:: UPDATE

CHIAPAS: TEN YEARS AFTER THE ARMED UPRISING

September marked seven years since the suspension of talks between the federal government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). On November 17th, the EZLN also celebrated twenty years of existence. It decided to celebrate the event internally, although it invited both national and international civil society to participate in the events that various organizations, both within and outside of Mexico, were holding related to these anniversaries.

Nearly ten years after the armed uprising, in January of ’94 in Chiapas, the possibilities of a resumption of a process of negotiation seem every day more remote. Each side positions itself depending on strategies, times and interests that are clearly different.

At the national level, the agendas of the political parties are focused on the reforms of energy (electricity and petroleum) and ownership of land, already in the context of the race for the next presidential elections (2006). The conflict in Chiapas is not a priority. The Secretary of the Interior, Santiago Creel, in his visit to Chiapas in October, confirmed in respect to this topic, that “there is a policy that hasn’t varied since the beginning of the administration, which has included the presentation of the Cocopa initiative, the release of prisoners connected with the EZLN, (and) the relocation of seven military bases”, referring to the three conditions raised by the Zapatistas at the end of 2001 for resuming the dialogue. Although the government considers these conditions accomplished, the indigenous rights reform finally approved by the Congress of the Union in 2001 was not recognized by the EZLN, which considers it a treason against what was established in the San Andrés accords in 1996. During his visit, Creel also commented that they are waiting for the responses from state congresses about the constitutional reform, “to make an evaluation” and to present a package of legal initiatives before the Congress of the Union.

On the other side, the EZLN has suspended all contact with the government and political parties. They have declared that the San Andrés accords will be “applied in the rebel territories” through their actions. The “Juntas of Good Government” (JBG), formed this past August by delegates of the Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Municipalities in five Caracoles (see SIPAZ bulletin, August of 2003), represent a new stage in the construction of Zapatista autonomy. It is a long-term gamble, challenging the “official” power by assuming the government’s role in all its scope (education, health, justice, development, etc.).

Repositioning of the official discourse “post caracol”

Faced with the new Zapatista strategy, the discourses of the government have leaned towards the notion that the Juntas of Good Government could be able to frame themselves in the Constitution. The state and federal government have been “playing hot potato”, with neither of the two levels of the government seeming to want to be stuck with responding to the new situation. Certainly, in the indigenous law approved in 2001 the definition of both the scope and extent of autonomy are the responsibility of the states (which was one of the points of regression in comparison with San Andrés).

Nonetheless, in September, the Commission of Indigenous Towns and Communities of the Congress affirmed that “it should be the responsibility of the federal government, and not of the local Congress to attend to the new form of Zapatista organization, because it is a national issue”, in that, in 1994, the EZLN declared war on the federal government.

For his part, in October, the governor of Chiapas, Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía recognized that the efforts of the EZLN to create the Juntas of Good Government are “interesting” and that “they don’t change the life of the constitutional bodies, the town councils, or the state government”. He pointed out that the state of Chiapas, differently from other governments in times past, has been and will continue to be respectful of the decisions of the Zapatista communities.

It waits to be seen if this federal and state posture can be maintained over an extended period of time in a state where so many hot spots can burst into open violence or, to use the words of Samuel Ruiz, archbishop emeritus of San Cristóbal de las Casas, in a situation of “formal stagnation with real damage.” Even more so when the majority of the communities in the state are divided, despite the Zapatista offer to also be of service to non-Zapatistas living in their territories.

Nonconformity through redefinition of territories

The creation of the JBG promises a reworking of relationships, as much within as outside of the Zapatista territories. Despite the conciliatory message towards non-Zapatistas, the redefinition of said territories has not escaped causing nonconformity on the part of other social actors.

The majority of the cases have arisen in the northern zone of the state, where the Zapatista presence was not that visible until the creation of the Caracoles. In September, the JBG “New Seed that is Going to Produce” (Roberto Barrios) denounced violent acts which had occurred in different communities in the region “by groups positioned on highways, and at exits and entrances to different autonomous communities.” These acts included blows, threats of dislocation, and signs shot at or destroyed, principally in the official municipalities of Tila, Sabanilla and Palenque.

At the end of September, similar situations presented themselves in Ocosingo (Jungle). Another point of tension has been the construction of highways in the Zapatista zones of the municipalities of Chilón and Ocosingo, where the Zapatistas have been requesting payment from the construction companies for working in their territories.

