The new Zapatistas
THE Zapatista National Liberation Army demands "work, land, housing, food, health, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace" for the people. This is a struggle which will not cease until they enter the Mexican capital. Our correspondent reports.
International Viewpoint #253 February 1994 face, but did not think it would express itself in this way.
Immediately, and without the government being able to do anything about it, the uprising stirred general support. Almost unanimously, Mexican intellectuals (who have a great deal of
SERGIO RODRIGUEZ LASCANO — Mexico City, 13 January 1994
Introduction ON 1 January the indigenous people and peasants of the state of Chiapas in Mexico rose in armed struggle, organised by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Their decision surprised the whole world and clearly showed the poverty and degradation in which live thousands of Mexicans. On the same date the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by the United States, Canadian and Mexican governments, formally came into force, an agreement which the Mexican government has tried to present as part of the strategy which will lead the country towards the "First World". Why did the uprising take place? What does the EZLN represent? What situation will now open up in Mexico? How much solidarity is there internationally? The dossier which we publish this month tries to answer these and other questions. The supposed economic successes of the Mexican government are now in question. But the popular uprising of the indigenous Chiapanecos has also raised the question of the relationship between the Mexican left and the indigenous people; and in particular the whole of the Latin American left must now reconsider a subject which had appeared closed: the validity or otherwise of armed struggle. But one thing is certain. Latin America continues to be caught up in a process of political and social instability, a situation which will not change until neo-liberal policies are abandoned and the democratic longings of the people are answered Alfonso Moro *
S INCE the uprising began
there has been no cessation to the armed confrontations. After the initial surprise, the response of the Mexican government was to attack indiscriminately the indigenous areas of Chiapas, including by air bombardment. The government response to the situation in Chiapas has awoken throughout the country the indignation of a broad section of society, who are demanding a political, not military, resolution to the conflict. The general repudiation of the government's action, the crisis in its Cabinet, the fall in the stock market and the questioning of the recent nomination of Luis Colosio as the government candidate for the Presidential succession, indicate that this year could become the one when the Salinista project collapses.
As the ruling class were raising glasses of champagne to toast our entry into the first world (on 1 January the North American Free Trade Agreement
NAFTA - signed by the United States of America, Canada and Mexico formally came into force), and as the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) felt that it had succeeded in nominating its Presidential candidate without large internal ruptures,! as the fifteen richest families in the country were celebrating the capacity of the State mechanisms of control to dominate the "awkward ones" (as Emilio Azcarraga, one of the richest men in the world, and the Czar of Mexican television, likes to call the poor), there was the uprising of the Chiapanecos Indians, who chose this date to show that tradition has not been destroyed by the modernity which has been imposed from above. Suddenly, five-hundred years of oppression and domination have fallen. Neither the left nor the democratic sectors nor the government nor the parties of the right had the least idea that such a thing was going to happen. Of course we knew of the resentment which was gathering under the surweight nationally) openly showed their support for the movement. Although many of them have supported the government in the past, they have demonstrated for an end to the bombardments and proposed a political solution which excludes violence and instead deals with Mexican social problems.
Much of this position results from the historic debt owed to the Indians who survive in Mexico. In Chiapas, as in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Tlaxoala, Tabasco, Hidalgo and Michoaoán, where live the majority of the 13 million indigenous Mexicans (the largest number of Indians in Latin America), the living conditions are appalling. This indigenous uprising has put us face to face with harsh reality. Tradition took vengeance against a modernity which is exclusive, marginalising, racist, classist and anti-democratic. Suddenly the rebellions of Yanga in Veracruz, of Jacinto Canek in Yucatán, of Cajeme (José Maria Leyva) in Sonora, and of course Emilio Zapata in the whole south, took life and spread across all Mexico, as if they were the Angel of History, seeking, as Walter Benjamin said, "to wake the dead and put together the pieces."
