EZLN History: pre-1994 to the Sixth

Today, on the 10th anniversary of the date the San Andres Accords were signed, I want to piece together the history of the EZ and the Zapatista communities as it has been told little by little on this journey, from before the 1994 uprising when indigenous people on the streets in San Cristobal, Chiapas had to walk in the street instead of the sidewalk and bow their heads and lower their eyes when someone passed, to the First Declaration of the Lacondon Jungle when the Zapatistas declared war on the Mexican state, to the 6th Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and the current moment in 2006 where Zapatismo has become a global phenomenon and to be indigenous and Zapatista in Chiapas is to be proud, radical, and respected. The Other Campaign, though, puts very little emphasis on the Accords—that was an agreement made with those above. “Now we are doing something else,” the EZLN clarifies, “and it is from and for below.”

In many parts of the country rumors have circulated that Marcos is coming to try to start another war, that he is going to ask them to fight, or to put on masks, to go to the mountains. Place by place the EZLN keeps patiently explaining how and why the Subdelegado O has been sent there, filling in history, explaining who they are, where they came from, how they have gotten to where they are, and what they are trying to do now. Delegado O explains how it is that he wears a mask, who sent him and who is behind him.

In Lomas del Dorado, Veracruz, January 31, 2006, Marcos began by saying, “I want you to hear this, because I know you have been scared that we come here to bring problems or to bring war. We don’t bring guns; [he points to each of his pockets and belts] I have here a few pens to take notes with, here I have a radio, to get news updates or find out how the road is ahead; here I have a spare skimask in case this one gets really dirty, here I have something to charge batteries, and here I have a pliers in case the car breaks down, and here’s a compass in case I get lost.”

The following is taken largely from a meeting with the teachers union in Oaxaca City, February 9, 2006, with inserts from other cities and towns that I note by dates). Where there are quotes it’s a quote, the rest I’m paraphrasing closely but from my notes, not direct transcription:

Good evening, comrades. I am Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, I am the boss of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, an armed force. But I am a subcommander because I follow the orders of an indigenous council, most of them older men and women now, who listen to the indigenous Zapatista communities. The EZLN is in its great majority indigenous men and women. When our organization was still secret, our indigenous members had to cover their faces because, and you know this if you have been in indigenous communities, everybody knows everybody. I am the boss of this army, and I was not prepared to do anything my troops weren’t prepared to do, so I covered my face, too. We took San Cristobal de las Casas January 1, 1994; that morning dawned with us, the EZLN, in control of the city. That day some of the companeros called me over because they said there was an American journalist who wanted to talk to somebody. It turned out that it was a French tourist asking if he could leave the city. I said no, not yet, but that he would be safe with us and not to worry. But while I was there talking to him a bunch of journalists and photographers came over and started taking pictures and asking questions. That’s where “Marcos” was born. The mask will stay on until they kill me or take it off me by force….”

(It’s interesting to note that while the masks interest or frighten or fascinate people in other parts of the country, in Chiapas, people in the cities and even more often in the villages expressed the same sentiment over and over: before, here in Chiapas we were forgotten and invisible to the world. When the Zapatistas put on masks, all of a sudden everyone could see us.)

In Tzinacapan, and indigenous town in Puebla, 2/13/06, he adds: Before 1994, in San Cristobal de las Casas the indigenous still couldn’t walk on the sidewalk, we had to walk in the street like animals…we had no schools, or if there was a school there wasn’t a teacher, no hospitals, no work, no food. When one of us got sick we had to decide, which is cheaper, try to get transportation to the city to see a doctor that may refuse to treat us or treat us badly, or die? It was usually cheaper to die. Poverty and death was growing so quickly and the desperation and anxiety increasing so rapidly leading up to 1994, and we thought, we might get old and nothing will happen, nothing will change. So we rose up in arms. And we thought, we can wait here in the mountains for the soldiers or we can go after them in the cities. And we decided to go get them. The large landowners in Chiapas has their own White Guards (like private paramilitary groups) and that’s where we got our weapons. That night (December 31, 1995) the rich were having drinks to celebrate New Year’s Eve; we didn’t even have anything to make coffee with.

