SARA LÓPEZ GONZÁLEZ
It took Sara a long time to forget the sounds of prison, the
banging on the door, and the blows that made her jump from fright during those
eleven months she was locked up for her fight against high electricity rates.
The first time she heard the prison bars close, she felt “anger, rage,
helplessness” of knowing she was put there unjustly. She was freed thanks to
national and international pressure and then immediately rejoined the fight, not
only against unfair rates, but also for the defense of the Maya territory. And
now, she is also a member of the Indigenous Governing Council for Campeche.
Sara López González was born in the municipality of
Candelaria 52 years ago. Sitting in the middle of the flowers adorning the front
patio of her house, she recalls the moment in which, together with her
collective, she decided to get involved in the initiative of the National
Indigenous Congress and become part of a proposal that aims to “organize the
people.” In 2006, she participated in the Other Campaign, an initiative of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) that, outside of political parties
and the electoral structure, traversed the Mexico from below in order to call
the people to organize, just like today, against the dispossession,
exploitation, contempt, and repression capitalism metes out.
The Indigenous Governing Council (CIG), Sara explains, “does
not call to take the presidential chair, but for the self-government and
organization of the communities themselves. And just as we’re organized in a
community, we want to do it at the state level, at the Yucatan Peninsula level,
and at the national level.” The work that corresponds to her as Councilor, she
says, “is to travel the region and explain the proposal.” She insists that, in
reality, “We don’t want the presidency or to become a political party. We don’t
want to be like a party. We’re not those corrupt ones who live off of others.”
And it’s precisely her task to explain the differences.
There are eight other Councilors for Campeche and among
them, “Two compañeros who live near the border with Guatemala, who have a
specific job in defense of the land.” The three are asked by the Maya
communities what solutions they offer to the problems of the region, and the
anti-climactic answer is that the CIG does not offer solutions “...because
solutions are built together with the people, and there is no recipe for how to
govern.” The example that’s dissected is that of the Zapatista’s Good
Government Councils, which also do not offer a manual but are a real
possibility. “Neither MariChuy, who is the spokeswoman, nor the CIG are going
to say, ‘We’re going to give you all of these projects to solve your problems.’
That's not the way because then we would fall into the same game of government
and political parties.”
Right as Sara is explaining the difficulties in organizing,
her grandchildren return from school playing with walkie-talkie radios. Upon
entering, one of them stops in their tracks. “Breaker 1-9, my grandmother is
being interviewed, over and out.” Their little sister approaches immediately
and jumps in surprise. They hug Sara, fill her with kisses, and keep playing and
running around the house they share together.
“It’s for them, for the children and grandchildren that we
fight for,” says Sara. She then continues sharing her opinion about the
political parties, which “divided us,” she says. Its propaganda “enters the
towns and communities, and we’re going against the tide; we don’t have the
means to change the ideology of the people. It’s very hard, it takes very
strong work for people to see things differently.” The Maya Councilor insists
that the CIG proposal does not end with the electoral process, “because it is a
very long process and fight, which we will continue on after 2018, win or not
win, vote or not vote. The objective is to organize this country, the
indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, those in the countryside and those in
the city. At least we already started it, and we will finish it when we go to
the next life.”
The initiative of the CIG has a woman as its spokesperson,
and it is women who generally participate in the tour that María de Jesús
Patricio, better known as MariChuy, is currently undergoing throughout the
Mexico from below. Sara explains that,
with a woman as an indigenous spokesperson, “We want to tell the world that we
are here and what we want is life for everybody. She is an indigenous woman who
takes the word of all communities and women, to tell this capitalist system
that we exist and that we say, “Enough is enough!’”
We women are chingonas (badasses)
Sara thinks that there’s still only a few women who freely
decide to go out to the struggle and make a commitment to the people. Or they
may not be only a few, she clarifies, but they aren’t seen. And this, she says,
“Is also due to the violence that exists against them in many ways. With the
simple fact that they yell at you that the food is hot or cold, or that they
didn’t like the coffee—that’s already violence.”
In Maya culture, as in most cultures of the world, there
exists machismo and violence against women. “We are all exploited, men and
women from all over the world, but the woman is exploited more and is relegated
more. They tell her that she’s only good for the house, for making tortillas,
for washing, ironing, all the domestic work.” And we, says Sara, “we are much
more than that.”
