This posting has been forwarded to you as a service of=20 Accion Zapatista de Austin. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 09:55:53 -0500 From: Malicia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Marcos' Speech to Encuentro La Jornada, April 6, 1996 MESSAGE OF THE EZLN DURING THE INAUGURATION CEREMONY OF THE AMERICAN PREPARATORY MEETING FOR THE INTERCONTINENTAL ENCOUNTER FOR HUMANITY AND AGAINST NEOLIBERALISM THE REALITY, America. April 4th, 1996 A journalist and video producer who had covered the Zapatista rebellion since January of 1994, Javier Elorriaga Berdegue, came to see me one day as a volunteer seeking a political and peaceful solution to the conflict. I listened to him. He gave me all the arguments in favor of peace and those against the war. At that time he seemed to be one of those men who believes in what he says, one of those who is accountable to his ideas. I told him we would lose nothing by trying. On September 16, 1994, the anniversary of Mexican independence, he arrived with the first of many letters from Mister Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon. After the 1st of December of 1994, Javier came and went with messages from then Governance Secretary, Esteban Moctezuma Barragan. His role as a messenger of peace went on for 6 months. The last time I saw him was on February 8th of 1995. I told him I saw no sign of any willingness to dialogue on behalf of the government. He insisted on seeking a new encounter for peace. As he was leaving the Lacandon Jungle during the morning of February 9th, 1995, Javier Elorriaga was detained and accused of "terrorism". The government began an offensive against the indigenous communities of the Lacandon Jungle and it detained dozens of Mexicans in different parts of the country. It accused them of "terrorism" and exhibited as proof a "terrible" arsenal: paper bombs and some old guns. While the government congratulated itself in the press because they had supposedly recuperated the "sovereignty of the nation", in the Lacandon Jungle Swiss airplanes bombed the surrounding communities, Northamerican helicopters machine gunned the mountains, French tanks of war occupied the houses of the indigenous people who fled to the jungle, Spanish policemen interrogated the suspects, and the Northamerican military advisors reviewed with great care an artifact that perhaps had a dangerous military intention. The artifact traveled all the way to the Pentagon and was examined with the best and most modern military technology. After a few days, the experts handed over their report to Washington and from there it was turned over to the offices of the Mexican military, the political police and the Presidential residence. The report said that everything seemed to indicate that the artifact in question, had been snatched from the forces of the transgressors of the law, it had all the appearance of..a toy car made of plastic and metal. The report said that they had also found a tiny inscription made with a black pen which said: "This car belongs to Heriberto.." 420 days have passed since then. Mister Zedillo sits in the presidential chair, Heriberto lives in the mountains, the army lives in Heriberto's house, and Javier Elorriaga and another 17 Mexicans are still in jail accused of "terrorism". One of the 17, Joel Martinez has developed respiratory problems caused by the torture to which he was subjected. His serious condition has sent him to the hospital. Now they have chains on his hands and feet, as though he were a rabid animal, as though dignity could be chained. Today 420 days after the facts have defined the true terrorist, we want to dedicate the following words, Vale. To Javier Elorriaga Berdegu=C8 and, through him, to all the prisoners accused of being Zapatistas. In the definition of your future, Much more is defined than can be contained by your jailers. Through my voice speaks the voice of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Brothers and sisters of America: Welcome to THE REALITY. We extend special thanks to the men, women children and elderly of THE REALITY, because it is they who have given us permission and have supported us in order to hold this preparatory meeting in their community. I want to ask all who are present, to salute our indigenous brothers and sisters of THE REALITY. Welcome to the brothers and sisters of the Canadian delegation, of the delegation from the United States of America, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. Welcome to the observers who attend from France, Germany and Spain. Welcome to the Mexican brothers and sisters of the Organizing Commission. Our acknowledgement and salute for the effort which today is realized. We want to thank all of you who have accepted our invitation to this preparatory meeting for your effort in traveling from your countries to the Lacandon Jungle. Headquarters of the transgressors of the law and dignified corner of America, the Lacandon Jungle has been visited by different representatives of the governments of your countries. The bombing planes, and artillery helicopters, war tanks, surveillance satellites, military advisors, and agents, some secret and some not so secret of all the spy agencies of various countries