The following excerpted interview — the full text of which can be found on
the Chronicle’s web site, / — was originally
broadcast on the radio in Chiapas, Mexico. KOOP Radio 91.7 FM will rebroadcast
this interview in Spanish on Sunday, July 21 at 4pm, and in English on Tuesday,
July 23 at 5pm.
Eduardo Vera: In January 1994, the armed uprising of the indigenous people
of the Chiapas seems to have been used to create a political space and a voice
for those who suffer here, and for all poor people in all of Mexico. Has this
political space been crushed — have these political avenues ended?
Subcommander Marcos: What happened January 1 of 1994 is the culmination
of a conspiratory process — secret — which involved tens of thousands of
indigenous people, to, as we say, knock down the doors in the house of history.
It was above all the culmination of a slow but decisive “Enough!” which had
been in gestation, and led to a howl to the world on January 1, saying “Here we
are,” which is the voice of the Zapatista indigenous people. A desperate
situation in communities with a high mortality rate, especially among children,
with bad health conditions and nutrition, land problems, repression [is] the
ideal framework for an ethnocide of huge proportions. Facing that situation,
the indigenous communities decided to say “Enough!” and make themselves known,
and make their situation known.
[This] coincided with a period of political crisis in Mexico, or rather it
unleashed it, or made it evident, and also with a crisis at the world level in
respect to ideologies, in respect to hope, and the ways to fight, or the
willingness that allowed this howl of the indigenous people, “Enough!,” to
acquire reverberations or repercussions that had not been foreseen by us, that
we hadn’t even imagined, as if before in an apparently tranquil sea, or a pond,
we threw in a rock, and the ripples it produced upon touching the water’s
surface became waves, huge waves… [The] Mexican people suddenly remembered
that they have a history, and that within that history, the indigenous people
are very important. So in that sense, the first reaction of national public
opinion was one of turning to see their indigenous past, recognizing that it
had been forgotten and that it was being sacrificed in honor of [Mexico’s]
hypothetical entry into the first world. At the international level, the first
reaction was comparable, for the same reason. What happened in that country
which had become a model of Neoliberalism, of the globalization process, of
modernization, was suddenly shaken by an indigenous rebellion, with all its
consequences. A lot of people expected to see the indigenous people carrying
bows and arrows, not surfing the Internet or communicating via satellite [as we
do]. The political space that had been opened for the indigenous movement in
particular is sort of an accordion — sometimes it expands, sometimes it
closes, depending on repressive policies that it faces in each of the places it
appears.
A second wave, perhaps less intense, that put the political language in crisis
was the whole concept of national values, which the party in power had been
using, the system of the party of the state, and which forced professional
politicians to revise the use of words. Politics is suddenly naked and
confronted in the place where it is the most vulnerable, which is in the
meaning given to words.
A third wave that the reverberation produced, an even less intense one, is
that which forced the nation to recognize that the spaces for democratic
struggle were not wide enough, so much so that it has been necessary for a
group of citizens to rise up in arms in order to be heard, and that it is
necessary to open the spaces of political participation, even though it is
still understood that political participation is electoral participation. That
caused the last reform of 1994, in February or March of that year as well as
the talks which we have now to reform the electoral process in Mexico, one
which supposedly will guarantee clean elections.
EV: Is it true that the EZLN [Zapatista Army of National Liberation] is
organized based on traditional indigenous community democracy, and what does
this mean?
SM: Well, yes, in fact. There are two levels, and let me remind you that
EZLN was born as a political-military organization, similar to the
political-military organizations of the Sixties and Seventies. For its
political and organizational work, the EZLN follows the tradition of community
democracy — a direct, horizontal democracy, which permeates all aspects of
everyday life. The military side follows the organizational ways of a regular
army, with chains of command, with military units, uniforms, with all that.
What I am trying to say is that the fundamental base, the one who makes the
decisions, is that of community democracy, and it is the one who subordinates
and who gives its raison de etre to the military structure, the EZLN
properly speaking.
