As events unfolded, the reasons behind the seizure of San
Cristobal de las Casas, Las Margaritas, Altamirano, and Ocosingo
became increasingly apparent. The Zapatistas called for a nationwide
movement for "jobs, land, housing, food, health, independence,
freedom, democracy, justice and peace." Unlike traditional
guerrillas, they did not seek to destroy the state but, rather, to
shift "the balance of forces in favor of popular and democratic
movements, thereby isolating and ultimately defeating anti-democratic
tendencies" within the ruling Partido Revoluctonario Institucional
(PRI), the state, and the rest of society (Harvey, 1994: 1-2).
Whether or not the Zapatistas will be able to accomplish their dual
goals of
(a) making government more accountable to the people and
(b) establishing fair representation for all Mexicans remains to be
seen.
However, more than a year after the initial uprising, the movement has prompted visible changes, some positive. In fact, the Zapatistas may have done more to accelerate democratization than the whole five years of dramatic economic reform instituted under the recent administration of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
As Mexico's government responded to the crisis, one point became clear: the rebellion was not just a "military problem." Indeed, it can more properly be viewed as a concatenation of many problems - economic, political and social - that are endemic not only in Chiapas but throughout most of rural Mexico as well. Nevertheless, the army's involvement in the task of restoring order has been instrumental in altering a civil-military equation of long standing. To understand this change fully, it is necessary to view the response of the military in conjunction with the many other problems with which it has had to contend in recent years, including those prompted by the country's move toward greater democratization. Thus, this study examines the response of the military in light of Mexico's continuing transition to democracy, particularly the rapidity with which that transition has been going forward, and will analyze the implications that this holds for the armed forces as an institution.
The contrast between the situation in Chiapas and that of the rest of Mexico is both striking and sobering. Whereas only 29% of the Mexican populace as a whole lives in rural areas, that figure rises to 60% in Chiapas. Similarly, though Mexico registers just 13% illiteracy for the country overall, that figure reverses itself - to 31% - for the chiapanecos. Furthermore, a third of the households in Chiapas are without electricity, some 41.6% are without potable water, and as many as 58.8% lack such basic sanitary facilities as drainage. [By contrast, in the country as a whole, the corresponding figures are, respectively: only 12.5% go without electricity, just 20.6% lack potable water, and 36.4% have no drainage (INEGI, 1991 and 1992).! Moreover, when one takes a closer look at the situation in three of the cities captured by the Zapatistas (Ocosingo, Altamirano and Las Margaritas), the disparities become even greater. For example, in Altamirano, 75% of the households have no electricity, with figures for Ocosingo and Las Margaritas almost as large; while in Las Margaritas, some 72.7% of the villagers lack potable water (La Jornada, 1994c). As a general rule, the farther one goes into the countryside, the more primitive the conditions and the less likely that such amenities will be available. Altogether, it has been estimated that almost 70% of the population in Chiapas live below Mexico's official poverty line (Moguel, 1994a: 38).
Yet Chiapas is a rich land. The region contains fertile farmlands, pastures, and forests, and an abundance of petroleum. The region's oil and natural gas resources account for 21% and 47%, respectively, of the country's total production. The state of Chiapas produces 55% of Mexico's electricity and 35% of its coffee in addition to being the country's second largest producer of beef and corn (Hidalgo, 1988). The problem is that distribution of this wealth is highly uneven and skewed, with the gap between rich and poor as pronounced as anywhere in the Hemisphere. A little over a hundred people - just 16% of all coffee farmers - control 12% of the coffee lands. Some 6,000 families hold over 3 million hectares of grazing land for cattle, e.g., almost half of all the rural holdings in the state (Hernandez Navarro, 1994a: 6). Furthermore, over the past 15 years, local politicians and businessmen have been able to amass fortunes through exploitation of the region's timber resources; the net profit from logging amounted to $8 million in 1988 alone (Carrigan, 1995: 75).
These elites, who acquired their properties over the years through fair means and foul, now have access to the best land and infrastructure and most of the credit. The system dates back to Spanish colonial days when many of their ancestors received grants of land, labor, and tribute from the Spanish Crown. Members of this "Chiapas family" have dominated the local power structures ever since, thus assuring protection of their interests. Allying themselves with local political bosses, representatives of the ruling PRI, the Chiapas elites have successfully manipulated the legal system to their advantage, bribing officials on the one hand, securing delays and exemptions to their benefit on the other - all the while assuring that the full weight of the law would fall on those who lacked money or influence. Many of the large estates were created illegally, often by violent seizure of ejido and other national lands, and then maintained with private armies and the complicity of local judges, sheriffs, and military commanders (for more details on Chiapas politics and society, see Benjamin, 1989; and Wasserstrom, 1983). As recently as 1971, a sign that hung in the Ocosingo Lions Club said it all: "In the Law of the Jungle it is willed that Indians and blackbirds must be killed" (Hernandez Navarro, 1994a: 6-7).
Though the Chiapas uprising appeared to catch Mexico's government by surprise, it had been brewing for years (Collier and Quaratielo, 1994; Ross, 1995). For some years, a wide variety of groups had been active in promoting the activities of peasant organizations. Beginning with the late 1960s, Catholic priests and catechists, inspired by the tenets of liberation theology (which preached a preferential option for the poor), had begun to engage in pastoral work that contained political overtones; this was especially the case in the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas. During the 1970s, these efforts were augmented by the development of other organizations, such as: the Proletarian Line, Pueblo Unido (People United), the Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PST), and the Central Independiente de Obreros Agricolas y Campesinos/Partido Comunista Mexicano (CIOAC/PCM). In 1979, moreover, a broad-based protest movement by the state's primary and secondary school teachers led to the formation of a "democratic teachers movement," which embraced the cause of the campesinos (peasants) and served as an interlocutor with the state government on their behalf.
At the same time, major socioeconomic, ecological, and demographic changes had begun to impact, and aggravate, the already-precarious existence of the peasants. The oil boom of the late 1970s brought a temporary prosperity to some segments of Mexican society, triggering a social polarization that only became exacerbated by the debt crisis, and its aftermath, in the 1980s. When the boom ended, many highlanders who had left their homelands for more lucrative opportunities in nearby oil fields returned, bringing with them capital and new technology. They introduced modern farming methods, including fertilizers and herbicides, which allowed more intensive, and extensive, cultivation of the land. Unfortunately, these changes led to a dramatic increase in soil erosion and loss of fertility which sapped the land's ability to sustain the human population. Communities became increasingly polarized as the new entrepreneurs expanded their wealth, often at the expense of those at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. As peasants were pushed off the land by more powerful agro-export farmers and cattle ranchers, many drifted to urban areas or were driven to the agricultural fringes of the Lacandon lowland.