Risk of the escalation of violence

The denunciations of groups considered to be paramilitaries are also worrisome. Campesinos in the region Monte Líbano and Taniperla (Jungle) announced that they have once again seen armed men, wearing black uniforms, undergoing movements and practices. At the end of October, in a communication from the Caracol “Whirlwind of Our Words”, the JBG “Heart of the Rainbow of Our Hope” denounced attacks by the group Los Aguilares, in the community K’an Akil, in the autonomous municipality of Olga Isabel (in the official municipality of Chilón). The denunciation stated “there have been recorded detentions, and this group has come to provoke and frighten in the roads of this region, to close the path to the stream where the women need to wash clothing and bathe, which is the only place that they can use.”

In October, a hundred Zapatista supporters belonging to the autonomous municipality Francisco Gómez made a stand in the community of San Manuel, Ocosingo. The inhabitants of that town reported that on October 16th, a group of 15 PRI supporters harvested almost a hectare of a field, which was property of the community. Given the situation, the inhabitants of San Manuel are positing a permanent watch.

The challenges of the JBG related to questions of justice

The existence of parallel structures, the official structures on the one hand and the Zapatista ones on the other, acquires a greater complexity in terms of the administration of justice, because of the existing plurality in the “Zapatista” territories. This situation raises questions around the difficulty and legitimacy of “governing” those that haven’t elected you as an authority.

One of the first cases was rooted in the detention of Armín Morales Jiménez, on September 2nd in San Pedro Michoacán, by Zapatista militants “for appropriating a vehicle that wasn’t his” according to the Zapatista version. In response, members of the Independent Headquarters of Agricultural Workers and Campesinos-Historic (CIOAC-H) retained seven people, two of whom belonged to Zapatista communities. Forty-eight hours later, five of them were liberated. The ultimate two (Zapatistas) were held for nine days before they were freed. Despite their liberation, the tone of the situation continued to escalate until on October 12th, Armín Morales was liberated, supposedly because the state government paid the fine of $80,000 pesos ($8,000 dollars) to the owner of the vehicle Armín Morales Jiménez had illegally appropriated. The intervention on the part of the state government in the matter was quite controversial, in that it recognized the de facto legitimacy of the judgment passed by the Junta of Good Government.

In the beginning of October, the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Center for Human Rights (CDHFBC) suggested that “as long as the normative systems of the indigenous people are not recognized, it is assured that problems of this type will appear making the rights and just demands of these people vulnerable and further weakening the social fabric.”

Another case at the beginning of September called this to our attention. Three indigenous people, from the community Flores Magón, in the municipality of Teospisca, were detained for transporting wood and accused of ecocide, “premeditated damage to the ecology” according to the Penal Code. These people had authorization from the autonomous municipality of Miguel Hidalgo to exploit and transport the wood, which for the first time, was presented before the trial judge by the president of one of the autonomous Zapatista councils. The indigenous people were liberated in a few days.

The occurrence of these different cases begins to illuminate two types of scenarios in terms of the application of justice in plural territories: acceptance and construction of the legitimacy of the JBGs or conflict between the two parties and eventually with the “official” system of justice.

Montes Azules: tense calm

Although there haven’t been any recorded acts of violence in the Montes Azules biosphere in the last few months, contradictory discourses on the part of different government requests have contributed to a high level of tension. While the Secretary of Agrarian Reform stated that there would be no more violent dislocations in the zone, the Federal Prosecutor for the Protection of the Environment (PROFEPA), wouldn’t discount the possibility of applying the law with “a firm hand” and utilizing public forces against people located in these lands.

In October, the Rural Association of Collective Interest (ARIC-Independiente), which is negotiating with the government the recognition of various populations situated in Montes Azules, questioned what was expressed by PROFEPA: “Instead of contributing to a solution to the problems, they make it worse, because they want to say that in the government there are groups that are promoting dislocation by force, and this discredits the negotiations and signifies that the authorities don’t have the true political will to resolve the situation.”

On the other hand, Felipe Villagrán, the ex-employee of the World Bank who is representing the Lacondes of Lacanjá Chansayab and the inhabitants of Frontera Corozal and Nueva Palestina, met with Governer Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía and different state and federal civil servants. He requested that “they implement immediate patrols day and night by the Mexican Army and a detachment in Paraíso” (where a Zapatista community is located) as well as “the authorization to import low caliber arms to protect the crops of the community members.” (La Jornada, 10th of November)

Militarization and mobilizations against the militarization

Following the creation of the Juntas of Good Government (JBG) in the autonomous Zapatista municipalities, there was a reported increase in troop movements (patrols and military checkpoints) in different zones of the state, principally in the so-called conflict zone. On the other hand, in the last several months, we’ve seen a growing rejection of the military presence - a tendency that is not exclusive to Zapatista communities.

