To: RPA members From: Patricia Huntington, CSP Rep. and Martin Beck Matustik, CSP Assistant & RPA Rep.

Date: 31 January 1999

Dear RPA members and friends,

During the first week of January, we, Patricia and Martin, visited our sister community La Realidad, in the Lacandon jungle of Southeastern Mexico. This was our second visit to La Realidad and we are even more impressed now with local indigenous governance than we were last July. We had a very successful meeting with three members of the Autonomous Council, the body of 12 that presides over decisions for the Municipality of 58 communities, San Pedro de Michoacan. Here we present a report.

1/ We provide updated information on the status of our "Chiapas Solidarity Project" for the health and relief needs of La Realidad; 2/ we relate facts about the current situation in La Realidad that we gathered during our journey; and 3/ we offer exciting news on Marcos and the RPA! In addition, 4/ we provide a fiscal report and 5/ ask for your action at the end.

1. "Chiapas Solidarity Project": RPA's Sustainable Health Project in La Realidad

We had a wonderfully successful meeting with the community. There have been a few modifications to the health project, yet overall we conclude that the modified project fits best with the communities' capacities under present conditions of military control and is thus better than the initial plan. The community held a full junta (assembly) in order to discuss the health clinic project when were we visiting them. There was a very large turn-out of community representatives, community members, and Autonomous Council members. Immediately after the assembly, three Autonomous Council members, including the Minister of Justice and the Promoter of Health, met with us. The Autonomous Council is the highest decision-making body at the Municipal level; it oversees all projects that affect more than one community and mediates between the communal bases of support and the Clandestine Command of the EZLN.

The sustainable health project in La Realidad. The community of La Realidad is extremely grateful for the RPA's friendship and the assistance that we have already raised. The exciting news is that we have raised about $6500 US as a result of the letter campaign we initiated just this December 1998! Due to unstable conditions of low-intensity warfare and monetary shortages, the community decided to re-order some of its project priorities. The community decided at the junta that it lies beyond their capacity in the immediate future to undertake a long-term project like building a clinic. Yet because health and medicine rank number one on their list of most basic needs, the community petitioned simply that we shift the focus of the agreed-on Health Project. Instead of constructing a new clinic, which could take up to two years to get running under current conditions of counterinsurgency, they have a plan to develop three self-sustaining pharmacies that would operate in three different communities in the autonomous municipality.

The rationale for self-sustaining pharmacies. Although the health project has been modified, we believe that it is a more defined and realistic project and will thus prove successful. First, the highest legislative body in the communities, the 12 member Autonomous Council, has been devising the pharmacy project for numerous months now. This is their project and that fact is very important. Second, the project is designed to be self-sustainable (see project description below). Thirdly, this plan does not rule out building a clinic in the future. CSP already has a very fine architectural plan for a health clinic. As a result of our meeting, we believe that the community will indeed resume the clinic project at a future time as part of its long-term goals in meeting communal health needs. Establishing a functioning pharmacy as soon as possible is a life-and-death matter in the communities. For this reason, La Realidad and the Municipal Council of all 58 communities jointly decided that they have no option but to give the pharmacy project top priority. The Promoter of Health reported, in addition to war stress, that curable diseases like anemia (especially among women), tuberculosis, malaria, and vitamin shortages, all pose the most imminent and constant danger to the survival of the community members. In La Realidad children suffer from ongoing fevers in winter-time, yet another easily curable disease. Our junta with the Council members was a genuine experience of communal decision- making; we and the Council members came away having solidified the project and our relationship.

