http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/12/mexico-zapatista-rebels-retreat-201312309224904558.html
Mexico's Zapatista rebels in retreat?
Once the delight of the global left, the Zapatistas trust few people
and reject much of the outside world.
Judith Matloff Last updated: 30 Dec 2013 14:20
a..
A woman stands in front of a Cooperative Crafts store in Oventik,
a community in Zapatista territory, in early December. Twenty years ago,
rebels from the area rose up to declare their independence from Mexico.
Alicia Vera/Al Jazeera America
b..
A mural of Emliano Zapata, a hero of the 1910 Mexican Revolution,
from whom the rebels took their name, on the walls of the Cooperative
Crafts store.
Alicia Vera/Al Jazeera America
c..
Masked Zapatistas check the identifications of visitors wishing to
enter the village of Oventik. The Zapatistas regard outsiders with a
substantial distrust.
Alicia Vera/Al Jazeera America
d..
Visitors who are permitted into the territory are offered t-shirts
and souvenirs for purchase.
Alicia Vera/Al Jazeera America
e..
An unfinished embroidery of a Zapatista mother wearing a balaclava
sits on a bench in the village of Morelia.
Alicia Vera/Al Jazeera America
f..
A café in the community is named El Paliacate, ("The Bandana").
Alicia Vera/Al Jazeera America
Caracol Morelia, Mexico - Driving deep into the mountains of
Mexico's southernmost state, Chiapas, a black and red billboard announces
that you have entered Zapatista territory, clusters of tiny villages with
withered corn stalks and heavy metal gates blocking passage.
These remote rebel control centers are called "caracoles'' or
snails, and just like the snail, the people here have withdrawn inside
their protective shells, fatigued with the outside world and its empty
promises.
Twenty years ago this Wednesday, Mayan peasants in ski masks rose up
to capture six towns, and with them world attention. The EZLN (Zapatista
National Liberation Army) enchanted the global left with its prescient
use of the Internet and its charismatic spokesman, the masked and
pipe-smoking Subcomandante Marcos .
A 2005 photo of Subcomandante Marcos [AFP/Getty]
Today, the revolutionaries have recoiled into scattered autonomous
communities on land "recuperated" from others. And getting access to these
fabled territories is not easy.
After being turned away from three rebel hamlets, a pair of
outsiders pressed further into the hills to reach a barricade at this
settlement patrolled by teenage girls, who demanded identity papers and
then left, not returning for an hour.
Then it was time for three separate interrogations, always with
Zapatistas sitting behind heavy wooden desks in a cinderblock room, and
always the same three questions.
"Who are you?"
"Why are you here?"
"What do you want?"
Finally, the visitors were ushered into a circle of 18 people, the
Junta of Good Government that runs affairs in this wary community. They
refused to state their names or be photographed and they answered few
questions.
"We can't trust anyone," explained a bearded man in his 30s. "Bad
ideas are not welcome here."
'We don't need others'
Hooded Zapatistas check a visitor's ID before granting him
permission to enter Oventik [Alicia Vera/ Al Jazeera America]
The caracoles sport rainbows of murals on wooden buildings that
glorify the struggle: Women in masks who form kernels of corn, the Mayan
plumed serpent god and the hero of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, Emiliano
Zapata , after whom the movement takes its name. But the villages are
still poor and are losing numbers to migration.
The bearded man said the Zapatistas decided a decade ago to go it
alone after being betrayed so many times before. Heavily indigenous
Chiapas has some of the most underprivileged people in the country, who
never benefited from the 1910 revolution's promise for agrarian reform.
The Zapatistas were further frustrated when the government failed to
deliver on a 1996 accord for greater autonomy and rights that was meant to
pacify them. So they seized land - some estimates are as high as 750,000
acres - and created their own schools and clinics, and rejected subsidies
from the state.
"We don't need others," asserted the man with the beard.
No one can say exactly how many sympathizers are left. The only hint
at numbers was their last public appearance a year ago, when 40,000
militants marched through various towns in masks and silence.
