IV. ON AUTONOMY AN INTERVIEW OF ZAPATISTAS FROM THE OCOSINGO REGION Published in "El Navegante" (Sailors in every port) translated by Beto Del Sereno
Nav: WHAT IS MEANT BY AUTONOMY FOR THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE?
Zapatistas: It's very basic form autonomy consists in recapturing and restoring the culture and self-determination taken away over the last 504 years. That is, in terms of territory, that the people that live in a region administer their own economy, their own politics, their own culture and their own resources.
Nav: HOW DOES ONE EXPLAIN LAND AS PROPERTY UNDER THIS SYSTEM?
Zapatistas: That is what precisely what is being discussed in the communities under the leadership of Parliamentary Community Councils, who are the ones who will decide in each town how they want land maintenance and tenancy to be administered. They are going to decide if they are going to continue as they are or whether they will change it. The people are thinking that we no longer want article 27 of the constitution which didn't do any good anyway.
Nav: HOW WOULD EDUCATION BE HANDLED IN AN AUTONOMOUS REGION?
Zapatistas: The educational project would come from the community. People from the communities are saying that they might as well suspend the present education because it is being imposed from above. We consider that the present education does not include the four themes that we think are the most important: the economic question, the political question and the cultural and social questions. So now we are calling on all the teachers to elaborate a new educational project that is supported by the community bases and that is based on the four main themes mentioned. At this point all the schools are closed which was agreed on by the base communities. The communities (of our region) have said, we will close all the schools and call together all the professors who work in this region so that they can develop their proposal, even though we also have ours. Autonomy is all about bringing both parts together so that we ourselves will develop our own education. Education is our priority because that is where the manipulation of the government comes in. Starting with free text books that don't do us any good.
Nav: THROUGH WHAT FORMS CAN THE PROCESS OF AUTONOMY BE CONCRETIZED?
Zapatistas: If we are talking autonomy we should have everything we need. We should have our own territory, our own education, administer our own resources. Self-government consists of (first of all) doing away with the "democracy" that the government has, that is; always through a "dedazo" (their [finger pointing] selection) are the municipal presidents, the legislatures, the governor and all the authorities chosen. In the communities we should have our own government, it is for that reason that we are selecting the Community Parliamentary Community Councils (before, the Parliamentary Regional Councils) and now State Councils.
Nav: HOW ARE THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNITY COUNCILS DEVELOPED?
Zapatistas: In every community there are 2 or 3 being formed that little by little replacing the old authorities. We are no longer going to have municipal agents, municipal judge, rural judge, commissioner of the ejido. Now there will be Parliamentary Councils that will form an Elders Council, a Youth Council, a Women's Council - this is what is already happening at the base. When the Community Councils are formed in every community then the State Government Parliamentary Council which would have been developed from the base communities. After, proposed legislation can be developed.
Nav: THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS IMPLYING THAT THE AUTONOMOUS ZONES ARE ATTEMPTING TO SEPARATE FROM THE REST OF THE COUNTRY. IS THIS TRUE?
Zapatistas: The idea is not to separate but is to be respected as autonomous people by the government bureaucracy. A clear example of this is that in order for the government to execute a project it sends instructions from Mexico, that go through the State (apparatus) then through the municipal system, so that by the time they reach the community there is a waste of time. What we want to have is our own indigenous government and from that point see what relationships we can establish with the State and Federal Governments-NOT TO SEPARATE OURSELVES.
That they respect us as indigenous people and campesinos, in terms of our land, our forests, our trees, in terms of the social services, and politically that it be understood that our form of government not be imposed, that it be the indigenous people that will decide who will govern us,-this is not a separation of either the State or the Federal governments.