Zapatista international meeting against neo-liberalism carries within itself the construction of an alternative project in the economic, social, political and cultural spheres...
Ulises Martinez Flores The American continental preparatory meeting for the Zapatista-sponsored Inter-continental meeting planned for 27 July-3 August was a great success. Participants began the continental discussion on the full range of joint activities which will help us rid ourselves of neo-liberalism from the Canadian north to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of Latin America. In his opening message, Zapatista subComandante Marcos stressed the day-to-day struggle of the workers, peasants and the poor of the Americas, in order to demonstrate the necessity of a regroupment of all forms of resistance, at the continental and the intercontinental level. He also denounced the military aid which a successive US governments have given the Mexican government, to support the war against the Zapatistas. Foreign "fighter-bombers, combat helicopters, tanks, spy satellites, military helicopters, military counsellors, and agents of a range of intelligence services" demonstrate clearly that "the Zapatista challenge is a global challenge," Marcos said. The 300 participants, from Canada, the USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Porto Rico, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, deliberated in five commissions; economic, political, social, cultural and indigenous people. Economy The commission stressed the importance of creating ways of organising civil society in committees of dialogue for the analysis and solution of common problems; for the putting into place of production co-operatives and marketing networks, bringing together town and counlism and utilitarianism. Social A long list of general propositions was drafted, with the aim of harmonising actions to be held across the continent on May Ist. The central demands were the reduction of the working week, withdrawal of the Mexican army from Chiapas, freedom for political prisoners, and the truth about the continent's "disappeared". Culture Neo-liberalism's culture effects are based on a system of dominant and dominated cultures and cultural forms. The ideology is presented as the one truth. The historic memory of whole peoples is stripped away. Responses must include democratisation of the mass media, and the transformation of the media into multi-ethnic and pluri-cultural means of expression for our peoples. In countries like Mexico, education should be in the hands of each community, since it is a part of each people's right to self-determination. Indigenous peoples There is a world of difference, in ethnic terms, between the indigenous peoples of
North America, Central America, and the Andes zone. But there was no problem in exchanging experiences of struggle. All denounced the ways neo-liberalism obliges indigenous peoples to emigrate, and to sell their culture, while governments appropriate the collective labour of the communities they claim to be protecting. There was also discussion of the numerous US-based sects, which profit from misery and poverty, and explode traditional communities in their own, often financial interests. In his closing speech, Marcos thanked all those who had spent three days "on wooden benches, bathed alternately in rain and in sweat, menaced by a vigilant military aircraft, hassled by the immigration officials, and worried about the scorpions which troubled our nights". Delegates go home to continue the preparations for the July intercontinental meeting. Similar preparatory meetings are scheduled for Berlin at the end of May, and Tokyo and Sydney in early June. *
• There is another way!
tryside at the international scale; creation of popular banks, administered in a diffe-
"We, women and men, have gathered at La Realidad, in Chiapas state, rent way from the dominant norms.
the place where rebellion and hope go hand in hand. We have come from
Participants heard how, in many indigenous communities, a tradition of collectiall four corners of this, our America, in response to the call of the moral ve property has resisted centuries of priauthority which the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) reprevate property relations.
sents... By our participation, we demonstrate our support for the development of a new dimension of international solidarity and resistance to the
Politics neo-liberal storm which is beating down on the whole world...
We must recognise the crisis of traditio-
Yes! There is another way! A path which is not decided by the power of nal left-wing parties and organisations.
money, but by the satistaction of the needs of our peoples. The struggle
We need to build a new political schema, which takes account of new forms of organising, and which understands our power as "the capacity to act" on the base of alternative values to individua-
36
Final Declaration, April 1996