Delegado O continues (back to the Oaxaca discourse 2/9/06): When we rose up we expected one of two things, either the people would rise up with us and fight, or they wouldn’t pay any attention to us and we’d get blown to pieces, we’d die like all the others that have tried to resist. But nether one of these happened. Instead, the people supported us but they didn’t support the war. And we wanted to know, who were these people who agreed with us politically but didn’t agree with the war, who wanted us to dialogue and negotiate with the government? So we agreed to talk to the government, but we used this opportunity [the dialogues] to meet the people who asked for the ceasefire, who demanded that the Mexican government not let the army not kill us. We invited a bunch of people—artist, intellectuals, writers, etc.—because we said, we’re not going to do this alone. And what we produced, the proposal for Indigenous rights and autonomy, couldn’t have been produced alone. […]

In Tzinacapan 2/13/06, the EZ explains the evolution of the 6th Declaration: The Fifth Declaration of the Lacondon Jungle was directed to those above. We negotiated with the government because national and international civil society asked us to. […] First, in 1995, we told the government we were sending “our most powerful weapon” to Mexico City, and the government got scared and defensive. And tiny Comandante Ramona with a bough of flowers in her arms, addressed a million people in the Mexican capital.
In 1996 we signed the San Andres Accords with the government, but they failed to follow through.In 1997 we sent 1,111 people from the Zapatista communities, one from each Zapatista community (now there are more, but there were 1,111 at that time) to Mexico City, and the government responded with the Acteal Massacre in December 1997. In 1999 we held the National Consultation, where 5,000 zapatistas, 2,500 men and 2,500 women, went out into the country to ask the Mexican people if they agreed with the Indigenous law and 3 million answered in agreement. In 2000 the PRI lost the presidency to the PAN, and Vicente Fox promised change and changed nothing.We went all the way to Mexico City, in 2001, in the March of the Color of the Earth, to talk to the congress. First they didn’t let us in, then they did, and Comandante Esther talked to the Mexican House of Representatives. But we were betrayed again, and we thought, why are we wasting our time with this, they never follow through! Now we see clearly that no change will or can happen from above. […]

So we made the caracoles (Zapatista autonomous centers) and the Councils of Good Government and we organized our communities to live better. Because that’s what it’s about in the end, to live with dignity.

An insert from Villahermosa, Tabasco, 1/24/06: This isn’t about, we’re going to fight, as indigenous peoples, and then continue living in wood shacks, burning sticks for light, and worshiping father sun or mother moon or whatever it is one thinks it is to be indigenous. We want to live well, with dignity, but with respect for our own way of being, our culture, our language, our way of dressing. And we’re going to fight for that.

Back to Tzinacapan: But now what we’re saying is that we can’t do it alone. Not just as Zapatistas, not just as farmers, not just as artists […] The Sixth Declaration is directed below, because what we saw in all those years when we were meeting civil society, was all the stories and struggles that existed but had no TV or newspaper to make them visible. In the Sixth what we do is this: we ask, “who are we?” and we ask that everyone ask the same question. The EZLN is majority indigenous, with 2-3 mestizos, but it is directed by all indigenous people. And then we ask, “where are we?” And then, how do we see the world?” […[ One can think of their own misery, things are this way because the stars were aligned wrong when I was born. But we don’t think so, we think it’s capitalism that robs us, puts the poor in jail. And then we thought, if we think this way, maybe others do to. So what we want to do is get together with all the others. Not so that we are all the same but so that we are not alone. And so we thought, how do we do this, bring them all to the jungle? But we knew that only those with the money and time to do this could come. So what we’re doing now is coming to you, to listen to you. But at the same time we’re listening, everyone else hears each other, too. This is the Sixth.

Cit of Oaxaca: “The commanders of the EZLN have given me the orders to go out into the country and travel to every corner of the republic and look for the indigenous people who in struggle, but also the man, woman, child, young person, homosexual, lesbian, that aren’t indigenous, and find the way for us all to work together.” […]

We, indigenous peoples from Chiapas, have endured the cold and tolerated the heat, we have been soaked by the sweat of our work, the rain that falls on us because we don’t have a decent roof over our heads, the blood of our pain and our dead. […]

Tzinacapan: The Sixth is about indigenous struggle, but it is also about oil workers, and taxi drivers, and artists…it is about all those who want to cry with rage, but that burning inside is a rebellion. We want to be your comrades in this rebellion, but without arms and without war, where no one rules and no one obeys. Where the land belongs to those who work it. Where the political prisoner of any of us it the political prisoner of all of us. Where we make new social relations, new agreements, new ways of relating between men and women, men and men, women and women, adult and child…that’s why instead of marches we’re having meetings, rich discussions, here with you.