have visited us. All of these visitors had a common goal; assassination and theft. Different governments of the world have allied themselves with the Mexican government in order to combat us. The most modern and sophisticated technology of war is launched against weapons of wood, torn feet and the ancestral thought of the Zapatistas who declare without shame or fear that the place of knowledge, the source of the word and the truth is in the heart. Modern death versus ancestral life. Neoliberalism against neozapatismo. Why do they fear us? Why so much death for those so small and so few? Because we have challenged them, and the worst thing about a challenge is that it tends to become an example. On April 3, 1911, those citizens of America with the names of Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magon wrote: "Brothers and sisters, think well, continue to advance and to labor, without losing time, else your help may be too late. Try to understand the danger which we have had to confront from all the governments of the world, those who see in this Mexican movement the appearance of a social revolution, the only thing feared by the powerful of the world." Today, 85 years later, history repeats itself. Death which once visited us dressed only as sickness and misery, now appears to us dressed in an olive-green uniform, decked out in lead and war machinery. All of these things announce destruction. A true multinational force pursues us and tries to destroy our example. The powerful of the world are disturbed by our existence and they honor us with their threat. They accurately perceive the Zapatista challenge as a global challenge. We never thought this possible, much less did we seek it. But since we have been placed in this role, we will be as disturbing as possible as long as it is possible. A global system has made the crime called government in Mexico possible. A national system makes it possible for crime to rule in Chiapas. Fighting in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast we fight for Mexico, for humanity and against neoliberalism. That is why the global Power persecutes us, that is why they jail us, assassinate us and want to destroy us. After the visit of these precursors of death, it is an honor for us to receive a visit from all of you, those who struggle for life, those who struggle for humanity in the American continent. We are sure that your trip to THE REALITY has not been easy. THE REALITY has never been easy, but it's worth arriving here. The trip to REALITY is a journey to pain, but also to hope. Diverse thoughts arising from the different nations of America are found today in THE REALITY. You find yourself gathered here today, not because of your nationality or your color, your gender, your culture or your language. Only one thing has gathered you here today, the struggle, the struggle for humanity and against neoliberalism. 80 years ago in 1916, General Emiliano Zapata dreamed that life and the thought could be free if a new reality could be constructed. The Power dreamed then of its destruction. Today, on the desks of the great generals of Mexico and the United States, there are different plans, complicated military operations, 77 varieties of murder plots, one for each year which has passed since the assassination of Emiliano Zapata. And all these plans have the objective of destruction of REALITY. Why? Because they have discovered that human beings live in REALITY, in other words dignity and the Power cannot tolerate continued life. This is the enemy which confronts us, which persecutes us, which assassinates us, which jails us, which rapes us, which humiliates us. A Power which seeks the absurd destruction of REALITY. This is what they propose...They, those in whom the Power concentrates crime and wealth, and converts them into siamese twins in order to procure the latter with the former. Those who monopolize tomorrow in the Power and declare it exclusive of all those who do not become accomplices or victims. Those who forget, that when Power accumulates power it also accumulates fear. They want to destroy REALITY because in THE REALITY today there are human beings and the mere existence of human beings is a challenge which may become an example. We, those who feed our hearts and our word with the bitter bread of hope. We, those who see in the past a lesson and not a nuisance, those who turn to yesterday in order to learn and not to regret. We, those who see a future as something constructed on today, those who aspire to a tomorrow with everyone. We, those who balance fear against shame, prudence with valor, and indifference with memory. We, those human beings who exist and thus challenge the Power. We who want to transform REALITY, convert it into something better, something new, something good. This is the nature of THE DISPUTE FOR REALITY. On one side are those who would destroy it, and on the other are those who would construct it. They fight for the absurdity of denial through amnesia, destruction and death. We fight for the absurdity of constructing the new through the strength of history, creativity and life. This is the dilemma which we come to ponder and begin to decide, the dilemma of REALITY. This is the fundamental and