On the green knolls of Oventic sat thousands of Zapatistas and their supporters. Most did not know each other. Some did not speak the same language. They arrived from distant communities throughout the region and joined in preparation for the initial march and the first unification of the Zapatista caravan in San Cristobal de las Casas in southeastern Mexico.
The Mayans are a reserved people. They sat and sprawled on the grass in small groups in the chilly highland afternoon, conversing quietly. When a musical group concluded on the stage, few clapped. It seemed more of a sharing of spirit than a performance. People climbed onto the stage freely and with complete respect.
Most wore black masks or red bandanas over their faces, partially to conceal their identity, but more out of the principal that some thirst for glory in the struggle for indigenous and women's rights. Subcommandante Marcos, the foremost Zapatista spokesperson and modern Mexican iconoclast often says, "everything for everyone. Nothing for us."
The most common inaccuracy in the mainstream press is the identification of Marcos as the rebel leader, when in reality he is no more than a poetic spokesman. "We are all Marcos," is a common expression among Zapatistas and supporters.
Outside the secured community, dozens of agricultural trucks lined the roadside pointed towards San Cristobal. A silent and constant stream of arrivals flowed through a quick security check at the front gate. Once inside, they passed by brightly painted murals of flowers and portraits of revolutionaries that adorn the outer walls of the buildings.
Looking down from the gate, the landscape fell away beyond the stage into a deep gorge lined with lush forest and flanked by steep green fields. A small sign showed a corn plant sprouting from an upturned helmet.
The Zapatistas have always pledged to place words before physical force. In fact, the Zapatista rebellion has overturned the traditional notions of power that characterized previous guerilla movements in Latin America. For example, the ability of the Zapatistas to mobilize support from national and international civil society has charged their momentum in the sphere of Mexican politics.
Alvaro, a representative of Estacion Libre, a US organization with a permanent presence in Chiapas, explained that, "because they have a different conception of power, they haven't reduced power to physical force. They are using all of the weapons at their disposition."
This unique approach to power has protected the movement from extermination by the Mexican government. Meanwhile, despite seven years of paramilitary terror tactics spurred by the interests of local elites and foreign investors, Zapatista communities have managed to develop living examples of autonomous communities.
Four such communities, including Oventic, provide autonomous services to their regions. They host medical clinics, cooperative stores, and schools with classes taught in native languages as well as Spanish. Nevertheless, the rebellion does not define its goals by material achievements, but rather by the process of grass roots democratic consensus that creates projects such as Oventic. The broader objective of protecting indigenous and individual dignity forms the core of the quest for autonomy.
Felipe, a young man from Simojovel, stretched out on the grass of Oventic among hundreds of Zapatistas and supporters resting on their bedding and eating corn tortillas prepared earlier that morning.
After the Zapatistas rose up, he said, the government "distributed aid to some people under the condition that they denounce the resistance. They began to distribute money to those who do not have dignity. These people don't feel love like this for their community: they have sold it. But here people are struggling and organizing.
"We formed this autonomous community because this autonomous community has dignity. We wish to say that our dignity is not for sale. No one can buy it. Its heart is here. Its dignity is present. The community strives for the benefit of everyone, not for one."
Thousands of Zapatistas from the four Aguascalientes converged in San Cristobal de las Casas and passed between thousands of supporters and onlookers who lined the narrow colonial city streets. They marched in groups of 50 to 100 chanting themes in unison such as "north, south, east, west, the struggle costs what it may cost," and "Zapata lives! The struggle continues!" Near the head of the march, a colorful band sounded the religious Mayan son music with guitars, harp, concertina, and maracas.
When the march had reached the Cathedral Square in the center of the city, the marchers divided on either side of the street, creating a safe passageway for the commanders and Subcommandante Marcos. They formed two lines arm in arm with a depth of three, and as the crowd cheered Marcos, the delegates passed swiftly to the stage.
Following several speakers, Subcommandante Marcos addressed the crowd of 10,000 Zapatistas and supporters. "This is the march of indigenous dignity. The march of we who are the color of the earth. And the march of all who are all of the colors of the earth."
Marcos spoke on behalf of the Zapatistas, demanding that President Fox allow the peace process to continue by granting three concessions. The first is the passage of an indigenous rights bill signed during the San Andreas peace negotiations of 1996, which former President Zedillo rejected. The second de mand is the release of Zapatista political prisoners, many of whom are in prison for simply organizing. And the third is the withdrawal of the Mexican military from Chiapas, which Fox has promised, but confrontations with hard-liners within the military and inside Fox's National Action Party (PAN) have reduced the withdrawal to symbolic gestures.