The state found itself under siege from other social burdens as well. Not only did changes in local land use and ownership spur internal migration and dislocation, but the rate of population growth expanded as well: the rate in Chiapas is 4.5%, which means that its population doubles every 16 years (Reding, 1994b: 16). To the natural increase in population was added the arrival of some 100,000 Guatemalans, most of whom were fleeing bloody counter-insurgency operations in their own country. Furthermore, after August 1982, Mexico entered into a period of financial crisis and economic stagnation unprecedented since the Great Depression. Over the next half-dozen years, unemployment and inflation soared, while real wages and per capita GNP (gross national product) plummeted. To meet this crisis, the administration of President de la Madrid instituted a neoliberal economic strategy: it slashed government and reduced the bureaucracy. Those hardest hit by these measures were the poor and the middle class.
In short, all of these factors combined to produce a milieu that was ripe for alienation and political organization. Grassroots intellectuals, religious catechists, Marxist organizers, and other proponents of change, like such federal development agencies as the Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI), helped to raise the political consciousness of Chiapas' peasants and Indians, encouraging them to organize to defend their interests. The upshot was a proliferation of campesino groups in the area, of which the most important were the Union de Uniones (the UU or Union of Ejido Unions), the Central Independiente de Obreros Agricolas y Campesinos (CIOAC), and the Organizacion Campesino Emiliano Zapata (OCEZ). As the militance of the campesinos increased and the demand for agrarian reform and political change intensified, so did the violence. When peasants began to seize and/or occupy land, the ranchers retaliated by sending in their own paramilitary squads to dislodge the squatters and quell the protests. Campesino leaders were killed, and entire villages threatened, in some cases burned to the ground. As usual, the local authorities sided with the cattlemen.
Under the Salinas administration (1988-1994), the situation deteriorated further. When the government deregulated the coffee prices, the price of beans plunged 50% in a single year. The administration's response was to cut the coffee subsidy and dissolve the only state agency that offered marketing and technical assistance to small producers. The impact on the latter was devastating. Between 1989 and 1993, productivity and total output fell by about 35%. On average, small growers suffered a 65-70% drop in income, and many were forced to abandon production entirely (Carrigan, 1995: 88; Harvey, 1994: 9; Hernandez Navarro, 1994a: 9).
Meanwhile, the administration was accelerating and extending the economic policies of its predecessor. Article 27 of the constitution was revised and a new Agrarian Law passed. These measures formally ended the government's moribund land distribution program. Members of ejidos (communal lands) now acquired the right to sell their land. At the same time, however, they had to cope with reduced subsidies to agriculture, the privatization of state enterprises, and removal or lowering of trade barriers in the interest of promoting free trade. Thus, when import licenses were removed, many peasants found themselves unable to compete with the sudden influx of cheaper grains from the United States. While corn and beans continued to be subsidized, under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) all tariffs and import quotas were to be gradually phased out. Together with the ejido reform, these measures raised the prospect that landlessness and rural inequalities might soon become much worse, as millions of campesinos, unable to compete with foreign imports, were forced off the land. The resulting insecurity and confusion fueled discontent throughout rural Mexico, providing the Zapatistas with a base of support from which to launch their rebellion.
Not even the Programa Nacional de Solidaridad (PRONASOL), the much-lauded social development program instituted by President Salinas, was able to ameliorate these fears or vitiate these realities. During Salinas' first 5 years in office, federal spending in Chiapas increased more than tenfold. Funding for PRONASOL grew by 130% in 1989-90, by 50% in 1990-1991, 20% in 1991-1992, and a further 1% in 1992-1993 (Human Rights Watch/Americas, 1994: 5; Moguel, 1994b: 8). However, much of this money ended up in the pockets of local political bosses. Meanwhile, these same authorities continued to frustrate the efforts of poor Indians and campesinos to seek redress for their grievances or pursue their interests through the system. Symptomatic was the fact that some 30% of Mexico's unresolved land petitions came from Chiapas (Hernandez Navarro, 1994b: 44).
Salinas was the most modern of Mexican presidents. Yet, despite pledges of reform and increased democratization, in Chiapas he chose to work with the existing (and retrogressive) power structure. Indeed, the president depended on these very elements - and on others like them throughout rural areas of the country - for his own political fortunes. In the 1988 election, this system had delivered between 85-90% of the Chiapas vote to Salinas and the PRI. In the 1991 federal elections, the PRI had taken 100% of the vote in 50 municipalities, many in precisely those areas most affected by the insurrection (Human Rights Watch/Americas, 1994: 5; Reding, 1994: 17).
In short the first 5 years of Salinas' term brought few changes in the state's governance. The new "reform" governor, Patrocinio Gonzalez Garrido, continued the repressive practices of his predecessor. Electoral fraud continued unabated. By 1990-91, social conflicts were sharply on the rise. As land invasions and protest movements proliferated, the authorities cracked down. So harsh was the repression that the Bishop of San Cristobal de las Casas, Samuel Ruiz Garcia, set up a diocesan human rights center to document the abuses.
In October 1992, moreover, the Zapatistas made their first, sensational public appearance. During a celebration in San Cristobal commemorating 500 years of popular resistance, thousands of peasants, armed with bows and arrows, suddenly appeared out of the crowd. Marching in military formation, they advanced to the central plaza where they toppled and smashed the statue of the conquistador Diego de Mazariegos, symbol of white domination. For some, this was an important psychological turning point, crystallizing what many already felt: that violence was the only way to achieve Indian demands (Carrigan, 1995: 78; Hernandez Navarro, 1994a: 8).
One of the tenets of a sound military operation is to know the enemy. Nevertheless, when the Chiapas rebellion erupted (1 January 1994), the Mexican government was forced to scramble to identify the insurgents. Ironically, the Zapatistas provided some immediate assistance. Subcomandante Marcos burst onto the national scene with the now famous "Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle," which declared war on the Mexican army, called for the repudiation of President Salinas, and demanded the establishment of a transitional government. The masked commander gained immediate notoriety throughout the country, as well as hero status in the eyes of many Mexicans, including many marginalized peasants and members of the middle class. Marcos projected the image of a Robin Hood defending the rights of the downtrodden against an unjust, repressive government. His physical appearance only added to his aura. Although a black ski mask remained a permanent part of his uniform, one could detect handsome features and light complexion. Over the course of the next few months, he was to become a celebrity: Marcos dolls became the craze in Mexico City, and many women treated him like a matinee idol.
