“Those Who Are Now
Asking Us to Forget All This Are Deciding Such Things in This Country’s Castles
and Palaces”
Marcos Sets Off Alone
on His Motorcycle as the Other Campaign Kicks Off
By Concepción
Villafuerte
Reporting from
Subcomandante Marcos left La Garrucha, a village in one of the Zapatistas’ autonomous
municipalities, in the early afternoon. The surprise for journalists,
observers, and curious bystanders was that he came out alone, without any
security escort, mounted a motorcycle and took off on his way to
He is alone, at least in
terms of security, and exposed to any kind of undesirable situation — something
that no one among the EZLN’s
supporters wants to happen, but none of them can offer him any kind of
security.
Journalists and other
traveling companions were left behind; as everyone knows, a motorcycle goes
faster than any other vehicle. This time, there were no police cars clearing
the way as happened in the Zapatista March of 2001,
when the state government pulled out all the stops, telling the media that it
would guarantee the safety of the Zapatista caravan in Chiapas. Now, Rubén Velásquez, the
Meanwhile, the march the
gigantic march that has now been seen on other occasions,
began. It was impressive for its indigenous contingent, the members of which
can only be distinguished by the traditional clothing of the various region that some of them pull out to show off for the fiesta
(though most simply arrived in work cloths, probably the only clothes they
own). There they were, hundreds and hundreds, thousands. The counts are always
a little exaggerated, but they are based on the space the people take up in the
central plaza, which holds about 20,000, in addition to those spread out
nearby, especially the women with their small children who sit to rest on the
steps of City Hall.
They arrived in the central
cathedral plaza; some call this the plaza of peace, others the plaza of
resistance. There was the stage, from which the comandantes
sent their political message. Later spoke Subcomandante Marcos, known as of
yesterday as “Delegate Zero” of the Other Campaign.
The comandantes’
speeches all followed roughly the same tone, talking of the struggle and the
same problems they have faced for twelve years. In the audience, the small
non-indigenous presence was lost in the crowd of Indians. Some came out of
curiosity, others were simply there as tourists, and there were very few local
participants from the city. The march was one hundred percent Zapatista.
Subcomandante Marcos, in his
speech, asked for a moment of silence for the comrades that fell in the
uprising twelve years ago.
He later movingly thanked, in
Tzeltal and Spanish, the indigenous people of the EZLN that he was now leaving:
“It
falls on me to leave first, to see how the road is that we are all going to
travel, to see if there is danger there, in order to unite the Zapatista
struggle with the struggle of the rural and urban workers. If something bad
happens to me, know that it has filled me with pride to fight alongside you.
You have been the best teachers and leaders and I am sure that you will carry
on our struggle the right way, teaching everyone to be better with the word
‘dignity.’
“We are
the wind, we cannot die in the struggle, the word has now been planted in good
soil, this good soil is your heart and in it now blooms the dignity of the
Zapatistas.”
Then informed the crowd that Comandante Germán, and aging
guerilla that the Mexican intelligence agency CISEN has
said was an original founder of the EZLN,
will be a link between the EZLN and its supporters:
“I want
to ask Comandante Germán,
someone who has been very important in the history of the EZLN,
to come up here with us. The EZLN owes its first seed
to him, and I personally owe him more than my life for having shown us the
path, the steps to take, and the destination. We Zapatistas know the architect
Fernando Yañez as Comandante
Germán. We have asked him to take charge of the
‘Zapatista Link’ office, which will be the medium the EZLN
and the Sixth Comission will use to stay in contact
with all the other compañeros of the Other Campaign.
The office will also help us in the relationships we maintain with leftwing and
anti-capitalist organizations in
Later in his speech he
remarked that the municipal authorities had turned out the lights in the
streets that the Zapatista march was using to enter the plaza. He explained
that the Other Campaign hopes to unite the struggles of others with that of the
EZLN in order to create a light so strong that the
powerful give up. He also spoke out against the “Chapultepec
Pact,” a proposal for development put forward by the country’s elite last
fall.
“The Sixth Declaration
proposes that we go, speak, and reach agreements with all those who work the
machines, plow the earth, those that provide all the different products and
services and end up with nothing.”
“Of all the things we have,
our lives are the least important. We are putting our moral authority, our prestege, all the things we have
achieved into this initiative.”
“The
Sixth Declartation’s main target,
“Those who are now asking us to forget all
this, to forget out needs, our struggles, and to put ourselves at their service
so that they can decide for us, are deciding such things in this country’s
castles and palaces.”
After
The rest of the early morning
hours of January 2 passed without incident. The streets of the
Original: http://www.narconews.com/Issue40/article1533.html