No police or military personnel were visible in San Cristobal, although the city had been increasingly militarized for the preceding week. All switched to undercover operations, dressed as supporters, vendors, or even as press. One cotton candy vendor never attempted to make a sale. I also recognized a military officer I had met weeks earlier on a bus. He had formally been transferred out of the conflict zone as a part of Fox's supposed withdrawal.
The end of the 71-year dictatorship of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has opened some avenues of free expression - enough to make the caravan possible. However, it is unlikely that Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive, will cede community control of services and natural resources.
Perhaps the largest obstacle for the Zapatistas is the transnational thirst for the richness of their territory. Chiapas contains potentially the largest petroleum reserves in the hemisphere, as well as uranium, old growth timber, and unmapped biological diversity. Furthermore, it is a geographically strategic zone as the US pushes its Panama Community Plan to draw all of Central America into a free trade zone mirrored after NAFTA. The Pan-American Highway slices through western Chiapas, forming the critical link between Mexico and Guatemala.
Carlotta, of Estacion Libre, explained, "The US has contributed millions of dollars in arms and training to the Mexican government through various means, whether through the facade of fighting a drug war or through third parties such as Israel and Argentina. Currently [US troops] are in Guatemala right now, twenty minutes from EZLN territory, across the river from Ocosingo. And that's peripheral to the [US] involvement ... in terms of controlling larger factors such as economics."
Prior to the passage of NAFTA, the US forced changes in the Mexican constitution which eliminated communal land ownership, allowing cooperatives to be snatched up by larger landowners and corporations. In northern Mexico, Julian, originally of Guaymas described how the government forced his father 's shrimp fishing cooperative to sell its fleet to a corporation. With the cooperative, members ate and lived well. Now the fisherman perform the same work for a fraction of the pay.
Meanwhile, in the highlands of Chiapas and across Mexico, NAFTA has devastated poor corn producers who now must compete with US factory farms. The US heavily subsidizes agribusiness, but has simultaneously forged changes in Mexican policy that prohibit crop supports to poor farmers. The cost of imported US corn has risen 850% since NAFTA, despite a corresponding plummet in prices (USDA, 2000 figures). According to Manuel, a Zapatista farmer from the highlands, "the corporations that arrive to buy [our corn] have an agreement with the government. They take advantage of us, and sell it at a price much higher than what they pay us. We're basically giving it away."
>From the jungled mountains of Chiapas, coffee farmers descend to market their harvest. The campesinos haul immaculate coffee beans in 100 pound burlap sacks, supporting the weight with a band across the forehead. As coffee prices have dropped to less than 50c per pound, thousands of independent growers have left Chiapas in the past year to find work on plantations in other parts of Mexico.
Farther north, in the state of Vera Cruz, Jose explained the results of what he called a "bad government. This is the coffee that they export to the US. The farmers can't sell it here because the [corporations] want to pay one peso per kilo of coffee [4.5c/lb.], paying the field worker 30 centavos [3c]."
Emphasis on women's rights has galvanized Zapatista support across Mexico. Chalo, a 16-year-old volunteer for the caravan in the state of Vera Cruz, related that a higher proportion of women have joined the ranks of volunteers in Orizaba. Several of the Zapatista commanders are women, and speakers from civil society include strong female representation. Each address contains references to civil society in both masculine and feminine terms, a rare and significant nuance in the Spanish language.
The caravan stopped twice in the state of Oaxaca as well as in Vera Cruz and Puebla before circling north of Mexico City. In Puebla, the fourth largest city in Mexico, tens of thousands of indigenous supporters, rural farmers, local urbanites, and a strong contingent of university students packed the central square, climbing trees to glimpse the row of Zapatista commanders.
Distant cheers of "You are not so alone," echoed from a corner of the square, spreading across the crowd in waves. Several women from civil society addressed the crowd, followed by addresses from the commanders and culminating in the address of Subcommandante Marcos. Speaking as a mouthpiece for the organization as a whole, Marcos expanded into philosophical commentary on human dignity.
Whenever I saw the Zapatistas exposed and speaking on stage, I would find my eyes sweeping the surrounding buildings for a hidden sniper. As the caravan visited dozens of cities across Mexico, the commanders accepted the risk with caution, but seemingly without fear.
A few days later, the brakes failed on one of the buses carrying international observers, destroying five vehicles of the caravan and killing an escorting policeman. In a miracle, the colliding vehicles narrowly missed a fuel truck that would have incinerated hundreds. The accident occurred upon arriving in the state of Queretaro, where the PAN governor had recently called for the death penalty for the "traitorous" Zapatistas. At this point, no one can verify whether it was truly an accident or an assassination attempt. In subsequent addresses, a haggard Marcos declared that the caravan would not be deterred by the tactics of intimidation.
