Alvarez Martinez’s assistant, Alejandro Bautista Jimenez, at first declined to grant Compass an audience with the Huistan municipal president, claiming that the matter of the threatened expulsion of the Los Pozos evangelicals “was already resolved.”

“It was in all the newspapers and on the radio,” Bautista Jimenez said, and indeed the Chiapas press – which evangelical leaders believe is more than 90 percent controlled by pay-outs from the governor elected last year, Juan Sabines – has widely promoted the impression that the state government has already obtained a solution, Christian leaders said.

Alonso, a pastor who earned a criminal law degree in the course of defending indigenous religious rights for nearly two decades, said wearily that he has seen it all before: State and federal government officials announce they have brokered an accord, the press hails the achievement, and just before the agreement is signed, an unforeseen event arises to stall it indefinitely. The matter fades from public memory.

“Just as we’re about to definitively seal an agreement, something happens,” Alonso told Compass. “They kill someone or create some kind of problem, because there are people who don’t want the problem to be resolved.”

Until state authorities threatened to withdraw resources from Huistan, Alonso said, Huistan authorities supported the Los Pozos bosses’ intentions to ignore the February 28 agreement and expel the evangelicals. Now Huistan authorities like Alvarez Martinez support the agreement, but Alonso said the Los Pozos caciques’ stance remains to be seen.

“We have information that there have been private meetings of the caciques, that they want to make the evangelicals pay 20,000 pesos [US$1,818] in fines to get their services restored,” Alonso said. “But if they can’t even pay the 100 pesos [US$8] per family for each Catholic festival, how are they going to pay that fine?”

Gov. Sabines, a deeply committed Roman Catholic, has insisted that he will guarantee religious freedom and not allow the Catholic/evangelical conflicts of the past four decades to continue to besmirch Chiapas’ image. Evangelicals supported his election, Alonso said, adding that the Los Pozos case will be the first indicator of the new governor’s commitment to protect evangelicals and their constitutional right to religious freedom.

Holding Ground

The Los Pozos caciques tore down the Alas de Aguila church building in 2003 and jailed 19 of their members for 24 hours to keep them from reporting the incident.

The pastor of the church, Gomez Ton, told Compass that the evangelicals plan to continue bearing up under the traditionalist Catholics’ abuses even if they fail to sign the agreement.

“The Lord says, ‘Vengeance is mine,’ so we don’t respond by paying back their abuses,” Gomez Ton said. “Rather, we respond with patience, faith and love – because we hope that some day they’ll change their ideas about us. They act against us out of ignorance, and if Jesus Christ had not entered into us, we would be doing the same things. Our only weapon is prayer.”

If the caciques attempt to expel them by force, however, Gomez Ton hinted that the Christians would defend themselves.

“We’re not leaving,” he said. “And there arrives a point where one is forced to defend oneself. If that’s the case, the Old Testament examples of David’s victories in battle inspire us.”

Miguel Ton Cruz, a 63-year-old resident of Los Pozos with six of his eight adult children living at home, said the evangelicals will not allow the caciques to intimidate them.

“How is it that we’re going to let them drive us out?” he told Compass. “If they’re going to drive us out, we’re going to defend ourselves and our rights, because there’s nowhere else to go. We’re organizing ourselves to defend our rights.”

Copyright 2007 Compass Direct News