ChiapasRevealed

Inside:• What makes theZapatista’s different?• The Seven LoosePieces of the GlobalJigsaw Puzzle• Fair trade organiccoffee from Chiapas• S26 - Zapatistas takePrague

Why are theZapatistasdifferent?

Feb 2001 - PDF ed.http://zap.to/chiapas

Since then most of the continued supportthe Zapatistas have received is stronglybased on the idea that the Zapatistas aredifferent. Different not just from theneoliberal world order they oppose but,more fundamentally, different from thearmed revolutionary groups that exist andhave existed elsewhere in the world.

Those involved internationally inZapatista solidarity work are drawn to itnot because they believe Mexico isuniquely repressive. There are many coun-tries that are far worse, Columbia beingone obvious example. They hope there issomething in the Zapatista method thatthey can take home to their own city orregion. Hence the popularity of the callfrom the EZLN to ‘be a Zapatista wher-ever you are’.

So although the Zapatistas remain isolatedin the jungles and mountains of south east-ern Mexico their ideas have influencedmany activists across the globe. Not leastin the round of global days of actionagainst capitalism. One call for these pro-tests actually arose at an international con-ference in La Realidad, Chiapas in 1996[36]and is part of the reason for the ‘anti-capi-talist’ demonstrations of London J18 AndSeattle N30 in 1999 and those that followed

in 2000 including A16 Washington and S26Prague.[37]

On the 1 Jan 1994 we woke from ourhangovers to find that a new rebel armyhad emerged, seemingly from nowhere, insouthern Mexico and seized a number ofprovinical towns. This army, the EZLN,distributed a paper called‘The MexicanAwakener’ [El Despertador Mexicano]. Itcontained their declaration of war, anumber of revolutionary laws and ordersfor their army. They said they were fight-ing for “work, land, shelter, food, health care,education, independence, freedom, democracy,justice and peace.”

Nothing unusual about these demands. Inthe last couple of hundred years there havebeen thousands of organisations andmovements, armed and otherwise thatcould have summarised their program ina similar way. But the vast majority ofthese movements saw the implementationof their program occurring when they tookpower on behalf of the people. This couldbe in one of two forms, an armed seizureof power like the October revolution of1917 in Russia or a democratic election likethat of 1945 which returned the British la-bour government.

Although these two movements, the one‘revolutionary’ the other ‘reformist’ are of-ten portrayed as being very different in re-ality they share an essential feature. Thechange they proposed was a change ofpoliticians and not a change in the way ofdoing politics. Both could talk about mo-bilising the working class in the course ofcoming to power but once in power theymade sure their party ruled alone. Andindeed both shared the common source ofthe ‘2nd International’ which differed fromthe first because it choose to exclude thosewho opposed the taking of state power[35].

The ‘Mexican Awakener’ rather then talk-ing of the EZLN seizing power as a newrevolutionary government outlined themilitary objectives of the rising as “Advanceto the capital of the country, overcoming theMexican federal army, protecting in our ad-

What is it that is differentabout the Zapatistas?

The EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army) came briefly to the worldsattention when they seized several towns in Chiapas on New Years day in1994. This image of a new armed rebel movement in the period when suchmovements were meant to have recognised their own redundancy was star-tling and demonstrated that history was not yet over.

Andrew Flood takes a personal look at why the Zapatistas have at-tracted international support and why many activists see them as an

example of a different way of organising.

Welcome to the first issue of Chiapas Re-vealed. This is the latest publications fromthe Irish Mexico Group and represents asignificant departure from our previousformats.

It is seven years since the Zapatistasemerged into the public eye in Chiapas.In that time we have learnt a lot aboutMexico and a lot about Chiapas. As Marcos

where ever you are’. While we have fo-cused on solidarity work we have notmanaged to explain what that sloganmight mean.

So with this new format we are concen-trating on long personal articles that seekto explore in depth aspects of what is hap-pening in Chiapas. These articles will rep-resent the views of the people who writethem rather then an IMG position. Ourhope is that they will not only explain whatis happening in Chiapas but will contrib-ute to a real debate about how we couldorganise in Ireland.

would put it ‘a shitload’.

