PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

The Recovery of Memory
by C. Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2004 at 5:40 PM
maxfarrand@hotmail.com

Today, 22 December 2004, we remember the 7th anniversary of the massacre at Acteal, Mexico. Seven years ago today, in 22 December 1997, forty five unarmed men, women and children, seeking refuge from earlier violence, were massacred. The Mexican Red Cross reported the dead as nine men, 21 women, 14 children and one baby.

They were attending Mass in the Catholic church when the shooting started. Some were shot; others hacked to death with machetes. Many who tried to flee were tracked down by the cries of their children. Four of the women were pregnant.

According to the Washington Post, the United States is training Mexican officers at a rate of 1,067 a year at 17 bases around our country including the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. Helicopter instruction is given at Fort Rucker, Alabama and a program in Intelligence training is offered at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington D.C.

This massacre had the School of the Americas written all over it. In the year of Acteal, approximately 300 Mexican soldiers were training at the SOA.

Like Nicaragua, Mexico began sending officers and non-commissioned officers to the US Army’s School of the Americas shortly after the January 1st 1994 Zapatista uprising. At the SOA, Mexican soldiers trained in “low intensity warfare” and “counter insurgency”, the focus of which is intimidation of the civilian population. Course ‘manuals’ released by the Pentagon reveal this ‘intimidation’ to mean kidnapping, torture, extortion, false arrest, and assassination.
And on this day, seven years ago, we finally saw the Pentagon’s plans come to fruition: take soldiers of questionable background; train them in the most deadly and inhumane form of warfare, that of war on the unarmed and powerless; and ship the new killing machines back to Mexico.

This massacre is a snap shot of the broader US strategy in Latin America: US force by proxy army, and unending impunity for the actors. In Acteal and Chiapas, SOA grads have played significant parts:

General Jose Ruben Rivas Pena helped design the counterinsurgency strategy, including media censorship and psychological warfare.
General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was the head of the Mexican anti-drug operation; he was arrested in 1997 for helping a drug kingpin.
Gen. Huan Lopez Ortiz commanded a 1994 operation that rounded up and shot random civilians suspected of being Zapatista sympathizers.
And now the unknown leaders and authors of the Acteal Massacre…we will find you, one day.

Continuing the disrespect of the dead, the US Army escalated its training and aid under the pretext of the ‘drug war’ from $10 million in 1995 to $78 million in 1997. Today, Mexican soldiers still make up significant portions of ‘students’ training at this school of death.

Today, we remember the dead of Acteal. May their memories give our hearts fire, our spirits courage, and our eyes hope.

Acteal Commemoration Photos: http://www.yachana.org/reports/acteal/photos.html

The hidden past is becoming our secret present...and we must recover our memory.
Contact your congressperson and tell them: "ACTEAL: NUNCA MAS! NEVER AGAIN! Close the SOA!"

IN PA:
Melissa Hart
Allegheny/Butler/Westmoreland Counties
4655 Route 8, Suite 124G
Coventry Square Shopping Center
Allison Park, PA 15101

Ph.412-492-0161
Fx.412-492-0178

Tim Murphy
504 Washington Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15228
Ph: (412) 344-5583
Fx: (412) 429-5092

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