Lecture

Man of peace

by Dorie Clark

Samuel Ruiz knows how to keep busy in retirement. The former bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, who had to step down last year when he turned 75, is still pressing the cause of Mexico's conflict-plagued southernmost state. On Friday, the three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee will be in Boston to discuss his work mediating negotiations between the Mexican government and the army of native rebels known as the Zapatistas.

Says Miguel Alvarez, the bishop's long-time assistant and director of the mediation group Serapaz, "We've spent seven years in a total political crisis. We don't have war, but we don't have peace. It's still an armed conflict." The indigenous population - concentrated in Chiapas, and numbering 10 percent of Mexico's total population - has been in a weakened minority position since the Spanish came to Mexico 500 years ago. "The Indians were the poorest among the poor," says Alvarez, "and they have historically been the forgotten of the state. They don't have a hospital, roads, schools, credit, or machinery."

Despite Ruiz's foray into politics as a mediator, he has focused primarily on building leadership and community among the native population. But the most pressing concern since the Zapatistas' 12-day uprising in 1994 has been negotiating peace. And that may prove increasingly difficult, for no fewer than 13 paramilitary groups backing the government periodically upset the region's political balance. Says Alvarez, "The Mexican government has always told the US government that they have the problem under control, that it's localized. The truth is, they don't have control. We need political solutions [in Chiapas], rather than more military solutions."

Bishop Samuel Ruiz will speak on "Leading for Liberation and Social Justice" at noon this Friday, November 10, at Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. He will also speak on "Prospects for Peace in Chiapas: Mexico in Transition" at 7 p.m. at the Church of the Covenant, 67 Newbury Street, Boston. Both events are free.