Women “are a thousand things because we have the capacity to
do many things. But we want the space that corresponds to us, in the struggle
and in everything, both locally and nationally. We don’t want the system to
relegate us neither in the house nor in the struggle. We don’t want to be more,
rather we want our Word to be heard. It’s not that we want to go up ahead, but
rather be side by side with our partner, because in this way we will rebuild
this country. We want to show our compañeros that we aren’t trying to feel like
we are more than they are, but that we want to be recognized and respected, in
the struggle and in everything.”
For example, “When we organize workshops in Xpujil, it’s
almost only men who attend. In the meeting of delegates of the Indigenous
Regional Council of Xpujil, there are only two or three women. Women
participate in their communities, but not yet as representatives. It’s
complicated. The men in the struggle will hold me accountable because we’ll
regularly see each other, but their partners can’t; they will be taking care of
the children. It’s something different from what the Zapatista men do, because
there the men already stay to take care of the children and cook for them.”
In everyday life, both in the villages and in the towns, the
Councilwoman continues, “You cannot smile if a compañero or a man passes by
because they immediately say you’re flirting. If you’re a man, then you can. And
nationally and internationally the violence is against women, who are the ones
being raped and killed. I’m not saying that men aren’t murdered, but those who
are at risk are young women, ladies, old women. That is to say, the violence is
lived at home as well as outside, in society and in the streets.”
When she was imprisoned, Sara read literature by the
Zapatista women. “I remember it a lot because it made me laugh to recognize the
situation. A Zapatista woman said, ‘I told the male compañeros that we invite
them to organize themselves well because it’s their fault we don't move
forward. Women are always moving, but if we don't advance it’s because of our
male compañeros.” Nothing has been better put, says Sara. We, she insists, “are
faster, more agile in doing things. We are strong, valuable, and with great
capabilities. We can do many things at the same time. We are mothers, sisters,
daughters, grandmothers, fighters, organizers. We are chingonas (badasses).”
“We women want to have the space that corresponds to us, in
the struggle and in everything, both locally and nationally. We don’t want the
system to relegate us neither in the house nor in the struggle.”
The Maya, life and current resistance, and not museum
pieces
The Maya is one of Mesoamerica’s most well-known cultures
throughout the world, and therefore, one of the most exploited by tourism and
the cultural industry. Commodified by charlatans who study its “supernatural”
mysteries and corporations that overexploit its natural resources and
archaeological remains, this millenary culture is alive and in resistance. The
history books separate the glorious past from a present that refuses to cease
to exist and continues to reclaim its sacred sites, even though for governments
and corporations, the sites are only stages for trendy concerts.
Descendant of the culture that invented the zero, of
astronomers, hunters, and men and women who raised architectural wonders, Sara
has to pay a fee to enter the archaeological site of El Tigre, located a few
kilometers from her home. It is said that in this imposing place, the probable
capital of the Acalan people, Hernán Cortés murdered Cuauhtémoc. Sara walks
haughtily through the buildings. The people here are heirs of the Chontales who
grew up on the banks of the Candelaria River and although her mother is from
Tabasco, she was born here and recognizes herself as Maya.
As a child, Sara ran about through the forest, grinded the
corn, and made tortillas. She remembers when she got older, she played marbles,
tops, hopscotch, and soccer, as she was always hanging out with just males. She
never played house or played with dolls because her dad, she says, “I think he
wanted a boy.”
Her political background began with the Jesuits. Liberation
theology opened other worlds to her when she was just 14 years old and she grew
up with workshops on faith and politics. “At that time, I tried to capture the
ideas and then, at the youth meetings, I spread the lessons I learned without
knowing how far I was going to go.” In the church, Father José Martín del Campo
put her to pray, but told her that the true Christian work was outside.
“We started summoning the people of Candelaria who had
problems with their bills, and 80 people got together. This is how we began the
struggle”
Then Sara went to Xpujil and in there, she fully engaged in
the work of the grassroots ecclesial communities and organized a workshop on
cooperativism with a group of young women. They also worked with soybeans, at
that time not genetically modified, and their forms of processing, beekeeping,
and shopkeeping.
