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From the January 1998 Newsletter of Fair TradeMark Canada
In a massacre on Monday December 22, 45 indigenous people mainly women and children, were killed and many others injured in Chiapas, while seeking sanctuary from a paramilitary group in a local church. Nine unarmed men, 21 women and 14 children, including a baby, were shot in cold blood. Since November 24, the community of Acteal in the Municipality of Chenalho, Chiapas, had been under siege from the Mexican army and paramilitary groups alleged to be connected to the ruling PRI. Dozens of other communities have also been subjected to externally provoked violence in a "low intensity" war which has raged in Chiapas over the past two years.
Since the Zapatista uprising in January 1994, tensions have grown between indigenous villages and the Mexican government, which favours supporters of the governing PRI. A government "land reform" programme pits indigenous farmers, who have farmed the area for centuries, against land hungry immigrants from other parts of Mexico and local landlords who have recruited their own private armies.
Efforts by church officials and community leaders on both sides to mediate the tensions promoted by outside forces have been undermined each time they come close to reconciliation. Discrimination and new provocations by government linked paramilitary thugs and at times by the Mexican armed forces themselves, are creating an ethnic based Bosnia like climate of hatred and fear which makes escalating violence inevitable.
In the wake of this violence, the coffee harvest, scheduled to begin in December, is likely to be impossible, creating economic disaster for local farmers. Rumours abound that the paramilitary groups are acting for government supporters who wish to harvest the coffee for themselves.
As an organization committed to supporting small farmers through the expansion of fair trade markets for their high quality coffee, we are very concerned at this use of violence to deprive already marginalized families and communities of their livelihoods.
Coffee can provide a link between Canadian consumers and the violence of Chiapas.
The Zapatista uprising in 1994 was driven by the desperate poverty of indigenous peoples, partly the result of low coffee prices between 1987 and 1994 which hovered around a world market price of US$0.70 per pound, or half the cost of production for Mexico's small farmers. While somewhat simplistic, it is not beyond reason to argue that the Canadian taxpayers' contribution of $2 billion to the $40 billion international bailout of banks and other companies, following the collapse of the Mexican Peso caused by the Zapatista uprising, was the result of cheap coffee for Canadian consumers.
Would it not be healthier and more sustainable to transfer funds to Mexican farmers by paying a penny more per cup for their coffee, than to give millions to the already rich through our taxes or through charity which only helps a few?
Metaphorically, the murder of small coffee farmers and their families in Acteal, Chiapas is linked by globalization to each of us in Canada as we drink our morning cup of coffee.
Canadians wishing to protest this latest atrocity should write polite letters enquiring what the Mexican government is doing to further the peace talks it began with indigenous communities in Chiapas in 1994.
Letters can be addressed to:
Mexican Embassy
45 O'Connor St., Ottawa ON K1P 1A4
Tel. 613-233-8988 Fax 235-9123
Email: info@embamexcan.comLic. Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon
President of Mexico
Palacio National, 06067 Mexico D.F.
Fax 011-525-516-5762 or 515-4783
Email:webadmon@presidencia.gob.me
For information on how to buy certified fairly traded coffee in Canada, visit our WWW site at http://www.web.net/fairtrade call Fair TradeMark Canada at 613 563 3351, or call our licensees on the list on page 1.
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