What is the Sixth Zapatista Declaration?
A Bit of History as the “Other Campaign” Begins
in the City of
By Concepción
Villafuerte
Reporting from
The sixth comes before the
seventh and after the fifth. What was the Fifth Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle? Few remember, but the history of the
Zapatistas is written through the declarations that the EZLN (Zapatista
Army of National Liberation) has released, beginning with the first: the
declaration of war. The second: a call
to civil society. The third: a call
for the creation of a National Liberation Movement. The fourth: the
formation of the Zapatista National Liberation Front. The fifth: the Consulta Nacional, the great
dialog with all Mexicans except the government. And now, the Sixth, the
initiation of the “Other Campaign,” the political struggle that exists outside
the electoral farce.
In the words of
Subcomandante Marcos, “Together, we’re going to shake this country up
from below, lift it up, and stand it on its head.”
The Sixth Declaration from
the Lacandon Jungle proposes realizing a national
campaign for the building of another way of doing politics, for a program of
national leftwing struggle, and for a new Constitution.
In order to understand what
this will entail, one must review the Sixth Declaration’s twelve pages, which
narrate briefly the history of the EZLN, its
sufferings, its achievements, its hopes and its dreams. Later, they relate the
state of the insurgent army’s structure, which has divided itself into three
parts. First, most of the Zapatistas will guard, support and defend the
autonomy of the Zapatista villages. This is the General Command of the CCRI, (Revolutionary Indigenous Clandestine Committee).
Second, another part of the CCRI will be the
“Intergalactic Commission,” which will take charge of the international aspects
of the campaign, while a third will take charge of the national aspects. This
third group has been named the “Sixth Commission of the EZLN,”
and it is Subcomandante Marcos who, starting July 13, has led this fraction of
the EZLN.
How will they carry out this
“Other Campaign?” Principally, by listening. That
essential part of the
six preparatory meetings in the Lacandon Jungle will
continue throughout the country. The Sixth Commission will listen, and in that
way it will learn and value the real situation in the country. Contrary to what
partisan candidates do — hauling out a load of people; buying them off with
promises so that they listen to the candidates’ speeches and, of course, cast
their vote next July 2; piling on the demagogic rhetoric — Subcomandante
Insurgente Marcos will just listen. That is a different way of doing politics.
Later, in the same
Declaration, the Zapatistas say: “What we are going to do is ask you how your
lives are going, your fight, your thoughts about how our country is doing and
about what we can do so that they don’t defeat us. What we are going to do is
listen to your thoughts, those of the simple and humble people, and maybe we
will find there the same love that we have for our country.”
Later, the document relates,
simply, what they are going to do. It demonstrates with examples how they will
evoke solidarity, true solidarity, with their resistance all around the world
and in this way begin listening, finding points of agreement, and building a
“national program of struggle” that they will follow through on.
And nearly at the end of the
Sixth Declaration, the Zapatistas proclaim, “No to trying to resolve from above
the problems of our Nation, but, rather, they must construct FROM
BELOW AND FOR BELOW an alternative to neoliberal destruction, an
alternative of the left for
Finally, they propose
brotherhood, support for resistance struggles, mutual respect, and an exchange
of experiences, stories, ideas, and dreams…
The “Other Campaign” Kicks Off
The Other Campaign begins
That’s why it’s called “the
Other Campaign,” in parallel to the electoral campaigns of the main political
parties. The PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution),
a leftwing party that has been severely questioned by Subcomandante Marcos,
will put forward its only candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), a losing party after
70 years in power, the party of the “perfect dictatorship” as Vagas Llosa called it, will have
Roberto Madrazo Pinado, a priista of dubious reputation in every sense and friend of
the country’s top fraudulent bankers, as its presidential candidate. And the
conservative PAN (National Action Party) has the very
mediocre Felipe Calderón, who was not the first
choice of current president Vicente Fox, but was supported by his party. Not
one of the three candidates is worthwhile. Within this frame of reference, of
the doubtful credibility of the political campaigns, “Delegate Zero’s” Other
Campaign will be the counterweight. Nobody can foresee what will come of it
all.
And so, the Other Campaign
kicks off on January 1 in colonial San Cristóbal de las Casas, the city that was
taken over on January 1, 1994 by some two thousand masked, armed, and defiant
indigenous men and women, who from the balcony of city hall sent their message
of war to the federal government.
Twelve years later, with
their numbers multiplied, it is hoped that they return peacefully to take to
take the streets and avenues of this small city that, due to winter vacations,
is full of Mexican and foreign tourists, in addition to the adherents to “the
Sixth” who could pay for the trip to be present for the start of the Other
Campaign from the cathedral plaza of this city.
There is no advance
information, just like 1994. We journalists must wait to see what happens;
nobody knows, and if they do, they can’t say. But the rumors have been flying
for some time in this little corner of the world, from which the First
Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle was first read.
