Massacre film gets human rights award

The film recounts the massacre on 22 December 1997 of 45 Mayan men, women and children by an armed force in the village of Acteal, Chiapas, Mexico. Paramilitaries murdered innocent villagers while a Mexican army unit stationed not far away turned a blind eye.

From the beginning of 1995, the Mexican Army and Government-backed forces were carrying out a low-intensity war against Mayan sympathisers of the Zapatista movement. Towns and villages that supported the aims of the Zapatistas faced harassment, the rape of women, beatings, murders and the theft of grain and farm tools. Repression escalated throughout 1997, culminating in the Acteal massacre.

Nick Higgins told conference participants about his ten-year long struggle to win the trust of villagers and to put together the documentary. Learning that footage had been taken by a local camera-man just before the massacre, he tried to discover what became of it. Eventually he tracked down both the camera-man and a box kept in the corner of the man’s house containing unused ‘rushes’ that he incorporated into the film.

In recent years SIGNIS has been focussing on ‘Media for a culture of peace’. WACC is also in the final year of planning for its Congress on ‘Communication is peace: Building viable communities’, which takes place 6-10 October 2008. Under the circumstances, Story of a Massacre Foretold is a fitting award to make.

The day after the massacre, Samuel Ruiz, Bishop of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, issued a statement condemning it. He called it a true crime against humanity, underlining the fact that the victimised group had ‘specifically made known to the four winds and for a long time now its commitment to civil, peaceful, non-violent means to achieve their goals, even while living and working in the heart of an area where violence dominates.’

Story of a Massacre Foretold premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in August 2007. Nick Higgins is hoping it will be screened on network and cable television worldwide. He also plans to show it in Mexico at the scene of the crime.