For the people of Mexico City, this was the first time they have had an opportunity to dialogue directly with the protagonists of the four-year old rebellion; and the support which poured out from the indigenous and non-indigenous inhabitants of the federal district--support for both the EZLN itself and for the campaign to honor the San Andres Accords--certainly went far beyond even the most optimistic predictions prior to the march.
The revitalization of the campaign in favor of the fulfillment of the San Andres Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture has definitely been one of the most positive effects of the march so far; it is also the most important, since it is the only path toward a reinitiation of peace talks between the EZLN and the Federal Government.
For the major political parties represented in the Congress of the Union--those responsible for eventually passing legislation on the matter of Indigenous Rights and Culture--the Zapatista and Indigenous March seemed to represent very different things. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) officially welcomed the rebel march; the National Action Party (PAN) ignored or rejected it; and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) seemed to verbally welcome and reject it at the same time.
National PRD president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent a letter to the Zapatista marchers on September 9th, stating that the demands of the EZLN on the march--fulfillment of the San Andres Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture and demilitarization of indigenous communities across Mexico--were just, and that his party would warmly welcome the Zapatista presence in Mexico City.
The national president of the PAN, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, refused to welcome the Zapatistas, although he acknowledged their right to peacefully demonstrate in the capital, and said they should give up their weapons and "choose to work for political change", since "they cannot be considered a social movement with authentic demands" as long as they remain armed and clandestine.
On September 8th, as the EZLN march was leaving San Cristobal, the ruling PRI party issued an ironic statement declaring its "respect and support" for the march, and asking the Interior Minister, Emilio Chuayffet, to immediately resume negotiations with the rebels. Once the marchers had arrived in the capital, however, the PRI was notoriously quiet, preferring to allow the federal government and Ernesto Zedillo to speak in the name of the ruling party, with declarations that hardly constituted "respect and support".
For its part, the federal executive once again made calls for "dialogue without giving up our principles" of "sovereignty and national unity", in another veiled attack on the autonomy demands layed out in the San Andres Accords.
The chief government representative for negotiations with the EZLN, Pedro Joaquin Coldwell--who has yet to even attempt to make contact with the Zapatistas--also called for a reinitiation of dialogue, while adopting a paternalistic sentiment to compliment the marchers for choosing to manifest their demands peacefully, and for supposedly recognizing "that arms are not the way to protest in Mexico and demand social change". However, he neglected to criticize the fact that while the marchers were in the capital, the federal army continued to train armed paramilitary groups in Chiapas, who killed one sympathizer of the EZLN and burned down the homes of 60 others in northern Chiapas during the Zapatista presence in Mexico City.
Then, on September 17th, as the government continued to erroneously speak of the Founding Congress of the FZLN as if it were a transitional congress converting the EZLN itself into an unarmed civilian force, 30 soldiers of the Mexican Army backed up by 20 armed judicial police agents violently broke into the home of Emilia Valdes Neri, a member of the Zapatista Front from Cuernavaca, Morelos. The soldiers, who were acting in blatant violation of the Mexican Constitution, explained later that they had a search warrant to look for hidden weapons which Valdes Neri was accused of stockpiling to give to unnamed "clandestine groups". After searching the house and finding nothing, the soldiers left, without bothering to apologize for their violent actions. If this type of action is indicative of the government's real response to the Zapatista march, then any hope for peaceful solutions to the ongoing problems in Mexico is remote indeed.
Now, the Zapatista marchers have returned to their communities in Chiapas; and only time will tell whether or not their peaceful manifestation in the capital of the republic will bear fruits of peace--or if their demands for a peace with justice and dignity will again be ignored by the government, leading inevitably to more conflict and bloodshed. In any case, the government may well find it more difficult now to misrepresent the Zapatista movement to the press and the public: hundreds of thousands of Mexicans have now seen the Zapatistas with their own eyes--and they know they were not looking at an enemy.
Primary sources for all news articles: La Jornada, Proceso, El Universal, El Excelsior, independent human rights reports, personal observations, and press statements of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation. The primary responsibility for the content of this news page lies with its author, Joshua Paulson, and not necessarily with a commission, civil committee, or other dependency of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation. *SPECIAL ZAPATISMO NEWS UPDATE* THE ZAPATISTA MARCH AND THE FOUNDING CONGRESS OF THE FZLN Part 2 of 2 October 14, 1997 A service of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation. Please redistribute. More information regarding the FZLN and the Zapatista struggle in Mexico can be found at: http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln (English) http://spin.com.mx/~floresu/FZLN (Spanish) This and previous news updates can also be found at: http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln/news.html Please send comments to: joshua@peak.org