The seven families of evangelical Protestant Christians in 20 de Noviembre, a village in the troubled state of Chiapas, Mexico, were about to go to bed on June 22 when hundreds of their Tojolabal-speaking neighbors surrounded their modest farmhouses. The mob, armed with sticks, stones and machetes, had a message to deliver to the evangelicals inside: stop clamoring for religious liberty or we will hang you from the rafters of your own homes.

According to an account published in the Chiapas newspaper Cuarto Poder, the evangelicals recognized the men leading the mob. They were the same caciques (community bosses) who had joined them in a meeting earlier that day with Víctor Sánchez of the Department of Religious Affairs in the township of Las Margaritas.

The mob was composed of traditionalist Catholics who oppose the spread of evangelicalism in Chiapas. Although the traditionalists refer to themselves as “Catholics,” their religious practices are more akin to the animism of their Mayan forebears than to the Roman Catholicism followed by the majority of Mexicans.

Traditionalist caciques have proven especially vehement enemies of Christians because they see Protestant Christianity undercutting their control over local villagers. Ten months ago, caciques forced another group of evangelical families to leave 20 de Noviembre, taking with them only the clothes on their backs.

According to sources in Chiapas, the meeting with Sánchez had been called to persuade the caciques to allow the first group of evangelicals to return to the village and collect their personal belongings. During the course of the discussion, evangelical representatives asked the government officials to ensure that “freedom of worship be respected” and “we might live together peacefully in our community.”

Evangelical spokesman Santiago Pérez told a reporter from Cuarto Poder that those remarks irritated the caciques, who in turn incited the mob that threatened to kill them.

Perez said he recognized three of the caciques who led the mob -- Luis López, Caralampio Luna and Otilio Jiménez -- and later called on the police to arrest the perpetrators. At press time, officials had taken no action. Perez and his evangelical neighbors, meanwhile, took the only recourse open to them. They fled 20 de Noviembre -- once again, with only the clothes on their backs -- and took refuge in a neighboring township.

The seven families are among an estimated 300 to 400 Tojolabal Christians that have suffered expulsion from their homes in Las Margaritas for embracing evangelical Christianity. They come from Saltillo, Jalisco, La Ilusión, Justo Sierra, Santa Rita Sonora and other villages dominated by traditionalist caciques. Most of the exiles live in squatter communities on the outskirts of Comitán, a city of 80,000 that lies close to Las Margaritas but outside the township’s political jurisdiction.

Politics is part of the problem. Many state and federal politicians insist that the Las Margaritas conflict is all about political rivalries and has nothing to do with religion.

“The government says that this is not a religious problem and finds allies who will argue that it is not,” said Chiapas attorney and religious rights advocate Esdras Alonso. “Okay, but even if it were not a religious problem, that doesn’t give anybody the right to force them to leave their farms and communities.

“Where is state security? The fact is, the government is obligated to provide security to the believers.”

Unfortunately, the Mexican government is straining to maintain law and order in Chiapas. For decades, unruly caciques have allied themselves with corrupt politicians to dominate local towns and villages. In recent years, authorities have had to deal with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, as well. Since launching its military offensive in 1994, the Zapatistas have been gaining strength in the state and today are entrenched as de facto governments in several townships.

Given the general turmoil, chances are slim that government officials will provide protection for the evangelical minority in Las Margaritas. The lack of action on the part of authorities, in turn, encourages those who seek to suppress the spread of Protestantism. They attack evangelical Christians -- most of whom are indigenous peasants who wield little political influence -- without fear of punishment.

A notorious example involves CIOAC, a farmer’s organization with leftist political leanings and a record of harassing evangelicals. CIOAC militants were implicated in the 1992 murder of evangelical community leader Melesio Vásquez of Saltillo. However, to date no one has ever been brought to trial for the crime.

Nor is it likely that Vasquez’s assassins will ever be brought to trial. Luis Hernandez Cruz, a director of CIOAC in 1992, now serves as congressman from Las Margaritas in the Chiapas state legislature.

Recently CIAOC announced a change in organizational policy to allow for greater tolerance of evangelicals. Compass learned that Hernandez is helping negotiate a settlement that would allow the evangelical families to return home to 20 de Noviembre, although no date for that return has been determined.

Progress in Las Margaritas would be a welcome break from the legacy of religious intolerance that plagues Chiapas. Judicial impunity coupled with political power gives persecutors there virtual free rein to tyrannize evangelical Christians, even if it involves breaking Mexican law.

For example, the village assembly of Nuevo Matzán recently passed a resolution stating that the 15 evangelical families in town must abandon their homes by July 15 or face severe consequences. Alonso is applying pressure on government authorities to prevent that from happening.

“The problem is, when the brothers leave, the government washes its hands of the matter. They say, ‘Ah, they must have left because they wanted to. Nobody is forcing them out.’ But they go because the danger is great and there’s nobody who is going to assure their safety.”

If the situation in Nuevo Matzán is not resolved before the deadline, Alonso will request that public security forces be permanently stationed in the village to defend the evangelicals’ right to remain in their homes.

“You simply have to see to it that their rights are respected; the right to liberty, the right to security and the right to travel.”

Those rights are guaranteed in the Mexican Constitution, along with the right to worship according to the dictates of one’s conscience. The vast majority of the country’s Protestant Christians enjoy that liberty to its full extent. Sadly, seven Tojolabal families from 20 de Noviembre, 15 more families from Nuevo Matzán and thousands of their fellow Protestants in Chiapas, do not.

© 2004 COMPASS Direct
© 2004 Maranatha Christian News Service