Zapatistas Begin Long March

by Carson Brown

G21 Irregular

Over seven years after their first appearance, the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) returned to San Cristóbal on Saturday, February 24, 2001, this time to embark on a peaceful march to Mexico City to resume talks with the government, a process that stalled in 1996 under President Zedillo. Twenty-four representatives of the EZLN -- including the ever-charismatic Subcomandante Marcos, as well as four female delegates -- will tour through major towns in southern Mexico en route to the capital in a grassroots campaign to rally support for their cause.

The EZLN, or Zapatista Army of National Liberation, first burst on the Latin American revolutionary scene on January 1, 1994, when they militarily took over three cities in Chiapas, Mexico -- Ocosingo, Las Margaritas, and San Cristóbal de las Casas -- calling attention to their demands for indigenous rights and land reform.

While the rebel army has succeeded in attracting substantial international acclaim (indigenous rights are trendy, and they even have a website!), it has not fared as well in sparking a broad, activist backing in its home country. Although southern Mexico is a highly politicized region with revolutionary consciousness in its heritage, continuous pleas from the EZLN's high command for a country-wide, unarmed counterpart organization have had little effect. Perhaps this trip will provide the home-turf exposure and personal connection the EZLN needs to inspire Mexicans not just to sympathize but to act.

The scene in San Cristóbal awaiting the Zapatistas' arrival resembled a carnival or a concert rather than a political rally. Under the hot sun, young people wore EZLN pride wear, including "Zapatour" t-shirts, dreadlocked foreigners crowded the food stands, and local bands and folk singers entertained the sparse crowd all afternoon. Banks of television cameras were set up in the square, aimed at the empty stage, awaiting the delegation.

The delegates were scheduled to take the stage at five in the evening, and when they hadn't shown up by eight, even those well-versed in "Mexican time" were starting to get nervous. Rumor had it that Marcos & Co. were holed up in a church, waiting out a security problem. People started wondering if they would take the risk of appearing at all.

But around nine p.m., they suddenly made their presence felt. Truckload after truckload of EZLN rank-and-file members, standing crammed together in silence and blinking in the face of the flashbulbs, appeared along San Cristóbal's main road. The sheer number of enlistees, looking eerie and powerful in their black ski masks, sent the message that years of silence did not mean membership attrition. The EZLN was back, and in full force.

The trucks unloaded, and the EZLN members began their march into the main square, carrying banners and cheering, "Viva Zapata! Viva Marcos! Viva the women of the revolution!"

The carnival atmosphere had given way to a somber and orderly event. The crowd was nearly silent, possibly out of respect, possibly out of an awareness of what was at stake or a nervousness in allowing so much hope to ride on something so rag-tag.

The throngs of journalists, international revolution groupies, and Mexican civilians were overpowered by the sea of masked Zapatistas in the crowd. They were men and women, young people and old, many barefoot and speaking in Mayan languages rather than Spanish. They had come in from tiny villages throughout eastern Chiapas. Most of the women were wearing their village's traditional clothing, some with babies strapped to their backs.

When Marcos finally stepped up to the microphone, it was not to tell his usual jokes.

He read a literary and serious speech, continually returning to the distinction that the EZLN was not undertaking a march for peace, but a march for dignity.

He looked forward to the day that indigenous people did not feel ashamed of their customs and language. After the speech, the delegation matter-of-factly left the stage -- after all of the anticipation, the actual event was a bit anti-climatic, a rocky start for the march.

In a way, it was lucky that the delegation made it even as far as San Cristóbal in the first place.

Ranchers further east in the Ocosingo valley had threatened to blockade the Zapatista caravan, protesting the thousands of acres of land they have lost to Zapatista reappropriation over the years.

Though the governor of Chiapas, Pablo Salazar, talked them down from that plan, they have now demanded a seat at the negotiation table and threaten to keep the Zapatista's from returning to their turf if their demands are not met during the talks.

Security is the biggest issue facing the Marcha Zapatista currently -- assassination threats have already been made against Marcos. To address the problem, the EZLN asked the International Red Cross to accompany them on their march, but a few days before departure, the agency rejected the request, publicly stating that the Zapatistas did not meet their criteria for a human rights crisis situation.