There has been much speculation in Mexico on the origin of the EZLN. In the final analysis the writer José Emilio Pacheco is right when he says "It was known at least since May that something terrible was going to happen but nobody expected a tragedy of these dimensions. In Chiapas all the parties failed in not finding non-violent means of struggle for social justice. Demands were answered by repression and the imprisonment of monolingual indigenous people who could not defend themselves."
1. Next August there will be Presidential and parliamentary elections in Mexico. Last December the PRI (the party in power for more than seventy years nominated Luis Colosio Murrieta as its Presidential candidate after the ceremony known as "the process" in which the current President decides who will be the next PRI candidate for the Presidency.
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MEXICO
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International Viewpoint #253 February 1994
In fact, the forces of the left have been absorbed by both visions of electoral political change and the awesome power for corruption of the Mexican regime.
In the first case, they correctly analysed the weakness of the political expression of the different social sectors, concluding that they should take advantage of the actual electoral situation. This would enable social sectors to express themselves and the PRI would be censured through the ballot box for the deterioration in living conditions. The analysis was not wholly incorrect; the problem was that tasks and activity were too restricted to electoral aspects.
In the second case the problem was more serious. The deep treachery shown by the main peasants' leaders in supporsense at least it is not a classic guerilla force.
In the beginning the Mexican government tried to play down the significance of the taking of the towns, stating that there was calm in the other onehundred and twelve which make up the state of Chiapas. However, a large part of the population is concentrated (or was, until the exodus provoked by the bombardments) in three of the towns occupied by the EZLN. San Cristóbal, Ocosingo and Las Margaritas are towns with more than 100 thousand inhabitants, which means that they have a significant police presence — not to mention the military presence in Las Margaritas, which borders Guatemala.
of the EZLN at this stage, and, who, in his own words, led the taking of San Cristóbal) told the press: "The reforms and counter-reforms which the PRI have carried out in complicity with the National Action Party (PAN) have disregarded the opposition political parties and even more so other civic movements There is no freedom and no democracy. We are not seeking to become the government, but for there to be a transitional government which is more balanced politically and which carries out clean elections."
Another aspect which has attracted attention has been the flexibility which the force has shown in its approach to the struggle. On the ideological plane ting the Salinista reforms to Article 27
"On 1 January 1994 we woke to the other Mexico. On the of the Mexican constitution, with the day when we were going to celebrate our entry into the result that their land was put on the marfirst world, we went back a century to find ourselves ket, not their produce,2 meant that there again in a rebellion like that led by Tomochic. We wanted was no huge response from the peasanto be North Americans and instead were confronted with try. Today, in Chiapas, the EZLN has our Central American destiny. The blood spilled calls for retaken up the struggle against the modius to put an end to the killing. There can be no end to the fications to the Article: in the first issue violence of the rebels without an end to that of the of its newspaper The Mexican oppressors."
Awakener,3 the EZLN says of its plan for a Revolutionary Land Law: "The
José Emilio Pacheco, La Jornada, 5 January 1994.
struggle of the poor peasants in Mexico continues to reclaim the earth for those who work it. Following Emiliano Zapata, and against the reforms to Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, the EZLN has retaken up the just struggle of the
Mexican peasants for land and liberty."
The peasants' organisations in the Permanent Land Council (CAP), which from the start of the land counter- reforms have been the principal support of Salinista policy, have condemned the
EZLN and declared their support for the
State.4
Only two sides
In their composition, their actions, and their plans, the EZLN has shown that there are only two sides; those who support the oligarchy which today governs Mexico and those who are on the side of the indigenous Chiapaneco people.
In its practice, the EZLN has begun its public actions where others have finished. The rebellion began with the taking of four major towns in the region of Altos de Chiapas: the tourist San
Cristóbal de las Casas, Ocosingo, Las
Margaritas and Altamirano. The taking of towns with hundreds of people would normally follow on from previous experiences and public actions. So in this
To understand the character of the EZLN actions we should simply think of the efficiency required to transport tens of persons from one town to another. It is said that around eight-hundred guerillas took part in the taking of San Cristóbal, and that the majority were not from that town. This means that we are facing a revolutionary organisation which has already organised thousands of indigenous peasants into a revolutionary army. This also explains how nearly every day from the beginning of the conflict the Zapatistas have been able to launch attacks against the military headquarters of Rancho Neuvo, twelve kilometres from San Cristóbal.5 The motive is simple: the EZLN knows that the only way of striking at the morale of the army is to be in direct combat, so that the soldiers realise they could die. They also wish the areas of confrontation to be as remote as possible from populated areas and, of course, achieve maximum publicity. In the fourth attack they left the military headquarters without electricity.
