In the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, about fifteen thousand native
people have been driven out of their villages, mainly by private armed
militias backed by the Mexican army and police. With such teror, the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is trying to maintain its hold on
the state. On Saturday, May 30, a seven-person delegation from Christian
Peacemaker Teams (CPT) visited X'oyep (pronounced shoy-YEP'), and Polho
(pole-OH'), two highland communities in Chenalho county, an hour's drive
north of the colonial capital of San Cristobal de las Casas. Both
communities are composed mainly of refugees.

After hiking over hilly trails for an hour, the team exchanged
greetings with a large group of community members in the village of
X'oyep. They knelt together in the sun in separate men's and women's groups,
while the assembly surrounded them with the warbling sound of songs and 300
Tzotzil-language prayers. X'oyep's 297 families are all members of The Bees
(in Spanish, Las Abejas'), a largely Catholic group whose deep faith has
brought them to practice costly nonviolence. All but 13 families are
refugees from other villages--Yibajo, Los Chorros, Yashemel, and Puebla.
They fled their own villages around the time of the paramilitary massacre
last December 22 in nearby Acteal. The 45 victims, mostly women and
children, were Bees who were mowed down as they fasted and prayed for peace
in the Acteal chapel.

In conversations with X'oyep leaders Benjamin Perez and Sebastian
Jimenez, the team learned about the despair of The Bees. The paramilitary
groups had driven them from their homes, leaving them little more than
the clothes on their backs, stolen their coffee crops, and sold their lands.
Now they find themselves in bleak camps with little water and no source of
income. But the displaced Bees took hope from the fact that some Bees
managed to remain in Los Chorros despite paramilitary violence; people there
have even left the ruling PRI party and joined The Bees in the face of a
climate of terror. Despite the hardships these members of the Bees face,
the delegation saw children flying kites and playing volleyball in the camp.

Motivated by both despair and hope, the displaced Abejas have fixed a date
for their imminent return to their home communities, even though a core of
PRI members in those communities have hidden automatic weapons. The
displaced hope that their bold return will force the government to
restrain the paramilitary groups.

Delegation members include Mennonites and Church of the Brethren
members from California, Indiana, Kansas, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.