Hundreds of people have visited the IrishMexico Groups peace camp in Diez deAbril. In Ireland dozens of meetings andprotests have been held in solidarity withthe Zapatistas.

But many of us who formed the IMG tookseriously the slogan to ‘be a Zapatista

Introduction

PDF editionwww.struggle.ws/mexico.html

vance the civilian population and permittingthe people in the liberated area the right to freelyand democratically elect their own administra-tive authorities.”

Unusually for any revolutionary organi-sation these laws then defined a right ofthe people to resist any unjust actions ofthe EZLN. They defined a right of the peo-ple to:“demand that the revolutionary armed forcesnot intervene in matters of civil order or thedisposition of capital relating to agriculture,commerce, finances, and industry, as these arethe exclusive domain of the civil authorities,elected freely and democratically.” And saidthat the people should “acquire and possessarms to defend their persons, families and prop-erty, according to the laws of disposition of capi-tal of farms, commerce, finance and industry,against the armed attacks committed by therevolutionary forces or those of the govern-ment.”

These sections and other things done andsaid by the EZLN at the time suggestedthat there was something in this rebellionthat broke what had become the standardmodel for revolutionary organisation. Thetraditional model was for the revolution-ary organisation to mobilise whateverforces were available to overthrow the ex-isting government and then to form a newgovernment itself. Fundamental to thismodel, from the Russian revolution of 1917to the Nicarguan one of 1979 was the(flawed) assumption that the interests of‘the people’ or ‘the workers’ were identi-cal to the interests of the new government.

In all cases this lead to the situation wherethe new government used its monopoly ofarmed force against sections of the work-ing class that disagreed with it. In Russiaby 1921 this had lead not only to the de-struction of the factory committees andtheir replacement with one man manage-ment but also to the crushing of all oppo-sition through the closure of individualsoviets, the suppression of strikes and thebanning, jailing and even execution ofmembers of other left organisations.

Before 1989

Once upon a time left activists could foolthemselves that this suppression of democ-racy had at least delivered a society thatwas fairer in economic terms and that wassome sort of (perhaps flawed) ‘workersstate’. The EZLN emerged in a periodwhen such illusions could no longer beheld due to the overthrowal of the major-ity of the old ‘communist’ states. So theyfound a ready audience internationally ofactivists who had not given up on theproject of transforming society but saw theneed for a new model for doing so.

The main spokersperson for the Zapatistas,subcommandante Marcos, referred to this

attraction in 1995 saying “…It is perhaps forthis reason—the lack of interest in power—thatthe word of the Zapatistas has been well re-ceived in other countries across the globe, aboveall in Europe. It has not just been because it isnew or novel, but rather because it is propos-ing this, which is to say, to separate the politi-cal problem from the problem of taking power,and take it to another terrain.Our work is going to end, if it ends, in the con-struction of this space for new political rela-tionships. What follows is going to be a prod-uct of the efforts of other people, with anotherway of thinking and acting. And there we arenot going to work; instead, we would be a dis-turbance. “[18]

The collapse of the Eastern European ‘so-cialist states’ in 1989 resulted in the rapidcollapse of all the left parties that had con-sidered these societies as ‘actually existingsocialism’. In general the only Leninistparties that survived were the ones whohad already put a major break betweentheir politics and these societies. But theystill had a problem in the fact that they hadsupported the authortarian policies of theBolsheviks in 1918-21 that had createdthese regimes. [38]

This contradiction may be the reason whythere had been very little discussion of theZapatistas by the traditional left in Irelandand elsewhere until the last year or so. Thediscussion has only started now becauseof the realisation that the influence of theZapatistas was at least part of the reasonanti-authoratarian politics were so popu-lar among anti-capitalist activists. So nowwe are subjected to half baked ‘analysis’that insist the Zapatistas are on the onehand only the latest manifestion of the focitactics of Che Guivera and on the other thatthey need to be taught that the traditionalleft has the ‘real’ answers’.

