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From: "Dana" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: NN,In Quintana Roo, Marcos is Met by a State on the March,Jan 17
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 06:21:08 +0100
In Quintana Roo, Marcos is Met by a State on the March
The Zapatista Subcomandante Listens to Local Stories of Tireless Struggle
and Desire for Change
By Teo Ballve'
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign
January 17, 2006
"In the cemeteries and jails are those that fight for social justice, while
in the government are the criminals," said Delegate Zero Marcos to a meeting
of sympathizers on Sunday in the city of Chetumal, capital of Quintana Roo.
"It should be the other way around, and one day everything is going to
flip." Until it does, Marcos urged those in attendance "to not give up, and
to keep your fights going." Throughout the day he met with sympathizers and
adherents to The Other Campaign, so that they could share with him their
stories about local struggles.
In a speech later that night in La Alameda Park, his first public event
outside of Chiapas in years, he zeroed in on the struggles he heard about
during the day's meetings. He told the crowd of some 700 people that he did
not come here to lead the movements that have fought long and hard in the
area, but to learn from them, because the Zapatistas "need their help."
"There's a lot of pain here," he said, "I heard a lot of stories today about
pain." Specifically, he mentioned the pain of the Maya indigenous campesinos
of Nicola's Bravo, the illegal seizure of hundreds of acres from the Chetumal
ejido and the violent efforts of the state against the beachside community
of a Mahahual, which is fighting against the taking of their land.
These Lands Are Not For Sale
Two campesinos (peasant farmers) from Nicola's Bravo were the first to speak
with the Subcomandante in the first of two meetings, which lasted most of
the day. More members of their ejido (communal lands) would have attended
the meeting, but like clockwork trailers sent by the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI, in its Spanish initials) arrived in their town
that morning to distribute food, blankets, clothing and despensas, or
monetary handouts, to entice the farmers to stay put. Determined not to miss
face-time with Marcos, the campesinos came to Chetumal to explain the
problems faced by the people of their ejido.
The younger of the two campesinos began: "My particular worry is about the
Article 27 of the Constitution that reformed agrarian issues. And here, in
Quintana Roo, many ejidos have been holding meetings to see if we'll enter
into the PROCEDE (the government's program to manage communal land
privatization), and many indigenous don't want to enter into it. And not all
the ejidos are accepting the government's proposal. So I wanted to ask you
what would this project do to our community."
Marcos explained, "Since the reform by (former President) Salinas, and then
followed by Zedillo and Fox, the state has been putting an end to the ejido
and communally held property. by converting it into land that can be bought
and sold. And so begins the economic offensive that impoverishes the
campesinos until they have nothing left other than their land. And the
reform allows people to buy and sell it, but the campesinos are poor and
they can't buy, which only leaves them the option to sell. So the people
sell."
Huddled around a small table, the exchange about PROCEDE continued for more
than 20 minutes: they conversed about Mexican history, land issues, the
Zapatista experience and conflicts with the government. "Before, the land
did not belong to those that worked it," said Marcos, "now the situation is
the same. The land is no longer for those that work it. In those years,
General Emiliano Zapata rose up, now it's our turn to fight for our lands."
The two campesinos jumped in at times to ask questions, nodding their heads
in agreement with the Delegate's response. The old men explained that any
time the community has tried to organize itself independently of the
political parties, the government swoops in to put them down or to give more
handouts, so that everyone keeps quiet.
"Are you Marquitos?" asked another, much older campesino. "Yes," replied the
Zapatista. "Good. Well then, for thirty years we've been fighting, and we're
tired. And there's no help." The old man began speaking about how, no matter
which government is in charge, there are never any lasting changes in his
community. He grew more and more frustrated as he spoke about the
politicians that have solicited the community's support. Finally it seemed
that he couldn't take it anymore, and he began fishing business-card-sized
campaign propaganda out from his pocket. He angrily began throwing the cards
one by one on the table before the Subcomandante as he cursed out the
politicians' names.
Land, Yes! Airplanes, No!
Indeed, land conflicts and Mexico's decaying political parties were
recurring themes. Among the most heated land conflicts of the area is a
controversy over the planned expansion of the Chetumal international
airport. The airport was built in the 1940s, but the displaced campesinos
that lived on the ejidal lands where the airport now stands were never
compensated for their farmland. Under the banner, "San Salvador Atenco marco'
el camino" ("San Salvador Atenco led the way") - in reference to the
successful opposition by campesinos to the construction of an international
airport outside of Mexico City - the campesinos of the Chetumal ejido are
demanding compensation for the 229 hectares that were illegally seized.
