Artículo de John Ross

NEWS * FEATURE March 19 - 25, 1999.The Zapatistas Are BackAnd they’re asking all of Mexico for an endorsement by John Ross

On the move: Zapatistas in Chiapas

AP/Wide World SAN ANDRES SAKAMCH’EN DE LOS POBRES, MEXICO — The big house on the muddy plaza here is locked and forlorn, its innards gutted andits back patio converted into a town toilet, an appropriate metaphor for what has happened to the 40 pages of agreements signed on the premises February 16, 1996, between the representatives of President Ernesto Zedillo and 17 leaders of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation(EZLN).

The San Andres accords, as they have come to be called, would have guaranteed limited constitutional autonomy to the nation’s indigenous peoples. Reached after many months of arduous negotiation, the agreements granted to Mexico’s 800 Indian-majority municipalities or counties local control over their own territory, natural resources, and justice and educational systems, in addition to legitimizing these election of officials by traditional assembly rather than party politics.

But the agreements had a short life span, vetoed by Zedillo seven monthsafter they were inked, on grounds that their conversion into law wouldhave encouraged the secession of Mexico’s Indians from the nationalunion and paved the path to a Bosnia-type dilemma in Chiapas. The EZLNresponded by breaking off peace talks; all hopes of an early settlementto the long-simmering conflict were effectively dashed.

In the years since, pressing the mal gobierno ("bad government") to liveup to the accords has become the focal point of the rebels’ cause. Atthe same time, hostilities have persisted: In the interval since themasked rebels and Zedillo’s representatives last met in August 1996, 138

Indians have been killed in the conflict zone, including 46 Tzotzilsupporters of the Zapatistas at nearby Acteal. Another 15,000 have beendisplaced from their land, and 300 foreign human-rights observers havebeen expelled from the country.

On March 21, the first day of spring, the EZLN will seek to break thepolitical stalemate and resurrect the moribund agreement by staging anational — and international — plebiscite under the rubric of"Recognition of the Rights of Indigenous People and the End of the Warof Extermination." The consulta asks participants four questions:

Should the Indians be included in Mexico’s national project and take anactive part in building the new nation? (Few will vote no on this one.)

Should peace be achieved through dialogue and the Mexican military bereturned to barracks? (There are 60,000 troops currently encamped in theconflict zone.)

Should the government obey the will of the people and abide by theresults of the consultation? (Mandar obediciendo — governing by obeyingthe will of the people — is a Zapatista leadership principle.)

And most importantly: Should indigenous rights be recognized in theMexican Constitution in accordance with the interpretation of the SanAndres accords offered by the legislative commission that oversaw thepeace talks? (Zedillo’s own interpretation of the agreements has beenmired in Congress since he first promulgated the initiative last March.)

A fifth question has been added for those who will cast a ballot outsideMexico: Should Mexicans living outside Mexico have the right toparticipate and vote in Mexican elections? (Obtaining the vote in timefor the 2000 presidential election here is a galvanizing issue forMexicans living in the U.S.)

Since 1993, when the Alianza Civica (Civil Alliance) held a consultationin Mexico City’s Zocalo plaza on whether or not that metropolis shouldbecome the nation’s 32nd state, Mexicans have been utilizing consultas to introduce a new school of participatory politics. While consultas are constitutionally sanctioned, their outcomes are nonbinding — theyare used primarily as a political tool to pressure entrenched governmentforces. This past summer, the left-center Party of the DemocraticRevolution (PRD) rounded up more than 3 million ballots for a referendumasking the citizenry if it was willing to accept Ernesto Zedillo’s $65billion bank bailout — 97 percent said no. The PRD next plans to askMexicans if they agree with Zedillo’s proposed privatization of thenation’s electricity industry.

In 1995, the EZLN carried out its first consulta, seeking input on itsown future direction. A majority of 1.3 million voters called upon therebels to lay down their arms and transform their army into anindependent political organization. As the Zapatistas point out, thecampaign for the new consulta fulfills the commitments of the previouspublic referendum: the transformation of this idiosyncratic guerrillaforce into a political organization.

In standard EZLN style, the current campaign has spread like the ripplesfrom a pebble tossed into a pool. The first waves appeared last Julywhen, after months of stony silence at the government’s failure to honorthe San Andres accords, the EZLN issued the Fifth Declaration of theLacandon Jungle, calling upon its supporters to promote a popularreferendum on indigenous rights throughout the land.

To promote the consulta, the Zapatistas offered to send representativesto every municipality in Mexico. According to organizers, the responseto the call has been enthusiastic. At last count (late February), morethan 800 get-out-the-vote brigades had been registered in more than halfof the 32 Mexican states. The phones at the consulta’s San Cristobaloffices have been ringing off the hook — both numbers (967-81013 and967-82159) feature a recorded message from Subcomandante Marcos, theEZLN’s charismatic spokesperson.

