Covering their faces in order to be seen

The Chiapas-based rebels open an autonomous village to international visitors

by John Gibler/Special to The Herald Mexico, El Universal
Jueves 04 de enero de 2007
OVENTIC, Chis

They had to cover their faces to be seen.

This was the explanation for why thousands of indigenous rebels continued to wear black ski masks long after the gun battles stopped and talks with the government began 13 years ago.

And the same remains true today.

In a country with 12 million indigenous inhabitants, most remain invisible to the world beyond their villages.

Few Mexicans and non-Mexicans alike can name more than a handful of the 62 distinct indigenous languages spoken throughout Mexico.

But almost everyone knows about the Zapatistas.

From Dec. 30 through Jan. 2, over 1,000 people from 47 countries traveled to Oventic, a hillside Zapatista community about an hour north of San Cristóbal de las Casas, for a gathering between indigenous rebels and activists, artists and curious individuals from across the world.

The Zapatistas organized conference-style discussion sessions on indigenous autonomy, health, education, women´s participation and experience, media, art, culture and land where representatives from the five rebel Zapatista regions took turns speaking on their experiences organizing village life without help or permission from the federal government.

Thousands of masked Zapatista men, women and children also attended the event attracting the eyes and camera lenses of the international visitors, and showing that their metaphor of the mask as their visibility cloak still holds.

ROOTS OF CONFLICT

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) took the nation and the world by surprise on Jan. 1, 1994, when they rose up in arms, taking over major cities in the southernmost and heavily indigenous state of Chiapas.

The rebels´ battle cry, "Ya basta!" or "Enough!" resonated with millions of poor Mexicans, and the EZLN´s charismatic, pipe- smoking spokesperson, Subcomandante Marcos, enchanted the media and much of the middle class with witty quips to spin the government´s logic on its head.

MARCOS AS TRANSLATOR

Marcos got his start as spokesperson when asked by the indigenous commanders to translate for a group of French-speaking tourists who were demanding information.

The tourists complained that they needed to catch a flight in Mexico City and Marcos´ response became the stuff of legend: "We are sorry to bother, but this is a revolution."

After two weeks of fighting and huge demonstrations calling for peace in Mexico City, the government called a cease-fire to seek a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Chiapas, where the indigenous rebels´ complaints of suffering racism and abandon were widely seen as legitimate and long neglected.

After several failed attempts, the Zapatistas and the Ernesto Zedillo administration signed the San Andrés Accords in February 1996, promising greater levels of autonomy and self-determination to the indigenous peoples of Mexico.

The EZLN had convoked all of Mexico´s indigenous peoples to the dialogue so that the agreements would spread to indigenous communities across the nation and not just in Chiapas.

President Zedillo, however, refused to implement the accords, leading the Zapatistas to withdraw from further dialogue with the government until after Vicente Fox´s 2000 election.

In March 2001, the EZLN indigenous commanders and the world-famous Marcos left Chiapas in a caravan that traveled through the southern and central regions of Mexico drawing huge crowds of supporters, before arriving in Mexico City to speak before Congress, calling on the elected representatives to pass the San Andrés Accords into law.

In an effort led by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Fox´s National Action Party (PAN), Congress passed a reworked version of the accords that denied granting indigenous communities autonomy and in turn further bound them to federal control.

The Zapatistas and other indigenous communities across Mexico called the new law a betrayal.

The EZLN returned to Chiapas and again cut off relations with the federal government.

COMPLETE AUTONOMY

In the succeeding years they set about implementing the San Andrés Accords on their own, building the foundations for complete autonomy in their forms of governance and provision of social services such as health care and education.

In 2003, the EZLN helped set up "Good Government Councils," composed of men and women elected in open assemblies, to organize regional and village affairs.

The councils would replace the military leadership structure of the EZLN, following the Zapatista first rule of governance: "mandar obedeciendo," or "command by obeying."

FIRST INT´L GATHERING

This year´s gathering was the first between international visitors and the autonomous councils and an opportunity to hear first-hand from the typically elusive Zapatistas about what autonomy means for them.

"The people make the decisions, we only propose; we don´t impose," said Jesús, a young member of the good government council of La Realidad during the workshop on autonomy that was held in a wood and corrugated sheet metal auditorium with a dirt floor covered in pine needles as soft as any carpet.

Council members are elected in open assemblies; they serve for three years without salary, though villagers support them with food, childcare and travel funds.

IMPRESSIVE MURALS

In the four years of operating in Good Government Councils, Zapatistas have opened schools in every village and regional center, health clinics, women´s artesian cooperatives, and organic coffee cooperatives.

For first-time visitors who do not speak one of the four indigenous languages of the region, however, one of the most impressive aspects of Zapatista villages are the murals that adorn walls throughout the community.

"The murals are another way of expressing, or telling our own history," said Karina, another member of the good government council of La Realidad.

"At first we had problems with brothers and sisters from other places who came and painted things that we did not understand," she said. "But we talked it over, and now the whole village decides what to paint. We elect mural commissions to work with the painters so that we can explain the meaning of the paintings to all our other visitors."

And the main image in all the paintings is that of the ski-masked face, with only the eyes visible.

The face that had to be covered to be seen.

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Zapatistas host fiesta on 13th anniversary of Chiapas uprising

by Bill Weinberg

From El Universal, Jan. 2 via Chiapas95. We take strong exception to the last paragraoh, for reasons which should be clear to our readers.

OVENTIC, Chiapas - Thousands of Zapatista rebels on Monday celebrated the 13th anniversary of their brief uprising against the Mexican government with dance, song and discussions aimed at improving the status of poor Indians in the southern state of Chiapas.

The ceremonies, which attracted hundreds of foreigners from numerous countries, began Sunday night under the stewardship of the ski-masked, pipe-smoking Zapatista leader and spokesman Subcomandante Marcos in the Zapatistas' base of Oventic, about 735 kilometers (460 miles) southeast of Mexico City.

Participants saluted the Mexican and Zapatista flags, and held a large dance and ate traditional tamales and drank coffee.

The Zapatistas seized the city of San Cristo'bal de las Casas and other Chiapas communities in the name of socialism and Indian rights on Jan. 1, 1994. A cease-fire ended fighting between rebels and government forces after a few days, and the two sides have since maintained an uneasy truce.

Marcos, who has been identified by the government as a professor-turned-guerrilla, has continued to champion a quieter social revolution from the jungles of Chiapas, issuing missives harshly critical of Mexico's politicians and government policies.

Speaking in the Indian language of Tzotzil, Marcos recalled on Sunday night how the movement was founded with the intention of ending the indian's [sic] isolation and misery.

The Zapatistas have since formed autonomous governments in at least 38 villages in the highlands of Chiapas, as well as "good government committees" that promote their development.

It was the first time in many years that Marcos attended anniversary celebrations. He was escorted by several ski-masked members of the Zapatista National Liberation Army.

A year ago Monday, on the movement's 12th anniversary, Marcos launched a nationwide tour in an attempt to forge a national leftist movement. But his talks and tour appearances did not draw large crowds, and he has been criticized for straying from his principal cause of fighting for Indian rights after expressing support for violent anti-government protests by unrelated groups.