EV: What is the current situation of the EZLN?
SM: Well, right now we find ourselves in a dialogue with the [federal]
government, which deals with three aspects: One is to demand and obtain a new
pact between the nation and the native inhabitants of these lands. I am talking
about a solution to the indigenous question at a national level. I am talking
about their political, social, cultural conditions, their way of life, all of
which have to be solved. A second level is that of the opening of democratic
political spaces so it becomes possible to fight through civil and peaceful
means, so it is not necessary to take up arms. I am saying that the State must
guarantee, for the EZLN, and for any citizen, that it will respect peaceful
civil struggles in politics. And the third track, or aspect we are looking at,
is the destruction of the State Party System, meaning the end of the party
dictatorship we have in Mexico, and the transition to a political model where
political forces can compete in equal circumstances but, above all, where power
is at the service of society, where power limits itself only to govern and not
to direct society. That is what we mean by “to rule by obeying.”
EV: Could you please explain the significance of the Zapatista National
Liberation Front, which you just alluded to, and its proposal for a peaceful
transition toward democracy in Mexico?
SM: The proposal of the Zapatista National Liberation Front (FZLN) was
born as a meeting “place,” or as a way to try to build a meeting place where
the Zapatista civilian society could walk towards a meeting with the EZLN,
while the EZLN walked towards meeting with the civilian society. We had had
several other attempts, that of the Democratic National Convention in 1994,
where we told the civilian society to take command, to direct the transition
toward democracy. That was not successful. Before that, in January 1994, the
EZLN attempt to spearhead the transition toward democracy failed. So now we say
that the EZLN cannot do it by itself, and the civilian society who sympathizes
with Zapatismo also cannot do it on its own either. So it becomes necessary to
try to see if together we can accomplish it. The [FZLN] is, above all, the
effort to create a meeting space among these two forces.
EV: In what ways is the government of the United States and the interest of
business, of capital, in the United States affecting Mexico, affecting the
struggle of the EZLN?
SM: The most evident is the military meddling in the Mexican
government’s position towards the EZLN. The United States government has not
been satisfied with sending weapons, equipment, ammunition for the Federal Army
to chase, harass, or attack indigenous communities, it has also sent advisors
who can be seen in the San Quintin community in the Lacandon jungle or in the
Guadalupe Tepeyac community, now occupied by the Federal Army, and also in what
used to be the Las Margaritas municipality. In addition to that, the United
States government has forced an ever greater dependence of the Mexican Federal
Army regarding its initiatives, regarding its strategy and even tactics. Now
they speak without any shame of joint maneuvers. This coincides with the
globalization process, and with the intention of the United States to
homogenize this globalization process, the intention to make the National
Armies disappear and make them policemen and that there is only one armed
force, based in the United States armies, in the American hemisphere above all,
and specifically in the countries who make up the North American Free Trade
Agreement — Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Besides… the domination
of the United States financiers, of the United States capital in Mexico is
clear, the pressure they exercise so that Mexico gets rid of and cheaply sells
natural resources such as oil, electricity, railroads.
EV: To what extent has the United States military been directly involved,
militarily, in trying to destroy the movement toward democracy in Mexico?
SM: Well, there are antecedents to that. What we know, what we have
endured as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, is the participation of
military advisors who have been seen even in the armed columns which maneuver
through the communities — U.S. advisors wearing the U.S. uniform, outright
directing military units in the operations they carry out… You know well that
U.S. espionage has the trait of spying on itself. There is a rivalry between
the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, the embassy. But even so, they are more
united in Mexico… They face a country which is next door to the country which
considers itself the owner of the world… I don’t think they are very
interested with the democratization movement. They consider it to be divided,
defeated, ugh, too small, and with too many defects to consider it an enemy
worthy of combat… It is evident that their greatest efforts are directed to
knowing very well what is happening within the Institutional Revolutionary
Party and within the National Action Party and the whole political class who
decides, or supposedly decided the destiny of this country.
