By John Gibler, Source: ITT, Z Net , February, 04 2008

(BOLON AJAW, Mexico) Around 3 p.m. on Jan. 2, nine shots were fired into the air. The perpetrators withdrew, leaving behind a button-down shirt with the cuffs tied to two lone trees in the cornfield. Machetes had hacked the shirt and cut a thick cross into one of the tree trunks at chest height. A bullet case was embedded at the center of the cross.

“This is an example of what they want to do to us,” says José Morales, a 22-year-old Tzeltal Indian who used a pseudonym to protect his identity. “Grab us and hang us from the trees.” Morales is a member of the Zapatista community of Bolon Ajaw, one of dozens of Zapatista communities across the southern state of Chiapas facing almost daily attacks, land invasions and death threats.

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