At this writing, the identity of Marcos still remains unclear, as do many other details about these rebels who call themselves Zapatistas, in honor of the legendary Mexican revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata (1877?-1919), who gave his life for the cause of agrarian reform. Though President Zedillo has recently announced that his government has uncovered the identity of the mysterious subcomandante (allegedly a Jesuit-trained former college professor from Tampico named Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vicente), this claim has not yet been confirmed. Marcos himself has mocked the revelation without, however, explicitly denying it. It is always possible that this time the government may have it right (Guillermoprieto, 1995a; Zedillo, 1995; Marcos, 1995).
Estimates by the Mexican military suggest that the EZLN has about 1,500 well-armed fighters, supported by several thousand others who are poorly armed and trained (Oppenheimer, 1994a). Born in 1983 in the Lacandon Jungle, the Zapatista army has been recruiting and training ever since in small indigenous communities in central Chiapas. Initially, the movement was led by a handful of "northerners" (e.g., city folk of mestizo extraction) who had taken part in various revolutionary activities in Mexico and Central America during the 1970s and 1980s. Some, apparently, were veterans of the 1970s guerrilla war in Guerrero or had been part of student/ worker organizational efforts in the slums of Monterrey and other northern cities. According to the Sandinista paper Barricada, Guillen Vicente spent several years organizing farm workers in Nicaragua (Carrigan, 1995: 82; Washington Post, 1995; Guillermoprieto, 1995b: 37-38).
These "outsiders" served as a disciplined cadre that provided military organization and training for the indigenous irregulars who were gradually coopted by their hosts (Collier and Quaratielo, 1994: 81-83; Ross, 1995: 278-279; Guillermoprieto, 1995b: 37-39). While the exact relationship between Indians and non-Indians remains unclear, at least some of the latter - most visibly Marcos, but also, according to the Mexican government, Fernando Yanez, Jorge Javier Elloreaga Berdegue, Jorge Santiago Santiago, Silvia Fernandez Hernandez, and Maria Gloria Benavides - are still among the EZLN leaders (Zedillo, 1995; Golden, 1995a and 1995b). As for the indigenous, they seem to be comprised not of the most backward (or even the poorest) campesinos of Chiapas ... but, rather, the innovators: adventurous frontiersmen and women who were convinced that they could make a new world (Guillermoprieto, 1994: 54).
Though the roots of the Zapatista movement lay in Maoism and the classic Latin American revolutionary Left, it has come a long way since its beginnings. Today, the ideology is much broader and more flexible and contains substantial doses of democracy, as well as of populism and socialism. In effect, the original Marxist weltanschauung has been cross-fertilized with the collectivist, democratic notions of the indigenous community. In the process, authoritarianism (verticalismo) has gradually, and sometimes grudgingly, given way to a more mass-based way of making decisions (Ross, 1995: 280-288; Guillermoprieto, 1995b: 38-39; Carrigan, 1995: 83).
On the other hand, the group's military resources are quite modest. According to Marcos, the guerrillas have obtained arms from various sources: from the "ant-run" south from US cities like El Paso, from Mexican police and military involved in antinarcotics activities, from the guardias blancas (the cattlemen's "hired guns"), and from the peasants themselves (obsolete rifles, shotguns, machetes, and so on). There are suspicions that the EZLN may get money and weapons from other sources as well: e.g., terrorists, the Central American arms market, and from kidnappings/ransoms. A Zapatista defector has reported that funds have been received from a Left-wing bus drivers union in Mexico City as well as from Nicaragua's intelligence service (Golden, 1995a; Ross, 1995: 284-285; Collier and Quaratielo, 1994: 84).
EZLN roots reach as far back as the Mexican guerrilla movements of the late 1960s/early 1970s. One such group, the Fuerzas de Liberacion Nacional (FLN) established a training camp in Chiapas, near Ocosingo, in the early 1970s, which was subsequently wiped out by the Mexican army in 1974. However, one of its members (reportedly Yanez, aka German) may have escaped, only to return a few years later to begin the struggle anew (Guillermoprieto, 1995a: 41-42). Meanwhile, other radical groups were also organizing. In October 1974, San Cristobal de las Casas hosted an Indigenous Congress in honor of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Fray Bartolome de las Casas, Spain's staunchest defender of Indian rights, an event which also served to inspire a spate of organizational efforts among the peasants. Some of these efforts received support, at least in part, from adherents of liberation theology within the Catholic Church (themselves inspired by the Latin American bishops conference of 1968). The upshot of all this ferment was the development of the three major campesino organizations mentioned earlier (UU, CIOAC, and OCEZ) who spearheaded the demand for rights to Indian lands and the fight against repression. In 1978, organizers from Politica Popular (the so-called PePes) began arriving and forming associations of ejidos.
From 1983 onward, this complex of social bases provided the Zapatistas with a ready source of recruits. The process by which these various organizations split, synthesized, and grew into the coherent movement that we know today as the EZLN was complex, and much of the process still remains obscure. What seems clear is that, over the years, EZLN militants were able to infiltrate competing organizations - in particular, the Union de Uniones (UU), the largest of the peasant alliances - and promote armed struggle (initially, self-defense training) as an alternative to more reformist strategies. When the coffee crisis hit and violence escalated in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the indigenous communities became increasingly polarized and radicalized. As early as 1989, a majority of the communities in Las Canadas apparently opted for the "outsider" strategy of preparing for war. Subsequently, the OCEZ and an EZLN-associated mass organization calling itself the Alianza Nacional de Campesinos Independiente Emilio Zapata (ANCIEZ) won control of the movement begun by the northerners (Guillermoprieto, 1995b: 37-59; Ross, 1995: 280-281; Carrigan, 1995: 84; Collier and Quaratielo, 1994: 83).
There is little information on the structure of the EZLN. Marcos has emphasized that he is not the leader of the movement, but is subordinate to a Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee that makes major decisions only after polling the organization's membership. It is believed that there is a national directorate above the clandestine committee, but not much about it has been confirmed. Whether the policy process is as democratic as the leadership would like the outside world to believe is open to question.