Even though in the majority of the cases the rejection is non-violent, one perceives the tension rising. In this manner, in the beginning of September, more than a thousand indigenous people of the Chenalhó municipality detained thirty-five members of the Mexican Army so that they would pay for the damage caused by their trucks on the Terrecería highway. They were released on the condition that the Mexican Army would provide material to fix said highway, at a cost of $15,000 pesos ($1,500 dollars).

On the other side, in October, indigenous EZLN sympathizers from the community of Yulumchuntic, in the municipality of Chalchihuitán (Altos), detained for several hours thirty members of the Mexican Army who were patrolling to fight the growth and harvest of drugs. There are several versions of the story. People say that the indigenous people took off the soldiers’ boots, disarmed them and forced them to walk across the basketball court. Nonetheless, the JBG “Central Zapatista Heart Opposite the World” said that they only stopped them outside of the school of Jolitontic. They told the soldiers that the Zapatistas reject the presence of the military in their localities, and peacefully made them leave, because the military had installed a camp in autonomous territory. The soldiers were freed after several hours, by promising the community that they would not pass through the zone, paying a fine ($20,000 pesos or $2,000 dollars) and through the direct intervention of the commander of the 31st military zone.

In October, during the Special Conference on Hemispheric Security, which took place in Mexico City, the members of the Organization of Americans States (OAS) committed themselves to cooperating against security threats. They left each state free, however, to identify its own security priorities and define strategies, plans and actions to face the challenges imposed by the new world situation. They stressed that peace is strengthened when its human dimensions are studied, and when respect for dignity, human rights, fundamental personal liberties, economic and social development and the fight against poverty, sickness and hunger are all promoted.

Under the auspices of continuing the Hemispheric Encounter Against Militarization which took place in May, the Meetings about the Impacts of Militarization “For demilitarization, we unite our struggles” took place from November 18th to the 23rd in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. It was another event in the framework of a week of struggle in which protests and marches across the continent took place in unison.

Shared Struggles

The solidarity towards the Zapatista movement was heard in October, in the Meeting of Indigenous Nations in Mexico. Some 200 representatives of indigenous organizations and communities from Oaxaca, Michoacán, Jalisco, Veracruz, Mexico State, Sonora, Mexico City, and Puebla, as well as representatives of non-indigenous social groups reiterated that the indigenous peoples of Mexico “recognize and elevate the San Andrés accords as our indigenous constitution and we demand the approval of the Cocopa law” and that it was “a treason by the legislators” that it wasn’t done. They also made a pronouncement in favor of the Juntas of Good Government announced by the EZLN in Oventik.

The EZLN demonstrated their willingness to be a part of an alternate world when, on October 26th , Subcommandante Marcos sent a recorded message to academics, intellectuals, and leaders who participated in the meeting “In Defense of Humanity,” which took place in Mexico City. The objective was to form a bloc in defense of the rights of the people, and against neoliberalism and globalization. He advised that the fight against the globalization of power is a question of human survival.

:: FEATURE

BRIDGES OF WORDS CONSTRUCTED BETWEEN CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE EZLN

“We will be compatriots and contemporaries of everyone who has a will to justice and a will to beauty, having been born where they were born, having lived where they have lived, without caring about maps or times.”
El Derecho al Delirio. Eduardo Galeano

The police during the WTO summit in Cancún, September 2003

January of 2004 completes ten years since the armed uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). A decade in which the communiqués, consultations, marches, forums and meetings have created a new ethico-political thinking that has had a profound influence, not just in Mexico, but also at an international level.

We should like to take advantage of this event to reflect on the process that has developed since ’94, and to look at the fruits that the dialogue between this socio-political movement and national and international civil society has given birth.

Neo-Zapatismo: New political ethic

The political discourse of the EZLN, accompanied by poetry, stories, irony and reality, surprised a national and international political scene in a culture of hopelessness and dejection.