From the beginning the EZLN formulated a strategic plan, requiring the Mexican government to recognise it as a military force and clearly defining its objectives. The Zapatista commander Marcos (the only visible spokesperson
2. See the author's article, The Salinista land counterreform", in our sister journal, Inprecor Para América Latina, no. 19, February 1992.
3. A name surely inspired by The American Awakener, the first rebel newspaper in the War of Independence, founded in the city of Guadalajara, which published seven issues between 20 December 1810 and 17 January 1811. The first issue of The Mexican Awakener has circulated mostly in the state of Chiapas, and besides the Declaration of the Selva Lacandona' (which declared war on the Mexican government) also contained a series of laws which will govern the territories liberated by the EZLN, including on Urban Reform, Labour, Land, Industry and Commerce, Justice, Rights and Obligations of Peoples in Struggle, War Tax, Women, and the Rights and Obligations of the Armed
4. CAP is comprised of twelve peasant organisations, ranging from the National Peasants' Organisation (CNC). linked to the PRI, to others which originated from work among the peasants by the left, such as the General Popular Peasant Workers' Union (UGOP). In contrast to the CAP, the organisations which have not pledged themselves to the Salinista land counter-reforms and which are in the Council of Land Organisations (COA) have demanded the recognition of the EZLN for the establishment of a dialogue to resolve the conflict and respond to the demands of peasants and indigenous peoples in the region.
5. Some newspapers stated that it had been confirmed that in the first hours of the conflict EZLN troops entered the Rancho Neuvo headquarters and carried off hundreds of arms.
6. It should not be forgotten that at the beginning of the 1980s the Mexican and French governments recognised the just reasons for the rebellion of the Salvadorean FMLN and treated it as a military force.
7. The rightwing National Action Party (PAN) is traditionally situated in opposition to the PRI, although throughout the six year Presidential term of Salinas de Gortari they have at various times supported the advance of Salinista policy. Their agreements with the government have given the PAN electoral triumphs in different states and PANista members govern the states of Chihuahua and Guanajuato.
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International Viewpoint #253 February 1994 they of course define themselves as struggling for socialism, but at the same time state: "The EZLN does not have a tightly defined ideology in the Communist or Marxist-Leninist sense. Rather, there is common agreement on the great national problems, which always centre on the lack of freedom and democracy."8 In the editorial of the first issue of its newspaper the EZLN states: "Mexicans, workers, peasants, students, honest professional people, MexicanAmericans, progressives from other countries, we have begun the struggle necessary to achieve the demands which have not been satisfied by the Mexican State: work, land, housing, food, health, education, independence, democracy, freedom, justice and peace."
"Enough!"
The flexibility of the EZLN also shows in its reclaiming of the tradition of national popular revolt: "We say: Enough! We are the heirs to the true makers of our nation. We the dispossessed are millions in number. We call on all our brothers and sisters to respond to our call as the one way not to die of hunger before the insatiable ambition of a dictatorship more than seventy years old, led by a coterie of villains representing the most conservative and traitorous groups. They are the same people who opposed Hidalgo and Morelos, betrayed Vincente Guerrero, who sold half our land to foreign invaders, brought a European prince to govern us, formed the Porfirista dictatorship, opposed the sharing of oil wealth, massacred the railway workers in 1958 and the students in 1968, and who today leave us nothing, absolutely nothing. As our last hope we return to Article 39 of our Constitution which states exactly that: 'National sovereignty lies essentially and originally with the people. All public power emanates from the people and exists for their benefit. The people have, at all times, the inalienable right to alter or modify the form of their government."