Reports have circulated that the EZLN hierarchy has maintained a liaison with the Partido Revolucionario Clandestino Union del Pueblo (PROCUP), a longtime umbrella organization of subversive political/guerrilla groups. Mexican army sources have released a schema of the EZLN organization that shows a clandestine committee for each of the major indigenous groups in the region, with the EZLN subordinate to those committees. According to this source, there are also local militias and popular assemblies at the community level. In short, the organization is more of a political/military body than a purely military one. Some documents that have been captured indicate that the military wing of the EZLN is organized along lines similar to that of the Mexican army, particularly in regard to unit and rank designations and military regulations (Mexico. Interior Ministry, 1994a: 15-18; Riva Palacio, 1994a; Ortega, 1994; Perez, 1994).
The Zapatistas trained at both special camps and within local communities. In some cases, whole villages participated, with the women preparing food while recruits trained and oldsters tended to chores. Bases were set up in isolated areas and rugged terrain. After a decade of preparation, the group was ready to take a major step. Because it was not well-armed, surprise was critical. Employing that principle of war, along with sound discipline and small-unit tactics, the Zapatistas launched their attack at San Cristobal de las Casas, a picturesque colonial city with an international flavor. In addition to a Catholic Church strongly supportive of indigenous demands, there were many Protestant groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the city. This would help the movement achieve one of Marcos' major aims: the gaining of extensive attention, both national and international. During the first week of January 1994, the NGOs were significant actors in disseminating information about the uprising to a broader audience (Benitez Manaut, 1994: 24-26; Epoca, 1994a; US Embassy, 1994).
At first, Marcos declared "freedom" as the movement's goal. Though he soon moved to articulate his objectives more precisely, some confusion as to the group's ideology remained. While the "Declaration of the Lancandon Jungle" stated that the Zapatistas were fighting for socialism, Marcos did not demand a socialist government but merely a transitional one. In the second EZLN communique (on 1 January 1994), the rebels made 10 demands, of which the first five (jobs, land, housing, food, and health) were socioeconomic in nature, while the second five (independence, freedom, democracy, justice, and peace) were distinctly political. These demands served as a basis for negotiation after the government declared a unilateral cease-fire on January 12th (1994). As the political phase of the conflict progressed, it became apparent that the rebels were trying to force the regime to negotiate a democratic opening rather than to take power themselves. Had their uprising produced a chain reaction in other states, perhaps this goal might have been altered to allow them to compete for power at the national level. However, with their severely limited resources, such a course of action was simply not viable.
The Salinas administration was caught completely off-guard by the events in Chiapas and responded with great uncertainty. At first, government officials attempted to downplay the situation and deflect criticism by attributing the rebellion to be the work of outside forces trying to destabilize Mexico. At various times, it blamed Central American guerrillas, drug cartels and - as a last resort - the Catholic Church. Even when the causes of the crisis gradually became known, the official media still tried to direct attention elsewhere. Nevertheless, as word spread rapidly, via telephone, computer traffic, and the network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the government's radio and television stations had no alternative but to report it.
Patrocinio Gonzalez Garrido, Minister of the Interior and a former governor of Chiapas, initially dismissed accounts of armed groups in the four towns that were eventually captured. The rebels held San Cristobal for over 24 hours before moving on to attack the garrison of the 31st Military Zone in Rancho Nuevo. With that, the army asked for, and received, the authorization to counterattack. By midday on 6 January 1994, military forces had succeeded in dislodging the rebel forces from all the towns and villages they had previously occupied, which forced most of them to flee into the Lacandon area. However, the garrison at Rancho Nuevo was subjected to intermittent attacks and sniper fire until January 12th.
The conflict had two phases. The first was a military phase, which was virtually concluded on January 12th when President Salinas declared a unilateral cease-fire. By that time, the army's presence in the region had swelled from 2,000 soldiers to over 14,000, more than enough to cordon off the Zapatistas' stronghold in the Lancandon jungle. Under those circumstances, the EZLN probably welcomed the cease-fire. At that point, the second, or political, phase began and has continued ever since. On 10 January 1994, Salinas fired Patrocinio Gonzalez as a consequence of (1) his ineptitude in dealing with the crisis and (2) his connection with the longstanding situation of repression in Chiapas state. The president then appointed Jorge Carpizo MacGregor, Mexico's Attorney-General and a former president of the National Commission on Human Rights as his successor. Salinas followed that move by appointing Manuel Camacho Solis, Foreign Minister and a former contender for the presidency, to serve as the government's principal peace negotiator. Within a week, the governor of Chiapas, Elmar Setzer, resigned (19 January); the very next day, Congress passed an amnesty decree which cleared the way for meaningful negotiations to begin.
By mid-January, however, the army had become the target of considerable criticism for responding so slowly to the hostilities, claiming it had been ill-prepared and poorly equipped to carry out a successful jungle campaign. Meanwhile, military leaders fumed privately at the allegations, many of whom felt that the political leaders had taken away their prerogative to complete their operations (Mexico, 1994d). In point of fact, the unfavorable international attention had been instrumental in impelling the government to push for a cease-fire. On 4 January, an inflammatory photo hit the national and international wires: it showed 5 cadavers, with their hands tied behind their backs, near the marketplace in Ocosingo; all had been shot in the head, execution-style. The accompanying stories placed the blame on Mexican soldiers. This photo sparked such an outcry that the government was unable to withstand the pressure and thus sought, in consequence, to end the fighting as expeditiously as possible.
Although the military served as an initial scapegoat, it soon became evident that Mexico's political leaders had blundered in underestimating the size of the threat and ignoring a series of warning signs. In March 1993, leaders of the Chiapas Cattlemen's Association had informed President Salinas personally that there were guerrillas in the area and had pleaded with the government to take action in dealing with the situation. That same month, the bodies of two junior officers had been found hacked to pieces and buried in a shallow pit outside an Indian village in the Los Altos region. Army and police forces ransacked two villages, torturing some of the inhabitants, in their efforts to find the guilty parties. This incident was followed in May (1993) by a firefight outside Ocosingo between Mexican soldiers and a group of armed men. For months afterwards, rumors abounded that guerrillas were roaming the countryside. A colonel from the 31st Military Zone reported that his unit had been conducting reconnaissance missions in search of training camps. A Jesuit priest declared that insurgents had been active for the past 8 years. As late as October (1993), residents reported seeing soldiers in numerous communities around Ocosingo and hearing gunfire at night. Nevertheless, the government issued a steady stream of denials (Carrigan, 1995: 87; Guzman and Vera, 1993; Correa, 1993; Lopez and Vera, 1993; Cano and Moreno, 1994; and Epoca, 1994b).
