Jose Gil Olmos, writer, Elio Hernandez, correspondent
San Cristobal de las Casas, March 8 — In one of the largest concentrations of indigenous women ever in the state, nearly 5000 Zapatistas from the jungle, the highlands and the border area of Chiapas demanded demilitarisation of the regions occupied by army troops and the elimination of the white guards in the state.
After a journey of days and hours from their communities, the thousands of indigenous women, with ski-masks and bandannas over their faces, marched through the main streets, to celebrate International Women's Day and to denounce the racism that "the government never has admitted".
"We struggle so that in Mexico there is justice, that our rights be respected, that we live as human beings and not as animals, that we be recognised as the peoples that we are and as citizens", they demanded while gathering in the plaza in front of the San Cristobal Cathedral. Some had never before left their communities, hidden in the Lacandon jungle or set back in the mountains.
"Nothing is said about the indigenous as peoples, and even less about the indigenous women; we do not appear in any law that the government makes because for it we do not exist", said one of the women who, for the first time, spoke before thousands of her own people united in one place.
In a disciplined manner, they gathered in the main square of San Cristobal and listened to the message which Subcomandante Marcos sent them: "Doubly humiliated, as women and as workers, the Mexican indigenous women are also humiliated for the colour of their skin, their language, their culture, their past. A triple nightmare that forces Zapatista woman to take up a weapon and add her 'Enough is Enough!' to those of their male compa&241;eros. A triple nightmare that forces a triple rebellion."
The rebel women spoke of the lack of services in their communities, of the absence of clinics and medicines to combat curable diseases, from which their children die, of the scarcity of schools and decent housing, potable water and electricity, and the lack of resources to make a land productive which is increasingly sterile.
They described the situations created by the military presence since February of last year: "Our homes are used as whorehouses; the few classrooms for our children are occupied by the soldiers; the sports fields are used as parking space for tanks, helicopters and armoured cars of the bad government".
[Abridged from La Jornada (Mexico), March 9.]