In their communiqués the Zapatistas fuse distinct Mexican cultural roots with those of the world. They demand a society in which democracy, liberty, and justice prevail, founded in human dignity. These terms, considered by them to be “the first of all words and all of the languages,” are redefined in light of their own cosmic vision:

“justice is not to punish, it is to recover for each one what they deserve and each one deserves what the mirror returns: himself. That which gave death, misery, exploitation, elitism, arrogance, has as its just deserts a good amount of pain and suffering in its path. That which gave work, life, struggle, that which was a brother, has as its recognition a little light that always illuminates his face, chest and walk.

liberty is not that everyone does what they want, it is the ability to choose whatever path you’d like, to encounter the mirror, to walk the true word. But whichever path, do not lose the mirror. That you don’t come to betray yourself, or yours, or others.

democracy is that thinking which leads to a good agreement.. Not that everyone thinks the same(...). That the word of rule obeys the word of the majority, that the staff of command has the collective word and not only the will of one. That the space reflects all, walkers and path, and would be, as such, a motive for thinking inside oneself as well as thinking on the outside world.”

(La historia de las palabras. El Viejo Antonio)

The French sociologist Yvon Le Bot speaks of the “Zapatista dream”. The researcher Guillermo Michel, speaks of “Zapatista Utopia”, reclaiming the definition of Paulo Freire, for whom the utopia is “the act of denouncing the dehumanizing structure and announcing the humanizing structure. ” (MICHEL, 2001:122). They explain that the Zapatistas from the south of the south are converting themselves into a voice of denunciation and a mirror of the injustices that people were suffering in Chiapas and other parts of the planet. At the same time, they announced that what they want is “another possible world”: “In our dreams we have seen another world. A true world, a world that is definitively more just than the one in which we are now walking. We saw that in this world the army was not needed, that in it there was peace, justice and liberty so common that they weren’t spoken of as something far away, but rather in the way you speak of bread, birds, air, water, the way one says book and voice. (...) And in this world it was reason and the will of the most governed, and those that ruled were people of good thinking; they ruled by obeying, this true world was not a dream of the past, nor was it something that came from our ancestors. It was from ahead that it came, it was from the next phase that we’re giving. It was in this dream that we began to go towards achieving that this dream would sit at our table, illuminate our house, grow in our fields, fill the hearts of our children, clean our sweat, heal our history, and for everyone it would go.”

Democracy, understood as consensus and collective participation, is demanded and expressed in the principle “rule by obeying”: “It is the reason and will of the good men and women to seek and find the best way of governing and self governing, the one which is good for the most people, which for everyone is good. But that does not silence the voices of the few, rather that they continue in their place, waiting that the thought and heart are joined in what is the will of most people and the opinion of the few.” (Communiqué, 27th of February, 1994).

The novelty of the scope of the fundamental human rights lies in demanding the right of the participation of everyone, honoring the right to the differences which are already there, in ethnic character, sexual preference, social class, age, or gender. The Zapatistas defend a world in which many worlds fit. In the first communiqués they recognized the different struggles which are taking place in all of Mexico, and launched a proposal, “We want that the footprints of everyone who walks in the truth, that they unite in one footprint.” (Communiqué 27 from January 25, 1994).

Drawing paths in between dreams and words

Since the Zapatista uprising, national and international civil society converted itself into the main interlocutor of the EZLN. We should remember that the ceasefire declared by the Federal Government in 1994 was in a large part due to the multitudes of people that gathered to protest in Mexico and other cities of the world.

In Mexico, civil society sprung forth from the seismic catastrophes of 1985, and later in opposition to the electoral fraud of 1988. It represented a plural collective, different from the political parties and the government, desiring a true democratization of the Mexican nation in which it was playing the role of protagonist.

The epistolary relationship during the first year of the uprising is ample: “The EZLN is accustomed to releasing communiqués to establish its positions on different points. We do it this way so that the Mexican public, which is now called civil society, knows our thoughts directly from our heart.” (Communiqué, May 5th, 1994).

In these letters, the Zapatistas begin to trace the kind of solidarity that they want to establish with the non-governmental organizations (NGOs), labor unions, women, students, independent indigenous and campesino organizations, etc. We encounter this theme in the letter of response to the students of the UNAM offering this advice: “We don’t want you to come to push on us some political current. (…) You can come to teach us and to learn.” (Communiqué, February 12th, 1994).

The first dialogue between national civil society and the EZLN took place at the National Democratic Convention (1994). To hold this dialogue they constructed the first Zapatista Aguascalientes in La Realidad. It was conceived as a meeting site between national and international civil society and the Zapatistas. Later they formed four more Aguascalientes: La Garrucha, Oventik, Morelia, and Roberto Barrios.