As events subsequently unfolded in January 1994, it became evident that the government had been following a specific agenda in attempting to cover up the guerrilla presence. It needed to put on its best face for the impending vote on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that was coming up in the US Congress. The NAFTA formed a key piece of the Salinas economic reform program, and the Mexican government felt it might jeopardize passage of the bill, already the subject of a highly divisive debate in the United States, if attention were drawn to any potentially destabilizing developments within Mexico. According to one insider, a representative of the Centro de Investigacion y Seguridad Nacional (CISN) - in US terms, a combination of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - had visited Chiapas on three separate occasions in May 1993 in response to the various troubles there. This source attributed the failure of intelligence to the government rather than to the army. The latter had been reporting on these activities and clearly recognized the potential for an uprising, but government officials insisted that the focos were small and, hence, easily controllable. These events were kept secret so as not to prejudice the vote on the NAFTA or the presidential campaign of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the assumption being that corrective action could wait until after the August 1994 election (Mexico, 1994b and 1994c; Riva Palacio, 1994b).
The above suggests not so much the inadequacy of the government's response to the rebellion as it does a gross failure of its intelligence apparatus. It should come as no surprise that military leaders were disgruntled. They felt that blame had been placed - unjustly - on their own shoulders.
From a military perspective, the Zapatista uprising was unique because, unlike any time in the recent past, the army found itself in the eye of a political hurricane. One US official who was in Chiapas during the first days of the rebellion reported that army leaders had been privately voicing displeasure at the ineffective, poorly planned political strategy which they were being asked to carry out. On one occasion, General Miguel Angel Godinez Bravo, commander of the 31st Military Zone and of all army forces in Chiapas, told reporters that the best course would be to go on the offensive and wipe out the Zapatistas. The day following, he complained of being misquoted and declared that the government's strategy of a negotiated settlement commanded his wholehearted support. There were other indications of unease and discontent. Army leaders were reportedly annoyed when the new peace commissioner, Camacho Solis, called for a cease-fire and asked the military to withdraw from certain communities. Moreover, though the army had traditionally been the principal administrator of humanitarian aid in the region, during the conflict the government found itself under pressure to remove it from performing this function and turn all such aid efforts over to the Red Cross and assorted NGOs (US-Embassy, 1994; Gallegos and Lomas, 1994; Riva Palacio, 1994b; Vera, 1994).
Not since 1968 had the armed forces been subjected to such harsh public criticism as during the first few months of 1994. For that reason, Chiapas represents a kind of watershed. Prior to the Salinas administration, the military had always been looked upon as intocable (an untouchable institution). The golden rule for journalists and writers had always been that everything was subject to criticism except the president, the army, and the Virgen de Guadalupe. On those few occasions when the military was singled out for criticism, the president had always spoken out in its defense. But the Salinas sexenio (6-year term) witnessed the end of the army's mythical status.
The increasingly "irregular relationship" between the military and the president was particularly ironic when viewed in the light of Salinas' first few months in office. Back then, when the legitimacy of his election victory was still in question, army leaders had organized a parade in support of the new president on inauguration day. Shortly thereafter, Salinas not only called upon the military to apprehend a corrupt, well-armed labor leader (Joaquin Hernandez Galicia, the notorious "La Quina") but later requested, and received, its help in tracking down the nation's leading drug trafficker. Those actions were followed by preemptive measures to prevent a violent strike at a copper mine in northern Mexico. Nevertheless, despite his reliance on the army to get off to a solid start, Salinas fell uncharacteristically silent in its defense toward the end of his term.
The flood of criticism began in 1989 when numerous reports began to circulate that implicated General Juan Arevalo Gardoqui, a former Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), in high-level narcotics trafficking. At the time, President Salinas remained silent. Then, in November 1991, soldiers killed 7 federal narcotics agents at a remote landing strip in Veracruz. Instead of allowing an in-house investigation, the president ordered the National Commission on Human Rights to look into the crime; as a result, 5 officers were sent to prison. In September 1992, the Ministry of Public Education distributed to the public schools textbooks that gave accounts of the 1968 student movement in which soldiers were reported to have fired upon unarmed students. When army leaders took exception to this version, the textbooks were recalled - though Salinas never publicly disavowed their account of the event.
By 1993, the public attacks had accelerated; the army appeared to have fallen victim to the advancing move toward democratization. In April of that year, considerable publicity was devoted to the army's deteriorating relations with Bishop Ruiz, the Catholic bishop in Chiapas, with most reports sympathetic to the latter. [Bishop Ruiz had raised the ire of General Godinez by trying to stop the army's searches of Indian villages; not only that, but Godinez had been accused of conspiring with former Governor Gonzalez Garrido to expel or jail two priests.! In May (1993), there were allegations that the military may have played a role in the assassination of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, who apparently ran afoul of drug traffickers in Guadalajara. The incident was also used to point out the ineffectiveness of the army in carrying out the national anti-narcotics campaign. With the 25th anniversary of the student deaths at Tlatelolco in October 1968, moreover, many groups lobbied for the release of classified documents related to that affair, thus re-opening old military wounds. A Comision de la Verdad (Truth Commission) comprised of prominent citizens and intellectuals, many of whom had been university students in 1968, was established to investigate the events at Tlatelolco. When the final report was presented, the army once more found itself in the position of having to defend itself against charges of complicity in the killings (Guzman and Vera, 1993; Puig, 1993; Vera, 1993; Aguirre and Ramirez, 1993; Robles and Vera, 1994).
Finally, particularly nettlesome for the army has been the case of General Jose Francisco Gallardo Rodriguez, who has been imprisoned since November 1993, ostensibly for defaming the reputation of the institution. The general had committed the sin of publishing an article which stated that the army had frequently violated the rights of soldiers and officers; in it, he suggested creating the position of ombudsman as a way to rectify the situation. The case has captured the attention of human rights groups in both Mexico and the United States, who have mounted a campaign to press the army for Gallardo's release. While official sources within the army insist the case is more complex than it appears on the surface, army leaders have been placed on the defensive and made to appear as the guilty party (Zamarripa, 1993; Rodriguez Araujo, 1993).
