13. L Trotsky, 'On Mexico's second six-year plan' (translated is from the Spanish).
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Look out in our May issue for an exclusive interview Cárdenas 11
Candidate in a ski-mask?
International Viewpoint #255 April 1994
### JEFF MACKLER visited
Chiapas from 17-26
February, at the time which negotiations began. Below, we publish extracts from his report. He is a leader of Socialist Action, an American organisation which supports the Fourth
International. FIFTY days after the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) began their armed rebellion, fifteen of their combatants re-entered the Chiapas mountain city of San Cristóbal de las Casas. This time their purpose was to participate in a "dialogue for peace". In this city of 85 thousand the EZLN were the only armed force allowed; recognition of the moral and political authority they have won. Three-hundred and fifty journalists from around the world were present to record and update EZLN and government positions. Translation into Spanish was necessary because the Zapatista leaders spoke seven dialects inherited from their Mayan ancestors. "Peace dialogue" The agreement to begin the "peace dialogue" in San Cristóbal was negotiated with the mediation of Mexico's pro-Zapatista liberation theologian, and now Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Bishop Samuel Ruiz. The agreement provided for a national coalition of human rights organisations associated with Bishop Ruiz, COMPAS, to organise a "Civil Space for Peace" (Espacio civil por la paz). Hundreds, perhaps a thousand pro-Zapatista human rights activists throughout Mexico came to 12
MEXICO participate daily in around-theclock shifts, surrounding the San Cristóbal Cathedral, the site of negotiations. The Mexican Red Cross provided a bus to escort the Zapatista negotiating team to and from the Cathedral. This mutti-tiered, independently organised security net around the city's central square - combined with the "third army", the world's media -provided an eloquent validation of the justice of the EZLN cause. [.] In the first three days of negotiations tentative accords were reached covering local issues: health, education and democratic rights. Both Sub-commander Marcos, from the EZLN, and Camacho Solis, the government appointed negotiator, stated that final agreement was contingent on ratification by the EZLN's central leadership and the Mexican government. Marcos also made it clear that the EZLN was not capable of negotiating agreements to redress the wide range of injustices that are inherent in Mexican society. For this, he said, a "much broader and national negotiating table" was required. A 16 February statement, distributed on the first day of negotiations. laid out the EZLN's approach: "We are not going to ask for pardon nor beg. We are not going [...] to pick up the crumbs that fall from the overflowing tables of the powerful. We are going demand what is right and reasonable for all people - freedom, justice and democracy. Everything for everyone. Nothing for ourselves." Reiterating the view expressed elsewhere, that the EZLN could not exclude a return to armed struggle, Marcos' made a statement to the media on 22 February: "If its possible that neither arms nor armies are necessary — without having blood and fire to cleanse history, so be it. But if not, that is, if once again they close all doors to us and if our words cannot surmount walls of arrogance and incomprehension, and if the peace is not worthy and true, who, we ask, will deny us the sacred right to live and die as dignified and true men and women?" [...] Exchange In the week prior to the start of negotiations, former Chiapas Governor, General Abralon Castellanos, was publicly released in the remote town of Guadelupe Tepeyac. In exchange, thirty-two EZLN prisoners were released and Castellanos issued a statement to the effect that there were indeed grave injustices in Chiapas which required attention. While hundreds of Indian supporters cheered the EZLN fighters who escorted Castellanos to his freedom, their chants of "EZLN, EZLN" were dubbed out of the one and only PRIcontrolled television station, Televisa, and replaced with applause, as if the people were cheering the corrupt PRI politician. To this day, Televisa has not referred to the EZLN by its correct name. Nor has it used the word "Zapatista". The station's owner, Emilio "Tiger" Azcaraga, who has contributed $125 million to the PRI Presidential campaign, apparently believes that "armed bands" will suffice. [...] The murderous conduct of the Mexican army following the rebellion was acknowledged by the PRI-controlled National Commission on Human Rights, which produced a seventeen-page document recording, albeit in the most muted manner, a number of Mexican army violations of human
Candidate in a ski-mask?
International Viewpoint #255 April 1994 rights. These included the revelation of a "common grave in the municipal cemetery in Ocosingo in which eleven bodies of adult males were found." The Commission recorded "bombardments from the air" near San Cristóbal and other cities, but went on to note that rockets, and not more powerful bombs, were employed, as if to demonstrate that the army had, after all, acted with some moderation. The report concluded that: "Unquestionably, in Chiapas, there have violation of human rights by various individuals, but these violations are being investigated thoroughly, impartially and honestly. "The Commission has discovered local bosses (caciques) who, besides having called for the Commission to get out of Chiapas, may put in question the peace process in order to protect their own spurious interests." The notion that today the PRI government is genuinely seeking reform is central to current propaganda. The government's decision to reverse gears and replace the initial mass terror with diplomacy and pledges of reform, not to mention promises of improvements in health and education, is designed to cloak the PRI in democratic clothes as the August Presidential election approaches. Camacho Solís is, for the moment, the PRI's mouthpiece in this effort. He said early in the negotiations: "After making an initial evaluation of the EZLN's proposal, and after offering a general response, l think that the solution for peace in Chiapas will be in new answers for the State. Not only for the EZLN but for the entire society. The solution will consist of a new kind of treatment for the native peoples throughout the country and a commitment to democracy. "In this process it has become quite clear to me that only way to move forward in solving the problems of Chiapas, with the repercussions they have for the country, is by reinforcing the republican institutions. This means the institutions see what is happening and respond to these problems, because the strength of these institutions depends on how much they listen to the society and offer it new answers." But Solís' San Cristóbal "carrot" was balanced by (the now late) PRI Presidential candidate Luis Colosio's Mexico City "stick". Colosio had told the press that there was no need for changes in Mexico today. [..] With regard to the upcoming elections, the EZLN has made clear its disdain for an institution which its considers corrupt. In a 23 February appeal for solidarity from the people of Mexico, Sub-commander Marcos declared: "We appeal to civil society to aid bus by making sure that the accords are carried out by both sides. We are disposed to give peace a chance not because we are obliged to, not even because we owe it to our dead, or the federal government, but because we owe it to civil society. That is why we are sitting here, if not, we would be in the mountains, fighting arms in hand, whether we lived or died, instead of talking. "[We are not seeking power] a political party seeks power. We said, why do you want to make us out to be a political party if we don't want power? We want to live in peace with democracy, freedom and justice. "We don't want any posts, neither the Chair of the town council or a Governorship, or a Secretary of State, or President of the republic. So, why should we be a political party? Aren't there enough already? How many candidates are there for the Presidency? Nine? Is the tenth to be dressed in a ski mask?" Earlier EZLN statements indicated that they see no possibility of changing Mexico in the context of the elections. Rather, they look to the vast majority of the Mexican people to organise their own struggles independently of the existing institutions of the capitalist state. This is certainly a refreshing change in Mexican politics, a change made possible because the nation's most down-trodden rose up, with their lives in the balance, to struggle for their own liberation.*
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COMMUNIST PARTIES