This attitude is not unique to Ireland,Marcos refers to a similar attitude on theMexican left and elsewhere in a 1994 in-terview “… What upsets the Pentagon is thatwhen you punch Zapatista into the computer,nothing comes out that says, Moscow, or Ha-vana, or Libya, Tripoli, Bosnia or any othergroup. And the left, accustomed to the sameway of thinking, says, Well, they don’t fit inanywhere. It doesn’t occur to them there mightbe something new, that you have to retheorize.And they say, Well then, these poor people don’tknow what they want, we need to help them….I have seen various magazines. . ..of Trotskyitesand Maoists, of all of the orthodox leftists andof the old dinosaurs that say, Well, the ELZNis very good and what they’ve done is very goodand all, but they lack a program, so here’s aprogram. They lack a party, so here’s a party.They lack a leader, so here’s a leader” [15]

Marcos returned to this theme in 1995 in aletter that sought to explain why theZapatistas are different. “ We do not wantothers, more or less of the right, center or left,

to decide for us. We want to participate directlyin the decisions which concern us, to controlthose who govern us, without regard to theirpolitical affiliation, and oblige them to “ruleby obeying”. We do not struggle to take power,we struggle for democracy, liberty, and justice.Our political proposal is the most radical inMexico (perhaps in the world, but it is still toosoon to say). It is so radical that all the tradi-tional political spectrum (right, center left andthose of one or the other extreme) criticize usand walk away from our delirium.It is not our arms which make us radical; it isthe new political practice which we propose andin which we are immersed with thousands ofmen and women in Mexico and the world: theconstruction of a political practice which doesnot seek the taking of power but the organiza-tion of society. Intellectuals and political lead-ership, of all sizes, of the ultraright, of the right,the center, of the left and the ultraleft, nationaland international criticize our proposal. We areso radical that we do not fit in the parametersof “modern political science”. We are not brag-ging … we are pointing out the facts. Is thereanything more radical than to propose tochange the world? You know this because youshare this dream with us, and because, thoughthe truth be repeated, we dream it together.”[25]

Not the same thing

In Mexican terms 1996 was the year whenthe EZLN most wished to emphasise thisdifference. A new armed group called theEPR (Popular Revolutionary Army)launched attacks on police stations in sev-eral Mexican states, saying specifically thatunlike the Zapatistas they wished to seizestate power. The EZLN was keen to dis-tance themselves from the EPR, all themore so because the EPR sought to implylinks between the two organisations.

In a EZLN communique “to the soldiers andcommanders of the Popular RevolutionaryArmy” the EZLN wrote “What we seek, whatwe need and want is that all those people with-out a party and organization make agreementsabout what they want and do not want andbecome organized in order to achieve it (pref-erably through civil and peaceful means), notto take power, but to exercise it. I know youwill say this is utopian and unorthodox, butthis is the way of the Zapatistas. Too bad.… it is useful to point out and repeat, that weare different. And the difference is not whatyou and others have insisted upon, that you donot dialogue with the government, that you dostruggle for power and that you have not de-clared war, while we do dialogue (attention; wedo this not only with the government but in amuch larger sense with national and interna-tional civic society); we do not struggle forpower and we did declare war on the FederalArmy (a challenge they will never forgive us).The difference is that our political proposals arediametrically differenth and this is evident inthe discourse and the practice of the two or-ganizations. Thanks to your appearance, now

many people can understand that what makesus different from existing political organiza-tions are not the weapons and the ski-masks,but the political proposals. We have carved outa new and radical path. It is so new and radi-cal that all the political currents have criticizedus and look at us with boredom, includingyourselves. We are uncomfortable. Too bad, thisis the way of the Zapatistas.… You struggle for power. We struggle for de-mocracy, liberty and justice. This is not thesame thing. Though you may be successful andconquer power, we will continue struggling fordemocracy, liberty and justice. It does not mat-ter who is in power, the Zapatistas are and havealways struggle for democracy, liberty and jus-tice.” [26]

