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News :: Globalization |
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After 10 Years, Zapatistas Bid Farewell To Arms, Turning Their Struggle From Revolution To Politics |
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by Elizabeth Mistry
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12 Aug 2003
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The weekend's meeting in the town of Oventic was the first high-profile Zapatista gathering since the failed march to Mexico City. Commandante Marcos, absent because of "stomach problems", sent a taped message in which he said that it was important for the Zapatista communities to reassert their demands for autonomy. |
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Mexican Indian women listen during a ceremony at the village of Oventic, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, August 9, 2003. Many supporters of the rebel Zapatista National liberation Army (EZLN) wear masks to conceal their identities. Dozens of rebel leaders are expected to join hundreds of Zapatista supporters in the community for a series of massive meetings to come up with ways for its 30 autonomous municipalities to better deal with outsiders. Photo by Daniel Aguilar/Reuters
The faces of the guerrillas were covered with the regulation ski-masks, but the message they had to deliver was anything but usual. There were changes, they said, radical changes in the way they wanted things organized.
To start, the Zapatista guerrillas meeting at the weekend in the mountains of Chiapas in southern Mexico, announced the creation of 30 new town councils to govern the municipalities in their control. The councils will settle land disputes and manage aid from numerous international charities.
But the guerrillas also said they would withdraw their fighters from roadblocks across the region and stop charging travelers to pass through the territory they control.
It was this last point that was seized on by the Mexican government, so much so that within hours of Saturday's announcement, President Vincente Fox's administration was talking of a breakthrough in its 10-year stand off with the Zapatista National Liberation Army, or EZLN, which is derived from the Spanish.
Luis Alvarez Alvarez, a close associate of Mr Fox who heads the governmental body in charge of dialogue with the rebels, told The Independent: "It is a very positive move and we can only hope that the EZLN will return to the discussion table at some point in the future."
The interior minister, Santiago Creel, went even further, telling local radio that the announcement was an olive branch. "Let's make this event an opportunity to relaunch new initiatives with an open mind, with new ways to bring us together and to talk," he said. "We are going to respect these forms [of government] and moreover, we think we can have a good, compatible stance in the framework of the constitution and the international treaties which Mexico has signed."
The EZLN, which represents the interests of the indigenous tribes of the mountainous Chiapas region, burst on to the scene in 1994 when its armed fighters seized a number of towns, making their capital in San Cristobal De Las Casas. About 150 people died in that uprising, though few have been killed since.
The rebels, calling for a change in economic policies and a movement towards community-based, self-sustainable farming, initially received a large amount of support.
In 2001, thousands of rebels and their supporters, led by Sub-Commandante Marcos, marched on Mexico City to demand an indigenous rights Bill for the country's 10 to 12 million Indians. Congress later passed a law that fell short of giving the Zapatistas the political autonomy promised to them in a 1996 peace deal. The rebels returned to the mountains, established roadblocks and started charging "taxes" from visitors.
The weekend's meeting in the town of Oventic was the first high-profile Zapatista gathering since the failed march to Mexico City. Commandante Marcos, absent because of "stomach problems", sent a taped message in which he said that it was important for the Zapatista communities to reassert their demands for autonomy.
But Pablo Salazar, the state governor, said: "The EZLN is moving further away from the viability of war and putting itself very firmly in the political arena. We cannot see on the nearby horizon a possibility of a return to dialogue, but paradoxically, they are sending political signs."
In a speech in Oventic to an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Zapatista supporters, Commandante Tacho said that NGOs providing aid and assistance would have to work with the new councils and that remote communities will also benefit.
He said all communities which receive outside help must contribute 10 per cent of the value to the councils so that the wealth could be distributed more equitably. He said these were "brotherly taxes".
The Zapatistas control impoverished Indian villages in the jungles and mountains near the Guatemalan border.
© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
http://www.independent.co.uk/ |