The plan for self-sustaining pharmacies. The central feature of this plan is its goal of sustainability. Normally the shipment of medicine to the communities constitutes a form of temporary aid that leaves the communities dependent on help from outside organizations for its continued health needs. But the Autonomous Council has devised this plan as a means of generating an internal system of credit. Initially relying upon monetary and pharmaceutical donations, the Municipality seeks to create a revolving foundation of medicines and an internal system of credit among the 58 communities. The idea is that families can harvest more coffee beans than normal and buy medicine in exchange for coffee beans; they will purchase medicines at half the going price on the open market because initial medicines will be donated. The community representatives will then arrange to sell the coffee beans and thereby generate a foundation of collective monies to be used in the continued purchase of medicines. Over time, the community will attain autonomy in meeting their medicine needs.

We think this is a truly exciting project. As one local told us, many of the communities do not yet have a concept of a credit system, so this Municipality and its Council are leading the way for other municipalities. It is a very solid sign that they have devised the idea of a sustainable medicine project on their own. Work on the first pharmacy has already begun in La Realidad.

Target goals for spring and summer 1999. At present our Mexican counterparts are investigating the best manner and time-table in which to establish the medicine pool. This involves listing the medicines not harmful to the indigenous, noting those that require refrigeration, deciding which medicines will take priority over others, specifying the amounts needed, and projecting the overall size of a medicine pool necessary to meet the needs of all 58 communities. For our contribution, we have three target goals:

End of February: If possible, we intend to send some monies to La Realidad in February to assist them in the completion of the construction of the first pharmacy. Due to the events of the March 21 "Consulta" we may not be able to achieve this goal until April.

April-May: We are working with the Mexican Solidarity Network (MSN) on a possible plan to purchase medicines at 2% cost through major medical relief organizations. MSN's medical delegation of nurses and doctors will visit La Realidad and other communities this February in order to assess medicine needs and will send a follow-up shipment of supplies into the communities in April or May. As a small-time organization, we hope to piggyback on MSN's shipment as this will both allow us to purchase medicines at 2% cost and to avoid all problems associated with arranging shipments across international borders, including excessive costs.

August: The second phase will be realized in early August; Wes Rehberg will lead a delegation into La Realidad, among other places, in conjunction with the Puebla conference. We hope to deliver in person a second shipment of medicines and monies for the other two pharmacies. We petition all RPA members to assist in fund-raising and/or to join the August trip, as it will be a very important meeting with the community. Contact us for how to proceed with this.

2. Report on the Current Situation in our Sister Community

The militarization of Chiapas by the Mexican Federal Army has increased since the beginning of 1999. More troops (above the present 70k) have poured into the Zone of Conflict; more military checkpoints have been erected and staffed; more internal immigration controls appear on roads into the Chiapan communities; and new out-of-the-ordinary immigration controls of foreigners are being exercised at the Mexico City airport as well as upon arrival to and departure from the Tuxtla Gutierrez airport in Chiapas. In effect, the movement of all visiting foreigners is being intensely monitored. We travelled to La Realidad in a rented Suburban with our Mexican guide, chauffeur, and a Mexican camera person who shot video for us. By starting our 8 hour trip from San Cristobal to La Realidad in the very early hours of the morning, we successfully avoided the immigration check. But after 8 a.m. we encountered two military checkpoints. Our Mexican guides knew that by law the military can inspect our vehicle for weapons and drugs but cannot ask us for our I.D.; and these we did not show. The second of these two encounters, where the military cited article 33 of the Mexican Constitution to us and promised to report us to immigration, has been recorded on the video. (Because we made our return trip in the pitch dark of late night, none of the checkpoints were staffed.) On our heels, minutes after our arrival to La Realidad, the military convoy of 38 armored vehicles entered the main road of the community. Although patrols have occurred since November, these slow- moving military convoys have been passing through the community methodically at least twice a day since January 1, 1999, and sometimes they pass back and forth all day and all night. Numerous soldiers in the convoys take pictures or film community members and foreign observers as they pass through. Low-flying aircraft have been patrolling from above daily. Both intensified occurrences have been reported by Enlace Civil and the Mexican press; we add to this our eye witness account as well as a full video-footage of the convoys. Members of the community reported an incident in which the convoy would stop at the main road and soldiers would get out of tanks and trucks and implement a mock-practice of hostile take-over of the community (this practice has been reported in other communities as well).