That declaration of war is still in effect, as the peace accords were never
fulfilled despite the federal government having signed them with the EZLN’s guerilla leaders. The
guerillas were not content with a mere signature; they demanded the fulfillment
of the San Andrés Accords that the government froze in a single
amendment to the Mexican Constitution, for “the development of the Indian
peoples.” The San Andrés Accords deserved a profound
constitutional reform, a nearly total change in order to give life and the
right to life to the country’s Indian peoples, rather than simply reducing them
to a declaration of “development.”
Here in
These passages, now part of
history, will repeat themselves, but in a different form. Now this spoiled,
rude drunk is mayor of the city founded by conquistador Diego de Mazariegos, and tried to make amends with an homage to Bishop Samuel. The same mayor today offers
“security and sanitation” for participants in the Zapatista march; two days
before the marchers’ arrival the city had installed water dispensers, latrines,
and a dozen street sweepers, so that the Zapatistas wouldn’t leave any litter.
While the mayor put on this
unimaginative show of offering “security” to the twenty or thirty thousand
indigenous that could arrive, a lower-level official, tourism director Marco
Antonio Santiago, told the press that the Zapatista march will affect tourism
and that “there is a very strong rumor… the question the people have is what is
going to happen on January 1, the beginning of the march, which will hopefully
be peaceful and calm… this has been a very important factor in people not
coming to San Cristóbal in these days…” Nevertheless,
the five-star hotels are all filled, there are no vacancies — even the no-star
hotels are full. There are Mexican and international tourists, there are
journalists on assignment; obviously there are government agents and the usual zapateurs, and all those who have arrived by any
means possible and will be present. The Coletos, the
city’s inhabitants, aren’t saying anything, they’re just wanting for the
Zapatistas to arrive, get set up, have their
demonstration and leave, as they have done on many earlier occasions.
There has not been (among the
general population of
The Caravan accompanying
Delegate Zero is scheduled to arrive sometime during the day. It is expected
sometime in the afternoon, but they haven’t specified, they can’t specify, the
road is so difficult to travel that the same trip can last four or twelve hours
(or more in the case of a caravan, as a single car breaking down can make
everyone stop). In the first caravan that visited the jungle on August 7, 1994,
when civil society was invited to hold the National Democratic Convention in Guadelupe Tepeyac, the first
village to receive the six thousand delegates from across the country, it was
democratic insanity; democracy obliged all those present to get covered in mud,
as the floor sank after the baptizing downpour that sent off the Ship that
would travel through the sky, the imaginary ship the Zapatista built between
the two hills of the jungle airfield where the first Aguascalientes
was christened. That madness of trying to travel a road full of gaps and holes
with 40-passenger busses lasted 24 hours. On the trip back, everyone left in
any way he or she could.
That was the EZLN’s first attempt at organizing
the unorganized, at bringing together the sectarians, at joining people
together and making them respect each others’ differences; that was twelve
years ago.
Now, the Other Campaign is
once again drawing out the more measured, less adventurous opinions of some
intellectuals, though those still interested are few and those who speak out
even fewer. Not because Zapatismo has been
extinguished, but because it is not easy to talk about lightly. Neither can
these academics carry out detailed studies because the Zapatistas won’t let
them. It’s not that they change their ways, it’s just that they are very
simple, very practical, and don’t deal in hypocrisy, and so there is no way to
make political analysis of them. The simply speak and what they say is true and
that’s all there is. That’s how the autonomous governments of the 38
municipalities finish their communiqués — they say what they have to say and conclude, that’s all.
We’re not like that, we mestizos, we
always complicate things. The Coletos, descendants of
an ancestral mixing of peoples, born in a city founded by Spanish conquistadors
who arrived in the Jovel valley accompanied by
Indians from other parts of
In the 1940s, after the
government of General Lázaro Cárdenas, the Indians
began to exist as persons in government policy. This change was spurred by
Cárdenas’ pro-indigenous government, but it was also the beginning of the
compromising of indigenous leaders by mestizo
ones. This may seem like a separate story, but it is the same, the same story
that has been going on since October 12, 1492, when the Spanish discovered América and called its inhabitants Indians, and since March
31, 1528, when the conquistadors under the command of Diego de Mazariegos founded this city with centuries of history
barely known to its current residents.
Now this city has returned to
the center of the country’s history. In 1994 began the indigenous uprising,
which the politicians and political scientists expected to die within twelve
days. Twelve years have passed and the Indians remain, intact, complete, perhaps greater in number, because in twelve years at least
six children will have been born to each of the ’94 Zapatistas… and so they
will not die but rather keep moving forward. Now the challenge is before the
entire country, and later the whole world, and later…
The story of the last six
months begins here, with the Red Alert.
This Alert did indeed alarm many. When the EZLN
declared itself in “red alert,” there was uncertainty, a lack of confidence,
puzzlement on the part of the government, suspense….
The EZLN
cleared things up a few days later, announcing that the Alert was simply issued
in order to bring all their troops together safely. There was some relief, but
later came a series of communiqués (1,2,3,4)
revealing the group’s positions, finally concluding with the Sixth Declaration from the
Lacandon Jungle.
Original: http://www.narconews.com/Issue40/article1527.html