New Statesman: In 1996, when you travelled through the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, soldiers would get on the buses every half an hour or so to check on the passengers. They’d look at papers, search random bags and occasionally take people off for a chat. Some did not get back on. There was an ongoing guerra sucia in Chiapas. Two years earlier, when the Zapatista armies had risen up out of the jungle, there had been hundreds of casualties in the ensuing conflict. In the seven months I was there, …