Chiapas

The Zapatistas have pulled back the curtain that covered up the other Mexico. It is not the Mexico of eager entrepreneurs lined up to open Pizza Hut franchises or consumers eager to shop at Wal-Mart, but rather the Mexico of malnourished children, illiteracy, landlessness, poor roads, lack of health clinics, and life as a permanent struggle.

Lynn Stephen, 1994145

The social conditions under which Indians lived underlay the 1994 uprising in Chiapas by a group known as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). The state had the highest number of illiterates, the highest number of those over fifteen who had not finished elementary school, and the highest percentage of the population lacking electricity of any state.146

In the late 1960s, Maoist political organizers began arriving in Chiapas. Following the notion of “insertion among the masses,” the organizers maintained a low profile, worked directly with peasants, and remained for years. This diaspora into the hinterlands of Chiapas was typical of the

Mexican left after the massacre of students in 1968 and the subsequent decimation of urban guerrilla groups. The arrival in Chiapas of organizers with a political agenda continued into the 1980s.147

The Catholic Church also had plans for change in the state. The key figure behind this effort was Samuel Ruiz, who became bishop of San Cristobal in 1960. He arrived in Chiapas as a conservative, but became an advocate for the poor after witnessing the conditions under which Indians lived. The Medellin bishops conference, where liberation theology offered hope for peaceful change, also influenced Ruiz’s thinking.148

Under Ruiz’s guidance, the Church trained 8,000 catechists and 400 deacons and dispatched them to more than 2,500 indigenous communities, where they drew the local population into discussing the causes of their poverty. Many catechists became community leaders since they had ties to the Church and spoke Spanish, which made them ideal intermediaries with the outside world. In 1990, Ruiz commented on his role in Chiapas: “I illuminated the way for the Indians, using their faith. This enabled them to see the problems they faced, and they chose the way to solve them.”149

On New Year’s Day 1994, residents and tourists alike were totally surprised when they awoke in San Cristobal, the main city in highland Chiapas, to find ski-masked rebels huddled around small bonfires. All that day rebels and especially their apparent leader, who became known to the world as “Marcos,” not only chatted with the curious but declared war on the Mexican army and promulgated a series of revolutionary laws.150

Rebels also occupied the municipal seats in Ocosingo, Las Margaritas and Altamirano, the local power centers for eastern Chiapas. The rebels soon withdrew from these towns rather than facing the overwhelming firepower of the Mexican army. Between January 1 and January 11, 1994, roughly 152 were killed. Most of the dead were rebel combatants and civilians.151

Figure 24.1 EZLN rebels in Chiapas Source: Benjamin Flores/Proceso

To coincide with their offensive, the rebels published a declaration of war. It concluded:

To the Mexican People:

We honest, free men and women, believe that the war we are declaring is our last hope and that it is just and necessary. For many years dictators have been engaged in an undeclared genocidal war against our people. For this reason, we ask for your participation and support in our struggle for jobs, land, housing, Jood, health, education, independence, liberty, democracy, justice and peace. We will not stop fighting until these basic demands are met and a free and democratic government rules in Mexico.152

The date of the rebellion, the same day as the NAFTA entered into effect, symbolized the Zapatistas’ opposition to NAFTA and neoliberal economic policies. Bishop Ruiz commented on another aspect of the movement:

The Zapatistas never tried to gain power as the other guerrilla movements did. What they were trying to do was to shake up the sociopolitical conscience of the citizens of this country and ask them to participate in creating a transitional government until a more democratic government

Was in place.

On January 12, Salinas offered the rebels a ceasefire since he was concerned with his image as TV sets around the world showed the government carrying out indiscriminate aerial attacks. As historian Lorenzo Meyer observed at the time, “To build popular support for a prolonged war against the EZLN, the government needs consensus and, above all, legitimacy, both of which have been lacking for some time.”154

Salinas’s offer of a ceasefire and a pardon for participants in the uprising led Marcos to reply:

Today, January 18, 1994, we learned of the formal “pardon” which the federal government offers us. For what should we ask pardons? For what are they pardoning us? For not dying of hunger? For not quietly accepting our misery? For not humbly accepting the gigantic historical burden of scorn and neglect? For having risen up in arms when we found all other paths closed?155