However, Marcos claims that the federal government withheld the permission the Red Cross needed in order to carry out the mission. The country's new president, Vicente Fox, adamantly denies having any contact with the international body, saying that it was a direct matter between them and Marcos.

Both sides, after an initial blow-up, have tried to play the issue off in a low-key manner. Comandante David of the EZLN stated that he is sure that "civil society" -- a favorite buzz phrase of the Zapatistas, meaning people world-wide who abide by their principles -- will afford the delegation all the protection they need, which seems to be an optimistic stance.

Zapatista-backing NGOs expressed outrage in the wake of the Red Cross's withdrawal, claiming that any danger that befalls the delegation will be completely the fault of the federal government.

The government argues that this matter should remain as much of a national issue as possible -- foreign intervention is not necessary, the Mexican people can work this out internally -- but that is a very convenient stance considering that international support is one of the Zapatista's main assets.

The Red Cross controversy is just the latest tension between the EZLN and the executive body. Overall, the anti-Zapatista sentiment in the country comes from business people who fear that political instability in the southeast will disrupt the hard-won confidence of foreign investors. Fox, though he seems to be socially liberal in these early days of his administration, is an economically-conservative friend of the business man, being a former high-ranking Coca-Cola executive himself. Thus, Fox and the Zapatistas will definitely clash on one point, should they ever talk face to face: globalism.

Fox is looking to take his still-developing country into the 21st century by courting international corporations and identifying potential Mexican exports, but the Zapatistas fight for localism, regional autonomy, and self-sufficiency.

Fox claimed shortly after his election that he could fix the Zapatista issue in "fifteen minutes," he betrayed his ignorance of the depth of the problems. But in his willingness to engage with the EZLN -- whether or not he knew what he was up against -- he has opened the door for them to do what they do best: put in face time.

No matter how many of Marcos's dispatches were posted on the Internet, he and his group could not be effective when they were pinned in the remote Lacandón rain forest by the Mexican army.

The Zapatistas have refused to have any contact with Fox and his staff until their three demands for dialog --

1. Withdrawal of the army from Chiapas,
2. Freedom for all Zapatista political prisoners, and
3. The inclusion of indigenous rights in the constitution, per the San Andrés accords

-- have been met. Fox has offered half-compliance, taking out some of the military presence and releasing some prisoners, but the EZLN is standing their ground.

They infuriated Fox's Commissioner for Peace in Chiapas, Luis H. Alvarez, by not responding to his requests for meetings to lay out the ground rules for the march. In his anger, Alvarez said that if the EZLN would have responded to his invitations, that the whole Red Cross problem would not have come up in the first place. But Marcos called this manipulation, saying that the government was hoping to gain concessions, force the Zapatistas to make unearned contact with them, by threatening their safety.

In many ways, this march to the capital is the framework for a public relations battle of wits between the EZLN and the federal government. It's Fox's political machine of nationalism and tradition against Marcos's international, media-driven, celebrity-bound battalion of up-start revolutionaries.

Fox is currently popular with the Mexicans, representing a change from over 70 years of corrupt PRI rule, and people want to believe in him, believe that true change is ahead. But Marcos will not allow his genuine efforts to be overshadowed by the cheap talk of the president. He's playing hardball, forcing the new president to earn any new clout he seeks to garner.

Marcos recently stated that the president is trying to turn the Zapatista march into the Fox march, but the Sub has made it clear that the EZLN is headed to the capital to speak only with Congress and that the president will be kept out of the equation until the demands are met.

Much remains unclear as the Zapatista delegation winds its way toward the capital, but one thing is clear: If President Fox wants to claim these peace talks as a victory for himself and the country, he will have to realize that his fifteen minutes are up and that solving age-old problems takes more than propaganda.

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CARSON BROWN, a San Francisco Bay Area native, is a freelance writer living in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico. Ironically, she misses California burritos and Taco Bell. This is her debut article for The World's Magazine.