The Chiapas uprising only added fuel to the fire. The army has had a much more difficult time in fending off accusations from human rights organizations than it has had in forcing the Zapatistas back into the jungle. It has been subject to a barrage of criticism ever since the hostilities began, with the photo of the dead bodies in Ocosingo serving as the opening salvo. In the face of the allegations that the army has abused human rights in its pacification campaign, General Antonio Riviello Bazan, the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), has remained steadfast in his defense of the army as has General Godinez, in Chiapas, who has also denied that any of his troops were guilty of violations (Venegas, 1994; Trejo, 1994).
The army is not without its defenders. The director of the principal human rights center in Chiapas (Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolome de las Casas) has declared that, though some individual soldiers may have engaged in abuses, there was no systematic pattern of violations. Speaking for a group of non-partisan legislators, a Mexican senator declared that the military's behavior had been beyond reproach. Even in Ocosingo, a group of almost 500 grateful citizens demonstrated in favor of the army, denouncing the human rights organizations that were said to be tarnishing its reputation unjustly (Aguayo Quezada, 1994; Aranda and Camacho, 1994; Reveles, 1994).
More recently, however, Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch/Americas have issued a report that details serious human rights violations by both the military and the EZLN. Among the abuses of the Mexican army that were reported were: summary executions, arbitrary arrests, prolonged detentions in which persons were held incommunicado, and torture. According to this study, neither the Office of the Attorney-General nor the National Commission on Human Rights did an adequate job of investigating and prosecuting these abuses, with the former often showing "a greater interest in protecting the Mexican army's reputation than in conducting independent and thorough investigations," while the latter seemed reluctant to speak out even when aware of credible eyewitness testimony or other evidence (Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch/Americas, 1994).
Whatever the merits of the accusations, President Salinas generally chose not to dispute them. After the first few weeks of the conflict, General Riviello recognized that the army could no longer depend on the president, and so the military began to take measures to defend itself. The SECDEF took the first step in establishing a new modus operandi for its public relations via a speech commemorating the anniversary of the Loyalty March of 9 February 1913. Fed up with seeing Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatistas glorified by the press, the Secretary of Defense spoke out aggressively in defense of the army, declaring that the military had not digressed from its best tradition of loyalty to the president and the Constitution, or to its mission of guaranteeing internal order. Furthermore, he pointed out (1) that Mexican soldiers had been the victims of aggression by the EZLN, and (2) that the army firmly supported the government's efforts to seek peace and reconciliation. That speech was followed up by another, on Army Day, in which he reiterated the institution's commitments and described it as "an army in search of peace"(1) (La Jornada, 1994b; Trejo and Medina, 1994).
General Riviello clearly understands the new rules of the game that are being established in countries now treading the delicate path toward increased democracy. He has appointed a public relations expert to deal with the press. The Secretary of Defense has set up meetings with journalists and academicians who had been critical of the army, and he has made overtures to establish a more open dialogue. Nevertheless, the criticism has not ceased. Perhaps the press views the military as a target which had long been off-limits and senses the public's interest in learning as much about it as possible. In February, the army had to refute unsubstantiated allegations that the leadership was trying to obtain military aid from the United States in order to escalate the conflict in Chiapas. A few months later, there were reports that the army had obtained at least two dozen armored riot-control vehicles in anticipation of increased violence. The most recent uproar concerns overtures made to the United States to buy AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, with the implication that there would soon be a step-up of repression (Morrison, 1994; Oppenheimer, 1994b). In turn, one high-ranking officer explained the acquisition of riot-control vehicles and attack helicopters as forming part of the army's ongoing modernization program. With regard to the former, he remarked that water was a lot safer than rifles. As for the latter, he seemed surprised that the request for only three helicopters would create such a reaction. In the end, the request for the Cobras was denied (Mexico, 1994b).
Looking back over the past few years, army leaders acknowledge that the political-military situation has begun to change in significant ways. Although the army continues to adhere to its sacred tradition of loyalty to the president and the Constitution and unwavering defense of the nation's sovereignty, it is probable that the perception of the Mexican people of this institution has changed forever. Changes in public relations are just the beginning; still greater changes lie ahead. The challenge of adapting to an increasingly democratic society will not be easy.
After examining recent events, the prescient observer might ask whether the Mexican military is at a crossroads. In fact, there are indicators that it may soon undergo significant changes. Some analysts anticipate that substantive alterations in its mission and structure may be forthcoming. At this point, political leaders are indebted to the military for its response to the Zapatista threat. At the same time, the allegations of human rights abuses by the army have helped to reduce some of the political pressure on overburdened government leaders trying to rectify flawed strategies.
Political leaders will most likely try to compensate the military with increased salaries (which have remained at uncharacteristically low levels during the Salinas years) and new equipment. The latter has already been evident in the attempt to buy US attack helicopters. A new military zone has been established in the state of Tabasco, and some new battalions have been added to the army's inventory.
It has been suggested that the military may soon begin a new professionalization process to shore up its deficiencies, particularly in the area of improving its capabilities in counterinsurgency and jungle operations. As recently as February 1994, rumors were surfacing that Mexico had been requesting US support in counterinsurgency training (La Jornada, 1994a). Another area that begs for improvement is human rights instruction. If nothing else, Chiapas proved that the army is no longer immune from criticism. Since political leaders, including the president, have found themselves increasingly preoccupied with deflecting attacks from the media, they no longer project the credibility or influence required to defend the military. As a result, the army has been introduced rather rudely to the long-neglected field of public relations. In this area, one means of reducing unfavorable press is to pay closer attention to human rights; here, a first step could be the institution of mandatory human rights training at all levels. The military finds itself moving, somewhat reluctantly, into a new and highly competitive environment in which its leaders are hard pressed to devise a strategy that will enable the institution to function effectively during this transition period. Failure to do so could lead to a serious weakening of the institution. The recent improvements in public relations suggest that the leadership understands the need for change.
There are also strong indications that relations between the PRI and the military may undergo substantial alteration. The "irregular relationship" made manifest during the Salinas years points to a distancing of the two institutions. Uncontrollable events brought on by accelerated democratization seem to be forcing military leaders into a more neutral corner with respect to politics. In the past, the Constitution has served to justify, and explain, the army's unique relationship to the ruling party. Since the president was head of both the legitimate government and the PRI, the military invariably favored the latter. Given the weakness of the opposition, this relationship was seldom questioned. However, the past decade has witnessed the growth of more viable opposition parties, which led the SECDEF to declare on more than one occasion that the army would stay on the sidelines vis-a-vis the presidential succession, supporting the results of the August 1994 election. He also denied any partisan support for the PRI candidate (Ramirez, 1994).
