sun.