Posted on 09/14/2002 11:00:52 AM PDT by ValerieUSA
SAN SALVADOR ATENCO, Mexico -- Six weeks after rebellious peasants forced the government to scrap plans for a $3 billion airport on their land, new conflicts are brewing in this town on the edge of Mexico City.
The most radical farmers have established a "People's Council," declaring the elected municipal authority defunct and putting themselves on a collision course with the state and federal governments. Many believe their efforts can serve as a model for other communities with grievances against the state.
But others in town have grown weary of the revolutionary rhetoric and want to return to the way things were before the airport dispute began nearly a year ago.
"Lots of us are now saying enough is enough," said Ricardo Reyes, 35.
Many caught in the middle are simply frightened there will be more violence.
But political analyst Alfonso Zarate sees an even greater danger.
"With what has happened in Atenco, we see that there is a real threat to governance in Mexico," he said. "There are many places like it where the political institutions have lost all credibility. This creates a vacuum filled by society organizing itself outside the law. "And in Atenco," he added, "the vacuum is being filled by the most radical elements."
Supported by a rag-tag collection of left-wing groups, Atenco's machete-wielding peasants became a symbol of protest across Mexico last fall almost as soon as they began their campaign to stop the airport project. Their marches and roadblocks regularly made the front pages of Mexican newspapers.
The situation exploded in mid-July. A street battle with police left one demonstrator dead, and protesters took 15 government officials hostage. On Aug. 1, the government announced it was canceling the project.
Earlier this week, the town's radicals recaptured the limelight with the installation of their People's Council. With machetes held defiantly above their heads and red bandannas tied around their necks, the 14 members of the new council took their oaths one by one in Atenco's central square. "Ready to fight" each said with a flourish, after giving his or her name.
A crowd of about 200 men, women and children watched, enthusiastically chanting left-wing slogans. "Zapata lives," they shouted, referring to the icon of the 1910 revolution. "What we want now is for the people to really take control of what goes on here," said Victor Manuel Mata, 33, one of the council's supporters. "Just the people. We don't want anything to do with political parties."
The new council is similar to those in the so-called autonomous municipalities established by Maya farmers aligned with the Zapatista rebel movement in southernmost Chiapas state.
According to peasant leaders here, members of the People's Council were elected by public assemblies in Atenco and the five surrounding villages under its jurisdiction.
But others in the area dismiss the body as an anti-democratic organization set up by the radicals, for the radicals.
"It is a disaster here, and now that the airport struggle is won, we want to return to normal," said Reyes, who wants to see Atenco's legally recognized council take charge again.
The elected officials left town soon after the government announced last October that it was expropriating land in the community to build a new airport for Mexico City. The radicals accused them of conspiring with the state and federal governments to begin the project over their objections.
Margarito Yañez, the deposed mayor who now has an office in a nearby village, held two marches this month to press for his reinstatement and that of the old council.
The growing tension worries people like Maria Sanchez, a 57-year-old housewife.
"I am traumatized by what is happening," she said, clutching her shopping bag. "I am afraid there will be more violence."
Already, members of the self-declared council have vowed to force state and federal officials to hand over the public funds that provide much of Atenco's budget.
"If they don't, we will make them," Hortensia Ramos said to loud applause as he and others were installed on the new council this week.
Polls show that many Mexicans saw the decision to cancel the Atenco airport as an affirmation of President Vicente Fox's democratic credentials.
Fox took power in December 2000, ending the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. A mixture of patronage and repression marked much of the PRI's reign, especially in rural areas.
After the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas in 1994, for example, the government showered funds on the state's Maya Indian communities to undermine support for the movement. At the same time, the government sent a large contingent of troops to the state and, many believe, helped set up armed anti-Zapatista groups in Maya villages.
Fox has vowed to avoid the PRI's style of governing and to further democratize Mexican society. Those intentions have prompted kind words even in Atenco.
"Things would have been much more difficult with the PRI in the presidency," said Salvador Sanchez, 35, as he leaned on his bicycle in the central square. "We have to admit that Fox is more tolerant and that he took the right decision in the end."
But Zarate, the analyst, criticized Fox's handling of the Atenco dispute. The government, he said, offered a ridiculously low payment of about 70 cents per square yard for the expropriated land and then did little to stop the protest movement until it got out of hand.
Sergio Sarmiento, an analyst and newspaper commentator, said Fox's decision to abort the project "sent a message to the rest of the country that the government will back down if faced with a group of people with machetes."
"It is a very bad omen," he said.
Indeed, Atenco activist Javier del Valle, 39, believes people across Mexico can learn from the town's struggle.
"It is all part of the same fight, and we will go wherever there are oppressed people," he said. "We can't sort out their problems, but we can show them that they can win."
Shortly after plans for the Atenco airport were scrapped, the governor of nearby Puebla state canceled a major highway project following a protest of area farmers carrying machetes.
In Atenco, many people seem to bask in their new role as poster children of Mexico's political left.
One recent afternoon, four women ranging in age from 23 to 80 sat resolutely in plastic chairs in the town's main square. They were watching for government spies, the eldest explained.
"Atenco has become the bellybutton of Mexico," said the woman, who gave her name only as Patricia. "It's great."
Yes. Start here.
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