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NEWS & LETTERS, OCTOBER 2003Eyewitness accountNew stage of struggle in ChiapasChiapas, Mexico--In the green highlands of Chiapas, under a sky that alternated bright sunshine and dense fog, 15,000 Zapatistas and representatives of Mexican and international civil society gathered in the autonomous community of Oventic, Aug. 8-10. Ski-masked Zapatista leaders announced a dramatic new stage in the struggle for indigenous autonomy and against neoliberal reforms that threaten the very existence of rural Mexico. The gathering had a festive air, celebrating a decade of Zapatista resistance. International guests arrived with colorful backpacks teeming over with camping gear and canned tuna. Hundreds of university students and representatives of civil society arrived from Mexico City in hastily organized caravans. Zapatista support communities sent representatives by the truckload, with traffic backed up nearly a mile on the two-lane road outside Oventic. Stands selling tamales, paletas, coffee, arroz con leche and handicrafts lined the entrance road, while 66 teams competed in a spirited basketball tournament and people danced until five in the morning to live cumbia and banda. FIRST PUBLIC GATHERING SINCE 1991 Subcomandante Marcos, in his role as temporary spokesperson for the Zapatista autonomous communities, announced the gathering in late July, the first public call by the Zapatistas since the 2001 caravan to Mexico City that demanded constitutional reforms and autonomy for Mexico’s 12 million indigenous. The time was ripe, argued Marcos, for rejuvenation of the autonomous movement. Nearly 60% of Mexicans refused to vote in June’s mid-term congressional elections, an historic low indicating a crisis of legitimacy for Mexico’s political class. With the PAN losing a quarter of their seats in the lower house, Fox faces three years of a de facto lame duck presidency. The Zapatista meeting would offer a genuine alternative to corrupt politics-as-usual at the service of international capital. MANDAR OBEDICIENDO (lead by obeying) is the core principal for the Zapatista movement, where leadership responds to the demands of the people. Over the past decade, Zapatista support communities developed autonomous governing structures that are consistent with traditional indigenous norms. They created five regionally based political/cultural centers of resistance called AGUASCALIENTES that served the 38 autonomous municipalities. The autonomous municipalities built schools, health programs and economic development projects, carrying out all of the functions of the “constitutional” government centers and representing the de facto implementation of the stalled San Andres Accords. On the evening of Aug. 8, the Zapatistas announced the “death” of the AGUASCALIENTES, to be replaced immediately by five “CARACOLES" (literally conch shell) and five Juntas of Good Government, one for each CARACOL. “The Juntas of Good Government are an important advance in our struggle for the recognition of indigenous rights and culture in Mexico and a good way to resolve existing problems. We congratulate everyone, because this advance is possible through the support of Mexican and international civil society,” said Marcos. “From now on, everything related to the Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Communities will be handled by the [autonomous] authorities and by the Juntas of Good Government.” The Juntas will also address relations between Zapatista and non-Zapatista communities. According to Comandante David, “It is not necessary to be Zapatista in order to be served and respected by the Autonomous Municipalities in any part of our territory. By being a member of the community or of the municipality in which you live, you have the right to be served. What I am asking those who are not Zapatistas, those who are not in agreement with us or those who do not understand the just cause of our struggle, is that you respect our organization...and the Juntas of Good Government.” Zapatista relations with non-Zapatista communities have been tenuous in some parts of Chiapas, and openly violent in others. Army-backed paramilitaries present the most serious problems. According to CIEPAC, a research group monitoring the conflict, 10,000 indigenous remain displaced since the 1994 uprising. TEN YEARS OF NAFTA, DECADE OF EZLN On Jan. 1, 1994, the Zapatistas timed their uprising to coincide with the initiation of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), part of a long line of neoliberal business plans that impoverished Mexican (and U.S.) rural areas. NAFTA allowed U.S. agribusiness to flood the Mexican market with low quality, highly subsidized corn. The flood of U.S. corn forced small-scale Mexican growers out of the market. 90% of Mexico’s corn production had been cultivated on parcels of 10 acres or less. Many of the 18 million campesino producers continue to cultivate the sacred crop out of obligation to tradition and for family consumption, but an increasing number are forced to migrate part of each year in search of paid employment, unable to sell their excess production in disappearing local markets. NAFTA also impacted land tenure. In preparation for the approval of NAFTA and at the insistence of U.S. counterparts, the Salinas administration reformed article 27 of the constitution in 1992, abolishing the ejido program that awarded communally owned lands to campesino communities. More than half the farmland in Mexico is held in ejidos. For the first time since the Mexican revolution, campesino communities are now vulnerable to privatization and loss of their lands. NAFTA is only one pillar of corporate globalization’s broad reach in southern Mexico. Two decades of World Bank structural adjustment programs and decapitalization in rural areas have bankrupted the countryside. Fox’s Plan Puebla Panama, an attempt to attract international investment, does not address the needs of local communities. And ten years of extensive military presence in indigenous communities has torn at the fabric of community life. WOMEN'S INFLUENCE REMAINS STRONG The gathering at Oventic also reaffirmed the critical roles of women in the movement and their “struggle within the struggle” to achieve gender equity. Comandante Rosalinda emphasized the inclusion of women in the movement: “The only way to achieve what we need is to organize ourselves well, to be strong in our resistance in Autonomous Municipalities. But, to do that work, all of us need to participate. We must all be self-motivated. Women cannot be left behind.” Comandante Fidelia added, “Today we are calling on the Mexican people, the men, demanding respect as the women we are. ... Because sisters, you know quite well that women are there, in the countryside and the city. We are working. Our rights are being violated. [The men] do not respect us. That is why, today, we are inviting the women of Mexico and the world, and all the women in the cities, and those who are organized in the corners, those who are not listening to us but who my voice will reach. We are going to make compulsory our respect as the women we are, even if [the men] make their sad little faces... I am not scolding them. Listen carefully. It is called obligation, respect for us as the women we are.” The Oventic gathering left everyone with a shared sense of hope and purpose. It remains for Mexican and international civil society to answer the question--are we prepared to make the journey with them? --J.W. |
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