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May 14, 2004

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Reflections on a Visit to Chiapas

Heidi Reijm

After reading about the Zapatista political movement in Southern Mexico for several years, I wanted to see for myself what was happening there. This winter break, I traveled to Chiapas to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Zapatista National Liberation Army insurrection.

A Little Zapatista Background

The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) was formed clandestinely in Chiapas in the mid-1980s. While it received a kick-start from radical intellectuals from northern Mexico, the EZLN is led by, reflective of, and strongly rooted in 500 years of grassroots indigenous resistance. Indigenous leaders created the EZLN as a response to the social and economic repression of local people that began with Spanish colonialism and has continued to this day in the form of neoliberalism. Throughout this time, the indigenous peoples of Chiapas have continually been forced off their land, stripped of their livelihoods and deprived of the economic, educational, and health-related resources that have gone to other, more developed areas of Mexico.
The EZLN appeared on the world stage on January 1, 1994, when it conducted its first open and armed rebellion. Timed to coincide with the signing of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), the Zapatistas led an uprising and presented the Mexican government with a list of demands including land reform, education, access to markets, women’s rights, health care, nutrition and full participation in the Mexican government.

The Zapatistas were right to think that NAFTA would make their lives worse. The introduction of US-subsidized farm products to Mexican markets has been devastating for Mexican farmers and has damaged the traditional identification Chiapas has had with Mayan culture. Corn plays a crucial role in Mayan indigenous culture, mythology and history. The Corn Mother is seen as one of the great creators, and corn is an important staple in Chiapas. The Mexican government and global neo-liberal policies have systematically taken that corn heritage away.

Over the last ten years, the region has seen recurring periods of government repression followed by resistance from the EZLN. Mexican military and paramilitary forces have ruled with brute force, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries among the indigenous people, the razing of villages, and constant harassment. Up until very recently, military bases and checkpoints regulated all EZLN-controlled territory.
In 1996, after two years of negotiations, the Zapatistas and the Mexican government signed the San Andreas Accords. The signatories hoped to address some of the discrepancies with regard to the right of indigenous people to govern their own areas and gain representation in the national government. The Mexican government, however, never followed through with the Accords and the Zapatistas subsequently refused to negotiate further until progress was made. They are still waiting for progress today.

When the current president, Vincente Fox, came to power, he took down most of the military checkpoints and eased the low-intensity warfare that was being conducted. Partly as a result of this easing, the EZLN implemented the San Andreas Accords on its own in the summer of 2003. Five autonomous regions were established, each consisting of several municipalities. Each region is governed by its own Good Government Board (GGB) made up of representatives of those municipalities. Representatives are rotated by different members of the communities every fifteen days. The Boards assess community needs and manage their meager resources. Each decision that is made within the Zapatista communities flows through these Boards. Each region has what is called, a caracol (literally, ‘shell’) which is a location where people gather, both Zapatistas and outsiders. This is where that region’s Board, schools, clinics, and cooperative markets are located.

This was the setting for my trip to Chiapas. For various reasons, the EZLN is in a very different position than other insurgent groups throughout the world. Though they have been and still are on the defensive, they have also been able to build their own society - or, as the Zapatistas themselves say, a world “where all worlds fit.”

Oventic
I visited Oventic, a caracol located about an hour away from San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas and about eighteen hours southeast of Mexico City. This community is home to a middle and high school, a women’s cooperative, a media center, a collectively run shoe and boot factory, several collective kitchens and buildings for housing, an amazing health clinic and a general store which also serves as the Zapatista check-in point. It also has the only television in the community.

The past ten years have been hard in Chiapas. Oventic did have running cold water and gravity toilets, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Many gains that have been made were in part due to the efforts of international supporters who have helped gain access to these resources. I met with some of these groups in Oventic; what follows are my impressions from these meetings.

The schools in Oventic function like boarding schools. Students travel from surrounding communities to live in Oventic. The teachers call themselves not “teachers” but “educational promoters,” in order to try and break down the hierarchical divide between teacher and student. “We don’t pretend to know everything and we learn from the students as much as we teach them,” said one. The school in Oventic was built by the organization with which I traveled, Schools for Chiapas. Schools like this one show how the international solidarity has supported indigenous-led development in Chiapas.

The health clinic in Oventic is truly incredible. Workers are continually adding to the building and, as a result, it is constantly under construction. It contains departments of optometry, gynecology, herbal medicine and general medicine. It has a laboratory, consultation rooms, patient rooms, and reception areas. Considering the situation in Oventic, the clinic is incredibly resourced—a rare asset in the Chiapas highlands. There are eight other clinics throughout the municipalities in varying stages of development, from huts with tin roofs to clinics like the one in Oventic. All are run autonomously. Previously, the only medical facilities were in major cities, like San Cristóbal, which can be anywhere from a two to twelve hour trip from indigenous communities. After the uprising, the EZLN began to collect funds for the clinics and slowly built the eight that now exist. The clinic staff told us that the organization’s first priority is health, and the second is education.

