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 Editorials | Opinions | June 2005 
Zapatistas Have a Surprise Up Their Sleeve, Say Observers
 Diego Cevallos - Inter Press Service
The Zapatista guerrillas in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas have pledged that they will not take up their weapons again.
But they have also announced their determination to ensure that the ”scoundrels” - a catch-all term to describe all politicians - ”will not get their own way,” but rather will ”be held accountable” and forced to pay.
What will the next step be for this poorly-armed indigenous rebel movement, which has captured the world's attention with daring political actions throughout its 11-year history, but has maintained a markedly low profile over the last four?
For the moment, the government of President Vicente Fox is breathing a sigh of relief now that the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) has clarified that it will not be undertaking military actions.
A communiqué released earlier in the week raised considerable concern and confusion, when the group announced that it was on ”red alert”, without specifying the reasons for or consequences of this measure.
Through a spokesperson, the leader of the EZLN, known as ”Subcomandante Marcos”, revealed that the group is planning to do ”something else” to put forward its demands, but has still not specifically stated what it means to do or when.
”This other thing does not imply any kind of military offensive on our part. We are not planning or discussing the resumption of combat,” Marcos noted in one of several communiqués released this past week.
Over the last four years, after their last major public action in 2001 - when the rebel leaders made a highly publicised trip from Chiapas to the Mexican capital to urge Congress to pass a bill on indigenous rights and autonomy - the Zapatistas have remained far outside the media spotlight.
”Knowing the history of the Zapatistas, there will soon be a surprise that will catapult them back on the scene, and we are all hoping that it will not stir up or inflame the political climate,” political analyst Patricio Benevides commented to IPS.
The EZLN burst onto the political stage on the last day of 1993 by seizing a number of villages and highways in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas.
After 12 days of skirmishes with army troops, in which most of the guerrillas were armed with old hunting rifles, machetes or simply sticks, the government of then president Carlos Salinas (1988-1994) declared a unilateral ceasefire, which remains in effect today.
In subsequent years, the group undertook a series of high-profile political actions, earning them strong international support from civil society sectors and culminating in the trip to Mexico City in 2001.
But in recent years, as the political stage on which they made their debut has altered, they have been largely removed from the public eye.
When Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) assumed the presidency in December 2000, he brought an end to the 71-year stronghold on power exercised by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Today, there are few who challenge the legitimacy of the Congress or the presidency, which was not the case when the EZLN emerged.
Now, as Mexico is gearing up for the presidential elections in 2006, the Zapatistas have returned to the political arena by issuing a series of communiqués. In one they promise to fight ”to stop the scoundrels from getting what they want.”
”It is time to begin fighting to ensure that all those up there who scorn history and look down on us are held accountable, and are made to pay,” declares one of the messages signed by Marcos.
Among the ”scoundrels” of Mexican politics, the rebel leader included Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the left-leaning mayor of Mexico City and potential presidential candidate who has been leading the polls for the last six months.
According to Marcos, the political and macroeconomic stability that López Obrador has pledged to establish if he is elected president will merely mean ”growing profits for the rich, poverty and growing plunder for the dispossessed, and an order that keeps the discontent of the latter under control.”
The main demand of the Zapatistas is for the state to guarantee full autonomy rights for the country's indigenous people, as was stipulated in 1996 in the only agreement signed between the EZLN leadership and the government, led at the time by president Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000).
But the Zapatistas have also consistently demanded justice for the poor.
Almost half of Mexico's 103 million inhabitants live in poverty, and the poorest of the poor are its roughly 10 million indigenous people.
It was the emergence of the EZLN - which now maintains political and administrative control over an area comprising 15 percent of the state of Chiapas, which is home to some 100,000 primarily indigenous people - that first brought the issue of the poverty and marginalisation suffered by aboriginal Mexicans to the discussion table.
Little has changed in the lives of the country's indigenous people since the group first appeared on the scene, but the conditions of those who live in the area controlled by the EZLN are generally considered better than those of the Indians residing in the rest of the state of Chiapas.
With financial support from national and international non-governmental organisations, and the tolerance of the government, the EZLN ”insurgents” - estimated to number around 5,000 in all - have established community development, education and health care programmes within their zone of influence.
In addition, from the time they first appeared until the late 1990s, the Zapatistas were a major force in the worldwide movement against ”neoliberal” globalisation.
The EZLN organised the First Intercontinental Gathering for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism in the jungles of Chiapas in 1996, an event attended by dozens of activists from around the world.
In recent years, however, the group has played an extremely limited role in the worldwide anti-globalisation struggle, and has largely ceased to participate in international meetings.
But now the group is preparing to take centre stage again, with a strategy that is as yet unknown.
”We will adopt a collective decision. The pros and cons are being weighed. The calculations are being carefully made, regarding what will be lost and what will be gained. And, seeing that what is at risk is not insignificant, a decision will be made,” announced Marcos in his latest communiqué, dated Jun. 21. |
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