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Zapatistas Beat Army

(No, Not in the Rose Bowl)

Peaceful New Year's Eve Occupation Succeeds

January 1, 2001

Narco News 2001

The Narco News Bulletin: narconews.com

"The Name of Our Country is América" - Simón Bolívar

Army Chased from Base

Zapatistas Cut Electric Power, Toppled Antennas

Soldiers Ordered to Withdraw Near Oventik

Plus, the latest EZLN Communiqués

The Associated Press reporter wisely remained anonymous.

The New Year's Eve reported stated:

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (AP) - President Vicente Fox ordered the closure of a second military base outside an Indian community in troubled Chiapas state Sunday, only hours after villagers marched onto the base and demanded the troops leave.

The surprise closure was the latest of a series of gestures by Fox to meet conditions set by the Zapatista rebels to restart peace talks....

In fact, there had been no plan by Fox or his government to close the base yesterday.

It was the Zapatistas who took the initiative. And they did a bit more than march.

Upon entering the base, the Indigenous communities of the Chiapas highlands, most of them Tzotzil Indians, cut the electric power to the base and toppled two parabolic antennas, thus cutting off its communications.

This was widely reported in the Mexican press. But Associated Press instead gave Fox the credit, calling it "the latest of a series of gestures by Fox."

True, Fox deserves credit for the army's wise withdrawl once its communications and power had been cut by the peaceful citizen occupation. His predecessor, Ernesto Zedillo, might have ordered another massacre instead.

But it bothers us, at Narco News, how the US press corps never seems to want to admit that people fight for their own freedom, that justice is not given, it is taken.

Fox simply reacted to what the people had already done.

This military base at Jolnachoj, near the Zapatista base community of Oventik, has been subject of our reports before. It was from there, in 1995 and 1996, that the Mexican military occupied the highlands using the pretext of marijuana eradication against the drug-and-alcohol-free indigenous communities.

And it was in that same neighborhood that a Mexican Army Colonel got caught holding the bag.

As reported in our nine-part Chiapas series chapter, "The Colonel and His Troops":

OVENTIC SAKAMCH'EN DE LOS POBRES, SAN ANDRÉS LARRAINZAR, CHIAPAS, MEXICO: The Colonel and his troops were not smiling when the cameras surprised them. Not at all.

They were caught chest high in marijuana plants on this May 9, 1996.

A federal soldier approached the videographer who had arrived with nearby townspeople, placing his hand over the camera's lens. All of this was preserved on video.

A public relations disaster was underway.

Colonel Ernesto Lerín told his troops to back off the group of reporters. He suddenly offered a big smile and announced: "This is exclusively a campaign by the Seventh Military Command against narco-trafficking," were his first words. "Exclusively!"

Well then why was the soldier trying to block the photographer from documenting this supposed public service?

Colonel Lerín showed great imagination under fire: "How good that you are here!" he beamed, smiling like a politician. "Comrades of the press: tell all the news," he says, touching the leaves of a meter-high marijuana plant. "This is the reality. Truly, in the state of Chiapas, and above all in this area, and in the Canyons region, yes, there exists marijuana!"

The Colonel and his troops ought to know. They had controlled these hills since January. When they arrived they said they were looking for marijuana, accusing the Zapatistas, who have many bases of support in this highlands region, of planting and harvesting the drug. But they had no success: four months of searches by thousands of soldiers, and this was only the second garden "discovered" in the region.... (to read the full report, click here)

We look forward to reading about more "gestures" by Fox in AP reports as the indigenous communities of Chiapas take back their lands, one base at a time.

And when the Zapatista Command fulfills its seven-year promise and advances on Mexico City in February, Narco News will be there, reporting on the immediate history of our América.

Meanwhile, because the Zapatistas speak best when they speak for themselves, we publish translations of the latest communiqués by the Chiapas rebels.

Recent Zapatista Communiqués

#1 CCRI Communique Dec 20, Nothing has changed, paramilitaries remain intact 3 years after Acteal massacre

#2 CCRI Communique Dec 20, Zapatistas displaced by paramilitaries in Chilo'n

#3 Subcommandante Marcos on Amador Hernandez troop withdrawal, Dec 22

#4 CCRI Communique Dec 22, Victory to Zapatistas of Amador Hernandez & Call for international mobilization to achieve withdrawal of army from 6 positions, release of Zapatista prisoners, constitutional recognition of San Andres Accords

Translations Provided by Chiapas Link:

http://www.chiapaslink.ukgateway.net

chiapaslink@yahoo.com

#1

Communiqué from the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee - General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico.

December 20, 2000.

To the People of Mexico:
To the Peoples and Governments of the World:

Brothers and Sisters:

On this December 22 it will have been 3 years since the Acteal killings.

On that day, 3 years ago, 45 children, women, men and old ones, all indigenous, were massacred by a paramilitary group of Ernesto Zedillo's government.

Those intellectually responsible for this crime against humanity continue to go unpunished. The dirty war that made it possible continues. The counterinsurgency doctrine that inspired it continues still. The paramilitary structure that carried it out remains untouched. The military protection of the assassins continues.

Despite what the lavish government publicity campaign says, nothing has changed. There is nothing in place in Chiapas that would ensure that Acteal will not be repeated.

For Acteal to be finally put in our country's past, it is necessary for the truly guilty ones to be punished, it is necessary for the warlike viewpoint to be finally abandoned and for there to be a serious commitment to the political path. It is necessary that the paramilitary groups be dismantled, it is necessary for the foundations of dialogue to be set through the signals which were demanded.

