announced an amnesty program and initiated a campaign to convince the refugees to return to Guatemala. Guatemalan radio stations broadcast news of the amnesty across the border, while the Guatemalan consul in Comitán broadcast his own messages on Mexican radio stations, assuring refugees that their safety would be guaranteed by the International Red Cross. Members of the Guatemalan civil patrols and missionaries of the fundamentalist sect Gospel Outreach (to which General Ríos Montt belonged) entered the camps and settlements to persuade the refugees to return home. However, there was no cessation of violence that might have persuaded the refugees to return. The kaibiles continued to intimidate, raid, and bomb on both sides of the border;61 and Ríos Montt himself warned that if the refugees did not take advantage of the amnesty program, the state would “come in and get them.” Not surprisingly, the campaign failed to convince any sizable number of refugees that Guatemala's “model villages” provided a safer alternative.
By 1984 COMAR publicly advocated that the government relocate the refugees to other parts of Mexico as a means of protecting them from continued attacks. The Dioceses of San Cristóbal and Tapachula and Mexican campesino organizations also supported the idea of relocation, but only if the refugees accepted the idea, and only to other parts of Chiapas, more distant from the border. Relocation to other states, they argued, would undermine cultural identity and community networks of the refugees.62 In January 1984, COMAR secured government permission to relocate five thousand refugees from six border camps to the Ixcán camp in Ocosingo, and asked diocesan officials for help. These officials opposed the move on the grounds that the Ixcán population would grow to ten thousand: too large a concentration of people in a small and fairly inaccessible geographic area.63 After months of debate between the different parties, COMAR abandoned this specific plan but continued to press the case for relocation.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