The young Sara began to leave Campeche to do community work
and went to Sandinista Nicaragua to cut coffee. She also worked with Guatemalan
refugees who arrived in Campeche and Quintana Roo, to whom she gave herbalism
and dentistry workshops.
The word tenacity is the one that best represents this woman
Councilor who only finished elementary school as a child, but insisted on
finishing high school at the National Institute of Adult Education. Then, she
took workshops in dentistry and general medicine with students from UAM
Xochimilco and with doctors from other countries who came to Campeche to
provide training so that she and her compañeras could later enter the
communities unreached by health services.
Always out and about like no other, she made her mother an
accomplice for the excursions that her father prevented, as tradition dictated
that she could only leave her parents’ house after marrying. She and her mother
managed to not let this stop her. She didn’t date, so she married her first love
and stayed together for 16 years. She had four children with him, all of them
today over 30. Then she remarried and from that relationship her fifth son was
born 20 years ago. And between one and the other she never stopped struggling.
She was breastfeeding at the same time as she was involved in the defense of
the community’s human rights and in the defense of their territory.
Divorce in a community is neither simple nor common. Sara
confronted it and left her house with her four children at the time. Back then,
she had an arrest warrant out on her, so hers was a double escape, as her
ex-husband was threatening to hand her over. She had participated in a two-week-long
road blockade because of the lack of water in Xpujil and was persecuted. Her
compañeros in the struggle hid her out in the mountains and her husband came
looking for her, threatening to hand her over. This forced her to leave the
community, where she left all her belongings. With her four children and a few
items of clothing, she returned to Candelaria. And she started all over again.
At that time people were very angry about the high
electricity rates. Sara set up a pharmacy in the center of town and received
the bill for a thousand pesos, but the rate began to triple and she could no
longer pay. Then with her family, she installed a water purifier, but they
practically had to work just to pay for the electricity. “We started summoning
the people of Candelaria who had problems with their bills and 80 people got
together. That’s how we began the struggle.” It was she, her new partner, and
her brother-in-law who summoned the meeting. The same people who would later
become part of the Zapatista movement of the Other Campaign.
Eleven months behind bars
It was years of struggle and organization in which thousands
of people formed a resistance movement and refused to pay excessive rates. In
2009, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) sued her for the invented crime
of illegal deprivation of liberty to a government official. She and her partner
received citations and two lawyers were provided by the then-Senator Rosario
Ibarra de Piedra, who joined the defense headed by David Peña, of the National
Network of Civil Resistance against High Electric Rates (Red Nacional de
Resistencia Civil contra las Altas Tarifas Eléctricas).
The Attorney General’s Office (PGR) would follow her and
dialogue tables were established whose agreements were not fulfilled. The
movement agreed to allow the installation of polling booths for municipal and
state elections in exchange for giving up their demands. “The minutes were
signed and we let the booths be installed, but before that there was a massive
power outage, which violated the agreement with the government. It wasn’t just
about them not arresting us, but also that they wouldn’t mess with the service.
Many of us went to the head of the CFE to demand they reinstall the service. He
said he would go with us, but in reality he was only taking notes of who among
us was participating.
The CFE representative told them that he had no van to
accompany them and asked if he could go with Sara. And she, with a certain
level of naivety, said yes. “I was driving and next to me sat the
representative of the CFE, and that’s how they accused me of illegal
deprivation of liberty.” The government had everything planned out. They waited
for the elections and then immediately arrested her and four other compañeros.
That was July 9, 2009.
At five o'clock in the morning, she was awakened by bangs on
her door. Sara heard her children’s screams and sat up “not knowing what the
hell to do.” She took her cell phone to protect her contacts list. They
entered. “I didn't feel fear, but hate, anger, helplessness.” She and her partner were taken in a van where
they rode with their heads between their legs for three and a half hours.
“In jail, Sara brought herself back and, despite the fear,
rebelled against the ill-treatment. They were undoubtedly the most difficult
eleven months of her life.”
“We arrived at the PGR in Campeche and I was sore
everywhere, with swollen eyes and feverish. When we went down, I saw the other
three compañeros in the struggle also detained, including the one in charge of
making moves in case they arrested us. The other compañera was crying and
crying. I felt responsible because we invited them to join the resistance and
they had accepted. I tried to be strong. After they took photographs of us in
different poses, they put us in the San Francisco Kobén prison.” And there,
right as they were separating the five activists between the men and the women,
the detainees hugged and said goodbye. They were accused of illegal deprivation
of liberty of a government official and of obstruction of a public service.