definitive theme for humanity and against neoliberalism. THE REALITY: the dilemma of its transformation or its destruction. In order to resolve this dilemma we must confront a powerful enemy, the Power which comes dressed as Neoliberalism. Its crimes go beyond borders, they represent the globalization of hopelessness. Neoliberalism offers a new global doctrine; surrender and indifference as the only forms of inclusion, death and amnesia as the only future for the excluded, e.g., for the majority. Stupidity and arrogance are made governments in the nations of the world. Crime and impunity exist as the primordial law. Theft and corruption are the major industry. Assassination is the fountain of legitimacy. The lie is the supreme god. Prison and a tomb are for those who refuse to be accomplices. The international of death. The war for eternity. This is neoliberalism. But its power is also derived from our shortcomings. To the vacuum of alternative proposals from us, they offer the continuity of the nightmare. We must go beyond the laments and propose new paths. We did not invite you so you could add up your complaints. We did not call you here to give voice to our misfortune. We did not call you here to give a new dimension to our nightmare. We called you here in order to multiply aspirations. We called you here to subtract penalties. We called you here to give a continental dimension to hope. May the grotesque and terrible image of the enemy which confronts us, not dim the mirror we need in order to see our own path. May procrastination and whim not hide from us the daily crime of a global system which pulverizes history, nations and individuals. May we not offer a different nightmare of a different species. May the location of the ever-more political geometry which multiplies mainstreams and extremes to infinity, not represent impunity for errors or solace for the dogmas of our thoughts. We are not gathered here today in order to change the world. We are here today with a more modest proposal. The one which proposes to make a new world, We. Today. Here. In America. Continent of legends, America is a piece of land which has appointments with all the races of the world. People without land, in other words, people without a home, the immigrant in America dreams he can work and live in peace and dignity on any floor, regardless of the border above or below. The immigrant does not find work or life in American lands, only war and humiliation is found in those lands for those who steal nothing and give everything. The immigrant of American is a stranger of America. He becomes one, not just when he crosses an international border and enters a xenophobic nightmare, but upon trespassing, if only momentarily, one of those multiple borders of culture, politics, races, religions, sexualities which pulverize the skies of America and make it so that collective thought does not include more than one. The immigrant of America is a solitary figure made up of millions searching. The immigrant of America is the eternal struggle, the legend... Among many, this legend becomes a ballad and survives the lack of books, press, television and radio. The ballad of Gregorio Cortez, persecuted by the "rinches"(Texas Rangers) but never captured, is the legend of history persecuted by abandonment, history forever escaping and made collective memory. The legend arrives in THE REALITY and represents there all the immigrants who have ever ventured onto American lands and attempted to become part of a new culture without losing its own. Like the legend, the Powerful persecutes the immigrants because they continue to be what they are, because they attempt to construct something new but different, something which does not destroy the past or the present and which can have a secure place in Northamerican future, a future of dignity, a future which does not have the bars of a jail or the stone of a tomb on the horizon. Like the ballad of Gregorio Cortez, the American immigrant escapes forever and continues to construct the collective memory which the Power insists upon destroying in all America especially in... A country which synthesizes like no other the great contradictions which compress the American continent. A nation built by the labor of immigrants from all over the world, the United States of America rises up as a symbol of power and modernity. The arrogance of the Power and its foreign policy which prefers to keep its headquarters in the lands of Northamerica, has won global contempt and this, in turn, often contaminates the noble people of North America. But the arrogance of the Power is possible only at a high cost for the people of the United States of America. This is so not only for the so-called Latino, African, Asian and indigenous minorities, but is so as well for those who are white, a crisis elevated to a global economic system, neoliberalism collects a high quota of pain in the lands north of the Rio Bravo. In the United States 5.7% of its economically active population is unemployed, while in Canada the rate is 9.5% according to statistics of the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development. The people of the United States of America, that complex amalgam of