At the same time, military leaders have probably questioned the allegiance of the president and the PRI to the armed forces. Here one has to understand the thinking of a Mexican officer, who lives by a military creed or ideology that is fashioned around 6 core concepts: revolutionary heritage, loyalty, discipline, patriotism, nationalism, and apoliticism (see Wager, 1992: Chapter 3). Ever since the 1920s, the army has maintained steadfast loyalty to the president and the institutions of government. Yet, the president's "silence" at numerous times during the Salinas sexenio has raised doubts about the loyalty of that system to the armed forces. As a result, the army has become less willing to bail the government out of problems that emanate from policies - economic, political, and social - that have either failed outright or have come under heavy criticism.
Since the 1968 demonstration at Tlatelolco, in which hundreds of students were killed, the military has been extremely reluctant to engage in repressive actions against the Mexican people. In the resulting backlash of public opinion, army leaders learned a hard lesson. Many of those who were only junior officers at that time and on that occasion have now risen to the upper echelons of the armed forces. The conflict in Chiapas has, once again, forced the military to take up arms against the people - and, once again, one of the casualties has been its reputation. Though army leaders may dismiss their current dilemma as unavoidable, they do not want to be forced into similar situations in the future. There has been, in recent months, a fair amount of dissatisfaction expressed, albeit privately, over the government's policies. The military has become increasingly disenchanted with having to clean up after the mistakes of politicians. Thus, one can anticipate that army leaders may become more assertive regarding issues of national security that have a direct bearing on their institution.
Though there is no easy solution for Mexico's military leaders, in a truly democratic system the army will no longer be able to take sides. Some of its leaders have begun to understand this and, consequently, seem to fear the opposition less than in the past.
Despite these winds of change, however, there are still indications of a high degree of continuity remaining. Alterations in the military's structure and budget may prove temporary once the situation in Chiapas is resolved. In this era of downsizing, it would be difficult for Mexico, which has traditionally had one of the poorest armed forces in Latin America, to justify a major build-up. Improvements will be made in counterinsurgency capabilities, but the mission of the army will not change dramatically. Rather, it will gradually return to anti-narcotics operations (primarily crop eradication) and civic action on a full-time basis, with the latter being the preferred mission.
Chiapas may eventually come to be viewed as a brief diversion from the more traditional missions of the army. In 1980, the then-Secretary of Defense, General Felix Galvan Lopez, became the first military leader in years to speak out on national security, which he defined as" maintenance of social, economic and political equilibrium guaranteed by the armed forces" (Wager, 1994). That has become the accepted army definition, and it suggests that military force is not viewed as the solution to national problems. The Mexican approach has been, and will continue to be, that of negotiation, thereby obviating the need for a large, totally modern armed force. In its present state, the armed forces could not be seriously challenged by any internal opposition group.
As in most military institutions, leadership in the Mexican army is a function of hierarchy. Since the 1950s, the position of SECDEF has been filled by men well into their sixties. After over forty years in uniform, these leaders have lost any aspirations for political power they may have once had and are committed to ensuring that their organization adheres to its proud tradition of loyalty to the institutions of government and service to the Mexican people. Only in that way can each SECDEF hope that his legacy will be judged favorably. Furthermore, most SECDEFs view their position as the achievement of a lifelong dream and would not consider ruining this good fortune by becoming embroiled in political struggle. This system of military succession is well-entrenched, and there is, at present, no move to modify it by bringing in younger leaders who might seek an active role in politics.
With the close of the Salinas sexenio, it is difficult to forecast the future. As with the political system itself, the military also undergoes a major internal transformation every six years. The direction in which it moves is highly dependent upon each new leader. At this writing, the PRI's Ernesto Zedillo has just been inaugurated president of the republic. It is likely that relations between the military and Zedillo will be a bit tense in the beginning. The new president will have to mend some fences, for his past actions have not endeared him to the armed forces. Zedillo was the Minister of Education who authorized publication of the textbooks that incorporated the account of the military's role in repressing the 1968 student movement. Early in his career, Zedillo worked for the army's bank and, upon leaving that post, made some imprudent remarks regarding the military's efficiency.
All of this suggests that changes in civil-military relations are in the offing. How the new president and the SECDEF proceed at the outset of the administration will go a long way towards determining whether the relationship will require only a minor tune-up or a major overhaul. At this point, it seems likely that President Zedillo will work quickly to win back the support of the armed forces since the military remains one of the crucial pillars upon which the entire system rests.
What of the Zapatistas? In the months leading up to the presidential elections of August 1994, they had repeatedly warned that a PRI victory, if fraudulent, would lead to a resumption of hostilities. During the cease-fire, the EZLN had not only retained its weapons but, indeed, Subcomandante Marcos claimed to have been contacted by "armed groups in the four corners of the country." There were reports of guerrilla activity in Guerrero, Oaxaca, Jalisco, Nayarit, Durango, Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo, Michoacan, and Chihuahua (Oppenheimer, 1994a; Reding, 1994). The image being cultivated was that of a peasant army ready to resume the offensive not only in Chiapas but throughout rural Mexico.
At the same time, Zapatista leaders gave few indications that they were willing to temper their militant stance or abandon their demands. When the government offered sweeping socioeconomic concessions (including land redistribution, aid to impoverished farmers, the creation of new industries, job-retraining programs, schools and roads) designed to ameliorate the hardships and inequities of Chiapan society, the terms were rejected. Nothing less than fundamental political reform on a national level would do. The rebels renewed their call for Salinas' resignation and the formation of a transition government to organize "democratic and free elections." In addition, they demanded an end to central government control over indigenous communities and a renegotiation of the NAFTA.
Not even Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the major presidential candidate most supportive of the rebel demands, seemed pure enough to merit their support. When, in May 1994, Cardenas journeyed to Chiapas, he hoped for favorable publicity and that some of the Marcos charisma would rub off on him in the process. He met public humiliation instead. Marcos accused the Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD) - e.g., the Cardenas party - of pursuing the same economic policies and undemocratic practices as the PRI. The candidate was subjected to staged harangues by guerrilla commanders so that, in the end, the photo opportunity turned into a nightmare, undermining the already-shaky campaign of the one candidate who seemed most likely to come to terms with the rebels.
