Reports of the massacre of 45 villagers in the Mexican state of Chiapas last December have overlooked the fact that the victims were affiliated with "the Bees." This remarkable organization, now some seven years old, remains pledged to neutrality and nonviolence in a place where neither seems possible. PNS Central America editor Mary Jo McConahay has reported from Latin America for National Catholic Reporter, Choices, Mother Jones and other publications for over a decade. Photographs/slides by McConahay are available on request from PNS. Call George Gundrey at 415-243-4364.

ACTEAL, MEXICO -- The 45 unarmed villagers massacred here on December 22, widely assumed to be Zapatista sympathizers, were all affiliated with the Bees, a grassroots movement committed to neutrality and nonviolence in this increasingly polarized and violent southern Mexican state.

Maria Vasquez Gomez, a single woman, 21 years old, survived the killings and now cares for five nieces and nephews. "Puras Abejas" ("we were all Bees"), she said, "All of my family died. I only have these children left."

With some 3,000 members scattered among 24 communities in the tense highland district of Chenalho, the Bees ("Las Abejas") have an influence far beyond their numbers. They have tried to defuse violence among Tzotzil Indian neighbors who can include members of government-linked paramilitary units as well as those who support a parallel rural "autonomous" structure sympathetic to the Zapatistas. "We are maintaining our vow not to use arms, even in self-defense," says Antonio, 38, one of 116 Bees given refuge in a corner of a Catholic school yard on the outskirts of San Cristobal de las Casas, a colonial city two miles south by road. They say they were expelled from Los Chorros, a town controlled by the ruling PRI party, after they refused to contribute to the purchase of arms and ammunition or join in attacks. "When you take a gun in your hand, you lose something important inside," Antonio explained. "We trust in God and cannot kill our brothers."

"Expulsados" in San Cristabol, Mexico. They say they were expelled from Los Chorros, a town controlled by the ruling PRI party, after they refused to contribute to the purchase of arms and ammunition or join in attacks.

The Bees pre-date the January 1994 appearance of the Zapatistas, and include many lay Catholic leaders trained decades ago by the San Cristobal diocese of Bishop Samuel Ruiz. They organized for the first time in 1992 to demand the release of five persons, widely considered to have been falsely imprisoned for murder. In the process, they learned how to rally public support and conduct peaceful demonstrations over justice issues. By 1994, when rural communities began to declare openly their allegiance to the Zapatistas, the Bees remained independent.

"We chose the name because bees always work together, united," explains Roberto Santis, 27, to a visitor to his native town of Xoyep, where hundreds of the displaced have arrived in the wake of recent violence.

"We think of the reign of God like the Queen Bee," invisible but always "in communication" with her workers, sending help out to those in need, requiring good works of all those who enter the hive, Santis says. Their task, they believe, is "That the suffering of the poor might be known, might be understood."

Originally Catholic, since 1994 the Bees have come to include Presbyterians -- the dominant local evangelical Protestant group -- those who practice native rites and non-religious drawn by the idea of nonviolence.

For all their independence, Bee leaders like Santis agree "our struggle is almost the same path" as the Zapatistas. "We want real dignity for all Mexicans, and their thinking is the same -- but we express ourselves politically, and the Zapatistas go forth with their arms."

The Bees continue to be tested. The day after the massacre, paramilitaries began extorting money in the village of Canolal, to "immunize" Bee families there from the same fate, according to accounts in the Mexican press. On January 29, the 120 Bees of Canolal formed yet another procession of expulsion, carrying religious figures from their churches lest they be burned, walking into the hands of waiting Red Cross, human rights groups, and military escort vehicles, leaving behind one more 100 percent PRI village.

But perhaps Agustin Gomez Perez, 39, is among the most tested of all. When the paramilitary force attacked here late in the morning of December 22, he was breaking a two-day fast while others continued praying for peace in a tiny wooden chapel. Six hours after the last shots died away at dusk, Gomez crawled from a hiding place and made his way to a ravine.

"I saw all the poor people," he recalled, standing at the edge of that ravine and pointing at the darkly beautiful, forested slopes. Powdered lime was still visible in spots, where it had been poured over pools of blood.

"A small boy said, 'take me with you.' His mother was there, dead. 'All right,' I said, and I picked him up and carried him out."

He moved a few steps to stand at the site of a mass grave, where the 9 men, 21 women and 15 children lie buried under pale dirt. He would not speak to the question of whether he had changed his mind about carrying a gun, or whether an armed presence might have prevented the massacre.

He recalled his decades of work with other lay leaders. "I see their faces as they were when we used to sit around before Christmas, faces around the table," he said. A catechist for 18 years, Gomez said the massacre was "too much." It has made him feel powerless to continue the Bees' work for the present.