British, Irish, Spanish, Mexican, European, African, Asian, Latin American and Indigenous is American always. The people of the United States of America, the people who are forgotten when the time for solidarity arrives, the people who are remembered when the time for grievances arrives. The people of the United States of America, the people who, in spite of their government, know how to turn their gaze downward and find there, not a victim, but a brother. Not as victims, or as taskmasters, but as what we are, as brothers we salute today the people of the United States of America, who are represented here with dignity in THE REALITY. Brothers and Sisters of America; Here, today, in THE REALITY, we must give a place to memory, to history, to that mirror which reminds us of what we were, which demonstrates to us what we are and which promises us what we can be... Today, 30 years ago, in 1966, after having been nowhere, a man prepared memory and hope so that life could return to America. Ramon was his name of war at that time. In one of the many corners of THE REALITY of America, this man remembered and in his memories renewed those of all men and women who lived and died for the life of America. His name and his memory were buried by the gravediggers of history. For some his first name was Ernesto and his last name was Guevara de la Serna. For us his name was CHE. In Punto del Este he denounces the politics of the Power which, from the offices of the World Bank, proposes the construction of latrines as a solution to the grave conditions of misery lived by the countries of America. Even then the poverty of America had developed in the same proportion as its wealth had been pillaged by the rich of forever. The "latrine-ocracy" has evolved only by name. In one of the countries of America it took on the paradoxical name of "Solidarity". Nevertheless, in spite of the nominal reflections, the basic functions of "latrine- ocracy" remains the same: today, like yesterday, the poor can still remain at the bottom of the latrine, and the rich can sit on it. His criticism of the forms in which Power is exercised did not translate into the justification of his own shortcomings as he had taken it or in an apology for having taken it. Criticizing forms which apply the same logic to any exertion of power which is merely cosmetized with a new name, he wrote in 1964: "I do not pretend to have finished this theme much less to have established a papal amen in regards to these and other contradictions. Unfortunately, in the eyes of the majority of our peoples and in my own, there are more apologies for the ways in which power is exerted than scientific analises of these ways." Citizen of the world, Che remembers what we have known since Spartacus and which we sometimes forget: humanity finds in the struggle against injustice a step which elevates it, which makes it better, which converts it into something more human. Some time afterward, memory and hope took his hand in order to write his farewell letter: "One day we spent asking everyone who should be notified in case of death and the real possibility of that fact hit all of us. Later we knew it was true, that in a revolution there is victory or death (if the revolution is real). (...) Other lands of the eart= h claim the sum of my modest efforts" So Che continued his path. In his farewells instead of saying "see you soon," Che would sign off with "Forever Until Victory" as though this were the same as "see you later." 30 years later, during one of those dawns in which the moon recovers pieces of light which it grabs from the monthly bite of time and a comet disguised as a light carries out a useless vigil at the beginning of the night, I have looked for some text upon which to base the inauguration words of this meeting. I have looked through the works of Pablo Neruda and Julio Cortazar, Walt Whitman and Juan Rulfo. But it was pointless. Once and again the image of Che dreaming in the school of La Higuera reclaimed its place in my hands. From Bolivia the half-closed eyes and the ironic smile which spoke of what was and promised what would be arrived. Have I said "dreaming"? Should I have said "dead"? For some he died, for others he slept. Who was wrong? 30 years ago Che prepared the transformation of the American REALITY and the Power prepared its destruction. 29 years ago, the Power told us that history had ended in the canyon of El Yuro. They said the possibility of a different REALITY, a better one, had been destroyed, they said that rebellion had ended. Has it ended? A quick review of the press of these days can help us to respond: In the last days of March different demonstrations against the actual political economy of privatization which rule in all the continent are reported. Neoliberalism encounters resistance ad rebellion. There are millions who do not seem to know that history and with it, rebellion has ended. On the 28th of March the international news agencies of AFP (France Presse), DPA (Deutsche Presse Agentur, Alemania), EFE (Spanish news agency), and ANSA , informed us that in La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz in Bolivia, thousands of people had demonstrated in demand of salary increases and against the project of privatization of the