After March 1994, the Zapatistas and their cause took on an air of irrelevance as they found themselves overtaken by more newsworthy events elsewhere. Chief among these was the March assassination of the PRI's presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, and subsequent selection of his successor, Ernesto Zedillo. Amid the uproar surrounding these events, including widespread speculation as to the guilty parties, plus the relaunching of the election campaign, public attention was increasingly diverted from Chiapas. Whereas during the first months of the crisis, Marcos' communiques had made frontpage headlines, by the Spring they were largely consigned to the back pages of Mexican newspapers. Meanwhile, the government moved to undermine the support for the rebels via massive social spending. In less than 6 months, over $220 million was poured into the state's social development and infrastructure projects, a 44% increase over what had been budgeted. The largest recipients, by far, were the four towns of San Cristobal, Altamirano, Ocosingo, and Las Margaritas. By now, too, the military's treatment of the Indians had improved, and the latter were becoming more vocal about the hardships and abuses (especially forced recruitment) of guerrilla rule. For their part, the Zapatistas seemed more and more divorced from those whom they purported to represent. After May 1994, they virtually dropped their socioeconomic demands, calling instead on "civil society" to rise up and demand national political reform (see FBIS-LAT, 1994b: 21-25; Robertson, 1994).
The culmination of this shift was the convocation of a "National Democratic Convention" in Chiapas in early August 1994. The gathering, part of which was held at Marcos jungle hideout, was attended by several thousand representatives across a spectrum of Left-wing groups. Proclaiming the PRI to be "the common enemy of us all," the delegates called for a nationwide campaign of civil disobedience to push the ruling party from power.
On election day, however, the voters cast their ballots for Zedillo and the PRI. Though the process contained numerous irregularities, the magnitude of the victory (especially in the presidential race) was such as to leave little doubt as to who had won. Mexicans might be unhappy with the PRI's long record of authoritarianism, corruption and violence (or, for that matter, the weak state of the economy), but they were unwilling to risk more instability and violence by turning power over to the insecurities in the national psyche. Mexicans were not yet ready for such a transition.(2)
The results of the election left the Zapatistas in a difficult position. It was apparent that the Mexican people had not rejected the existing system nor were willing to support the kind of violence that the EZLN represented, even though sympathetic to many of its proclaimed objectives. [Significantly, the presidential candidate favored by most delegates to the "National Democratic Convention" - e.g., Cardenas - had finished a poor third.! For the moment, at least, the PRI had snatched the cloak of legitimacy away from the rebels, and it was by no means clear they could recapture it.
The question that remained unanswered was whether war would now break out anew. Because the gubernatorial election in Chiapas had been marred by widespread fraud, the Zapatistas refused to recognize its validity and threatened to resume fighting if the PRI governor-elect assumed office. Notwithstanding the merits of their case, it seemed unlikely that they would be able to regain the moral high ground they had held the previous January. Chiapas continued to be overshadowed by other national issues. In any case, the PRI candidate had "won" by a decisive margin, and it was unclear whether the irregularities that had occurred would have made the difference between victory and defeat.(3) Even many EZLN supporters balked at the militancy of their leaders. Nor would the rebels any longer have the advantage of surprise. Over the intervening months, the Mexican army, with some 20,000 troops in Chiapas (DePalma, 1994), had carefully surrounded the Zapatista forces in the Lacandon jungle, which left the Guatemalan border as the only escape route. Given the limited resources of the guerrillas, resuming their offensive would have been suicidal.
As for the threat of "other Chiapases," in states like Veracruz and Guerrero where there have been sketchy reports of guerrilla activity, one could only speculate. The numbers and viability of those groups remained in doubt because, where they existed at all (and some were probably nothing more than rumor), they appeared to be small, based on local land disputes, and lacking a national political agenda (Oppenheimer, 1994a). As of early December 1994, then, there was a classic Mexican standoff: the Zapatistas had broken off contact with the government (10 October), and the military appeared willing to play a waiting game and avoid more accusations of human rights violations. The latter continued to support the government's strategy of pursuing negotiation and appeared unlikely to attack the Zapatistas unless provoked. For their part, the EZLN was also cautious; rhetoric notwithstanding, they understood clearly the weakness of their military position - thus their shift away from a military strategy to a political one based on public relations and popular mobilization.
The only problem was that this strategy did not seem to be going anywhere. Increasingly isolated and trapped, the rebels were unable to move forward on the one hand, unwilling to surrender on the other. So long as the deadlock continued, however, the potential for violence remained. Yet the army and the guerrillas were not the only potentially explosive elements in the equation. Ever since the January 1994 crisis erupted, local elites had seen their power and properties threatened as never before. They were angry, frightened, and prone to violence, with many not above taking the law into their own hands to recapture stolen cattle or recover occupied properties. There was always the risk that some might be tempted to provoke a resumption of lighting in hopes that the army would help them retrieve their losses.
Thus, there was a need to defuse the conflict by bringing the rebels in from the cold. The original draft of this article argued that the incoming Zedillo administration should assign a high priority to the task of exploring ways to coopt the Zapatistas and their supporters, both economically and politically. On the one hand, this would have meant fulfilling promises to alleviate the poverty and desperation that drove so many chiapanecos to support the guerrillas, on the other, to reform state/local power structures so as to assure the rule of law and the access of those who had been shut out of the system. Nor were these requirements limited to Chiapas. There are many other areas of rural Mexico with comparable problems which, if neglected, could lead to a social explosion. Finally, the authors suggested that the process of national political reform be deepened and consolidated. On this point - even if not on all others - the Zapatistas have right - thus their shift away from a military strategy to a political one based on public relations and popular mobilization.f the guerrillas, resuming their offensive would have been suicidal.latter were becoming more vocal about the hardships and abuses (especially forced recruitment) of guerrilla rule. For their part, the Zapatistas seemed more and more divorced from those whom they purported to represent. After May 1994, they virtually dropped their socioeconomic demands, calling instead on "civil society" to rise up and demand national political reform (see FBIS-LAT, 1994b: 21-25; Robertson, 1994).d (Mexico, 1994b)
Article from the Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Spring 1995 v37 n1 Civil-military relations in Mexico: the Zapatista revolt and its implications. Full Text COPYRIGHT 1995 University of Miami