A-Infos (en) Marcos Sets Things Straight - "ARE NOT WORSE OFF" THAN BEFORE '94

[irlandesa <irlandesa@compuserve.com>]

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An article from today's paper on a LETTER FROM MARCOS, released yesterday,
to a Mexico City journalist.  As soon as the full text is published, it
will be translated
The Excelsior Tuesday, January 12, 1999. 
EZLN:  THE INDIGENOUS "ARE NOT WORSE OFF" THAN BEFORE '94
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Chiapas, January 11 - The conditions of the
indigenous communities in Chiapas - zapatista or not - "are not worse off
than before the EZLN uprising", Subcomandante Marcos said, and he clarified
that the Indians in the state are living exactly as they did prior to
January 1.

"We continue without schools, teachers, hospitals, doctors, medicines, good
prices for our products, land, technology in order to work it, fair
salaries, food of sufficient quality and quantity, decent housing", noted
the guerrilla leader, and he reiterated his position of not receiving
"government charity".

In a letter distributed here, directed to Guadalupe Loaeza, but with the
obvious purpose of responding to the government position that the
conditions of the indigenous have not improved due to Marcos' position, the
insurgent noted:

"We have not accepted the government's hand-outs.  We have not accepted
them, nor will we, because, as demonstrated by the living conditions of the
indigenous who have accepted them, the problems are not resolved, and the
quality of life does not improve on the most minimal level."

And he reiterated that the zapatista communities will not accept govenrment
aid, since the EZLN did not rise up for schools, credits and Conasupo
stores:  "We rose up for a better country, one where, among other things,
our rights as Indian peoples are recognized, we are respected and we are
considered to be citizens, and not beggars".

Nonetheless, the rebel chief emphasized that, despite everything, they have
tried to improve their conditions, and, in order to do that, in some places
they have started schools, clinics and pharmacies with health workers.

"This little we have, we have built and re-built (because one of the
"heroic" tasks of the federal Army in Chiapas is the destruction of
schools, clinics, pharmacies and libraries) through our own efforts and
with the help of good persons, organized and not, who come to these lands".

In the second letter which Marcos has made public in this sixth year of the
war - the first was the commemoration of the fifth anniversary of their
struggle - he stated that the indigenous now have things which they did not
have before, "and it is very little compared with all the needs, but the
difference between what we lacked before and what we lack now, is that
before it did not matter to anyone that we did not have the minimal
necessities.  What we did have before January 1, 1994, and what we have
lost since then, is despair, is bitterness, is resignation".

"We are poor, yes," the five-page document continues, "but you will see
that our poverty is richer than the poverty of others, and, above all,
richer than that which we had before the uprising.  And now our poverty has
a tomorrow.  Why?  Well, because there is something more important, which
we did not have prior to the uprising, and it has now become our most
powerful and feared (by our enemies) weapon:  the word.  You will see how
good this weapon is.  It is good for fighting, for defending yourself, for
resisting.  And it has a great advantage over all the weapons which the
government, its military and the paramilitaries have: it does not destroy,
it does not kill".

In this context, the Subcomandante alluded to the words of the Secretary of
Government, Francisco Labastida Ochoa, in which he held Marcos responsible
for thwarting the improvement in living conditions of the Indian peoples of
Chiapas, and emphasized:

"Labastida represents a government which has half its army in the
indigenous communities, which keeps a substitute, interim, illegitimate and
illegal governior in place with bayonets, which squanders thousands of
millions of pesos, not in improving the standard of life of the
non-zapatista communities, but rather in paying for costly press campaigns
and for financing paramilitary groups, a government which orders its troops
to thwart the working of the land, which rapes women, which promotes the
cultivation and trafficking in drugs, which preaches the religion of
alcohol and prostitution.

"Tell me:  is it not cynical to accuse us of what they classify in their
manuals as "low-intensity warfare'?  Isn't it a mockery of all of us that
the same government which has promoted the deterioration in the standard of
living of the Mexican people (...) accuses us of being those responsible
for the low standard of living in the indigenous communities?"

In order to demonstrate that the situation of the indigenous in Chiapas has
not changed, Marcos posited the following questions:

1. - If the EZLN had not risen up in arms on January 1, 1994, would the
government, Mexico, the world, you, those columnists, what you pointed out,
have turned around to look at the Indian peoples?  Was it not, prior to
'94, an insult to call someone an 'Indian'?

2. - If the fundamental (and national) causes which caused the
marginalization of the Indian peoples of Mexico, and which are the root
causes of the zapatista uprising, have not been resolved, nor has the
groundwork been laid for their solution (that is, could provoke another
uprising):  would it not be irresponsible to sign a peace agreement,
knowing that the war could come again?  Is it not more responsible to
demand that the zapatista uprising end, but also everything which caused it
and which made it possible and necessary end?

3. - If Marcos is the one responsible for the zapatista indigenous
communities not having bettered their standard of living, because he
'induces' or 'obliges' (depending on the columnist) them to reject
govenrment aid:  why are the indigenous communities which are not zapatista
the same as, or worse off, than those who suffer 'the zapatista opression'?
 Why, despite the thousands of millions that the govenrment says it has
invested in Chiapas, 'to resolve the cause of the conflict and the social
backwardness', the more than one million indigenous persons have not raised
their standard of living?  Are they all zapatistas?

Ironically, Marcos adds a parenthesis in his questioning:  "Suppose that it
were true that the govenrment did not see the EZLN as a military problem,
but rather as a political one, and that it is true they wanted to resolve
it politically...and it responded":

4. - If we zapatistas are not a military danger, and they could finish us
off in a matter of minutes, why does the government have more than 60,000
troops in what they call the 'conflict zone'?  So that the indigenous
communities can learn the 'advantages of Western life', that is, the
prostitution, drugs and alcohol which accompany the federal garrisons when
they are set up within the communities?

5. - If the government has 60,000 soldiers 'enforcing the Firearms and
Explosives Law' in chiapaneco territory:  where did the paramilitaries,
Peace and Justice, Red Mask, MIRA, Chinchulines, Los Punales and Albores of
Chiapas, obtain, and where do they obtain, their arms, ammunition,
equipment and training?  Where are the high-caliber arms used in the Acteal
massacre?

6. - If the objective of the dialogue and negotiations is to reach accords
(such as those at San Andres, signed by the government and the EZLN on
February 16, 1996), and the accords are not carried out:  what are the
dialogue and negotiations for?

7. - If the government did not carry out the first peace accords which it
signed, what guarantees the zapatistas that the government is going to
carry out the final accords when the return to civil life is agreed?

Marcos concludes the communique, mentioning that, like Mexican society, the
EZLN does not want another Acteal, and, for that reason "we are making a
new effort for peace and dialogue with the Consultation for Respect for the
Rights of the Indian Peoples and for the End to the War of Extermination',
indicating it aspires to more than its name indicates:  "Acteal should not
be repeated, and, in order for it not to be repeated, it is necessary to
recognize the rights of the Indian peoples and to stop the war of
extermination;  it is not a slogan, it is a duty..."

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