The EZLN differs from other armed movements, in particular the Peruvian, in the relationship it proposes between the popular movement and other political organisations: "The legal struggle is too limited and so there must be other forms of struggle. The revolution is not limited to armed struggle; there are groups, organisations, and independent parties. The war is a political problem and an extreme method. We propose a broad policy of alliances."10 In another 6 declaration it stated: "With a base in this (a transitional government which guarantees free elections with equality between the different parties) other demands can be negotiated: bread, housing, health, education, land, justice — many problems which are most serious amongst the indigenous peoples. But above the demands of freedom and democracy we are calling to all social sectors of the Mexican Republic to take part, not necessarily with arms but with the means each has at its disposal."!!
In short, the EZLN has launched a challenge to the Mexican State which has stirred up great popular support throughout the country. The reason for this is clear. For a large part of the population the EZLN is not a guerilla organisation but rather a demonstration of dignity against a section of the ruling class which has sold the national wealth.
For this reason, and especially amongst the young, there is clear sympathy for the EZLN, signs of this appearing immediately in the large cities. The rallies against the bombardments and for a unilateral truce on the part of the Mexican army have turned into real acts of support for the EZLN. We are seeing one of the worst crises in the PRI system
The way in which Salinas de Gortari was able to overcome the 1988 crisis and present himself as a great transformer made an impression on both Mexicans and foreigners. He not only solved (although but momentarily) the most difficult aspects of the economic crisis but also carried out a series of modifications to the relationship between the State and the people, bourgeoisie and economy. In a few areas, the so-called "reform of the State" seemed to be successful. In particular an alliance was established with the PAN with the aim of achieving a consensus in parliament of eighty percent in favour of the economic and social policy he was promoting. The achievement of NAFTA at the end of 1993 appeared to confirm his success and many Mexicans prepared themselves for entry into the first world. All that was missing, said the most critical Salinistas, was a little more democra-
Then the Chiapeneco uprising occurred and threw a large part of the project into crisis. The first great Cabinet crisis occurred with the "resignation" of the Minister of the Interior, Patrocinio González Garrido, by coincidence governor of Chiapas state. 13 the stock market in the last four years, but also a crisis of the Salinista project, due to From the outset the government tried to crush the movement by strictly military means, with the result that the most negative aspects of the national repressive forces came into view. The bombardments of the Lacandona Selva and the Altos de Chiapas have only caused opposition. Once the federal army stated that it would take at least six months to normalise the situation in the region, the Presidential strategists began to realise that, for the first time since the 1910-17 Mexican revolution, the 1994 elections would take place in the middle of a war.
In this sense, in 1994 the government will confront too many connected problems:
a) The awakening of a large part of the world to the real situation in Mexico and, with the creation of a climate of instability, no injection of the foreign capital which it was hoping to attract following NAFTA;
b) As a result of the recession in 1993 and the crisis in investment of fresh capital, the difficulty of carrying out social policies which win popular sympathy without putting at risk a large part of its project;
8. Declarations by Commandant Marcos, reproduced by the journal Proceso, no. 897, 10 January 1994.
9. "Declaration of Selva Lacandona".
10. Declaration by Commandant Marcos, Proceso.
11. Ibid.
12. Octavio Paz, of the group around the magazine Vuelta, and Hector Aguilar Camin, of the group around the magazine Nexos, which both categorise "stale Marxists", "shipwreck survivors" and "clapped-out liberation theologians" as manipulators of indigenous peoples.
13. On "resigning" Gonzalez Garrido broke the unwritten rules of those who leave the Cabinet when he said in the morning the President agreed (author's emphasis) my resignation, indicating that his resignation was not voluntary.
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DOSSIER
lutionary laws and regulations.