All of the resources and decisions made about the clinic, like everything in the community, are funneled through the Good Government Boards. These boards, which form the fabric of government in EZLN-controlled territories, met with our group three times. The members of the Board repeatedly thanked us for being there, never asked for anything, and patiently answered our sometimes not-so-patient questions. Each meeting lasted over two hours. We asked about how their communities are run, how they govern, what they see for their future, and about their experiences of the past. They were always so busy that it seemed they didn’t sleep. While one speaker was talking to us, the others would take cat naps. When the first speaker would finish, the next would wake up, and the first would sit and close his eyes.

The GGB is rigidly process-oriented. For instance, a group of great people I knew from the States was there with a “Bikes to Chiapas” project and they were meeting with the GGB in order to establish a solidarity project to promote alternative transportation. I spoke with this group about their experiences working with the Board. The Bikes group met with the Board several times while we were there, also for at least two hours at a time. During each meeting all interested parties would slowly discuss the details of how the project was going to function, how to create accountability and make sure that it met the needs of the indigenous communities. It was clear to me that, for the GGB, getting it right, in whatever they do, was at least as important to them as the project itself.

New Years Eve 2004
I traveled to Oventic to take part in 10th anniversary New Year’s celebrations. For twenty-four hours straight I absorbed the sights and sounds of bands, theatre, poetry, and a basketball tournament. I've never seen so many kids in bare feet and sandals win so many games. Since drugs and alcohol are forbidden in Zapatista communities, the evening was good clean fun.

At the strike of midnight on New Year‘s Eve, the joyous occasion became more sober. The whole community and its few thousand visitors crowded around. A somber, militant ceremony followed that honored both the Zapatista and the Mexican flag. An EZLN commadante spoke for an uncharacteristically brief time. He praised the successes of the past ten years, acknowledged the challenges, and stressed the importance of national and international support. He called for a world where all worlds fit. The commadante’s speech was translated into two other indigenous languages and then closed with both the Zapatista and the Mexican national anthems.
This aspect - the two flags and the two anthems - was incredibly moving. The Zapatistas are not a separatist group. They are loyal to Mexico and want deeply to be a part of the country. However, they have felt shut out of it throughout history. Mexico is such an intense part of their identity, as indigenous people and as Zapatistas, that this exclusion feels like an assault.

As my delegation left Oventic, we met with the GGB one last time. Again they thanked us for coming and participating in their celebration. They told us that our presence there brought a feeling solidarity. We sang the Zapatista anthem together and they said, “We wish you warmth, strength, and peace to your hearts.” My eyes welled up.

The Zapatista struggle is one of equality – both political and economic – and has at times been violent. The struggle of Zapatistas shows that creating a new society is difficult and the results are often far from perfect. Though I do not know what it is like in other Zapatista communities, the role of women in Oventic still remains a challenge. Women are still the primary caretakers of children, even while they are working. I saw so many women teaching or working in stores, with their children strapped to their backs. Men, on the other hand, while they do seem to help with child care, only do so when they have “free time.” Moreover, labor is divided along traditional gender lines and women are poorly represented in the GGB.

Women often told us that things are better now than they were before. Zapatista women now choose whom they will marry, and make their own decisions about bearing children. They have better - though decidedly not total - access to community leadership. They appear extremely patient in waiting for a true recovery from the effects of the patriarchal society they once lived. The Zapatistas themselves provide a glimpse into a possible future - in the EZLN army women are equals, even holding leadership positions.

Continuing Violence

Shortly after I returned to the US, I learned that Mexican armed forces had attacked the Zapatista community of Nuevo San Rafael on January 20, burning down 23 homes and violently evicting the Chol indigenous inhabitants. This area is in resource-rich Montes Azules and has long been coveted by multinational corporations for some time. As governments and multinationals press forward with other NAFTA policies, the “war of low intensity” against the thousand-plus Zapatista autonomous communities has once again erupted. At the time, the Secretary of Government in Chiapas—the “Bad Government”—promised more evictions and the army was preventing reporters and human rights observers from entering the area.

Residents have been arrested and tensions have heightened between the government and the Zapatistas. The EZLN has denounced the siege and promised to defend their communities and all that they have built. Meanwhile, the attacks on Zapatista communities continue. On April 10, an unarmed march of Zapatista supporters was ambushed by members of the Revolutionary Democratic Party in Zinacantan. Zapatista supporters were trying to get water to the community of Jech'vo, near San Cristóbal, which had been cutoff from the local water supply by the town's mayor. Residents of Jech'vo have been forced out of their community and the EZLN has called for international civil society to converge in Chiapas to help them return to their homes.

Now that I have been there myself, I find it difficult to read about repression in Chiapas. I feel much more connected to their struggle and to the individual people who are in constant danger of state and corporate violence. Often, as we hear about events on the news or read about them in books, it is hard to get a sense of how events affect real people. It is also extremely easy to forget that leaders may not always represent the people they claim to represent. Instead, it is often a multitude of grassroots and bottom-up efforts that have the greatest impact. It is important to remember the people who live the struggle day to day.

Polly Sylvia is a student in the PhD program in sociology.