by Matt Espinoza Watson

“La Guerra de reconquista gubernamental de las tierras y territorios que fueron recuperados por los Zapatistas desde 1994, tiene como marco general el avance de las grandes empresas multinacionales sobre los pueblos originarios de América y del mundo, quienes viven en zonas donde se concentra el 60% de los llamados recursos estratégicos. Así, los intereses capitalistas alrededor del mundo han encontrado como obstáculo principal para su reproducción, la existencia de comunidades y pueblos que han convivido con la naturaleza por siglos y, en algunos casos, por milenios.”+

“The government’s war of reconquest of the lands and territories reclaimed by the Zapatistas since 1994, is generally defined by the advance of large multinational corporations into/on top of the original peoples/inhabitants of America and the world, who live in zones where 60% of so called ‘strategic resources’ are concentrated. As such, capitalist interests around the world have encountered, as the main obstacle in their path, the existence of communities and people that have lived together with nature for centuries, and in some cases, millennia.”

“What’s going on with the Zapatistas?” This is a question I was asked several times recently while reading a book I picked up on a recent trip to Mexico, Corte de Caja: Entrevista al Subcomandante Marcos. The cover of the book has no text, simply a large photograph of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos (el Sup), who has long been the media spokesperson for the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation). Many people know his image, and a thing or two about the indigenous struggle for land, liberty, and democracy in Chiapas that came into the public eye in 1994. But many people have also not heard about the Zapatistas for years, and, as local Zapatista Irlandeso comments, “If one were to glean information solely from the mainstream media outlets, silence on the plight of the indigenous struggle in southern Mexico would be strangely loud, leaving only those who listen actively and seek out information to hear the wind from below….” It is precisely this subject that Subcomandante Marcos addresses in the November 2, 2007 interview with Laura Castellanos that was published as Corte de Caja.

“Estámos como en 1993, pero al revés. Entonces estábamos preparando el alzamiento, sin medios, sin gente, sin atención, no existíamos pues, pero ahora es al revés. Es el gobierno que está preparando el ataque.”

“We’re like we were in 1993, but the opposite. Then we were preparing our uprising, without media, without people, without attention; we didn’t exist then, but now it’s the other way around. It’s the government that’s preparing the attack.”

The interview makes for a compelling read, as Castellanos touches upon a variety of subjects with el Sup, including his celebrity. He emphasizes several times that, if he could change anything about the last 14 years, it would be to have not been the main “protagonist” of the Zapatistas in the media, which he feels detracted from a focus on the communities themselves.

A (brief) summary of the recent history: After rising up in arms on January 1, 1994, in response to the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, or TLC in Mexico) and 500 years of oppression & neglect, the Zapatistas quickly entered into dialogue with the Mexican government. The result of this dialogue was the first official peace between the rebels and the government in February 1996, the San Andrés Accords. With this, the federal government agreed to constitutionally recognize the autonomy of the indigenous communities, but 9 months later, the government went back on its word and refused to comply. At the same time, the government began its counterinsurgency campaign by funding & organizing armed civilian groups outside Zapatista communities, or paramilitary groups, which then began to harass and terrorize Zapatista communities & sympathizers (most infamously in the case of Acteal, on Dec. 22 1997, when 45 unarmed indigenous people, mostly women and children, were massacred in their village by the paramilitary group, Paz y Justicia, or Peace and Justice). After the 2000 elections, when incoming President Vicente Fox promised to deal with the Zapatista situation “in 15 minutes,” the Zapatistas began the Marcha de Color de la Tierra (March of the Color of the Earth), a caravan that was to travel from Chiapas to Mexico City to demand government recognition of the San Andrés Accords. It was at this moment that the Zapatistas were at their most visible nationally and internationally, as they were accompanied by thousands of supporters from all over Mexico and the world. In March of 2001, by again rejecting proposed legislation to recognize indigenous autonomy, the three major political parties (including the so-called ‘leftist’ or ‘progressive’ PRD) made it clear that they would support the national and international business interests over the most impoverished inhabitants of southeastern Mexico.

By 2002, it became clear to the Zapatistas that any further efforts to achieve governmental recognition would be in vain, and so they decided to break completely with this strategy & began to look inward. What was born of this disengagement was the Caracoles, (“Shells/Snails”)++. The 39 autonomous municipalities of the Zapatistas were organized into 5 Caracoles, maintained & governed by the Juntas del Buen Gobierno (Collectives of Good Government), which are horizontally structured, collective, rotating committees of community members. The Caracoles, refusing the support and authority of the Mexican government, have since created and maintained a wide variety of health and educational programs, including combating infant mortality, illiteracy, hunger and gender inequality, and raising awareness of sexually transmitted diseases & reproductive health. The communities have had tremendous success in this regard. As Subcomandante Marcos remarked in the interview, “En las comunidades Zapatistas no es que sean ricos, pero ya no hay hambre. Antes había, ahora todos tienen de comer de su propio trabajo…La Selva Lacandona antes del alzamiento tenía el índice más alto de mortalidad infantil de menores de 5 años de todo el país y ahora ya no. Son avances que han obtenido.” (“In the Zapatista communities, it’s not that they’ve become rich, but there is no longer hunger. Before there was, but now everyone has enough to eat from their own work. Before the uprising, the Lacandon jungle had the highest index of infant mortality of children under 5 years of age, and now they do not. These are some of the advances that have been made.”)+++