International Viewpoint #253 February 1994 c) The lack of charisma of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the Presidential candidate selected by Salinas after NAFTA was approved, and a possible worsening of the internal differences in the PRI now that Manuel Camacho Solís has become Commissioner for Peace and Reconciliation in Chiapas. Although unsuccessful, the return of Camacho Solís to the political scene, with a task of this relevance and with the sympathy of certain sectors, will mean a heavy burden for Colosio throughout the electoral campaign;
d) The uselessness of the PAN as a support for the government faced with events of this kind. For example their Presidential candidate, Diego Fernández de Caballos, has declared that the army should suffocate the movement as rapidly as possible";
e) The possibility that the other important Presidential candidate, Cuauhtéme Cárdenas, 14 will identify himself with the popular struggle. After a rather equivocal first declaration, 15 he has taken up a correct position which has won him much support, proposing a negotiated settlements (as if neutrality was possible in a conflict between oppressors and oppressed), then not only will the Chiapas movement be easily beaten but the whole popular democratic movement will have lost a golden opportunity.
The best image of what is happening in the country was given by those indigenous Chiapanecos who, in spite of having dynamite, decided to destroy the town halls with spades and pickaxes, symbolising how the poor think of the State, its institutions and its authorities. It represents one of the finest proletarian acts in our history, only comparable with that of the Zapatistas at the beginning of the century when they arrived at Mexico City and breakfasted at the "Sanborns de los Azulejos" Restaurant, l6 the centre of the Porfirist aristocracy. Both actions reflect the almost anarchist character of many of the actions of the Mexican people. The democratic and left forces must decide whether they place themselves on the side of this radical spirit, which reflects our best traditions, or on the side of the failing institutions of a dictatorship in search of modernisation. *
14. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, robbed of his electoral triumph in 1988 by the government's most scandalous electoral fraud in this country's modern political life. He is now supported in his Presidential candidacy by a pluralist alliance of principally left and centrist organisations which are participating in the elections through an electoral register sponsored by the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).
15. On the first day of the conflict Cárdenas declared: "Violence from wherever it comes only leads to the spilling of blood, destruction and major social setbacks" adding "However imperfect and discredited the Mexican electoral process, only through civil action and active participation in the elections will the energy and courage of this society lead to the establishment of a democratic regime with full civil rights."
16. On 6 December 1914 the troops of the Northern Division, led by Francisco Villa, and those of the Southern Army, led by Emiliano Zapata, arrived in Mexico City. After ranging the streets of the City, the two rebel armies concluded their military parade in the square opposite the National Palace. On this date the photographer Casasola took for history the images of the indigenous Zapatistas, who with their coarse sandals and large sombreros ate in the luxurious Los Azulejos Restaurant, having displaced from their seats the rich young aristocrats in bowler hats and fine clothes.
Revolutionary Law on Women unilateral truce on the part of the army, treating the EZLN as a respectable poli-
IN its struggle for the liberation of our people, the EZLN will include women in the revotical force, recognising the indigenous lutionary struggle without discrimination as to race, belief, colour or political affiliation, character of the rebellion and refusing to so long as they take up the demands of the exploited and promise to abide by the laws sign a supposedly neutral declaration and regulations of the revolution. Further, taking account of the situation of working proposed by the PRI Presidential candiwomen in Mexico, their just demands for equality and justice have been incorporated in date, in contrast to his parliamentary fraction, which again has shown itself more a part of the State apparatus than a representative of the popular classes;
f) The possibility of the development of a great social movement which will the following Revolutionary Law for Women.
1. All women, of whatever race, belief, colour or political affiliation have stretch beyond Chiapas. The EZLN the right to participate in the revolutionary struggle according to their have achieved something fundamental:
willingness and capability.
they have opened up a breach in which
2. Women have the right to work and receive an honest wage.
diverse but allied social movements can
3. Women have the right to decide the number of children they will have express themselves. The limit on annual and care for.
wage rises of five percent, the violated trade union rights, the problem of gua-
4. Women have the right to participate in community affairs and hold ranteed prices in the country or unsold positions if elected freely and democratically.
produce or the right to land could re-
5. Women and children have the right to first priority in health care and emerge as major issues as the movement access to food.
generates sympathy in the unions, tenant
6. Women have the right to education.
farmer organisations, and youth, not to mention the peasants.
