Since January some 60 foreign human rights activists have been expelled from Chiapas, Mexico, where violence has been escalating between the government and the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army. One of them was Chicagoan Tom Hansen, who was sent back to the U.S. in February. Though the reason for his expulsion is hazy, Hansen claims it’s because of his work as codirector of the Chiapas Media Project, a group that was delivering video cameras, editing equipment, and blank tapes to two villages in the region. One of the villages, Ejido Morelia–populated by 800 Tzetzal Indians–had been invaded by government forces three times in one month.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Hansen, who now must obtain a special visa before he can return to Mexico, says the equipment was intended for the residents to record the army’s harassment. “Part of the low-intensity warfare is a propaganda campaign to discredit the communities. This is a way to give them the capacity to tell their own story.”
On their first night a fight broke out between Zapatista sympathizers and supporters of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, and one man was badly beaten. During the altercation, the sole light in the community center where they were staying went out, and for three long hours no one knew what was happening. Later they learned that the lightbulb had become unscrewed from its socket. Other problems seemed minimal, says Teruel. Temperatures ranged from the mid-30s to the 90s, bathrooms were holes in the ground filled with spiders and wasps’ nests, and one day the entire village left to fight a forest fire. But the most annoying daily occurrence, says Teruel, came courtesy of a member of one of the other groups, who awakened everyone at six with a sharp blast from his whistle.