Fiscal Oil Deposits of Bolivia. In Cochabamba the police detained 250 hunger strikers, the majority of them elderly, who protested for the same reason. Old rebels. Long live America! That same day, but in Paraguay, the workers began a general strike in demand of a salary increase of 31% and called for a referendum about privatization. The democratization of decisions opposes the imposition of economic measures...and measures which impact education as well... In these days more than 5000 Brazilian students suffer repression by the police when they protest the educational policies of president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. In Chile, thousands of farmers blocked the highways of the southern part of the country, protesting their imminent entry into the Southern Common European Market (Mercosur), an event which would mean the unemployment of more than 800,000 farmers. The severe economic adjustment which approaches in Venezuela, now motivates a populist "housewives=ED" movement and a growing social discontent. Economic globalization, that modern crime finds resistance among the clients to whom it sells death. Hundreds of ambulatory salespeople confront the Peruvian police when they attempt to expel them from the historic center of Lima. More than 20 people were wounded. In order not to become criminals some of the poor of America make a stab at mini-micro-business. It is futile, for neoliberalism all income which does not come from theft and displacement is "illegal". In America, the innocent fill the jails and the guilty, the seats of government. Anti-riot police forces repressed thousands of Costa Ricans in the city of Santa Ana against the establishment of a garbage dump. More than a thousand tons of the daily garbage of neoliberalism are dumped upon the people of Costa Rica, but they will not continue to do so without consequences. The womb of America protests as well. At the same time as a sales tax was announced, a tremor of 5.7 on the Richter scale shook the city of Quito, Ecuador. All this in a mere two days. 30 years later. Has rebellion come to an end? 30 years ago Che dreamed and repeated the dream of a transformative reality, a new one, a better one. The dream of rebellion. That dream traverses time and the mountains and is repeated anew, the same but different, in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast. The dream which gathers us today is a rupture and a continuation of the dream of Che Guevara, as well as the dream which was a rupture and a continuation of that other sleepless dreamer named Simon Boliver and Manuelita Saenz. In 1826, Simon Bolivar and Manuelita Saenz dreamt the desire of a united America. The history sold by the Power teaches us that the fertile insomnia which liberated Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia was truncated by the borders which fragmented the Bolivian dream. Was it truncated? In 1826, Bolivar convened the first hemispheric conference of America, The Congress of Panama. Today 170 years later in the American REALITY, the postponed dream of Bolivar is renewed. Crystal and mirror, the dream of a better America comes to rest in the best place for dreaming, in THE REALITY. And the intellectual authors of delirium who convene us, the lunatics who dared to dream this desire before us were : Manuelita Saenz, Simon Bolivar, Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magon, Emiliano Zapata and Ernesto CHE Guevara. 180 years, 85 years, 80 years, 30 years later, we are and we are not the same. We are the end, the continuation and the beginning. We are the mirror which is a crystal which is a mirror which is a crystal. We are rebellion. We are the stubborn history which is repeated in order not to repeat itself, the looking back in order to walk forward We are the maximum challenge to neoliberalism, the most beautiful absurdity, the most irreverent delirium, the most humane insanity. We are human beings making what should be made in REALITY, in other words dreaming. It occurs to me now that the most important thing to be dreamt in THE REALITY is to know that what ends, is what continues, and above all what begins... 180 years after the sleeplessness of Bolivar and Manuelita Saenz, 85 years after the prophesy of the Flores Magon, 80 years after the dream of Emiliano Zapata, 30 years after the dream of Che dreaming the sleeplessness of all honest and true Americans, today the 4th of April of 1996 in the American REALITY, in the name of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation I formally declare and inaugurate the preparatory American meeting for the Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism, time now being 10:33 p.m. southeastern time. Brothers and sisters of America; The great global power has not yet found the weapon capable of destroying dreams. As long as it does not find it, we will continue to dream, in other words, we will continue to triumph... Welcome, brothers and sisters of America. Here in THE REALITY we end, we continue, we begin..the dream. And this is our dream.. FOR ALL THE AMERICAS! Democracy! Liberty! Justice! From=20the mountains of the Mexican Southeast, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos The American REALITY, April of 1996