Marcos himself has not been seen in public from his haven in the
Lacandon jungle. His last media stunt was in 2006, when he zoomed out of
the hills on a black motorcycle for a march across the nation. He intended
to forge contact with other social movements but little came of the
six-month tour.
The only contact most outsiders can obtain is through communiqués on
the Zapatista website , and a robust industry of revolutionary souvenirs
sold in the more populated outposts.
At Caracol Oventik, which lies an hour from the tourist hub of San
Cristobal de las Casas, a colonial town renowned for its handicrafts , a
girl who looked around 15 wearing a black ski mask embroidered with the
letters "EZLN" turned away several journalists seeking entry at the
checkpoint, saying the Zapatistas inside were busy organizing celebrations
for the January 1 anniversary.
Instead, she pointed the would-be visitors to the Che Guevara "gift
shop" piled floor to ceiling with items bearing the portrait of Marcos and
the trademark revolutionary star: refrigerator magnets, mugs, pens,
T-shirts, shot glasses and sugar bowls.
A shopper vacillated between a felt doll of a female commander on a
horse and a red bandana akin to those worn by the rebels.
"Both are very popular," said the salesman staffing the store.
The biggest threat
A Zapatista works at the local pharmacy at Oventik Caracol
[Alicia Vera/Al Jazeera America]
People who know the communities say the blatant marketing, ironic
for a movement that rejects capitalism, does not reflect the deep social
changes that have occurred in the 38 autonomous municipalities. The murals
declaring "dignity to women" ring true, they said.
"Girls are encouraged to be schooled and assume a more prominent
role in society," said Victor Hugo Lopez, director of the Human Rights
Center Fray Bartoleme de las Casas .
Zapatista areas also post less crime and human rights abuses than in
other parts of the state, he said. And health conditions have improved
with the opening of wooden houses in every community staffed by people who
can make diagnoses and dispense homeopathic medicine, if not
pharmaceuticals. Clinics are closer to where many indigenous peasants live
and treatment is delivered in local languages, rather than Spanish as in
most of the country.
"We have gone to their health centers as patients, and care is
without doubt much better than 20 years ago," Lopez said.
As for education, each community now has a school that delivers
lessons in indigenous tongues, which was rare before. The curriculum
presents the Zapatista view of history, with a heavy emphasis on colonial
exploitation, and also covers techniques of farming.
"We can't really evaluate the quality, but certainly it's more
relevant to indigenous people than the government's standard curriculum
that talks about things like traffic lights and penguins," Lopez said.
The biggest threat to the Zapatistas' existence, ironically, is not
the military harassment that persists or the disputes with corrupt
government officials. It is the Zapatistas' own people, who are abandoning
the closed society to seek economic fortune elsewhere. For some, a small
plot of land on which to grow beans is not enough.
There is a constant weakening of the base of support.
Miguel Angel Paz, Voces Mesoamericanas, migration NGO
The Zapatistas' rejection of government subsidies on which
indigenous villages long depended has made life harder. Youths who were
born after the 1994 uprising don't necessarily share the utopian vision of
their parents. In some areas entire hamlets of people have left.
People from the Zapatista highlands figure heavily among the 850,000
Chiapas residents who have migrated to other parts of Mexico or the United
States, said Miguel Angel Paz, of Voces Mesoamericanas , a
nongovernmental organization that looks at migration issues.
"Migration erodes social cohesion as it exposes those who leave to
other political views and also to alcohol, which is banned in Zapatista
areas," he said. "There is a constant weakening of the base of support.
They don't have complete territorial control so Zapatista communities are
surrounded by those supported by the government and, bit by bit, are
emptying out. There's less hegemonic control than 20 years ago."
The movement is now at a crossroads that will define the next two
decades. The Zapatistas have shown a great capacity for transformation,
from armed insurrection to accepting dialogue to withdrawal from wider
society. They could move in a fresh direction yet again, but plans remain
secretive for now.
"They've lost much convening power," Paz said. "They will either
become more isolated, or make greater alliances with other indigenous and
social organizations on the national level."
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