After meeting with the campesinos in 2001, then-governor Joaqui'n Hendricks
Di'az, told El Di'a that the airport was the centerpiece of his plans "to
integrate with Belize, Guatemala and Central America, and it would
accomplish the longtime aspiration of making Chetumal the strategic heart of
the Mayan world."
The implementation of Plan Puebla-Panama' (PPP) - a World Bank-funded
initiative for Central America and southern Mexico - calls for the expansion
of Chetumal's airport, so the city can serve as a regional hub for tourism
and trade. The move to expand the airport under the auspices of the PPP only
emboldened the campesinos' demands. "Plan Puebla-Panama' is nothing more than
a perfect definition of the interests of a few foreigners in our country,"
said Alvaro Marrufo, who came to speak with Marcos as a representative of
the Chetumal ejido.
Marrufo told the crowd the government intends to expand and then privatize
the airport and that despite the handsome profit it will surely reap from
the sale the community will be left landless. "I think it's obvious that the
intention of the federal and the state government of Quintana Roo is to kick
us off the land for its commercialization and future sale at a juicy profit
for transnational corporations."
Recently, the government moved to take 220 acres of land from the
residential area surrounding the airport. Once again, says Marrufo, the
proper proceedings were completely disregarded, and the residents were
forced to take a token payment. "In an unmasked effort to take our lands,
this land is being illegally commercialized by the state agency, which is
the very authority that should, by law, be fighting for our rights as
ejiditarios," he added.
Fernando Corte's de Brasdefer, an archeologist that hosted Delegate Zero and
the meetings in his home, commented, "The campesinos have resolved to not
cede any ground on this, because they have not been paid, and until then,
their fight will continue."
"When the Government Sees Me Coming, They Close the Door"
The beachside town of Mahahual faces a similar problem. In 1979, a group of
families joined together in the Asociacio'n Hermanos Flores Mago'n to put up a
fight against land grabs by developers as the tourist boom began to creep
southward from Cancu'n to Chetumal. A swath of land in Mahahual was sold from
beneath their feet to Isaac Hamui Abadi, a wealthy developer with ties to
former governor Joaqui'n Hendricks Di'az. Already, Abadi has built a wall
around his property to prevent Mahahual's residents from accessing the beach
near his land.
One of the Asociacio'n's leaders, Sergio Benjami'n Carvajal Rejo'n, showed your
correspondents a stack of letters he sent to state authorities demanding
that the government step in to resolve the conflict. The stack also had a
smaller number of reply letters. One reply from the state government said it
was "technically" and "legally impossible" to intervene. Another letter,
this one penned by Carvajal, denounces the campaign of violence and
intimidation directed at members of the Asociacio'n.
Carvajal addressed the audience of the meeting: "When you all leave," he
said nodding to the press and to the table where Marcos was sitting, "when
the press is gone, when all of this is over, and everyone goes back to their
houses, we'll be left here to receive the repression that the government,
political operatives or those in collusion with the government will surely
hand out."
Caravajal added that the people of Chetumal are forced to constantly face
off with the government and that they need to have modes of communication or
media that can alert the rest of the country and the world about the "load
of reprisals, the load of injustices that the government sends our way." One
of his biggest complaints, besides the violence directed at him and his
colleagues, was that the government literally shuts them out: "When they see
me coming, they close the door at the public ministries as if they're
closed."
One Door Closes, Another is Opened
In Chetumal, and the rest of Quintana Roo, Delegate Zero is being told of
these and other fights that the people of this state have carried forth.
Here, there is no shortage of stories for the Subcomandante, stories from
and about people fighting from below and to the left. He came to this land
of the Maya to carry forth the Zapatistas' newest mission outlined in the
Sixth Declaration of the Lacando'n Jungle:
"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 (the neoliberals) don't defeat us. . And depending on what we hear
and learn, we will construct . a national fight plan, but a plan that will,
clearly, be of the left, which is to say anti-capitalist, or
anti-neoliberal, or which is also to say in favor of justice, democracy and
freedom for the Mexican people."
On stage in La Alameda Park, Marcos calmly told the crowd, "We have to
decide if we are going to continue with the current country that excludes
us, or if we are going to build a different one. This is the other option."
And he clarified, "We did not come here to invite you to die or to kill,
instead we came here to invite you to live by fighting, but no longer alone,
apart from each other, so that there won't have to be another January 1994,
so that no one else will ever have to cover their face to be seen."
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