I
was in the middle of organizing the Nahualli Festival in Austin, when I suddenly received an
invitation to travel to Chiapas where I was to conduct a radio interview with
the Sup, as people have affectionately nicknamed the Insurgent
Subcommander Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. My departure
date came at the end of the exhilarating cultural festival of Mexican, Puerto
Rican, Tejano, and African-American music, spoken word, and performance in
Austin’s Palm Park. It seemed an appropriate and kind farewell for my journey
back to the Chiapas when Mexican troubadour composer Guillermo Velazquez — who
had brought much of the Mexican immigrant community from the states of
Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi, and Queretaro together in this park — momentarily
stopped the crowd dancing a vigorousZapateado under a glaring Texan
summer sun, to wish me well on “the important mission [I am] flying away to.”
I land in Tuxtla, Chiapas, and drive deep into the interior of the Lacandon
Jungle. Along the way, I pass the deserted town of Guadalupe Tepeyac. Its
original inhabitants have not returned since the Mexican Federal Army invaded
the indigenous villages in February, 1995, forcing thousands of people up into
the mountains. The jungle has reclaimed the empty houses, taken over by the
uncontrolled vegetation around them. The only sign of human life is the
presence of Federal Army soldiers and the prostitutes they bring with them. The
town is dominated by an impressive modern hospital complex, built by President
Salinas under the Solidaridad program, purportedly to serve the
community and counter the effects of his neoliberal policies. Today, this
building is swarming with federal soldiers.
Next, I pass by the original Aguascalientes, where I interviewed Capitan
Maribel of the Zapatista Army in 1994 (The Austin Chronicle, Nov. 4,
1994, Vol.14, No.10), and where 6,000 of us, in August of the same year,
survived the storm in that grand “ship” — an enormous, colorful tent, which
Marcos dubbed a hybrid of Noah’s Ark and Fitzcaraldo‘s boat. It was
conceived by the Zapatista rebels as a vessel in which they, in partnership
with civil society, would embark upon the creation of a new world, where
rebellious forces and organized civilian peoples would together bring an
alternative to the federal government’s New World Order, one in which
governments obey and follow the people’s demands, not the other way around.
Unfortunately, like Guadalupe Tepeyac, Aguascalientes is now also a military
barracks occupied by the Federal Army.
As I continue on my way to La Realidad, Chiapas, military convoys pass by,
each one stuffed to capacity with federal soldiers, thought to be equipped and
armed by the U.S. government. These signs on the way to La Realidad are a
reminder of the reality that the indigenous people in Chiapas face daily — a
low-intensity war and the accompanying destitution it brings: flight, death,
rape, terror, starvation. As Marcos states in the interview below, what matters
to the monied forces in the United States and Mexico is not whether indigenous
people are dying in Chiapas, but that the rest of the world does not find out
about these murders and the U.S. support of the Mexican government, including
the most recent donation of 73 Huey helicopters.
Finally, I arrive in La Realidad, a Zapatista Center of Resistance, one of
five such centers built to replace that original Aguascalientes now occupied by
the Mexican military. La Realidad was the site of the April American
Continental Encounter against Neoliberalism and for Humanity, and will be one
of five sites in Chiapas for the world-wide Intercontinental Encounter this
coming July. The Zapatistas’ dream of providing a meeting place to dialogue
with civil society has not been crushed, despite the heavy deployment of
Mexican federal army tanks, helicopters, troops. In fact, quite the opposite
has happened. Last December, the indigenous people of Oventic, Chiapas, as they
were constructing a new Aguascalientes, faced the federal tanks, unarmed, and
forced them to retreat. Caught on video by Carlos Martinez (in a scene
reminiscent of the Chinese uprising in Tienanmen Square, but without the
worldwide attention accorded that event), the Oventic people rose up against
the soldiers, placing their bodies between the tanks and their homes. In April
of this year, in San Andres Larrainzar and El Bosque, the indigenous
communities also confronted the soldiers and forced them out the area with the
sheer force of their demands for justice and peace.
The military threat remains an ever-present force, however, on the outskirts
of these small Chiapas towns. Life here in La Realidad is disrupted every two
days as the military convoys parade on the road next to town, sometimes all day
long. There is a marked fear among the people of making the daily trips to
their fields and to nearby markets, due to past incidences of detention, rape,
and harassment by the soldiers. There are more than 50 reported cases of rape
carried out by the federal army and the paramilitary forces in Chiapas since
1994, and on the average one peasant or indigenous person is murdered every
three days by the same military forces. The planting and harvesting of crops,
altogether disrupted last year by the federal army’s offensive, continues to be
severely curtailed. It is the dry season now, and due to the invasion, there
are no stores from last year. From where I sit, I can see small bags of corn
brought in from other parts of Mexico and the world to meet the growing need
for food.
Comandante Tacho and Mayor Moises of the Zapatista Army approach me on their
horses. They want to know whether I am the one who is to interview Marcos. We
have all met before — Moises during an interview, and Tacho after a
presentation of his that I recorded. I see Marcos walking towards me, and after
we shake hands, he suggests sitting beneath the shade of a nearby Ceiba tree.
We do the interview, which lasts about an hour, talking mostly about the
philosophy of the Zapatistas, the role of the U.S. in the rebels’ struggle for
independence and democracy, and the coming Intercontinental Encuentro
“symposium” being held July 27-August 3 here in La Realidad, and in four other
Zapatista resistance centers.
Around 4,000 participants are expected from Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania,
and the American continent to discuss new forms of resistance and struggle
against Neoliberalism, defined as the restructuring of policies to benefit
multinational corporations at the expense of humanity. In Austin, several
people have been invited to the Intercontinental Encuentro, including Maria
Loya of PODER (People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources),
Huston-Tillotson professor June Brewer, singer/songwriter Lourdes Perez,
cultural organizer Annette D. Armata, artist Ana Luisa Rincon, poet Raul
Salinas, and local activists Juan Antonio Montemayor and myself. (For more info
about the Encuentro event, and news on Chiapas, call the National Commission
for Democracy in Mexico at 915/532-8382, or email: moonlight@igc.apc.org).
The key to the Zapatistas’ future success seems to be in its ability to
create such alliances of supporters — particularly within Mexico — and the
inherent socialist trends among these community-based alliances no doubt gives
the current administration in Mexico cause to worry. Last week, for instance,
1,000 participants gathered at a forum on the “Reform of the Mexican State”
called by the Zapatistas and the most important political forces of the people
of Mexico, including Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the Revolutionary Democratic Party
(PRD) — the opposition party. After intense discussions, the Zapatistas
arrived at political agreement with the PRD, the Workers Party (PT), and the
independent union network called the Coordinadora Intersindical, which has more
than a 1.5 million members.
Regarding the Forum on State Reform, Cecilia Rodriguez, the representative of
the Zapatistas in the U.S., puts it best: “There are Tzeltal indigenous people,
presenting position papers, as well as human rights workers, teachers,
students, housewifes, and intellectuals. They are discussing the construction
of a new type of political organization, the transition to democracy in Mexico,
a new Congress and constitution, culture and mass media, the project for
humanity and against Neoliberalism. As the governing party crumbles, the
Zapatistas have move quickly to the politics of alliances…”
This article appears in July 12 • 1996 and July 12 • 1996 (Cover).