Mexican farmers return home after tragedy
Associated Press
X'OYEP, Mexico - Hundreds of poor Mexican farmers chased or burned out of their villages by paramilitary gangs four years ago made a joyous pilgrimage back home yesterday after officials assured them it was finally safe to return.
Clutching farm tools, chickens, dogs and children, the 333 Tzotzil Indians rose with the clear dawn to begin a four-to-six-hour walk back to the villages of Chenalho, a city in the highlands of southern Chiapas state.
"We are very happy because we get to return to our land," said a smiling Miguel Gomez Guzman, 56, accompanied by his wife and nine children.
Gomez was one of thousands of Zapatista rebel sympathizers who abandoned their communities in 1997 in fear of attacks by paramilitary groups backed by the government. They became particularly nervous after the massacre of 45 Zapatista supporters in the highlands community of Acteal in December 1997.
The paramilitary groups were believed to be backed by the government of the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. But in a show of good will toward the rebels, President Vicente Fox, who defeated the PRI in 2000, closed military bases in Chiapas and promised to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict with the Zapatistas.
Officials say the villagers now have nothing to fear if they return home.
"Today, there are a lot fewer PRI members than before," Guzman said. "They have gone, and we no longer have to fear the paramilitaries so much."
At 7 a.m. local time, a column of Tzotzil Indians formed and began snaking their way over muddy, rock-strewn paths toward Yaxemel and Puebla, villages some had not seen for four years.
In addition to their meager belongings, villagers carried a Mexican flag, a banner with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the country's patron saint, another with Saint Peter, patron of the villages, and a white flag symbolizing peace.
Red Cross and Civil Protection officials accompanied the Indians and helped transport some of their goods by truck. The villagers were to be received in their villages by Roman Catholic Chiapas Bishop Felipe Arizmendi.
Supreme Court to hear challenge to vouchers
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - This could be the year the Supreme Court turns to school vouchers and the question of whether spending government money on religious schools violates the separation between church and state.
The court could say by late September whether it will hear a dispute over a pilot voucher program involving about 3,800 children in Cleveland. Supporters hope the justices will use that case to broaden a recent trend of approving limited use of taxpayer money at religious schools.
"We are optimistic the court will take this case and will use it to lift the constitutional cloud from school choice," said Clint Bolick, vice president of the libertarian law firm Institute for Justice. The firm represents inner-city parents from Cleveland whose children are enrolled in the 6-year-old voucher program there.
Vouchers allow parents to use government subsidies to pay all or some of the tuition at private schools.
Supporters say that gives children a way out of hopeless or dangerous public schools while giving parents power over school bureaucracies.
Teacher unions, most congressional Democrats and other political opponents say vouchers are fraught with constitutional problems and siphon scarce money from already struggling public schools.
Those who oppose vouchers on constitutional grounds say they are a clear violation of the guarantee that government will not promote or ''establish'' religion.
"People have every right to take their children out of public schools and put their children in private school or parochial school, but they should not be using public dollars for what is not only religious education, but religion indoctrination," said Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The court last ruled on vouchers directly in 1973 when it struck down a New York tuition reimbursement program because public money was used to ''subsidize and advance the religious mission of sectarian schools."
Black legislator blocked from putting King display in court
Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A black lawmaker was blocked from placing a display honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s ''I Have A Dream'' speech in the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court rotunda next to a newly installed Ten Commandments monument.
State Rep. Alvin Holmes, joined by about 50 supporters, was told by building manager Graham George he could not bring the display inside. George said Holmes could donate it to the building, and Chief Justice Roy Moore would decide if it should be installed.
Moore had a 5,280-pound Ten Commandments monument installed earlier this month. Moore had said through a spokesman he did not plan to allow any displays in the building other than the monument.
Yesterday, officers locked doors to the main lobby and kept Holmes' group in the outer area. Amid shouts of ''It's our building!'' the group remained for prayer and remarks about the need for the King display.
The group left after about 30 minutes, took the display and walked down the stairs of the judicial building, holding hands and singing ''We Shall Overcome.''
Holmes sought to install the display - a 3-by-4-foot page of King speech excerpts on a wooden pedestal - on the 38th anniversary of King's speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Alabama Senate president pro-tem Lowell Barron said yesterday he thinks Moore and Holmes are wrong, and that it should be up to the Legislature, not individuals, to decide what goes in the lobby of the judicial building.
Holmes, a Democrat, said he decided to act in response to Moore's actions.
Moore, a Republican, became known as the Ten Commandments judge when he was a circuit court judge and displayed a wooden plaque of the commandments on the wall of his courtroom. The Ten Commandments monument contains quotations from Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other founding fathers below two tablets containing the commandments.