The caravan proceeded to the Third National Indigenous Congress (CNI) in Michoacan, with forty of Mexico's 50 indigenous groups represented. Among other resolutions, the congress vowed that indigenous and marginalized communities across Mexico would move towards the levels of autonomy forged in Chiapanecan communities.
"We will recover our waters, forests, lands, sanctuaries, and our historical sites; we will recover our territory," wrote the congress. The unification of indigenous groups across Mexico is a significant stride in the growth of the Mexican social movement as a whole. The alliances formed at the Congress will likely outlast the tenuous COCOPA indigenous rights bill.
Alvaro, of Estacion Libre, referred to the passage of the bill as "a defensive strategy. It allows indigenous communities to fight off the neoliberal onslaught which is threatening to take them off their land. But it's a temporary and partial measure. It only affects indigenous people, not the country as a whole; it staves off the neoliberal program, but it doesn't destroy it."
Significant numbers of both PRI and PAN representatives within the Mexican Congress detest the proliferation of indigenous autonomy and oppose the pending indigenous rights bill. Fox sent the bill to the legislature with minimal endorsement, leading critics to maintain that he wishes a peace without changes, including the burial of the bill.
The Zapatistas rolled into the capital before hundreds of thousands of supporters in the central square of Mexico City on March 11th, vowing to remain until given a chance to speak directly to the National Congress. Members of the Commission on Peace and Reconciliation (COCOPA), the organization mediating government and rebel negotiations, sent a document to the Zapatista leadership, inviting them to a meeting limited to ten members of each legislative branch. The document was not signed and held no legal basis. The Zapatistas rejected the proposal and with a nudge from Fox, the Congress accepted the delegation.
On March 28th, the delegation testified before the legislature. In an unexpected turn, Marcos did not speak. In stead, Commandanta Ester delivered the keynote address. "My name is Ester," she said. " But that is not important right now. I am a Zapatista, but as well, that is not important. I am an indigenous woman and that is of unique importance now."
Ester expounded on the plight of indigenous women. She also offered several concessions on behalf of the rebel army and respectfully clarified demands to the federal government. In particular, she addressed opponents of the COCOPA indigenous rights bill. Congress will respond with its upcoming vote.
Meanwhile, in Chiapas, the military has heightened activity since the caravan departed. Widespread communities report low helicopter patrols and troop movements into the interior of Zapatista territory. Wealthy ranchers, many of whom have links to paramilitary squads, have been plotting reprisals. At one meeting near Altimirano, a collection was taken up to hire a sniper. And in San Cristobal, reactionaries ransacked the office of a US public radio journalist who had collaborated with the Independent Media Center.
The Zapatistas departed March 30th after 22 days in Mexico City, arriving safely in the Lacondon jungle. The delegation addressed supporters in several cities across Mexico during its return. After returning to their communities, the delegation announced that Marcos was awaiting new orders from the commanders, and offered pledges of demilitarization to coincide with government withdrawls.
The vitality of the Zapatista movement does not depend on the doubtful passage of the indigenous rights bill as much as it hinges on the wider mobilization against corporate globalization in Mexico and in communities around the world. Chiapas is a fault line in the greater conflict that amounts to an evolutionary struggle between the neoliberal free-trade logic and human dignity. Chiapas is a mirror image of the low-intensity war being waged world-wide.
When asked about how the Zapatista uprising relates to the greater macrocosm, Alvaro suggested that "the first thing we need to do is destroy the notion of solidarity. Solidarity is not what this movement needs; what this movement needs is revolution in the United States and all over the world. We need to destroy the notion of place under globalization." Nevertheless, the lives of the Zapatistas greatly depend on their alliances with the greater civil society and the vigilance of the international community.
As he initiated his San Cristobal address, Marcos poetically described the caravan as the "march of those of us who are the color of the earth." He invited all to join the caravan.
"Our oldest ancestors tell that the original people of these lands saw that the absurd and powerful arrived to teach us in the ways of fear. They came to wilt our flowers. And so that the flower of the powerful could live as it does, they damaged and assaulted our flower. Our oldest elders that were weakened by the powerful say they that the heart of the flower of the powerful is dead; that they subtracted from it until it broke. They damage and chew our flowers. Our oldest predecessors recount how the original flower of these soils took the color of the earth so that it would not die. That small, it resisted. And that in its heart, it guarded the seed so that with its heart like the earth, another world might be born. Not the original world; not the world that the powerful wilted. Another one. A new one. A good one. Dignity is the name of this original flower. And it ought to walk a great length so that everyone may encounter the seed in their hearts..."
- Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos, San Cristobal de las Casas, 2/24/01