In 1994 Amado Avendaño was named governor of civil society “in rebellion” and stayed in the position until the year 2000. In 1995, the EZLN held the National and International Consultation for Peace. More than a million people responded, demonstrating a preoccupation of public opinion with Chiapas, and pronouncing themselves in favor of the EZLN transforming itself into a peaceful and independent political force. And in fact, that was what modified the Zapatista political strategy.

In 1995, the San Andrés dialogues began between the Federal Government and the Zapatistas, where part of civil society participated as advisors to the EZLN, and also formed security cordons to safeguard the participants. The Zapatista proposals that brought about the San Andrés Accords (ASA) on Indigenous Rights and Culture reclaimed the consensus of the National Indigenous Forum. In this forum it was decided to form the National Indigenous Congress, which today continues to unite a large part of the indigenous communities in Mexico. The Forum on the Reform of the State (1996) pursued accords between the EZLN and national civil society with the goal of presenting them in the Second Round Table on Democracy and Justice.

In the Forth Declaration of the Lacondon Jungle, they called on civil society to form the Zapatista Front for National Liberation with the objective of continuing the political fight through the formation of an independent political force.

With the San Andrés Dialogue interrupted since the end of 1996, they undertook the March of 1,111 (Zapatistas) to attend the Second Assembly of the CNI in Mexico and to demand the fulfillment of the ASA. In preparation for the Consultation on the Recognition of the Indigenous Rights and Culture and for the End of the War (1999) they held the Meeting EZLN-civil society in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.

The arrival of a new president through elections in 2000 was conducive to what had been promoted as the last mobilization and meeting with national civil society outside of Zapatista territory: “The March of the Color of the Earth.” The Zapatista commanders and Subcommandante Marcos undertook this journey to visit different Mexican states in order to explain the reasons why they demanded that the government approve what is called the COCOPA law (a proposed constitutional reform for indigenous and cultural rights which recognizes the main agreements of the ASA) as a condition for the renewal of the dialogue.

Last August, the Autonomous Zapatista Municipalities invited all of international and national civil society to the death of the “Aguascalientes” and the birth of the “Caracoles”, with the intention of improving relationships with national and international civil society.

From the local to the global: a journey coming and going

The bridge laid out between civil society and the EZLN has a double lane where there circulates the proposals and responses in a journey of coming and going.

Over the Internet, links began to be created between the neo-Zapatista struggle and the collectives and individuals who were reading proposals from all over the world. The expressions of solidarity from outside Mexico followed the uprising, with demonstrations on the 14th of January in Madrid and Paris respectively.

Later, international civil society was called to participate in the First Meeting for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism (4th-8th, April 1996), which prepared the way for the later First Intercontinental Meeting for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism from the 26th of July to the 8th of August 1996 (also known as “Intergalactic”).

From these discussions was proposed among other things the creation of a network from the bottom up: local, state, national and international, and the construction of bodies or nodes of this network that function through consensus and rule by obeying. The economic standard was set for constructing an economic alternative, starting from the recovery of basic principles such as dignity, solidarity, self-rule, diversity and cooperation based on the needs of real humans. Also it was decided to link the struggles for democracy and the rights of citizens of the so-called first world with the struggles for autonomy by indigenous peoples.

Many proposals were adapted and continued through international civil society. In this way the First Continental Meeting for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism had a second session in Brazil, and the Second Intercontinental Meeting was celebrated in July of 1997 in Spain.

But beyond the isolated meetings and forums there began to form a permanent network of collectives in solidarity with the Zapatista struggle, through the so called Support Platform or Zapatista Solidarity, and by means of unions with autonomous Zapatista municipalities. Last year in Madrid they announced the construction of a permanent Auguascaliente similar to those already existing in Zapatista territories, to create a place of meeting and encounter between whoever wanted to construct another type of politics in that society.

The co-habitation of international observers during weeks and months in civil observation camps located in different autonomous municipalities has permitted the establishment of true intercultural exchange. It is no surprise, then, that in the statement “Chiapas the thirteenth stele” it was consistently recognized that all the building until the present moment hasn’t been the fruit only of the Zapatista supporters but also of national and international civil society.

The globalization of hope

For three years now, people have been holding the Social Forum at Porto Alegre as a space in which to construct an alternative economy, politics, society and culture that permits the inclusion of the millions of marginalized people who exist in the world for different reasons.

