Zapatista struggle demands student support

Garcia is a fourth-year Latin American studies student and a
member of Consciencia Libre.

By Francisco Garcia, Jr.

On Thursday, March 22,while many students were taking final
exams, Mexican President Vicente Fox met with California Gov. Gray
Davis at UCLA’s James West Alumni Center and later in
Macgowan Hall. The meeting was intended for the two to discuss
developing economic and political relationships between Mexico and
California.

In response to this meeting, about 150 students and community
members demonstrated at UCLA to let Fox know that while
Californians are interested in Mexico-California relations, many
are also interested in seeking social and economic justice for the
indigenous people of Mexico, including the urban and rural
poor.

  Illustration by HINGYI KHONG/Daily Bruin

The majority of the protesters expressed support for the
Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), the primarily indigenous
group that rose up in arms against the Mexican government on
January 1, 1994, and declared war on the extreme conditions of
poverty and marginalization that native peoples face in their
native state of Chiapas.

In the 2000 election, President Fox, from the conservative
National Action Party (PAN), successfully dethroned the
70-year-plus dictatorship in Mexico, run by the PRI, the
Institutional Revolutionary Party. This “democracy
opening,” which many political spectrums have lauded, has
allowed the Zapatistas to reinvigorate their movement in an attempt
to hold Fox accountable to his claim of putting an “end to
corruption” in Mexico by bringing democracy.

Seven years after their historic uprising, the Zapatistas again
made international news last month when 23 rebel leaders from the
EZLN’s high command, along with famed spokesperson
Subcomandante Marcos, made a 2,100-mile pilgrimage from Chiapas to
Mexico City, to pressure and encourage the Mexican Congress to pass
an Indigenous Rights Bill submitted earlier by President Fox.

In an overwhelming show of support and solidarity with the
Zapatista cause, about 100,000 people showed up at Mexico
City’s central plaza to greet the Zapatista leaders.

The Indigenous Rights bill is the result of seven years of
negotiations and peace talks between the EZLN and the Mexican
government. In 1996, the EZLN developed the accords of San Andres,
which demanded indigenous cultural, political, and economic
autonomy, but not without the development of infrastructure and
resources to which all human beings should be entitled (education,
decent housing, medical services, etc.).

These demands also included laws that expressed the right of
women to equal participation in all aspects of politics and
community life. The Mexican government signed the accords years
ago, but under the PRI’s rule, an effort was never made to
implement them.

Instead, the amount of military troops was increased throughout
the conflict zone of Chiapas under the guise of “keeping the
peace.”

In 2001, when the Zapatista representatives made their
month-long trek to Mexico City, they presented certain demands to
President Fox, who publicly expressed a concern in resolving the
conflict in Chiapas. The Zapatistas vowed not to return to official
negotiations until the following conditions were met: all EZLN
political prisoners be released, the 60,000-plus troops currently
in Chiapas withdraw from the region, and Congress pass the
Indigenous Rights bill.

Fox began this process earlier by withdrawing troops from
various parts of Chiapas, but there are still many more troops to
withdraw.

On Wednesday, March 28, Zapatista leaders addressed the Mexican
Congress in a five-hour session, expressing their arguments for
Indigenous peoples’ rights in Mexico. While there is some
resistance on the part of the PAN, excluding their leader Fox, to
acknowledge the Indigenous Rights bill and the Zapatista
presentation in Congress, there is hope that negotiations will
begin soon between the EZLN and the Mexican government.

If Fox is earnest in his claims to restore democracy and peace
in Mexico, he must follow through with his promise. The Zapatistas
have shown over the last seven years that they are seeking change
through the political process, but it is the obligation of
Fox’s government to negotiate in good faith and comply with
the agreements that are made between the two groups.

The possible conflicts that may arise in the future are the
continuation of supposed free trade and economic globalization
leaving the poor majority, including indigenous people, behind.

To put this struggle into better context, one of the reasons the
Zapatistas took up arms in 1994 was to protest the passage of the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which took effect the
same day the EZLN made its military offensive. NAFTA has long been
considered a death sentence for indigenous people in Mexico and
other poor and working class Mexicans because its interests are in
multinational corporations, transnational banks, and anything that
will expand the global market economy, of which the U.S. plays a
large part.

If the implementation of NAFTA wasn’t enough, there is
another similar trade agreement, the Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas (FTAA), that, if passed, would further exacerbate the
situation of the majority of Latin Americans. The FTAA contributes
to the process of economic globalization, or
“neoliberalism,” that benefits transnational
corporations and the wealthy minority of Latin Americans.

The Zapatista movement presents the possibility of creating real
democratic change in Mexico.

As students, we should be more than interested in this process,
for various reasons. First, there is evidence that the U.S.
government contributes to the violence in Chiapas: government aid
in the form of funds, arms and military equipment such as tanks and
helicopters, which are supposedly used to fight the “war on
drugs,” has actually been used to terrorize communities that
are perceived to be Zapatista support bases.

Second, since 1994, the Zapatistas have captured the imagination
of people all over the world, and have shed light on the plight of
indigenous people and other historically oppressed or marginalized
populations all over the globe.

Since the beginning, the Zapatistas have emphasized their
struggle as a representation of something more that just the
problem in Chiapas. They see it as an example of a global struggle
against economic systems that oppress and exploit certain sectors
of society. Stay tuned for ways to get involved and help stop
policies of exclusion and injustice such as the FTAA this
month!