Greetings from the Peace House! This month it felt like Chiapas abruptly awoke from a wintry daze. The weather warmed to sunny spring temperatures and buds and blossomed graced all the tree branches. At the Peace House we welcomed four new volunteers and a new board member to San Cristobal.  They are working hard going through orientation and having great discussions as the Chiapas they've read about comes to life all around them. In this newsletter Simon and Susan reflect on their arrival and adjustment in Chiapas. 

It was also a month of alarming breaking news.  Read in our News Update about the new evidence linking paramilitary organizations to the Mexican government, violent police crackdown in Tila and the newly ratified "Monsanto Law," which makes it ever easier for pharmaceutical companies and transgenic agriculture to have their way with the Mexican countryside.  

Late this month I and several other Peace House volunteers attended the Second Forum on Indigenous Rights and Natural Reserves where hundreds of indigenous peoples gathered to share experiences of manipulation and violation of human rights at the hands of the Mexican government and military.  In this newsletter I reflect on the grassroots response to international development trends.  What struck me most was despite, what some have now called, an ongoing strategy of genocide against the indigenous peoples of Chiapas, the people, civil society and organizations here have created the most vital, radical and inspirational movement I have ever seen.