From Seattle, Washington, Davos, Melbourne, Quito, Belem do Para, Rome, Venice, Prague, Istanbul, Porto Alegre, Cancun, Quebec and Geneva, the Zapatistas announce... “...We are the same as you (...) Behind our black masks is the face of all the excluded women; of all the forgotten indigenous; of all the persecuted homosexuals; of all the disappeared youth; of all the beaten-down migrants; of all those dead from being forgotten; all the men and women, simple and ordinary, who do not count, who are not seen, who are not named, who do not have a tomorrow.” (Communicated by Comandante Mayor Ana Maria, 27th of July 1996).

There are those who consider the resistance of globalization on a world scale to have been inaugurated in the protest against the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999. However, the reporter Naomi Klein (author of “No Logo”) goes further back and points out that the beginning of anti-globalization struggle or “altermundialista” (a Spanish language term for anti-globalization activism suggesting that another world (alter mundo) is possible) can be seen on the first of January 1994, with the Zapatista uprising (La Jornada, 18th of May 2000). This view corresponds with that of Ignacio Ramonet, for whom the Zapatista rebellion constituted the first insurrection against globalization (RAMONET, 2001: 24). In this same sense Gonzalez Casanova affirmed at the second Social Forum at Port Alegre that the protests at Seattle would have been unthinkable without the armed uprising of 1994. The coincidence of the armed rebellion with the forceful entrance of the North American Free Trade Agreement reflected the nonconformity with a politics that forced out the participation and the interests of indigenous people, which would prejudicially influence the prices of the rural areas, and increase the impoverishment of the peasants unable to compete with the prices of North American farmers.

Subcomandante Marcos affirmed recently: “we do not think that [the anti-globalization movement] is a linear movement, with antecedents and consistencies, nor that it must be seen through a geographical situation or calendar, to say that it was first in Chiapas, then Seattle, and after Genoa and now Cancun” (Muñoz Ramirez, 2003: 287). He defined neo-Zapatismo as “the symptom of something more that is going on in South America, in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania (...) a symptom of the pockets that have been isolated and forgotten and are fighting to open up, to break and to try to meet one another, to finish with this world of the Stock Exchange (literally “pockets of value” in Spanish) the pockets of others, and the pockets of oblivion.” (“Some words about our thinking”)

What is certain is that the “altermundialista” movement has consolidated and developed progressively, moving from being an anti-establishment movement to also being intentionally constructive. It has as its principle features plurality and heterogeneity, defending politics constructed “from below,” combining transgression and direct confrontation with a will to participatory action. It represents the defense of the universalization of human rights, going beyond the sovereignty of nations, but also apart from the institutions created by those same representative bodies of the state.

For the necessary construction of a positive peace in Chiapas, SIPAZ is based on the conviction of the recognition of the value of all, and the recognition that the same one who is dividing also belongs to a united humanity. We represent a bridge which permits a trip from the local to the global, shedding light on the conflict in Chiapas for the outside world, but also from the global to the local, through our presence which represents myriads of organizations and people from other places on the planet who want to continue to be present in this territory, showing their concern for the permanence of a conflict which continues without resolve.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

La Jornada, Chiapas: el alzamiento, México, La Jornada, 1994
Ramonet Ignacio, Marcos, La dignidad rebelde, Valencia, Cybermonde, 2001
Le Bot, Yvon, El sueño zapatista, Barcelona, Anagrama, 1997
Subcomandante Marcos, Relatos del Viejo Antonio, México, Centro de Información y Análisis de Chiapas, 1998
Michel Guillermo, “Votán Zapata. Filísofo de la esperanza, México, Rizoma, 2001
Muñoz Ramírez, 20 y 10, El fuego y la palabra, México, La Jornada, 2003
EZLN, Documentos y Comunicados, Ediciones Era, 1997

:: SIPAZ ACTIVITIES

SEPTEMBER TO NOVEMBER 2003

Human Rights Observing

• In October the Puppet troop “Diversity”, in which SIPAZ is participating, performed in Tenejapa. In November, they embarked on two tours, one in Playas de Catazaja (Palenque) and another in Salto de Agua (the Northern zone). Also they presented plays in four neighborhoods in the city of San Cristobal.
• In October, SIPAZ had meetings in Mexico City with advisors and NGO’s.

Interreligious Dialogue

• We have had meetings and conducted interviews with religious actors from San Cristobal de las Casas and from the municipality of Chenalho in the framework of the Peacebuilding exchange project between religious leaders of Chenalhó and the Peace Commissions from Nicaragua.
• In the frame of the same project, we presented two educational workshops with religious actors from Chenalho.
• In September, we participated in the first workshop “Paths for living together in religious pluralism” in the Institute of Intercultural and Social Studies (INESIN), in San Cristobal de Las Casas.