7. Women have the right to choose their partner and not be forced into
What has happened in Chiapas will marriage.
determine what will happen in the next
8. No woman should be hit or maltreated physically, whether by family few months throughout the country, and members or strangers. Attempted rape or rape will be severely punished.
in particular it will determine the electo-
9. Women can occupy leadership positions in the organisation and hold ral process. The events in Chiapas canmilitary grades in the revolutionary armed forces.
not be subordinated to the electoral process. On the contrary, they will determi-
10. Women will have all the rights and obligations conferred by the revone the electoral campaigns. If there is no mobilisation, through fear of being linked to the rebellion or armed struggle, if we accept the blackmail of the State when it proposes supposedly neutral
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A break with Salinista aggression THE situation which began in Mexico on 1 January changes day by day. On 12 January a huge march for peace, of more than 100 thousand people gathered in the main square of Mexico City, in protest at the massacre which had unfolded in Chiapas, against the indigenous civil population as well as the EZLN combatants. Several hours before on that same day Carlos Salinas de Gortari had announced a cease-fire. For him things had changed radically within a few days. With all the arrogance which characterises it, on 5 January the federal goverment had set out its conditions for a dialogue with the rebels: cessation of hostilities, surrender of arms, release of hostages and those kidnapped, and identification of the spokespeople and leaders of the EZLN. In other words, and as all understood, the government was seeking the unconditional surrender of the rebels before it would negotiate. But what reason would there then be to negotiate? At the same time bombardments were beginning over a number of indigenous regions of Altos de Chiapas. A day later, when speaking to the nation, Salinas described the Zapatistas as "professionals of violence" who "can continue to carry out isolated acts of violence but will fail." Some days later this confidence came to an end. Different sectors of Mexican society and international public opinion bitterly questioned the government's military approach and demanded an end to the bombardments and an attempt at serious dialogue. Then, on 10 January, the Presidential Cabinet fell into crisis and it was the military approach taken by the government which began to fail. Salinas dismissed his Minister of the Interior, Patrocinio Gonzalez Garrido — coincidentally, Governor of the state of Chiapas — and named in his place the ex-university Rector and ex-President of the National Commission on Human Rights, Jorge Carpizo. But more relevant was his nomination that day of Manuel Camacho Solis (scarcely a few weeks previously loser of the PRI Presidential candidacy to Colosio Murrieta) as Commissioner for Peace and Reconciliation in Chiapas. The nomination has objectively weakened the PRI electoral campaign and many believe that Colosio may be removed by the official party, in the face of the political weight which Camacho Solis is taking on. Also on 10 January, the EZLN gave its own conditions for a dialogue: recognition of the organisation as a military force, bilateral cease-fire, retreat of the federal troops to their headquarters, a cessation to their bombardments and formation of a national commission of mediation. On 12 January the government began to carry out part of these conditions. Although there was not a total cease-tire on the part of the tederal army, the bombardments stopped and there was a partial withdrawal of soldiers. Howe ver, there is no guarantee that the Mexican government will not, after all, pursue to the end a military offensive in the region. On the other hand, from calling the EZLN "transgressors" and "aggressors" the government has tacitly recognised it as a force with which it must open a dialogue if there is to be peace. This recognition, if not by the President nor the Minister of the Interior, has been more than emphatic on the part of the governmental Commission for Peace in Chiapas. For the present, civil society and the armed indigenous people have halted the dominance and aggression of the government and forced it to recognise that behind the decision of the EZLN to take up arms there are no "professionals of violence" or "transgressors of the law", only the impoverished and forgotten of Mexico. But we cannot lower our guard - what the Zapatistas are demanding, and with them millions of Mexicans — is not only a seat at the negotiating table. Work, housing, land, food, health, education, independence, liberty, democracy, justice and peace for all Mexicans demand that we must all be Indians and Zapatistas now. * 8 International Viewpoint #253 February 1994