The EZLN is calling on political, social and non-governmental organizations, on intellectuals and artists, on religious men and women, on all honest persons in Mexico and the world, to mobilize in demanding an end to the policies which made Acteal possible and the fulfillment of the 3 signals which were demanded for the renewal of dialogue.

Democracy!
Liberty!
Justice!

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,

By the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee
- General Command of the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico
December of 2000.

******************************************************

#2

Communiqué from the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee - General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico.

December 20, 2000.

To the People of Mexico:
To the Peoples and Governments of the World:

Brothers and Sisters:

First. - Today, December 20, 2000, in the indigenous community of Santa Fe El Duraznal, municipality of Chilón, Chiapas, nine Zapatista support base families had to displace to the mountains. An undetermined number of PRI militants - among whom were some paramilitaries - arrived in that community at around 6 PM intending to repeat the Acteal killings. They forced Zapatista men, women, children and old ones to withdraw to the mountains, abandoning their few belongings. The nine Zapatista families are still living out in the open, while the village continues to be in the power of the paramilitaries.

Second. - Up to this moment, the government has done nothing to control the paramilitaries, who have moved, now, from threats to actions. With acts such as this, the Chiapas PRI is reaffirming its decision to continue resorting to violence in order to make up for their lack of legitimacy.

Third. - Neither dialogue nor peace will be a reality in Chiapas as long as the paramilitary groups remain uncontrolled. The attitude of patient waiting and peaceful resistance that the Zapatista support bases have maintained must be respected.

Democracy!
Liberty!
Justice!

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,

By the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee
- General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico
December of 2000.

 

***************************************************************

#3

Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico.

December 22, 2000.

TO the National and International Press:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The communiqué is off concerning the recent troop withdrawal.

While, when the soldiers arrived, they did so furtively, they are now withdrawing with a great public show. If peace does, in fact, arrive, it does not matter to us that that they present as Zapatistas those who are not (the ones from Aric), and the ones who waged the dirty war (the military) as great promoters of peace. It is the syndrome of the chameleon, who navigates according to how the media winds are blowing.

Vale. Salud, and may the end of the year also be the end of despair.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico
December of 2000.

P.S. - Durito says he is going to change his name. It will no longer be "Don Durito of the Lacandona," but "Durito dot com." He says he's riding the wave of "business excellence" now.

Dialectic (or Self-Contradictory) P.S. Where Durito says always no, none of that "dot com," "nor excellence," nor "business." He said that during times of travel, what is needed is a sailor. La Mar agrees. I'm looking for seasickness pills.

*****************************************************

#4

Communiqué from the Clandestine Revolutionary
Indigenous Committee - General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation,
Mexico.

December 22, 2000.

To the People of Mexico:

To the Peoples and Governments of the World:

Brothers and Sisters:

Today, during the morning, the federal Army withdrew from the position that it had been maintaining in the community of Amador Hernández since August of 1999. On the same day, Señor Vicente Fox announced the abolition of the expropriation decree, declared by Zedillo's government, which stripped the indigenous of Amador Hernández of their lands in order to build a military base there.

Since the first day that the federal soldiers illegally and illegitimately occupied indigenous lands in Amador Hernández,
Zapatista support bases from there and from neighboring towns have been maintaining a sit-in in front of the military camp, demanding their withdrawal.

Zapatista men, women, children and old ones protested every day, never abandoning their demands. Without regard to the cold, the heat, hunger, illness and exhaustion, the Zapatistas confronted federal authoritarianism with no arms other than their dignity, their rebellion, their ingenuity and their creativity. Thinking that the Zapatistas would end up growing tired of protesting, resign themselves to seeing their lands occupied and return to their houses, the soldiers used all the resources they had in order to discourage the protest. It was in vain. Every morning they found out that the Zapatistas were still there.

It was here, in Amador Hernández, where the Zapatista air force saw its first action. In order to counter the deafening noise with which the soldiers tried to silence their protests, the Zapatistas "bombarded" the federal barracks with hundreds of little airplanes.

The Zapatista support bases demonstrated their ingenuity and creativity in peaceful resistance in other ways as well. Dozens of men and women from Mexico and from the world accompanied them in their resistance for various time periods.

Without any motivation other than that of demonstrating their dissent against an injustice, people mobilized, from various parts of Mexico and the world, in support of the demand for the withdrawal of the federal army from the invaded lands. Along with the Zapatista indigenous, these persons shared hunger, the cold or heat, sleeplessness and exhaustion, but also conviction for a just cause.

Now that the soldiers have today finally withdrawn from that position, we should recognize those Zapatista indigenous men and women who stayed firm and dignified, as well as those who accompanied them personally, or with mobilizations in this peaceful resistance, for more than a year.

The victory represented by the army's withdrawal from this place belongs to the zapatista indigenous and to national and international civil society, who never left them by themselves.

In another matter, this withdrawal from one of the seven positions, demanded by the EZLN, is a good signal, and a first and important step on the path to the renewal of dialogue. Still remaining are the other 6 positions, the release of the prisoners and the constitutional recognition of indigenous rights and culture.

Vicente Fox's government has nothing to fear. As persons close to them, and who know us, will most certainly tell them, we Zapatistas do keep our word. If the three signals which were demanded are carried out, there will be dialogue. The EZLN will respond in kind to a serious and real willingness for dialogue and peace.

Finally, we are calling on national and international civil society to mobilize and, as the military withdrawal from Amador Hernández was achieved, to achieve the other 6 positions, the release of the Zapatista prisoners and the constitutional recognition of indigenous rights and culture.

Democracy!
Liberty!
Justice!

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,

By the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee
- General Command of the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico

December of 2000.

On to Mexico City!