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MEXICO: Christians Deprived of Water
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John Henry
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May 31, 2007 19:38 PDT
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MEXICO: CHRISTIANS IN CHIAPAS TOWN DEPRIVED OF
WATER
More than five weeks after signing pact, Los
Pozos caciques fail to fulfill accord. LOS ANGELES, May
30 (Compass Direct News) – More than five weeks after town bosses in
Chiapas state, Mexico, signed an agreement to restore water lines cut off
from Christians since January, the Protestants still rely on dirty,
distant wells and puddles for washing and drinking.
The April 23 agreement calls for the autocratic rulers or caciques
of Los Pozos, 29 kilometers (18 miles) from San Cristobal de las Casas,
to withdraw a threat to expel 65 Christians and restore the electricity
and water services of several Protestant families. Another of the pact’s
central aims is to keep “traditionalist Catholics,” who practice a
mixture of indigenous ritual and Roman Catholicism, from forcing the
evangelicals to help pay for drunken religious festivals that they
consider idolatrous.
Evangelical pastor and attorney Esdras Alonso Gonzalez told Compass that
the Protestants were glad the traditionalist Catholic caciques
have ceased forcing the Protestants of Alas de Aguila church to
participate in the saints’ day festivals, but that water lines cut since
January 30 had not been restored.
“Everyone in the municipality is respecting the agreement, except in the
matter of water – it’s horrible,” Alonso said. “We don’t know when
they’re going to restore the water; the brethren have not been able to
get good information.”
Chiapas state officials brokered the agreement between the evangelicals
and the traditionalist Catholics of Los Pozos. Alonso said state
officials are responsible for ensuring that local town bosses fulfill
terms of the pact.
Informed that the Los Pozos Christians’ water lines still had not been
reconnected, Chiapas Secretary of Government Jorge Antonio Morales
Messner told Compass through an assistant that his office was looking
into the matter.
Manuel Alvarez Martinez, president of the Huixtan municipality to which
Los Pozos belongs, declined to comment about the failure of local
caciques to restore water service to members of the Alas de
Aguila church.
Maria Elena Gomez Ton, a 27-year-old mother of four, said she has been
walking about a mile three times a day for water. Carmela Santis Lopez, a
38-year-old Tzotzil Maya resident of Los Pozos, told Compass that her
children have become ill from lack of bathing and washing with water from
a muddy well.
The Los Pozos officials had agreed verbally to restore the water lines as
far back as February 28.
“We have suffered these months – we’ve been drinking dirty water,” Santis
told Compass. “We’re not doing anything bad, it’s only that for accepting
Christ and being evangelicals that we’re suffering.”
Previously Los Pozos town bosses had prohibited outside Christians from
visiting area Protestants, disrupted Alas de Aguila church services and
stopped visitors to the church to question and threaten them. Alonso said
such harassment has stopped since the April 23 agreement.
“They were going to make the evangelicals contribute to the saint’s
festival on May 3, and they were not forced to contribute,” Alonso said.
“So the brothers say that even though they don’t have water, they’re just
happy that they don’t have any interference in their worship services
now.”
The agreement also calls for local authorities to restore
firewood-gathering rights and resume distributing federal food aid and
fertilizers they have diverted from the Tzotzil Maya Christians.
The signing of the agreement by the caciques, bosses from the
municipality of Huixtan, evangelicals and state officials came nine days
after traditionalist Catholics and civil authorities destroyed a
Pentecostal church building in Ollas, a community of nearby San Juan
Chamula municipality, on April 14.
The caciques and other traditionalist Catholics showed up for the
April 23 signing with a proposal of their own negating nearly all the
terms of a verbal agreement reached February 28. Their proposal would
have obligated the Protestants to pay for past festivals and fines
accumulated for refusing to contribute to previous traditionalist
Catholic events, but state officials nixed it.
Reynaldo Gomez Ton, pastor of Alas de Aguila church in Los Pozos,
said town bosses have falsely accused the Christians of failing to
contribute anything at all to community funds.
“What really upsets us is that they deny that we’re contributing to the
community funds, but it’s not true,” he told Compass. “We’re contributing
to community services, but we didn’t contribute to the December 12
festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe. So on two or three occasions, if we
were having a cup of coffee with an outside Christian visitor there in my
house, they would come and take him out of the house saying, “Where did
this guy come from?”
http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=lead&;lang=en&length=long&idelement=4886&backpage
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"Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them
which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body."
(Hebrews 13:3)
"Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall
revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against
you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great
is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were
before you." (Matthew 5:10-12)
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