Education for Peace

• We continued to participate in the Network for Peace, a space for action and reflection that looks to support processes of peace and reconciliation at the level of organizations and communities in Chiapas. At the moment, the fourth Meeting on Peace and Reconciliation is being prepared and is scheduled for the end of January 2004.
• We are participating in follow-up meetings for the Second Chiapanecan Meeting against Neoliberalism, held in Nuevo Huizan (Las Margaritas). A third meeting is being prepared for March of 2004.
• In October and November, six days of workshops were held at SIPAZ facilities on the theme of “Nourishing the Heart for Social Transformation.” They focused on aspects of spirituality and activism, as well as active non-violent communication.
• We continued to give workshops on the Culture of Peace and Human Rights with the children of CEDECOS (Center for Community Development) in San Cristobal de las Casas.

Contacts and Information

• We received visitors, delegations, students and reporters that came to Chiapas to learn more about the situation in Chiapas as well as about the work of SIPAZ.
• We participated in the workshop “An Introduction to Political Impact,” organized by PROPAZ-Suiza and the Center for the Activities and Development of the Population of Guatemala, and held in San Cristobal de las Casas from the 4th to the 6th of September. The objective was to strengthen the capacities of organizations to influence decision-making around specific problems.
• On the 4th and 5th of October, we presented a report on our work in Chiapas during the first meeting/workshop on Active Non-violence, convened by Serpaj Mexico, Greenpeace Mexico, Cencos, Serapaz, and the Gandhiano collective “Thinking Out Loud.”
• We attended conferences held during the event “The community in Debate: Reflections on the Role of Community in Contemporary Mexico” which was convened by the Program of Multidisciplinary Investigations on Mesoamerica and the Southeast (PROIMMSE), of the Institute of Investigations, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
• We presented a report on “Legal Pluralism and Indigenous People” at the “Thirteenth Las Casas Conference” at the Institute of Legal Investigations, of the UNAM University in Mexico City (November).
• We attended various events that were part of the EZLN campaign 10/20: The Fire and the Word, as many in Mexico City (DF) as in Chiapas.

International

• We were present as human rights observers at the conferences of protest and the alternative forums organized against the fifth ministerial summit of the World Trade Organization, from the 7th to the 14th of September in the city of Cancun.
• A SIPAZ volunteer participated in a meeting of the participants of CMC-Holland working in the region of Central America, held in Guatemala at the end of September.
• A volunteer of the team in Chiapas has made a six week tour of the United States (see attached article), speaking on the situation in Chiapas and the work of SIPAZ.
• As part of a continuation of the Hemispheric Meeting Against Militarization held in May, we participated in the conferences on demilitarization held from the 18th to the 24th of November in San Cristobal de las Casas.

A tour of the other side of the border...

Part of my work at SIPAZ consists of receiving visitors and delegations, many of which arrive from the United States. Also, volunteers from the U.S. come to live and work in Chiapas, exchanging experiences for a time and then returning to their own country. Mexicans who live in the United States also come and visit us. Finally, the majority of the organizations that form part of the coalition of SIPAZ as well as various members of our board of directors, currently or in the past, are U.S.citizens.

Responding to invitations from some of these contacts and friends, I worked together with them to plan my trip to the United States in October and the beginning of November. I visited eight states: Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, California, and Arizona. Through public presentations at meetings, schools, universities, factories, churches, and community radio, I presented the situation in Chiapas and the work of SIPAZ close to fifty times.

This visit not only permitted me to tell about our work and the situation in Chiapas. It also resulted in a rich and diverse interchange of experiences, dreams and ideas of how to continue working for a better word.

Border encounters, global problems

In my presentations on Chiapas, I mentioned the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, or TLCAN in Spanish) as one of the fuels of the explosive uprising of ‘94 in Chiapas. In El Paso, Texas, I visited a house for immigrants and a center for women laborers. A Mexican commented to me: “Before there were many textile factories. Many Mexicans made good wages in these factories. With NAFTA, the maquiladoras moved to the northern states of Mexico, leaving a lot of unemployment. They hired Mexicans at a much lower salary. Now they have moved to Central America and Asia, leaving a dependent economy and a damaged environment.”

At the house for immigrants, I met many Mexicans from the Northern States of Mexico, the undocumented who cross the border looking for a job and with dreams of success. They told me that after the attacks on the Word Trade Center on September 11th the United States has increased the control over the border and that the border patrols now carry military grade weapons. They spoke of how the border patrols have already killed people (one young person in front of the very same house in which we were speaking). There are many stories along the border to discourage the thousands and thousands of Mexicans who dream of or are actually going to the North (el Norte), looking for a better future.

In Nogales, Arizona, a wall marks the border between Mexico and the United States and it reminds me of other images and other times in my own country: Germany. Because of this wall, most of the undocumented cross the border far from the cities, in the deserts of Texas and Arizona. Walking up to 80 Km in the desert, many have died, almost all from a lack of water.

At the University of Austin, Texas, my visit coincided with that of the president of Mexico, Vicente Fox. Many of those present were Mexican immigrants. He spoke principally about his work lobbying the governments of border states in the U.S. and Mexico around Migratory Policy. He endorsed the immigrant workers (the dollars that they send to their families is the largest single source of income of Mexico). He received much applause. But there were also people in the reception hall holding up protest banners: “Murders of women in Juarez,” “San Andres Accords,” “ You promised to resolve the Chiapas problem in 15 minutes,” “EZLN.” The speech ended, but the discussion continued among those present, and it was apparent that there are many different opinions on these issues among the Mexican immigrants.

The economic interdependency of Mexico and its “big brother” in the North has left me to conclude that “walls” (both figurative and literal) are not a solution for the long term. This interdependence already is a fact, and the pressure of immigration continues to increase from the South (including farther away than Chiapas, the southern frontier of Mexico) because of the deteriorating economy that they experience in those regions.

Common struggles and responses of solidarity

In Tucson, Arizona, I met organized volunteers at “Human Borders” who take water to the desert to help save the lives of immigrants. Others go to Altar, a border town, with clothes and food. “Borderlinks” in Tucson organizes delegations that go to learn about the situation on the border, to interview the border patrols, immigration, and the Mexicans on both sides of the border. In El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico there are shelters, houses for women and for immigrants maintained by volunteers, with donations of funds and leftover food that never would be missed in this society of abundance. I witnessed many people who are very committed to others, to the homeless from the U.S. or to immigrants who have come looking for a way to survive.

Tucson is the cradle of the Sanctuary Movement, which has traditionally helped war refugees from Central America, offering them security and space in which to speak out. Also they have worked to “educate” the people of the United States, recognizing the great responsibility that their country has had in these wars. This approach entails a challenge: more than works of charity and help, it recognizes that as citizens of first world countries we are part of the problems and of the integral solutions that are required.

In Mexico, I also encountered themes of shared struggles, in particular against the mega economic projects (NAFTA, FTAA) and the powers that promote them (WTO, World Bank, etc.) In the US I met people who were planning to participate in the protests against the FTAA in Miami, in favor of immigrant rights, or who were writing letters and visiting their congressional representatives in the ongoing work of lobbying. They commented to me that it is not easy when the large companies with many more resources lobby for policies which go against the interests of these struggles in order to be able to continue with their businesses.

Many military officials from Mexico and other countries of the continent are trained in military schools in the United States. Each year large protests are organized against the “School of the Americas” and other military schools. Many activists have been incarcerated for participating in these types of activities. This year in November, different groups were working to demonstrate south-north solidarity. They were organizing for anti-military protests taking place all over the continent on the same date as the protest against the “School of the Americas” (Georgia, U.S.).

And me, what with all this?

On several occasions I was invited to speak in high schools and universities. Children and young people were highly interested in my story. Why did you decide to live this life? Why do you like it? You don’t have a husband, children, etc.? Others asked what they could they do as young people within and outside of their country. I am inviting some colleges and universities to organize delegations to learn more directly about the life of the indigenous peoples in Chiapas.

In the United States, at first glance everything is big: the roads, the cars, the people...Later, one notes the abundance, the use of resources without thought: water, gasoline, telephones and food. I imagine that it is dificult for someone to die of hunger in the United States; the poor can live off what others throw away. To have fun seems to be what is most important. Many people take care of their bodies, either in large gyms or going (in their cars!) to a place where they can run or walk. Many seem to work only to have more money and so they can spend it on entertainment.

An activist friend says: “A majority of ‘gringos’ live in a box, from which they watch their work, their money, their entertainment.To leave this box, to see the world involves an action. It is difficult to bring most people out of this box. If you do it too fast they get scared and go back...”

Also coming from a country in the first world, I am left reflecting on the work being done and all the work that remains in the North, recognizing that we are in the same boat called Planet Earth. What more can we do? It is a job shared by many people, the United States included.