(excerpted from PEACE TALKS AND THE ZAPATISTA, Anderson Valley Advertiser, Nov. 1, 1995, by permission of the author)
On January 1, 1994 a group of indigenous Mayan Indians calling themselves the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN) took over five towns in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico. Their spokesman is an intriguing, charismatic man known only as Subcomandante Marcos. Supposedly, no one knows his identity or even his real name, but the government claims he is Rafael Guillen, a former philosophy professor at the University in Mexico City. The identification did nothing to undermine his power or mystique. The name Marcos is simply a “nom de guerre”, taken from a fallen comrade who died years ago at the beginning of their struggles.
The initial takeovers of the towns were relatively peaceful. When Marcos and his forces liberated the town of San Cristobal (the largest of the five) he was met with little resistance. He confiscated all the weapons from the provincial Police, stripped them of their clothes and ran them out of town...naked. The Zapatistas “liberated” the local Government Building, but instead of wrecking it simply took all of the bureaucratic paperwork into the zocalo (plaza) and destroyed them. One government clerk made a plea to Marcos to spare his department which consisted mostly of historical documents and old Spanish land grants. Marcos granted the man’s wish and placed guards on the doors to the archives. They were never touched.
The EZLN are not a pack of Communist agitators, terrorists or bandits holding up the government but real freedom fighters asking for Liberty, Democracy and Justice. Different Indian groups in Chiapas had been demonstrating and protesting for years, gaining little power or respect and receiving nothing but broken promises from the government. For the Zapatistas declaring war was their last attempt at survival.
Unfortunately, the Mexican government retaliated with a vicious show of force which pushed the Zapatistas out of the towns and back into their jungle hideaways. The entire “war” lasted for 12 days and the death toll was officially set at 145 people. A “cease fire” was established and a “neutral zone” was set up between the Mexican Army and the Zapatistas.
On February 9, 1995 the Mexican army took over the “zone” with 40,000 troops and effectively pushed the rebel army and their supporters back further into the Lacandon selva (jungle) right up to the Guatemalan border. Arrest warrants were issued for Marcos and other alleged Zapatista leaders, and a number of leftist activists were arrested. Some have been tortured. Some are still in jail. All communication between the government and the rebels stopped.
Peace talks resumed in April, and the congress suspended the arrest warrants for the duration of the talks, which are still in progress.
In the summer of 1994, the Zapatistas built a town in the jungle and invited people from all over Mexico to a democracy convention. They named the town Aguascalientes. In the February offensive, the army destroyed it. This winter, the rebels built four New Aguascalientes to celebrate the second anniversary of the start of the uprising. Roberto Moreno, a student at Loyola-Marymount University, joined a Pastors for Peace delegation to Oventic for the celebration.
They got to Oventic, in a remote mountain valley in southern Chiapas, around noon on Dec. 29. The valley was full of music, but they couldn’t see where it was coming from. They got to a Zapatista checkpoint where ski-masked rebels checked their papers. The fog cleared and they saw the camp. Hundreds of people were already there: indigenas from surrounding villages, supporters from Mexico, and all over the world. And lots of media. The music was 24 hours a day: local corrido singers, marimba bands, an artistic caravan from Mexico City.
What about the military? I asked Roberto.
“You know, it’s a funny thing. They were there, I know. We saw them when we were coming in. But they kept out of sight, away from the cameras.”
More people came. The intensity grew. The music never stopped.
“Our campsite turned into the ’party place‘ during the day,” Roberto said. “Most of the young people there were in our campsite, and also most of the musicians. During the day we played music and sang as crowds gathered around us. Amado Avendaño (the rebel governor of Chiapas) joined us to sing Mexico Lindo Y Querido one afternoon. We played music, sang, danced...All I could see were the whites of everyone’s teeth---I felt really human those days I was there...The view, the breeze, the people, the smiles, the warmth, the love. We were all sisters and brothers on those mountains.”
New Year’s Eve. Everyone’s dancing. In the mud, because it poured just a few days ago and it’s all mud, mud, mud. The Indians, who eat meat once or twice a year and are plagued by malnutrition, killed a cow for the celebration. “They fed us,” Roberto told me. “They shared the best they had with the international community. That was a really beautiful gesture.”
Then there were speeches, in a Mayan language and in Spanish, and the reading, by a woman comandante, of the stirring Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. What was the reaction to the declaration? I asked Roberto. Did they clap and yell?
“There were fireworks.”
I thought it was a figure of speech.
“No, really. There were fireworks, and someone set them off early, in the middle of the speech!”
Roberto told me the following story:
One evening a guy approached him, wanting to sell a serape his wife had made. He started by asking 200 pesos, which Roberto really didn’t want to spend. He kept going lower and lower, until he was asking 40 pesos, which Roberto considered far less than the piece was worth.
“I told him, give me about a day to think about it, and I’ll buy it from you...I ended up buying it for 100 pesos.
“The thing is...what was really cool...you know something the Zapatistas never do is tell you their military name. But he told me, in confidence, and it seemed like a gesture of friendship.
“That’s one of the best memories I have from there...he told me his Zapatista name.”