A tourist guide to Chiapas - Mexico

Monthly Review, May, 1994 by Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vicente

Without leaving your uncertainty behind, drive on . . . Do you see them? Modern buildings, nice homes, paved roads. . . Is it a university? Workers' housing? No, look at the sign next to the cannons closely and read "General Army Barracks of the 31st Military Zone." With the olive-green image still in your eyes drive on to the intersection and decide not to go to Comitan so that you will avoid the pain of seeing that a few meters ahead, on the hill that is called of the Foreigner, North American military personnel are operating, and teaching their Mexican counterparts to operate a radar. Decide that it is better to go to Ocosingo since ecology is very fashionable and all that nonsense. Look at the trees, breath deeply . . . Do you feel better? Yes? Then be sure to keep looking to your left because if not, after seven kilometers you will see another magnificent construction with the noble symbol of SOLIDARITY on the facade. You don't see, I tell you to look the other way, you don't notice that this new building is . . . a jail. (Evil tongues say that this is a benefit of Pronasol. Now peasants won't have to go all the way to Cerro Hueco, the prison in the state capital). No brother, don't lose heart, the worst is always hidden: excessive poverty discourages tourism. Continue on, down to Huixtan, up to Oxchuc, look at the beautiful waterfall where the Jatate River begins whose waters cross the Lacandon forest. Pass by Cuxulja and instead of following the detour to Altimirano drive on till you reach Ocosingo: "the door to the Lacandon Forest. . ."

Good, stay a while. Take a quick tour around the city. . . Principal points of interest? The two large constructions at the entrance are brothels, next door is a jail, the building further beyond, a church, this other one is a beef-processing plant, that other one, army barracks, over there is the court, the Municipal building, and way over there is Pemex. The rest are small piled-up houses which crumble when the huge Pemex trucks and ranch pick-up trucks pass by.

What do you think? A Porfirista-type large-landed estate? But that ended seventy-five years ago! No don't follow the road that goes to San Quintin, in front of the Montes Azules Reserve. Don't go to where the Jatate and Perlas rivers join, don't go down there, don't walk for three eight hour days, don't go to San Martin and see that it is a very poor and small community, don't approach that shed which is falling to pieces. What is it? A sometimes church, school meeting room. Now it is a school. It is I 1:00am. No don't go closer, don't look in, don't look at the four groups of children riddled with tapeworms and lice, half naked, don't look at the four young indigenous teachers who work for miserable pay which they have to walk for three days, the same three days that you just walked, to get Don't notice that the only division between the class rooms is a small hall. Up to what grade do you teach here? Third. No, don't look at the posters which is the only things that the government has sent to these children. Don't look at them: they are posters about AIDS prevention.