Marcos: "We Are On the Eve of Either a Great Uprising or a Civil War"

by Hermann Bellinghausen - La Jornada Monday, Dec 11 2006, 12:10pm

Calderon Will Begin to Fall from the Day He Takes Office, Warns the Rebel Leader

Marcos stated, "we are on the eve of either a great uprising or a civil war." As
to the question of who would lead the uprising, he responded, "the people,
each one in his or her own place, within a system of mutual support. If we
can not succeed in having it happen that way, there will have to be
spontaneous uprisings, civil explosions all over, a civil war in which each
person is only looking out for his or her own well-being, because the
possibility is already there for things to cross that line."

Bagdad, Tamaulipas, November 23: December 1, the day that Felipe Caldero'n
takes office, will be "the beginning of the end for a political system that,
since the Mexican Revolution, became deformed and began to cheat generation
after generation, until this one arrived and said, 'Enough,'" warned
Subcomandante Marcos during a press conference. Caldero'n, he added, "will
begin to fall from his first day."

He stated, "we are on the eve of either a great uprising or a civil war." As
to the question of who would lead the uprising, he responded, "the people,
each one in his or her own place, within a system of mutual support. If we
can not succeed in having it happen that way, there will have to be
spontaneous uprisings, civil explosions all over, a civil war in which each
person is only looking out for his or her own well-being, because the
possibility is already there for things to cross that line." He cited the
case of Oaxaca, where "there are no leaders or political bosses; it is the
people themselves who have organized. It will be like that across the entire
country."

With respect to the current phase of the Other Campaign, he explained,
"after the Zapatistas lifted the veil that was obscuring the reality of
indigenous communities in Chiapas, we ventured out to find poverty in the
countryside and in the cities, and now we see it on the coast as well. In
this country, there is a fac,ade being propped up by the political parties,
and recently by Vicente Fox, that says everything is fine."

In the case of the northern part of the country, he added, it "is chilling"
how different reality is from what they say it is: "they say the north
supports the PAN, that they love Fox, that everyone lives well. But what we
saw was equal to what is happening in the most humble of indigenous
communities in the southwest."

He posited that Oaxaca is "an indicator" of what is happening across the
country. "In Nuevo Laredo, they told us that the problem in Tamaulipas is
that everyone here is like Ulises Ruiz: the municipal president, the state
congress, the governor. There are too many in the mold of Ulises Ruiz and
the people are getting tired of it. If there is not a civil and peaceful way
out, which is what we propose in the Other Campaign, it will turn into each
person finding their own way however they can."

He continued, "we do not recognize the official president or the legitimate
one. What happens at the top does not matter at all to us. What matters is
what will arise from below. When we carry out this uprising, we will do away
will the entire political class, including those who call themselves the
'parliamentary leftists.'"

With regard to the violence and power of drug trafficking, he asserted that
these provide "another fac,ade," which affects the northern states more than
anything, where the central focus is on security, and not on the situation
of poverty that exists. "The conflicts between drug traffickers, or between
drug traffickers and security forces, or between drug traffickers and
politicians, are overstated, because we know that the politicians are in
league with some of the drug cartels. Meanwhile, the fundamental is
forgotten; for example, what is happening in Playa Bagdad, Nuevo Laredo or
Reynosa, to mention Tamaulipas. These places only make it into the news when
there are clashes between groups of criminals, while what is happening to
the people who are working and struggling is forgotten."

By Hermann Bellinghausen
La Jornada