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"Brothers and Sisters;
The brutal, premeditated massacre of at least 45 indigenous poor men, women and children several days before Christmas, 1997, by armed paramilitaries of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) sent shock waves through the international community. In a slaughter of the innocent that took over four hours in duration, the so- called PRIistas revealed their malevolent intent, to attack and disable the indigenous (Indian) support network for the Zapatista Army. Thus, the ruthless killing of 45 civilians had a clear political objective, one verbalized by the "Red Mask" paramilitaries as, "We are going to put an end to the Zapatista seed" (Nuevo Amanecer Press, 12/26/97). Seen in this light, the 45 men, women and children of San Pedro de Chenalhó were but a means to a dastardly end. How, one wonders, can such a thing happen? Until we address this question how can we begin to answer those posed above? For over 50 years, especially after the Nazi period in Europe, psychologists have studied this destructive type of phenomena. Some, like the famous Milgram Studies (of 1963) taught us of the limits of "destructive obedience," where so-called "normal" people shocked innocent others up to 450 volts, up to levels reading "DANGER: SEVERE SHOCK," only because authority figures told them to do so, with 65% obeying to the end (other Milgram Studies found over 90% compliance). Scholars H.C. Kelman and V.L. Hamilton have advanced the notion of "sanctioned massacres," no stranger to American or world history: "within American history, My Lai had its precursors in the Philippine war around the turn of the century…and in the massacres of American Indians…(o)ne recalls the Nazi’s "final solution" for European Jews, the massacres and deportations of Armenians by Turks, the liquidation of the Kulaks and the great purges in the Soviet Union, and more recently the massacre in Indonesia and Bangladesh, in Biafra and Burundi, in South Africa and Mozambique, in Cambodia and Afghanistan, in Syria and Lebanon. (Political Psychology, by N.J. Kressel, p.223). In many of those cases, we find the "sanctioning" of heinous massacres by authorization, routinization and dehumanization. Authorization is when persons in power order or allow atrocities to occur in furtherance of political ends. Routinization is the internal process by which those authorized make it ‘okay’ to do what is an obvious evil, like slaughtering babies. Dehumanization is the social and ideological process by which a people are projected, perceived, and then treated as somehow less than human. In each of the historical instances noted above, we have seen these diabolical features at work. It happened in America, where the declaration of independence wrote of "merciless Indian savages" and where children learned the phrase, "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" at and early age. Such a mindset made Wounded Knee an historic inevitability. These same features were found in the Chiapas area where minions of the state attacked the most powerless and the most maligned segment of Mexican society: Indians, the indigenous peoples. For centuries they, as well as Africans, have been subjected to dehumanization, where, as in Chiapas they were not seen as full human beings, with inherent rights, but as tools used in the "dirty war" of the government against the Zapatistas. "How many more?," Marcos asked.
© 1998 Mumia Abu-Jamal
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What Made the Acteal Massacre Possible?