The internet soon came to play a crucial role in the Zapatista movement. In early 1994, the Zapatistas had no links to the internet and relied on sympathizers posting their declarations after they appeared in print. They soon acquired computers and satellite uplinks so they could post their own material. This internet information initially flowed through channels developed in organizing opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement. The internet allowed the rebels to: 1) counter pro-government media, 2) mobilize Mexican and foreign supporters to halt the January 1994 offensive as well as a February 1995 government offensive, 3) circulate Zapatista demands that the print media declined to publish, 4) describe how the government was carrying out low-intensity warfare in Chiapas, 5) discuss rebel plans and those of others to democratize Mexico, and 6) organize mass mobilizations.156

In January 1996, a Mexican government congressional negotiating team reached an agreement with the EZLN. This agreement—often referred to as the Accords of San Andres for the town in which it was negotiated—was ratified by the EZLN. It called for amending the Mexican constitution to permit indigenous autonomy and to recognize the right of indigenous people to compete for office independently of political parties. Other reforms were to be implemented at the state and national level to guarantee indigenous people increased political representation.157

The Accords of San Andres marked the final attempt by Zedillo and the EZLN to peacefully resolve the standoff in Chiapas. This led the Zapatistas to declare that the failure to implement the

Accords indicated bad faith by the government. They declined further negotiations, producing a standoff lasting through the end of the Zedillo administration.

Rather than coming to a negotiated agreement with the rebels or launching an all-out assault on the area under rebel control, the Mexican government early on choose a half-way course—low intensity warfare. This decision was made crystal clear in a leaked government document entitled “1994 Campaign Plan.” The document stated that one of the aims of the Defense Department counter-insurgency strategy was to “break the relations of support that exist between the population and the violators of the law [i. e. the EZLN].” Military instructors were charged with “training and support of the self-defense and other paramilitary organizations.” Finally the document stated, “In case such groups do not exist, it will be necessary to create them.”158

A key element in the low-intensity warfare strategy was wearing down communities and groups identified as supporting the EZLN. Paramilitary forces assumed a key role in this task. Their members were recruited from the unemployed landless and allowed to carry guns and use them for personal enrichment. During 1996 and 1997, an estimated 1,500 were killed by paramilitaries and perhaps ten times as many fled their homes in fear of them.159

The most horrific action by paramilitary forces occurred in December 1997 at Acteal, in the municipality of Chenalho. There, an estimated sixty paramilitaries attacked a makeshift refugee camp housing those who had fled from PRI-dominated areas. After four hours of firing, they had killed seven men, nineteen women, and nineteen children.160

Political killings in Chiapas have been carried out by police, the military, paramilitaries and Zapatista supporters. In an attempt to end such brutality, various human rights groups sent representatives. In 1999 and 2000 alone, Chiapas was visited by Asma Jahangir, UN Special Reporter on Extra-Judicial Executions, Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Erika Des, President of the UN’s Special Working Group on Indigenous Peoples. They all filed reports highly critical of abuses by the government and those acting under its aegis. Rather than addressing human rights in Chiapas, the government engaged in the massive deportation of foreign human rights observers. In 1998 and 1999 alone, 175 were deported.161

One of the great successes of the EZLN was stimulating Indian activism throughout Mexico. After he retired, Bishop Samuel Ruiz commented: “Overall something which is irreversible is raising the level of Indian consciousness continent-wide. They are taking control of their own history.”162

The 1994 uprising dramatically changed land tenure in Chiapas. Zapatista sympathizers, PRI sympathizers, and independent groups occupied vast amounts of land, much of which was converted into ejidos. In the eighty years before 1994, an average of twenty-four ejidos were created annually in Chiapas. During the following six years, the annual average jumped to 200. However, rather than representing a belated commitment to social justice, land allocation formed part of government counterinsurgency strategy. Most land was allocated to government sympathizers in an attempt to wean support away from Zapatistas.163

The rebellion was an impetus to democracy. As late as 1988, the PRI won 90 percent of the vote in Chiapas. By 1997 its vote had fallen to 50.6 percent, since other parties could compete effectively. At the national level, the rebellion galvanized the political establishment into passing the 1994 political reform, in hopes that such reform would forestall more widespread rebellion.164