Down at the grassroots, the brigades, often eight to 10 neighbors orwork- or classmates, with fanciful names like "Sub Speedies" or "TheBeetle of Tlanepantla," are reminiscent of the cell-like "affinitygroups" favored by protesters during the U.S. anti-nuclear-powermovement of the 1980s. The brigades form a network that is taking theconsulta to the plazas of the country and that will be responsible forsupervising and tabulating the votes — in addition to welcoming,protecting, feeding and housing nearly 6,000 representatives fromZapatista villages.

With the brigades in place, thousands of the rebels set out last weekfrom the five EZLN redoubts known as "Aguascalientes" to spread the newsof the consulta. The Zapatista invasion, destined for Mexico’s nearly2,500 municipalities, is expected to last 10 days. With over a fifth ofthe electorate concentrated in Mexico City, the capital will play hostto hundreds of the insurgents, their third visit to the megalopolis.

In 1996, Comandante Ramona became the first EZLN leader to break out ofthe military encirclement of Zapatista villages, when she flew to thecapital for the founding of the National Indigenous Congress, and thenext year, 1,111 mostly masked villagers came up to the big city toreiterate their demand for the implementation of the San Andres accords.

Now, once again, the subtext of the Zapatistas’ visit is to make "SanAndres" a reality.

The EZLN consulta reaches out beyond Mexico’s borders to aninternational constituency that, to the great irritation of the Zedillogovernment, has become a pillar of the rebels’ support base. Accordingto a late February communiqué from Subcomandante Marcos, the consulta will be carried out in 30 countries on five continents, and the pollswill reach from pole to pole (at least from Norway to Patagonia). Irishsupporters will set up a polling place in Dublin so that evenex-President Carlos Salinas, a Zapatista nemesis, can vote. Chicanoactivists in the U.S., for whom the Zapatistas have become the icon ofthe ’90s, earned special commendation from Subcomandante Marcos forspreading the consulta into the barrios of North America.

The EZLN’s international constituency has expressly been warned byZedillo’s peace coordinator, Emilio Rabasa, not to take part in theconsulta on Mexican soil or risk expulsion — two Italians were tossedout of the country in February for teaching in EZLN-run schools,considered by the government to be interference in Mexico’s domesticpolitics.

For the rebels, the consulta and the mobilization of theirrepresentatives are huge gambles. Just getting the Zapatistas out of thejungle is fraught with suspense. Although EZLN members are protectedfrom detention by the Law of Reconciliation, four Zapatistas travelingthrough the Lacandon in February were stopped at military roadblocks,beaten and jailed. When EZLN supporters have ventured into neutralvillages to spread notice of the consulta, Mexican troops have appearedunder the pretext of heading off supposed rebel attacks. At least oneparamilitary-run anti-consulta unit has been formed in the conflictzone, reports La Jornada’s Hermann Bellinghausen.

And while the Zapatistas are on the road, trouble is brewing back home.Chiapas Governor Roberto Albores says he intends to sign off on thecreation of eight new municipalities that infringe territorially onZapatista "auton-omous" municipalities, an imposition that exacerbatestensions in the conflict zone. When Albores moved to dismantle four EZLNautonomias last spring, 10 local residents were killed and hundreds ofrebels taken prisoner.

The political gamble the EZLN is taking on the consulta may outweigh thethreat to its members’ physical integrity. In a real sense, the consultarepresents the Zapatista response to a high-octane political year duringwhich all attentions are riveted on who the nation’s three leadingpolitical parties will nominate as their presidential candidates in theJuly 2000 election. The EZLN is betting that the consulta will prove anattractive alternative to Mexican politics as usual, but the San Andresaccords are little understood and not a primary concern for a lot ofMexicans. The result could be an apathetic turnout in many regions — andif the numbers are not significantly greater than the million-plus votestabulated in 1995, EZLN political fortunes will be sorely bruised.

But the Zapatistas may have had little choice. Keeping their demand forthe implementation of the San Andres accords alive until a new presidentis selected is crucial to Zapatista political survival. And there areintangibles on the plus side: In addition to strengthening EZLN supportthroughout the nation and the world, the Zapatista consulta generateschamba ("work") for their base.

Turning out millions of votes for the EZLN would keep Zedillo’s feet tothe fire, but it may not be enough to make "San Andres" a reality. Underthe rebels’ guiding principle of mandar obediciendo, a big vote willobligate Mexican legislators to incorporate the agreements on indigenousautonomy into the constitution. But the concept of "governing by obeyingthe will of the people" does not have a lot of scratch with the nation’svenal politicos and will meet with stiff resistance in ruling circles.As Interior Secretary Francisco Labastida scoffed when the EZLN firstissued the call for the consulta, "Laws are not made in the jungle."