It is precisely because of the success of the Zapatista communities, and the autonomous, anti-capitalist example that they might inspire in other parts of the country, that the government has recently increased its attacks against these communities. From the perspective of the government, these attacks have been timed perfectly, on one hand to coincide with the silence in the media regarding Chiapas, and, on the other hand, to coincide with La Otra Campaña (the Other Campaign), when much of the Zapatista leadership was traveling to other parts of Mexico. La Otra Campaña began in 2006, the year of highly contested presidential elections in Mexico, and as opposed to the presidential campaign, was not organized to seek power or to proselytize to the people of Mexico, but to listen. This ‘campaign’ resulted in meetings with indigenous people all over Mexico, and in an historic first encounter (in Vicam, Sonora in 2007) between the Zapatistas and representatives from several indigenous nations within the U.S.

One of the Mexican government’s newest strategies has been to use the front of non governmental organizations (like non-profits) to make any conflict appear to be internal conflict among the indigenous people of the area. In part, this has been accomplished by giving other (landless) indigenous peasants title to lands occupied by the Zapatistas. The other part is more sinister and complex: The organization mentioned most in alerts that have gone out in the last 8 months has been la Organización Para la Defensa de los Derechos de Indígenas y Campesinos (OPPDIC) (Organization For the Defense of Indigenous and Farmworker Rights). OPPDIC seems to be the main aggressor in the variety of attacks that have been perpetrated in the last 8 months in the Zapatista Caracoles. Along with “Eco-tourist” organizations, governmental environmental authorities, state government officials and local police, OPPDIC has launched physical attacks, and stolen land, water and other materials from Zapatista communities. The government’s strategy seems clear: using the mask of environmental protection and seeming-community groups, attention is deflected from the real goal, namely, to remove Zapatistas from some of the most valuable land in the country. This has been carried out by the government going into the Zapatista communities and removing these residents from their lands, declaring them “ecological reserve lands,” then turning around and moving in communities and groups affiliated with OPPDIC to act as “guardians” of the lands, turning (non-money generating) communally held lands into (investment friendly) eco-tourist resorts.

The Mexican government has also recently entered Zapatista communities under the pretext of the (heavily U.S. sponsored) War on Drugs, launching unfounded allegations that Zapatistas were growing marijuana in an attempt to discredit the communities. The Zapatistas are known to prohibit any drugs, including alcohol, from being bought, sold, produced, or consumed in the autonomous communities. And while the presence of federal troops throughout Chiapas has always remained, the alerts now being sent out by the Juntas de Buen Gobierno demonstrate an increase in aggressive and provocative actions and incursions into autonomous territories.

The response of the Zapatistas has been clear

“Estas tierras que ya están en nuestras manos las seguiremos defendiendo porque sabemos que son nuestra madre y porque de ella vivimos. De entregarlo, nunca, renunciar la tierra jamás, cueste lo que cueste con nuestra sangre y con nuestra vida lo defenderemos. Hermanos de la sociedad civil, les pedimos estar pendiente por las provocaciones que están planeando los malos gobiernos contra nosotros.”

“We will continue defending these lands that are now in our hands because we know that they are our mother and from her we are able to live. To give these lands up, never, to renounce the land, never ever, cost what it may, with our blood and with our lives we will defend it. Brothers and sisters of civil society, we ask you to be vigilant & aware of the provocations that the bad governments are planning against us.”++++

*****
+ From “2007: Una nueva fase de la Guerra de exterminio en Chiapas” by Paola Vasquez & Luz I. Aquino, in Rebeldía #57, Jan. 2008
++ The Caracol’s symbolism: the conch shell (in addition to being a symbol associated with the ancient Mexican deity Quetzalcoatl, and with the breath of life required to sound it) is mainly a symbol of community, in that indigenous traditions in Mexico called for the conch to be blown/sounded to let the community know that something important was happening, or a decision needed to be made, and that everybody’s input was needed.
+++ From Corte de Caja
++++ From the Junta de Buen Gobierno, “Corazón céntrico del arcoiris de nuestra esperanza”
To keep yourself aware of developments as they unfold, and the governmental attacks on the people of Chiapas, check out www.enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx, and another good website on Latin American news generally, (in English) www.narconews.com.