Weekly Report - 27 January 2004

Tension in the southern state of Chiapas has been rising as a result of developments unrelated to the Zapatistas. Last week state police were deployed in a series of operations to evict squatters from land they had invaded in areas close to the Guatemalan border. In the biggest of these, near Suchiate, close to 500 police were sent to remove 450 squatters; 24 of these were arrested. The Bloque de Organizaciones Independientes de Chiapas (BOICH), a local peasant organisation, says that since the evictions began, 40 of its members have been arrested.