In jail, Sara brought out her personality and, despite the
fear, rebelled against the ill-treatment she faced with the guards as with the
warden. Those were, without a doubt, the most difficult eleven months of her
life. The lawyers managed to keep them all together and in a safe place to
safeguard their integrity. “There’s no safe place here, but I will send them to
the clinic, and all five will be together,” the director told them.
Sara wove over a hundred tablecloths during those months and
read every book that came near her. She also began to write part of her life
story, her everyday moments in prison, the rage and pain she felt when she
learned of the murder of her friend, the activist and defender Beatriz Cariño
Trujillo, the fall her son took that caused him memory loss, among other
anxieties that were mitigated by writing
about them. Outside, things were no better. Police followed their
children and even helicopters flew over their house. “It was a tremendous hunt,
there were 36 orders out for the compañeros”. A situation that didn’t allow her
much time for sadness. From prison, she held meetings with people from the
movement and developed strategies. On the day she had been arrested, she had
seen the lists with the names of her compañeros with arrest warrants, memorized
those she could, and as soon as she had the opportunity she got word out so
they could flee.
A national and international campaign was organized around
her confinement demanding her release. The five of them went on a hunger strike
for 15 days and Amnesty International dealt with the case. The pressure grew
until they were released on bail. Processing their release took more time than
it took for them to give continuity to the organizational work that even prison
couldn’t prevent them from.
Eleven years have passed since the movement against the
service and the fees imposed by the CFE began. The demands of the movement are
that electricity be considered a human right and that they have a bimonthly
rate “that can actually be paid.” Refusing to pay was the first act of peaceful
resistance. Around 80 people began to organize, but in a span of two or three
months, it grew to more than 3,000 people from the 30 Campeche communities. One
of the most representative protests was when the CFE went to install new
meters. The people then uninstalled them “because they only served to steal,
since the CFE manages them however it wants.”
Repression is the response when people demand a fair rate. A
few days before the interview, they arrested one of her compañeros. Sara went
to see him in jail and, along with his family, processed his release. The CFE
“advances in its work of imposing digital meters. We oppose it and then what
comes back at us is harassment and repression. On Thursday they arrested
compañero José Alberto Villafuerte García without an arrest warrant. They took
him saying that they would ask him some questions in court, and then took him
to the Cerezo Francisco Kobén, asking us for a deposit of 250,000 pesos.”
Villafuerte was accused of stealing electricity, despite the agreements signed
with the Ministry of the Interior and with representatives of the CFE
nationwide. “That is the current situation of the movement,” she summarizes.
The devastating African palm, dispossession, and
exploitation
The road to Candelaria is a patchwork of African palm
plantations, a crop that destroys the environment and cultural diversity. The
researchers Agustín and León Enrique Ávila Romero have documented that, in Campeche,
the crops are planted by new actors with large capital and great areas of land,
using practices similar to those in Africa, South America, and Asia. The
business model that it promotes is based on contract agriculture, explain the
Ávila brothers. “It encourages farmers to disassemble the forest to plant palm,
which commercializes the peasant economy and deteriorates the cultural
practices of peasant and indigenous groups with the arrival of external
agents.” The transnational corporations, they explain, see in this crop “a
niche opportunity” to supply oil to the food and cosmetics industries and
convert the paste byproduct into biodiesel.
Sara López warns of the Campeche government’s announcement
of 120 thousand more hectares of African palm in the state, between Candelaria,
Palizada, and Escárcega. “In many communities they’re rejecting it, but in
others they’re seeing it as a means of subsistence because they don’t know the
problem of devastation and of soil and air pollution.” The monoculture of
African palm, continues the Councilor, consumes a lot of water and gradually
dries up “our river, our streams, the springs that are in some communities.” In
fact, she says, “in the Pedro Baranda community they planted it many years ago
and the spring dried up.”
Another consequence of the crop is that “where the palm is
sown, it won’t be possible to sown anything else because the land becomes
infertile. And something else is the contamination of land, water, and air from
all the pesticide use.” Sara explains that it’s a vicious cycle because the
contamination of the water increases the mortality of the fish. As an example:
there’s an African palm oil processor at the height of the Candelaria River,
and this year with the floods, the plant began to spill a lot of oil directly
into the river, which caused the death of marine fauna.
