The Radical Philosophy Association has completed its second Mexico Study Trip as the 13-member delegation met representatives of human rights, cooperative, labor and community education projects during a two-week journey in late June and early July in various parts of Mexico which included the first international conference of Mexican, North American and other global philosophers and social scientists in Puebla.
Visited by members of the delegation were human rights organizations in Chiapas, Christian base communities in Hidalgo, labor and Jesuit community education organizations in Mexico City, and scholars from various parts of the hemisphere and Australia.
Highlights included:
* An interview with Miguel Pickard, administrative coordinator of CONPAZ in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, the 10-member Coordinación de Organizaciones Nogubernamentales por la Paz, who detailed the human rights and social justice struggle in Chiapas. Pickard also addressed a shift in focus for CONPAZ now underway which would place CONPAZ in an undergirding empowering role for the various health, human rights, women's, and education NGOs that comprise CONPAZ, and spoke to the death threats, arson attempts and actual kidnappings against CONPAZ and its staff.
* An interview with José Antonio Montero, human rights attorney for the Fray Bartólome Center pro Derechos Humanos in San Cristóbal, who spoke of efforts to press the Chiapeñeco and federal judicial processes to adhere to the rule of law, especially in arrests, imprisonments, and other police and judicial proceedings and extra-judicial violations of law common in Chiapas.
* An interview with Marina Pages of SIPAZ (Servicio Internacional por la Paz), who staffs the jointly-coordinated project's headquarters in San Cristóbal, and who spoke of SIPAZ efforts to provide information, analysis, workshops, delegations and accompaniment to help awaken and broaden realizations about oppressive conditions in Chiapas.
* Visits to the Sergio Méndez Arceo Comite pro Derechos Humanos in Tulancingo, Hgo., as well as to cooperative Christian base communities coordinated by its companion organization, Desarrollo Rural de Hidalgo (DERHGO). During visits to base communities, the delegation heard about cooperative aims for integral and sustainable development and participated in a reforestation project.
* A visit with two of the Jesuits responsible for work in the Centro de Reflexiones Teológico in Mexico City — Luis del Valle, director, and Juan Sweeney, director of Mexpaz, who discussed the pressures and risks Jesuits working with the poor continue to face throughout Latin America, especially in México, and of community and other education efforts that are integral to concientización (the awakening of awareness of political, economic, social and ecclesial oppressive domination).
* A visit with Jorge Robles of the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT), who outlined efforts by FAT to organize workers and offer community education and cooperative democratization of workplace projects in the face of often menacing opposition by the corporatistic state unions aligned with the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and global business interests and political interests.
* The First Conference of Philosophers and Social Scientists of México, the United States and Canada, in which more than 50 papers were delivered by scholars from the above three countries as well as from Australia, Guatemala and Cuba. The conference was held at the Autonomous University of Puebla and was co-organized by Gabriel Vargas Lozano of the magazine dialéctica and of the Autonomous University of México, as well as by Fred Evans and Rodney Peffer of the Radical Philosophy Association.
Overall coordinator for the Radical Philosophy Association study trip was Wes Rehberg of RPA and SPAN (Strategic Pastoral Action), an upstate New York project that has been engaged in human-rights and social-justice work in Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras as well as with pro-Cuba activism since 1990.
The delegation included Joaquin Zuniga of Guatemala, Lisette Sanábria of Puerto Rico, Soña Vidieux of Cuba, Warwick Fry of Australia, and from the U.S., Harry van der Linden, Ann Ferguson, Harry Gold, Gloria Pasin, Eileen Roberston-Rehberg, Fred Evans, Rodney Peffer, and Richard Schmitt, present coordinator of the Radical Philosophy Association.
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Itinerary
The itinerary for the RPA Mexico Study trip was:
June 20: Arrival date, check in at hotel, introductory gathering.
June 21: Mexico City encounters, touring. Stay the night in Mexico City.
June 22: Mexico City encounters, touring. Stay night in Mexico City
June 23: Travel to Tulancingo, Hidalgo, by public bus (two-hour ride), to meet community organizers of Desarrollo Rural de Hidalgo and the Sergio Mendez Arceo Committee for Human Rights, people engaged in organizing base communities (rural cooperatives).
June 24: Visit to the base communities. Participants will be asked to spend a night in base community homes to share the community experience.
June 25: Return to Tulancingo in the morning for a wrap-up. Public bus to Mexico City and then to Puebla (two hours from Mexico City). Stay the night in Puebla.
June 26: Conference in Puebla. Stay the night.
June 27: Conference in Puebla. Stay the night.
June 28: End of Conference in Puebla. Stay the night.
June 29: Return to Mexico City on Sunday morning bus. Check in at hotel,touring, evening gathering. Stay the night in Mexico City.
June 30: Mexico City for meetings and touring. Stay the night in Mexico City.
July 1: Departure date.
For those who were part of the delegation to Chiapas, the trip included round-trip travel to Tuxtla Gutierrez by air, followed by a two-hour taxi trip to San Cristobal de las Casas for meetings and visits to human rights and social justice sites. The dates were June 16 to June 20.
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