ABSTRACT
On December 22, 2007, the community of Acteal, Chiapas, celebrated the tenth anniversary of the massacre of 45 defenseless, unarmed members of the pacifi st civil organization Las Abejas (“The Bees”). For this occasion Las Abejas sponsored an Encuentro Nacional Contra la Impunidad (National encounter against impunity), in which two documentaries were screened: A Massacre Foretold (2007) by the Scottish fi lmmaker Nick Higgins, and Acteal. 10 Años de impunidad, ¿y cuantos más ...? (Acteal: 10 years of impunity, and how
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many more?, 2007) by the Tzotzil member of Las Abejas José Alfredo Jiménez. More than two thousand people participated in this encounter and celebration calling for a national mobilization against impunity and thus seeking to bring to justice the highest authorities responsible for rampant human rights abuses in Mexico, including, importantly, the case of the massacre of Acteal. The call for justice entails, beyond the trial of isolated individuals, an interrogation of the Mexican juridico-legal structures: the objective of the mobilization is to question the model of the nation, hence to dismantle state institutions that monopolize violence while claiming to be democratic. The victims of the massacre included 1 infant, 14 children, 21 women, and 9 men. Five of the women were pregnant, and one had the fetus pulled out of her womb with a machete. The attack was conducted by paramilitaries trained and armed by the Mexican army and the police force known as Seguridad Pública (Public Security). The monthly celebration of martyrdom re-creates a community committed to popular democracy: fi rst by engaging in the Mesoamerican practice of consensus politics, and second by exposing the impunity of those in power.2