EV: What is your opinion of Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, and the coming election
in the United States? How could it affect the EZLN?
SM: There is not a well-defined policy in the United States — not even
in the right wing in the United States — particularly during the pre-electoral
process in the United States. One of the most sensitive issues, of course, is
Mexico. Other foreign policy issues would be Cuba and the European Economic
Community. These are handled by politicians based on what market of votes they
are interested in capturing. So it is very hard to determine if that is going
to be the position of the government elected or if they simply manipulated
electoral positions in order to get ahead. According to our analysis, it seems
that the people of the United States are facing a decision between the right or
the right, whether it is with one party or the other.
Whatever the victorious government is, whether Democrat or Republican, in the
coming Presidential elections in the United States, the decision about support
to the EZLN will have to do with calculating the economic interests that the
United States has, mainly its interest in oil. The greatest part of the area
where people who sympathize with the EZLN live, or which — like the government
says — is under control of the EZLN, is rich in oil deposits. Evidently, the
power in the U.S. will be interested in how to extract it without any
hindrances.
We know that the great business powers in the United States are willing to
sacrifice not only the EZLN, but all the indigenous communities, and erase them
from the face of the Lacandon jungle in order to extract the oil without any
hindrances. But they will have to, of course, face many forces. One of them,
and a very important one, is that of the democratic movement in the U.S., in
which I would include not only Chicano organizations and Latinos but also the
black community, intellectuals, members of the left, progressive groups, all
those movements who see a very large social cost to this globalization process,
and who are not willing to continue living, or continue building their
well-being based on crime, based on the suffering of millions of people in
other parts of the world.
EV: What can the people of the United States do instead to support the
Zapatistas’ struggle?
SM: We ask them to keep informed of what is happening because we already
know that mass media does not distribute a lot of news. There are networks in
the U.S. — mainly Latino organizations, but not only Latino organizations —
which have continuous information about what is happening in the indigenous
movement in Mexico, and specifically with the EZLN and Chiapas. And we ask them
this because information — information which is true and timely — is that
which power fears the most. [Power] is not worried about killing people, [but
rather about the knowledge] that they are killing people. For those who can go
beyond this, who could become organized, maybe they could gather food, medicine
or clothing, or money, which is directed not to the combative force of the EZLN
— because we are not fighting for us — but which is directed to the
indigenous communities, to men, women, and children. During the months of June,
July, and August, there is a lot of death and a lot of scarcity on the
indigenous tables. And lastly, to invite them to get organized and come to the
Intercontinental Encuentro… to try to discover how this common enemy, that
now has the name of Neoliberalism, but could have had other names in a
different historic time — or could change its name but not its way of killing
— affects us.
We would ask [the young people in the U.S.] not to let themselves be deceived,
to always keep that freshness and the capacity to wonder in order to recognize
that the world deserves another chance. Not just because of them, but also for
children and other generations who deserve a chance, a chance which is not
going to come from the ones in power. That chance can only be given to them by
us, by our fighting in our own place, in our own medium. And I am not talking
about running to the mountains and taking a rifle, or going to Chiapas. I am
talking about each one, with their own weapon. Sometimes it is words, sometimes
it is a pen, sometimes it is the hands, a machine. In their own place, in their
country, in their own medium, they can fight for giving this world the chance
to become a better one… Regardless of what has happened and everything that
has happened, we deserve another world. We don’t have to settle for, nor endure
or suffer from the world which Power has passed on to us. That is my message.
Eduardo Vera is a writer and photographer who has spent several years in
the Chiapas of Mexico reporting on the Zapatistas and their struggle. Thanks to
Felipe Perez for translating this interview.
Copyright � 1996 Austin Chronicle Corp. All rights reserved.
This article appears in July 12 • 1996 and July 12 • 1996 (Cover).