From most of our conversations it seems evident that the increased harassment is related to the effort to hold a non-violent, democratic "Consulta" on March 21, 1999. The Consulta will be a national referendum on indigenous rights. It was announced in November 1998 by the Zapatista communities. On March 21, 1999, five thousand Zapatista delegates from Chiapas (1/2 women, 1/2 men) will travel throughout Mexico to conduct the Consulta. Many other groups and branches of civil society and the so-called volunteer "brigades" are on the move in preparing this incredible event. Minimally one to three million votes are hoped for, thereby putting pressure on the Mexican government.

3. The "Sup" will read RPA Newsletter

You will be happy to hear that we delivered two RPA documents to the community: the December 1998 RPA Newsletter in which the Chiapas Solidarity Project is announced and the RPA Press Release from December 18, 1998 in which we make public our adoption of La Realidad as sister community and denounce the recent military harassment. The Representative of La Realidad, members of the Autonomous Council, and, best of all, Subcommandante Marcos will read our Newsletter! We also conducted a video interview with the Minister of Justice of the Autonomous Municipal Council. The interview covers questions about the social and political structure of the Autonomous Council as well as procedures of communal and inter-communal governance.

4. Fiscal Report

As of January 15, 1999, we, as representatives of CSP, raised U$6,548.00 for the health project in La Realidad. Thanks to you, the donors; this was, indeed, concrete and very good news to the community!

A significant donation of U$ 4K came from a single donor, a graduate student who gave to this project the greater part of an inheritance received from his mother; the bulk of the other donations came in response to our direct appeal made by mailing 500 letters in December, 1998. Of the latter donations, most donors are members of the RPA; however, we did target other academics and, of these, we received a high response from feminists. All funds are at present deposited in our tax-deductible account with Alliance for Global Justice (AGJ).

We incurred expenses for xeroxing and mailing 500 fund-raising letters. We had cash expenses for the trip from San Cristobal to La Realidad, including the Suburban car-rental and costs for food and video materials for all accompanying Mexicans. The total of all these mailing and travel expenses is $1,192. Out of these we contributed $611.00 plus our tickets to Mexico City; and we received reimbursement for $580.00 (= costs for Mexican companeros and materials). This leaves roughly $6,000 in the account.

5. Your Action: Send your votes below

We ask for your input on the newly modified health project, for information about whether you intend to join the August delegation, and for your continued support in a variety of ways (joining delegation, holding a fund-raising event, donations). Please fill out and send us your votes below.

Yours sincerely, Patricia Huntington, CSP Representative Martin Beck Matustik, CSP Assistant & RPA Representative

_____________________ Send by e-mail or snail mail _____________________

CAST YOUR VOTE:

YES ____ I support my sister community of La Realidad by accepting the petition to give our assistance to the sustainable pharmacy project.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO TARGET GOALS: Our spring fund-raising target is to reach U$ 20,000. for the CSP health project in La Realidad. Please help the RPA to develop a sustainable health project in La Realidad. No help is too small!

YES ____ I want to hold a fund-raising event this spring for the CSP sustainable health project in La Realidad. My e-mail is provided below. Please contact me.

YES ____ I plan to join the delegation to LA Realidad and other communities in August as my contribution. My e-mail is provided below. Please contact me.

YES____ I continue my support for the CSP sustainable health project in La Realidad I make my tax-deductible check payable to: Chiapas Solidarity Project - AGJ* (*AGJ = Alliance for Global Justice, a place for our tax-deductible account)

___$500 ___$300 ___$200 ___$100 ___$50 ___$25 (student)

Mail to: Patricia Huntington, CSP Representative 922 W. Winona St., 3E; Chicago, IL 60640-3229

My name:

Address:

Telephone:

E-mail:

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