In Mexico City the official government line is that violence has long been part of life in Chiapas and many of the deaths have nothing to do with politics but long-standing rivalries between villages, land disputes, and religious divides. Such tensions did exist. The evidence of collusion between the paramilitaries and the government is powerful.
Villagers frequently report paramilitaries being ferried around in army and police trucks.
Evidence includes a letter from government supporters in Tila requesting arms, uniforms and communications equipment. Mexico expelled forty Italian human rights observers and banned them from returning, after branding them 'professional provocatuers' for their visit to a rebel village in Chiapas State. Once again, it is drought time in the northeast of Brazil, with low rainfall painting the landscape hardscrabble beige and green, too parched to sustain the corn, beans and rice that people here depend on to survive. According to federal officials, an estimated 10 million people in eight states are suffering the effects of drought. The last annual human rights report from the Government in Washington detailed instances of complicity between the Colombian armed forces and right-wing paramilitary death squads.