Troops withdraw from Chiapas

Compiled by Greg White

La Realidad, Mexico, Dec. 2— In his first action as president of Mexico, Vicente Fox ordered troops to withdraw from sensitive spots in the southern state of Chiapas and sent a previously rejected Indian rights bill to Congress for approval.

President Fox ordered the Mexican Army to withdraw the checkpoints it has been maintaining in Los Altos, the North, and the Cañadas of Chiapas, several official sources reported yesterday.

A military official said troops removed 53 roadblocks around Chiapas state and began pulling out of the town of Amador Hernandez, where there have been daily clashes between residents and soldiers since the army set up in August 1999.

According to Federal Highway Police sources, the checkpoint which had been located in the military region of Rancho Nuevo - the one closest to San Cristobal - was “dismantled” and “the only thing they [the soldiers] said was that they had orders to assemble and to allow free transit.” The soldiers began turning off the lights and other equipment which they had used 24 hours a day.

The military checkpoints were supposedly established to hamper support for the Zapatista rebels. Foreign backers of the rebels and human rights monitors were sometimes deported on grounds of interfering in local politics after being stopped at the checkpoints.

The government said it ordered the checkpoints dismantled and the troops out of the camps alongside those checkpoints. But reporters on Saturday found many soldiers were still stationed in the roadside camps.

The Zapatistas, a leftist, predominantly Mayan movement whose small army, the EZLN, waged a brief uprising in January of 1994, also have repeatedly demanded a pullback of the tens of thousands of troops in the areas where the rebels are influential, and have demanded that the government free Zapatista prisoners and disband paramilitary groups.

Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos said Saturday night that those conditions still apply before peace talks can begin. Fox already appeared to be removing those obstacles.

During his inaugural speech, President Vicente Fox reported that his first government act in legislative matters would be sending the Congress of the Union next week, “as a legislative proposal, the document drawn up by the Cocopa which summarizes the San Andres Accords,” which were signed by the previous government and the Zapatistas, but which the head - until last Thursday - of the Federal Government had refused to ratify.

The rights bill would grant Indian communities more control over their territory and the right to make laws and elect officials according to their traditional customs. Former President Ernesto Zedillo had refused to implement the Indian-rights accord and had sent thousands of soldiers into indigenous villages in Chiapas.

Fox clearly was trying to win over Marcos’ trust when in his inaugural speech on Friday, he said: “Today a new dawn begins for Chiapas.”

“The new dialogue begins with deeds, not words. The new dialogue speaks with the sincerity of actions,” read a communique signed by Fox’s interior secretary, Santiago Creel, and his Chiapas aide, Luis H. Alvarez.

“The purpose of this action is to reiterate the government’s full readiness to meet, in the shortest possible time, with representatives of the EZLN, and in that way create a favorable climate for renewal of negotiations for a solid and lasting peace in Chiapas.”

In La Realidad, Marcos said he approved of Alvarez as a negotiator. As a federal senator in 1996, Alvarez had helped negotiate the Indian rights bill.

Marcos said he would travel in February to the capital with his top commanders in an effort to ensure that Congress approves the rights bill. He said it would be his first time out of the jungle in 15 years.

Marcos said Fox’s actions showed good will, but that he was distrustful of the pro-business president. He said that he wouldn’t let the new president turn Mexico into “a giant department store ... where human lives and natural resources are bought and sold as the market demands.

“During your campaign, you have said time and again that you are willing to reopen dialogue. Zedillo said the same thing ... then launched a major offensive against us.”

Pisgah National Forest timber sale withdrawn

Asheville, North Carolina, Nov. 30— On November 28, District Ranger Paul Bradley withdrew his decision to implement a timber harvest in the northern reaches of Yancey County in the Pisgah National Forest. A section of the Appalachian Trail, one of the most valuable and well-known resources in the North Carolina Mountains, is located adjacent to the area where logging was scheduled to occur. The proposed activities would have harvested timber on approximately 60 acres of National Forest Land.

Present on the site of the proposed timber sale was a rare species, the Velvet Covert snail (Inflectarius subpallitus). The Environmental Assessment for this timber sale, prepared by the US Forest Service, mentioned the presence of this species, but considered any impacts to them avoidable, or of no significance to the environment. On behalf of the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, Western North Carolina Alliance, Appalachian Voices, and Wild South, WildLaw’s Southern Appalachian Office filed an administrative appeal with the Regional Forester in Atlanta, GA, alleging, among other things, that the surveying, monitoring, and inventorying conducted for this species was inadequate.

The decision to withdraw the sale comes after months of negotiations between the Forest Service and representatives of the citizen groups involved in the appeal. The groups even undertook a “field trip,” accompanied by Forest Service personnel, to the site of the proposed sale.

“We are obviously, pleasantly surprised by Ranger Bradley’s decision to withdraw this sale,” stated WildLaw staff attorney Stephen Novak. “The presence of the Velvet Covert snail in portions of the surveyed areas indicated to us that this project area was not suitable for timber harvesting.”

“District Ranger Bradley’s withdrawal leaves open the possibility that the same or similar sale could be proposed again in the future, to the detriment of our natural heritage,” said Andrew George, executive director of the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project. “We will actively oppose this commercial logging - whether they jeopardize rare species or important recreational areas like the Appalachian Trail - until we permanently shut down the federal timber sale program in our state and across the region.”