Low Intensity Warfare: At What Human Cost?

For the past three weeks I have lived among the very poor as I traveled to four southern Mexican states with a Witness for Peace delegation. I feel that I have not only seen but also experienced a glimpse of the underside of globalization. I witnessed the tension of low intensity warfare, an eerie silence that pervades the villages, as inhabitants wait and wonder when they will have a voice in what affects their very lives.

Yes Witness for Peace studies the effects of our United States policies upon other countries in Central America. As we witnessed some of the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and of Plan Puebla Panama (PPP), we realized that President Fox is definitely listening to the voices of the trans-national businesses, not to the voices of the poor. His neo-liberal understandings, especially as they affect the poor, give one the clear impression that this model of business is good for a few at the top but is destroying the indigenous poor.

Low intensity warfare is now a global phenomenon. It is often subtle and manipulative. It breeds an atmosphere of fear. The best way to overcome fear is to become stronger advocates of justice even as one works toward change. As NAFTA and PPP moved forward, low intensity warfare was frequently my experience during these weeks. A silent military presence or control by force created an atmosphere of fear. Many of the developing countries of the world have experienced this for years. Mexican people are no exception.

I remember when a large business industry in my hometown treated its workers with dignity and respect, when just wages and health benefits were given to all employees. Yes, this business did very well financially in those days and greed did not consume the CEO's agendas. Happy workers were productive workers. They were women and men who were proud to contribute their skills and their lives to something bigger than themselves. They were proud to be a part of the company business. This was not my recent experience with the maquiladora workers and with the small farmers. Listen to their stories.

If you work in a maquiladora (factory) you have no protection of your rights and no health benefits. In the process, pollution and contamination from dyes and chemicals is a direct danger. Water runs blue from the textile dyes and major extraction of the water supply is happening in areas where water is very sacred and very scarce. Greed and control issues abound as transnational business steps in, crunching the poor under foot. I ask, "What has happened to the rights of the poor?" The "race to the bottom" is happening when these trans-national s threaten and actually do move their maquilas to other nations that will offer still cheaper labor. This is low intensity warfare.

>From the maquiladora factories we traveled to the campo (countryside). Here we heard the stories of the small farmers. How aware are we of the effects of biogenetic corn as it infiltrates the pure Mayan corn These beautiful people call themselves "the people of the corn." This pure corn has been passed from generation to generation with seeds saved and planted the following year. This is not the case with the biogenetic seeds. The threat of genetically modified organisms (GMO) to the indigenous pure corn is occurring. These people see other countries coming in to take resources that are precious to the indigenous. Since the Free Trade Agreement of the US, Canada and Mexico, governments are giving less and less freedom to the campo farmers. Less corn is being produced in Mexico and therefore many need to leave their families and immigrate to the United States looking for jobs.

Mayan small farm workers are asking to be at the table when decisions are being made that effect their communal land, their pure corn and their cultural way of life on the land. These are a people who are looking for sustainable development and wider social responsibility of their own lands and lives. Our Northern Hemisphere must not be the godfather to the Southern Hemisphere. A welfare mentality is not the answer. If the United States has large universal contract development in Mexico then the North becomes the protector of the South. Control and power undergird this mentality and action. Needless to say this too breeds low intensity warfare.

There are common lands in the Mayan culture where the eco-system belongs to all the people, not like in the US. Mayan culture carries a communal spirit and responsibility for the land. Before NAFTA there was a modification of the Mexican Constitution #27 thus releasing the government from responsibilities concerning the indigenous lands. If the Mayan people give over their land they would need an alternative agreement to this part of the Constitution. What are the effects of NAFTA today? We observed the shift from farms to city; from the production of ancestral corn to genetically altered corn; from prices escalating to living conditions of extreme poverty; from tariffs being lifted to small businesses and small farmers struggling to compete.

Many of us are aware of the rich oil reserves in the San Andres and Sierra Madre Mountains. If the indigenous have no control of their own exports, then their national sovereignty is being destroyed Communities must resist, as they have no other choices on the Mexican countryside.

As we concluded our time in the countryside, we visited Acteal. Here the horrendous massacre of Dec 22,1997 continues to be a tragic unsettled dilemma for the entire world. This was a human rights tragedy of a totally non-violent people who were surrounded by gunmen and killed in a six-hour massacre of 45 in their village of 300 indigenous poor. As the junta leader told us, "You have come to cry with us, to scream with us, to pray with us. Now go forth to tell our story to the world. Justice has not been done to the perpetrators who planned this gruesome abomination against humanity." This is our challenge during low intensity warfare.

Strength and change often occur for determined peoples who are oppressed. Amidst the low intensity warfare atmosphere I found an astounding amount of determination and courage among the people to continue the pursuit of justice. The factory workers and the compesinos want to be cooperative and are open to change. Various groups of organizers are working relentlessly to change the injustices and to assist their people in having a voice.

Even as PPP continues to develop its plan for privatizing the Tehuatepec Isthmus, the indigenous are trying to work with PPP. 16 indigenous nationalities are working with an organization called Center of Support for Oaxacan Popular Movements (CAMPO). The projects of PPP are not new. Resistance to capitalist domination is what is important. The organization (CAMPO) teaches and organizes the people to speak and to resist. Political fractioning is happening when indigenous processes are not respected. The manipulation of the indigenous, impositions by the Mexican government, and impositions of control by other countries are the real issues.

Another excellent organizing group is the Center for Economic and Political Studies for Community Action (CIEPAC). This organization studies human rights and the peace process Gustavo Solo spoke to us about the World Monetary Fund and the IMF giving loans to countries when the interest on the loans was very high in the 1970's. This was followed by the privatization of basic infra-structural commodities, namely water and electricity CIEPAC continues to explore and educate concerning these issues. Sustainable development and wide social responsibility are its primary objectives. At present Chiapas is made up of 3 million people with one of every three being indigenous In January of 1994 the Zapatistas wore bandanas or masks representing the reality that they were a faceless people begging for their voices to be heard. More recently in 1999 the World Trade Organization (WTO) gathered wealthy governments and transnational businesses and, if these governments impose their rules, everyone will need to play by those rules. The common people realized this and mobilized in 1999 in Seattle and later in Quebec, Canada. Another such meeting will take place on Sept. 3, 2003 in Cancun, Mexico. Keep an ear on this gathering or better still. ..be there! Yes I believe that the North has much to learn from the South. There is something indestructible about building the future on what is common to all human beings. The communal spirit has a stronger appeal than does my individual ego. Is this not our communal challenge as we live in low intensity warfare today?

In speaking of South/North dichotomies, Catherine Keller says, "Beneath the surface of northern cultures has proved a receptive ground for breeding the wildly materialistic projects of white colonialism against all manner of southern peoples and their milieu. Therefore nature and those in love with it are both apt subjects for exploitation." Sometimes we become complacent with the status quo, spectators of our own life styles. May we mobilize our capacities to dream dreams of liberation. Test every policy ot our

United States government with the needs of the poor in mind, especially the needs of children.

Dan McGuire in Sacred Energies reminds us that, "If we recover our sense of the sacredness of the gift of life and get recharged with the electricity of ideals and delight, the ongoing destruction can abate and the bare, ruined choirs of planet earth can sing again. To paraphrase the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, that may be only a dream, but tread softly, very softly, if you tread upon that dream!" May we be courageous and passionate in the midst of low intensity warfare as we pursue our dreams for liberation and human respect throughout the entire world.

Sister Jean Ackerman, OP
Racine Dominican

Posted: March 26, 2003