“Where the palm is sown, nothing else can be sown because
the land becomes infertile. And something else is the contamination of land,
water, and air from all the pesticide use.”
With the rent or sale of their land for palm monoculture,
she explains, the land is becoming impoverished and the farmer can no longer
sow beans or corn, not even peppers. So then came the government with a credit
program for farmers to devote themselves to livestock. “They got into debt,
fell into an overdue portfolio, and could no longer recover,” so many decided
to migrate to the United States or to the tourist centers of the peninsula,
where they work as construction workers or waiters. San Antonio and Florida are
two of the cities with groups of people from Campeche offering their labor,
including Sara’s son who goes out to work for two-year-long periods.
Campeche also suffers from the invasion of genetically
modified crops that came from the Mennonites. The area known as the Chenes is
the most affected, but very close to Candelaria, on the road to Chetumal, “You
can see the Mennonites sowing genetically modified soy.” On the way to Hopelchén, east of the capital
of Campeche, the invasion of sorghum and soybeans begins. From there,
businessmen distribute the seed of the transnational corporation Monsanto, the
mother of all evils.
Another example of the current onslaught against the Maya
communities is in the Ch’ol town of Xpujil, the community in which Sara lived
for many years. Here, the original villagers have been displaced by the
imposition of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve decree, which restricts their
access to their territory. The Councilor explains that “when they declared it a
reserve, they evicted several communities and many that are within the core of
the reserve now cannot grow food. If they want to build a house and cut a palm,
they can't because they are inside the reserve and they can get thrown in
jail.” Just a few days ago, a woman with her firewood was arrested by the
soldiers, “because they can’t cut firewood in the reserve because the army stops
them, but the businessmen come in and do whatever they want."
And to the list of grievances is the invasion of tourist
projects in the paradisiacal beaches of Ciudad del Carmen or Champotón, among
others, where the lands are being taken from them based on deceptions promoted
by the government. It’s the privatization of natural resources, Sara explains,
and her work as an advocate leads her to give information to the people and
warn them that if they permit the concession of the Candelaria river, “they
will soon be luggage handlers in their own lands”.
The conclusion is clear, Sara says. “If we don’t organize,
they will take away what’s ours.”
It has all been worth it
She is 52 years old and, without hesitating says that “it
has all been worth it,” including her children’s’ complaints for leaving them
alone for a long time, such as when she went to cut coffee in Nicaragua. “They
have been with me before jail, while in jail, and after jail. They support,
they agree with the struggle, and now they’re grown and have to work. That’s
why I’m the one out and about and the only crazy one in the family.”
With long, black, and curly hair, beautiful, tall and with a
serene smile, Sara López rebuilds her life with a new partner. She enjoys life and
the struggle, and dancing is her passion, so much that “if there were a dance
every day, I would go dancing every day.” She equally enjoys cumbia, salsa, and
rock. She never stops listening to Silvio Rodríguez, music from the 80’s, from
Los Ángeles Negros, or musical trios. And she checks her phone before, during,
and after the interview, which never stops ringing. She stays updated on social
media and through it she keeps in touch with the other Councilors.
“In the CIG nothing is pre-set, rather we have to keep
learning and doing. It is living practice and theory, doing it ourselves
without relying on anyone.”
She has held the press commission within the Indigenous Governing
Council, so she has had to deal with the urgencies of journalists. “In the CIG
nothing is pre-set, rather we have to keep learning and doing. It is living
practice and theory, doing it ourselves without relying on anyone.”
Her current partner demands time, but “the movement, the
struggle, it’s my life. That’s how he met me, and it’s very difficult for me to
leave it.” Although sometimes, she acknowledges, she needs the affection and the
company, especially on days like this one when a compañero is arrested and the
sadness eats at her. “As a person and as a woman, you need support, too,” she
says with a smile.
★
Video (with
the ability to turn on English subtitles through “Auto Translate”):
Originally
published in Spanish as part of the compilation, Flowers in the Desert by Gloria Muñoz Ramírez, which profiled a
total of ten Councilwomen from the Indigenous Governing Council:
