textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp000731.txt

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     LOVE AND RAGE     VOL. 5, NO. 1     MARCH/APRIL 1994

        Electronic Edition * Produced March 10, 1994

          SPECIAL ISSUE ON FEMINISM AND REVOLUTION
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Special Section:

THE ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY
OF CHIAPAS, ME'XICO:

AN ANARCHIST ASSESSMENT OF THE EZLN

By Todd Prane and Elizabeth Bright

"To the Workers of the Republic: Greetings!

"Brothers and Sisters of the cities, come to meet
with your brothers and sisters of the countryside;
brothers and sisters of the workshop, come embrace
your brothers and sisters of the plow; brothers and
sisters of the mines, of the railroad, of the port,
save the rivers, mountains, seas, and mingle your
desire for freedom with our desire, your
anxiousness for justice with our own.

"Workers of Puebla, of Orizaba, of Monterrey, of
Guanajuato, of Cananea, of Parra, of Pachuca, of
Ebano, of Necaxa, workers and operators in the
factories and mines of the republic, heed our
fraternal call, help us with the valiant push of
our effort; it is already rusting, it is already
swaying this skeleton of tyranny...

"The realization of the truth was cruel and did not
wait. Instead of the help promised to our unions
came the imposition of government tyranny; they
tried to make the worker into the docile creature
of the government, to prepare for the coming farce
of the elections...

"...And as if this were not enough, those who
protested went to prison! As if this were not
enough, to those who resisted, the scaffold! Do you
want more? Do you want a greater injustice?

"No; you cannot be with your enemies. Your demands
are like ours. You demand an increase in wages, a
reduction of working hours; that is to say, greater
economic freedom, greater right to enjoy life; it
is exactly that that we demand as we proclaim our
rights to land. It is only that, less tyrannized
than us, you believed that you would find, in
peaceful unions, the infallible formula to solve
your problems; we, however, could think of nothing
but of arms, of open rebellion against those who
violate our rights; because the oppressed are not
even the owner of their laments, when the same,
just protest is drowned, even as it forms in their
throats; therefore, there is no dignified path left
for this oppressed, no redemptory gesture other
than to take up arms, proclaiming victory or death;
death first, before remaining any longer a slave...

"May the callused hands of the fields and the
callused hands of the workshop reach out in
fraternal greeting and accord; because in truth,
the workers united are invincible, we are the
strength and we are the right, we are the tomorrow!

"Greetings, brother and sister workers, greetings!
Your friends, the peasants, await you!"

--Emiliano Zapata, Tlaltizapan, Morelos, 15 March,
1918

"Here we are, the dead. We die again, but this time
to truly live."

Since Jan 1 of this year, our Zapatista troops
began a series of politico-military actions with
the principal objective of letting the Mexican
people and the world know the miserable conditions
that millions of Mexican, especially we the
Indigenous people, live and die in. With these
actions, we also let people know our decision to
fight for our elementary rights in the only way
that the government authorities have left us: armed
struggle.

The grave conditions of poverty of our compatriots
has a common cause: the lack of freedom and
democracy. We believe that an authentic respect for
freedom and the democratic will of the people are
the indispensable prerequisites for the improvement
of the economic and social conditions of the
dispossessed of our country. For this reason, just
as we demand the improvement of the living
conditions of the Mexican people, we demand freedom
and political democracy...

--General Command of the Indigenous Revolutionary
Clandestine Committee of the Eje'rcito Zapatista de
Liberacio'n Nacional (EZLN), from the mountains of
Southeastern Me'xico. January, 6, 1994

The 75 year-old call for solidarity and assistance
issued by Zapata to the urban and industrial
workers of Me'xico could have been written last
month. The EZLN's declaration was. The EZLN has
declared a war for land, food, and freedom to
control their own lives in southern Me'xico and
anti-authoritarians in North America finally have
an armed liberation organization that they can (and
should) support with few qualms. In the first three
weeks of armed struggle the Zapatista National
Liberation Army (Eje'rcito Zapatista de Liberacio'n
Nacional) accomplished more, militarily and
politically, than any of the guerrillas of Central
America have in the past 12 years. They claim a
tradition of radical Indigenous self-determination,
Zapatismo, and in doing so set themselves
politically and strategically apart from almost
every other clandestine armed group in Latin
America. They are not vanguard Marxist guerrillas
in search of a social base to lead into the
revolution. They are not even trying to conquer the
rest of the country (although they clearly wouldn't
mind if some other Mexicans caught on to their
ideas). They are trying to reclaim their land,
their culture, their families, their villages and
towns, their lives.

The Beginning

The real beginnings of the current rebellion can be
found in 1492 and 1910, of course. Spain's conquest
of what is now Latin America gave rise to the
conditions under which most Native peoples in this
hemisphere still struggle, and die. Emiliano Zapata
offered a radical solution to those conditions:
that Indigenous campesinos take back their land by
any means necessary. Zapata's army of Indigenous
peasants played a pivotal role in the Mexican
Revolution. Although recent events have been
reported several times over by various capitalist
and progressive news agencies, a short summary is
useful.

The facts, in brief, are the following: several
thousand combatants liberated several towns and
cities (among them, San Cristo'bal de las Casas,
Ocosingo, Las Margaritas and Altamirano) in the
name of the EZLN. They were armed, but sometimes
with little more than ancient rifles or machetes.
They wore bandannas over their faces and flew a
black flag with a red star on it. After securing
the city of San Cristo'bal de las Casas, with a
population of 100,000, the EZLN fighters attacked
the jail, freeing 129 prisoners. The soldiers
opened prisons in several other towns as well, and
redistributed stockpiled food among the people. In
Ocosingo, much of the EZLN hid away for three days
prior to the attack-- around two thousand soldiers
hid among the people in a small town and were "not
noticed." Proceso, a Me'xico City news weekly,
offered the following explanation: "... in a 'war
region' like this, for every one of the
revolutionaries there exists a base of support
among the communities, and for this reason it is
difficult to find those involved." In several other
towns and cities, not only were Mexican police
officers disarmed by the EZLN, but disrobed as
well, and left in their own jails.

What is most distinctive about the EZLN is their
political sophistication, both in their development
of an extensive base in the population of Chiapas
and in the timing and justification of their recent
armed actions. The insurgents have justified their
entire revolt under the Mexican constitution and
have demanded to be officially recognized under
international law as a belligerent force in order
to bring the conflict under international war
conventions. As further criteria for dialogue with
the government negotiator, the EZLN demanded an end
to aerial bombings of Indigenous communities;
respect for the human rights of the local
population; the withdrawal of government troops to
their barracks; and the declaration of a cease-
fire.

Article 39 of the Mexican constitution, which
legally justifies the entire rebellion, was
ratified under pressure from Zapatista and other
liberatory forces in 1917, at the end of the
Mexican Revolution. The Zapatistas, distrusting the
pro-government forces in the center of the country,
demanded that land be guaranteed in perpetuity for
the Indigenous population, that the land be held
communally in ejidos (land trusts) which could not
be bought or sold (provided for by articles 4 and
27, which were respectively deleted and gutted when
the constitution was revised two years ago). They
also demanded the right to rebel. Article 39 reads
as follows:

"National sovereignty essentially and originally
resides in the people. All political power emanates
from the people and its purpose is to help the
people. The people have, at all times, the
inalienable right to alter or modify their form of
government."

It was this right that the EZLN claimed as they
began their struggle. If that were not enough
legitimacy for one armed revolutionary movement,
they went still further: "We also ask that
international organizations and the International
Red Cross watch over and regulate our battles, so
that our efforts are carried out while still
protecting our civilian population. We declare now
and always that we are subject to the Geneva
Accord, forming the EZLN as the fighting arm of our
liberation struggle." The EZLN has tried to put
itself in a curious place: a legitimate (in fact,
legal), Indigenous people's liberation army.

Almost from the start the Mexican government has
tried to claim that the situation in Chiapas was
caused by some sort of outside agitator. The first
tack was to claim that the EZLN were trained, led,
supported or supplied by Guatemalan guerrillas.
This theory is doubtful for at least three reasons:
the politics of the EZLN are incompatible with
those of the Guatemalan guerrillas, the military
tactics are quite different (the Zapatistas have
been much more successful), and there is absolutely
no evidence of significant amounts of Guatemalans
in the EZLN or coordination with other groups in
Guatemala. Reports that they have encircled towns
to try to force new "conscripts" to the EZLN are
obviously of government creation.

Another "outside agitator" was found in the person
of Bishop Samuel Ruiz. Ruiz, a longtime supporter
of peasant economic rights, was charged with
leading the rebellion with some brand of liberation
theology and the government of Carlos Salinas de
Gortari went as far as to ask the Pope to remove
him. He has since been cleared of all such charges
and is actively participating in the negotiation
process. In sum: there are no outside agitators.

Who are the EZLN and What are Their Politics?

The EZLN is an Indigenous, peasant army. During one
interview, Subcomandante Marcos [Press Secretary
and most  public face of the EZLN--see essays and
interviews page 15] stated that it was organized by
Indigenous ethnicities, each with its own Sub-
Commander, with the Clandestine Indigenous
Revolutionary Committee setting the strategic and
political direction based upon broad "accords"
existing between the different Indigenous groups.

The EZLN is a liberation army that seeks not to
establish a political regime of one kind or
another, but rather to free the people to make
those decisions themselves. Their stated goal is to
establish liberated zones in which the people can
be freed from the one-party dictatorship of the PRI
(the Party of the Institutional Revolution,
Me'xico's ruling party for over 50 years) and can
decide their own direction. This struggle for
political freedom is central to the strategy of the
EZLN, more central even than land. The point was
made in the opening quotes from the declaration on
Jan 6: For them the lack of food, of health care,
of water, of land itself, are all caused by the
lack of political autonomy and freedom. It is this
freedom that comes first.

The Legacy of Emiliano

When they call themselves "Zapatistas" they make a
strong claim and locate themselves in a particular
place in Mexican political history. Zapata
championed and fought for Indigenous ownership of
land (which at that time, as now, meant removing
the mestizo capitalist owners), and autonomous
local political control. Anarchists have long drawn
the connection between Zapatismo and anarchism (see
page 20) and it should not be difficult for others
to draw the connections, especially knowing the
history. Subcomandante Marcos, specifically stated
in an interview with the Italian Communist Party
newspaper, Unita, that they are "not communist or
Marxist-Leninist." Their strategy does not involve
an attempt to seize state power. They are calling
for democracy and even democratic elections, but
the ambiguities of this are difficult to sort out.
They could be calling for a restructuring of the
political landscape of the country--they have
stated that they want a "true" democracy that
includes Indigenous political participation. It is
difficult to think what this could be if not more
localized control over resources such as land, food
and water, and decentralized political control.
However, the EZLN has not stated that they are
anti-state or even radically decentralist. This can
only be determined by inference from other
statements and from the history of Zapatismo.

There are several ideological and strategic
problems in the communiques, especially in some of
the"Revolutionary Laws." [see page 16] These laws,
presumably, embody the vision that the Zapatistas
have of a society undergoing revolutionary
transformation and provide the richest ground for
information about their politics. The revolutionary
law on women may seem outdated and anachronistic to
North American readers, but it is a powerful
statement of opposition to patriarchy in a set of
societies in which women are routinely forced into
marriage, where men are entitled to wear shoes in
public but women go barefoot. The Revolutionary
Agrarian Law also does not pose serious challenges
to anti-authoritarian politics. On the other hand,
The Law of the Rights and Obligations of a People
in Struggle, as well as the Law of War Taxes, are
both extremely problematic for an anti-
authoritarian reading of the EZLN's politics. Both
of these laws sanction (in fact require explicitly)
the election of "civil authorities" who have both
increased rights and increased obligations over
those of other citizens. They are empowered to levy
taxes and to imprison or punish violators of the
community's standards. While the Rights and
Obligations specifically excludes the revolutionary
military from participation in civil rule, it does
give them emergency powers that could easily be
abused. The overriding electoral strategy, which
appears in several of the laws and is mentioned in
a number of the communiques, is worrisome, but only
to the degree that it shifts power away from people
at the base of the society (campesinos, in this
case). It is unclear to what degree the EZLN is
interested in national, or even regional, elections
and posts, but this is obviously important.

Indigenous or Nationalist

There is a contradiction of some sort between the
Indigenous and the nationalist character of the
EZLN. They emphasize repeatedly that they are an
Indigenous movement acting from a base of
Indigenous anger and Indigenous demands. They also
call themselves a "national liberation army" and
evoke Zapata's name. If both of those two concepts
have meaning for the Zapatistas, there are
questions about what the main bases for the EZLN
are: ethnic, class, or national. Clearly it is some
combination of these but where the priorities fall
is an important question. Some of the most
nationalist EZLN rhetoric is clearly geared at
getting and keeping widespread Mexican public
support (that they always respect the Mexican
national flag, for example), and can be taken as
evidence of their political shrewdness and realism.
(Given the rally of over 130,000 people in the
Zo'calo in Me'xico City in mid-January, they have
had quite a bit of success.) This is precisely what
is most problematic about their apparent
nationalism: its repetition of prejudices within
broader Mexican soceity (the widespread xenophobia,
for example). They cannot maintain that they are
Indigenous, including Indigenous ethnicities that
cross the Guatemalan border, and claim that they
are a uniquely and characteristically Mexican
formation.

NAFTA/TLC

Much has been said about the question of timing of
the rebellion with respect to the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA--TLC in its Spanish
initialogram). NAFTA formally went into effect at
midnight, Jan 1, 1994 and it was this point that
the Chiapanecos chose for the onset of their
revolution. That NAFTA had something to do with it
is clear, but what, exactly, remains uncertain.

Some, such as Marc Cooper of the Village Voice,
have attributed to the EZLN strategists a
sophistication almost beyond belief: they chose
just after, rather than before, NAFTA to ensure the
longevity of their struggle--with big, trading
brother watching, the Mexican Army could not be
quite so free to suppress the peasants. The EZLN,
through spokesperson Marcos, offer a much simpler
analysis: "NAFTA... for the Indians is a death
sentence. Once it goes into effect, it means an
international massacre." Marcos was referring to
the economic impact of NAFTA on the peasants in
rural southern Me'xico. Campesinos currently live
at a barely subsistence level by working small
plots of land and selling their labor to fincas,
farms owned by the land-owning bourgeoisie. What
NAFTA brings to Me'xico are cheap beans and grain
grown by the enormous agribusiness firms of the
midwestern US. They will consistently be able to
outprice the small-plot farmers of Chiapas, whose
lives are now at risk. Without the food and income
from the small plots of land they work, they will
not be able to survive. In fact, NAFTA is merely
one economic factor, although an important one, in
the stew of trouble that has brewed in Chiapas,
Morelos, Guerrero and other southern states in
Me'xico for decades.

Armed and Unarmed Uprisings Elsewhere

As Subcomandante Marcos said, the winds of change
are blowing from the South of Me'xico [see essay
page 15]. Shortly after the second week of January
there were scattered (and almost unreported)
incidents of armed uprisings in isolated areas of
the state of Guerrero. More recently a columnist
reported in El Financiero that November, 1993 saw a
meeting of 52 armed groups in Me'xico under the
auspices of the "Guerrilla General Coordinate." At
that time, according to the columnist, 51 of the
groups agreed to hold off on widespread actions
until just before the August elections. Only the
EZLN differed. Some believe that 51 other armed
groups may be seeing the wisdom of the EZLN's ways,
and may begin their activities much sooner than
expected, all of which could make for a very
interesting summer. Finally, in the second week of
February, peasants in towns across several states
in Southern Me'xico stormed their City Halls
demanding the expulsion of their PRI Mayors.
Several of the campesino groups that originally
expressed concerns and lack of support for the EZLN
have come full circle and have even admitted that
they are inspired by their activities. The
possibility that large numbers of campesinos across
the South of the Mexican state will rise up in the
near future is very real.

US Military involvement

We have learned that, according to a Sergeant in US
Army intelligence, on March 18 a small group of
military intelligence operatives of the US army
will arrive in Guatemala to scout out the border
with Chiapas and locate a spot appropriate for a
battalion-sized encampment.  The camp should be
established some time this summer.  This is solid
information that the US considers the situation in
Chipaps serious and of potentially long duration.

The Rest of Me'xico

The national elections in Me'xico are less than six
months away and how Chiapas is or is not resolved
will have everything to do with who wins. The PRI
are widely, and accurately, believed to have
engaged in vote fraud for decades, and after the
last elections in 1988, several towns rose up
against the fraudulent vote counts. Chiapas voted
overwhelmingly (over 90%) for the PRI in the last
election, according to the official counts. Many
are joking that they cannot understand what the
Mexican Government is afraid of: with such a high
level of support in the region, the EZLN must, in
fact, be members of the PRI!

The choice of Manuel Camacho Soli's as negotiator
represents a significant shake-up in the succession
strategy of the PRI. Camacho Soli's was iced out of
the presidentital maneuvering late last fall (see
L&R, vol 4, no. 5). However, Colosio, Salinas's
chosen successor, was not selected as the primary
negotiator in this rebellion, in large part because
he has no support. There were widespread doubts
about him in the past, but Chiapas has, for all
purposes, opened up the power succession struggle
within the PRI. Whatever faction within the PRI
comes out on top of the management of the rebellion
will be positioned to decide who is the next PRI
candidate for president. However, this rebellion
may be the death knell of the PRI: unable to carry
off the massive voter fraud that has propelled them
into victory in the past and suffering from this
recent humiliating uprising (whose economic causes
can only be their fault), they seem unlikely to
continue in power at this point. The changing of
ruling parties in Me'xico would be such a major
shift that no one is really positioned to predict
what it could mean. For the campesinos, in the end,
it is likely to mean more of the same exploitation
and oppression.

Solidarity Organizations

In the US, actions in solidarity with the
Zapatistas began only days into January, with most
of the demonstrations carried out by ad-hoc
coalitions or groupings. Several small
organizations geared towards longer-term solidarity
have already sprung up, including in Santa Cruz
where a collection of anarchists have begun holding
weekly meetings of the Committee to Support the
Mexican Revolution; and in New York City, where the
Zapatista Solidarity Committee was recently formed.

It is difficult to say whether longer-term
solidarity groupings will come out of the
coalitions formed to conduct demonstrations in
early January. One of the largest coalitions was
formed in San Francisco with the participation of
31 separate groups, and there is clearly a basis
for long-term activity around this issue there,
although its form remains to be seen.

What the Future May Bring

Several factors indicate that the EZLN will affect
Mexican politics for some time to come. Since they
have such a strong base in the population of
Chiapas, time is to their advantage. Increased
repression by the Mexican army will only reinforce
resentment on the part of the Chiapanecos and push
them towards the Zapatistas. There is already
evidence of that sort of sympathy spreading in the
actions of campesinos taking over their town halls.
In addition, there is the possibility of other
armed actions breaking out. There have been two
armed incidents in the state of Guerrero since Jan 1
(both largely unreported). It remains to be seen
whether and to what extent any of the other armed
groups will surface before August, but it seems
certain that at least a few will try to disrupt the
elections.

Anti-authoritarians should support the Zapatistas
(and should draw inspiration from their bold
actions) but we should not do so uncritically.
There are tensions and problems within the politics
of the EZLN as we currently understand them, and
others are certain to surface.

As we continue to struggle to find issues of broad-
ranging concern with the power to ignite people to
political action, we need to use the opportunity
presented to us by the revolutionaries in Me'xico.
The likelihood of the rebellion in Chiapas having
begun a long term class war in Me'xico, combined
with NAFTA, explain the US intervention. Our
failure to recognize the importance of the fight in
southern Me'xico would mean losing out on an
opportunity to finally demonstrate that revolutions
do not need to assume control of the state
apparatus to be successful; that revolutions can be
based on an idea as simple, and as profound, as
poor peasants taking control of the land, and their
lives.

[Communique packets available. Send $1 and 3 stamps to
L&R]

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