wfn.org | Adventist Families Expelled in Chiapas/Mexico

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March 31, 2001
Adventist Press Service (APD)
Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief
CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland
Fax +41-61-261 61 18
APD@stanet.ch
http://www.stanet.ch/APD

Mexico: Adventist Families Expelled in Chiapas

Mexico City/Mexico.       Traditionalist Catholics
stormed into a Seventh-day Adventist church service
and beat worshipers with sticks and fists. The
worshipers were ordered to leave the village, which
is located in a Chiapas region noted for its
resistance to evangelical Christianity. A mob of more
than 200 traditionalist Catholics and "caciques," or
local mafia-like bosses, forcibly expelled 25
Adventists families -- about 138 men, women and
children -- from the village of Justo Sierra on
February 23. Several of the evangelical men who rose
to defend their families were injured, some
seriously. Families fled the town immediately and are
now living in an auditorium in the county's main
town, Comitan. "They weren't able to get their things
and just left with what they had on their backs,"
said an observer.

The Evangelical Defense Committee of Chiapas
(CEDECH), evangelical church leaders and government
officials are working to help the families negotiate
a peaceful return to their village.

(Subtitle)
Religious Rights Not On Zapatista's Agenda

Zapatista leader Subcommander Marcos brought his
crusade in the name of Indian rights to Mexico's
capital city on March 11, culminating a 16-day
"Zapatour" by the rebels from the jungles of Chiapas,
the country's southernmost state. But religious
freedom, the right most wanted by Chiapas' indigenous
Indian evangelicals -- at least a third of state's
population -- isn't among items on the rights bill
that Marcos is pushing Mexico's Congress to approve.
In Chiapas, traditionalist Catholics and "caciques,"
or local mafia-like bosses, have expelled thousands
of evangelical Christians from their communities
during the last three decades. True religious freedom
would mean that evangelical Indians could practice
their faith openly without fear of being expelled
from their homes.