One recent Leninist critique that said “It isa curious ‘quality’ in a revolutionary organi-sation that it does not seek state power” goeson to ask “What then is the nature of the revo-lution they advocate?”. We are told “in theend, the issue is power, the control of societyby the producers”. This handy confusion ofa party seizing power on behalf of the pro-ducers with direct democracy leads to theexpected conclusion that the Zapatistas“are not in a position to provide political lead-ership for the movement that has celebratedtheir example”.[46] This particular 9,000word critique finds only a couple of sen-tences to mention the structures of directdemocracy that arguably define “the natureof the revolution they advocate”.

Other left critics, pointing to the fact thatthe rejection of seizing power was not ex-plicit in the first Zapatista paper, have sug-gested that this idea was only later devel-oped to gain international support. How-ever, Marcos did in fact vaguely expressthese ideas in an interview with the Mexi-can liberal paper ‘La Jornada’ on the firstof January.“ We hope that the people understand that thecauses that have moved us to do this are just,and that the path that we have chosen is justone, not the only one. Nor do we think that itis the best of all paths. …. We do not want adictatorship of another kind, nor anything outof this world, not international Communismand all that. We want justice where there isnow not even minimum subsistence. …. Wedo not want to monopolize the vanguard or saythat we are the light, the only alternative, orstingily claim the qualification of revolution-ary for one or another current. We say, look atwhat happened. That is what we had to do.”[14]

The Encounter

This rejection of the traditional methodsof the left is not simply confined to Mexico.In 1996 the Zapatistas organised an inter-national encounter in Chiapas attended bysome 3,000 activists from over 40 countries(including the author). The Encounterended with the 2nd declaration of Reality(the final venue being the community ofLa Realidad) which asked, what next, what

is it that we were seeking do to do?“A new number in the useless enumeration ofthe numerous international orders?A new scheme that calms and alleviates the an-guish of a lack of recipes?A global program for world revolution?”

This rhetorical rejection of the methods theleft had used to organise internationaly,particularly in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th interna-tional, was followed by a suggested alter-native:“That we will make a collective network of allour particular struggles and resistance’s. Anintercontinental network of resistance againstneoliberalism, an intercontinental network ofresistance for humanity.This intercontinental network of resistance,recognising differences and acknowledgingsimilarities, will search to find itself with otherresistance’s around the world. This interconti-nental network of resistance will be the mediumin which distinct resistance’s may support oneanother. This intercontinental network of re-sistance is not an organising structure; itdoesn’t have a central head or decision maker;it has no central command or hierarchies. Weare the network, all of us who resist.“[21]

The quotations above contain the essenceof what it is that makes the Zapatistas dif-ferent. The purpose of the organisation isnot to seize power on behalf of the people– rather it is to create a space in which peo-ple can define their own power. This is aradically different project from what revo-lutionary politics have been in the twenti-eth century. In the aftermath of the Rus-sian revolution, Leninism, the idea that theparty must rule on behalf of the people,became the common core of almost allrevolutionary movements. Contrast, forexample, the Zapatista approach withTrotsky’s speech to the 1921 Bolshevikparty congress attacking one faction hesaid had “placed the workers right to elect rep-resentatives above the party. As if the partywere not entitled to assert its dictatorship evenif that dictatorship temporarily clashed withthe passing moods of the workers democracy”

Pinch of salt

On this ideological level we can see whatseperates the Zapatistas from most of theleft. But anyone who has been a memberof a left organisation will know there canbe a sharp difference between the externalrhetoric of workers democracy and and aninternal reality where real discussion issuppressed, instructions come from the topdown and mechanisms exist that insurethe same small clique runs the organisa-tion for decade after decade. Do similarproblems exist with the Zapatistas?

This is a more difficult problem to answer.It is no use simply quoting Marcos or anyother prominent Zapatista as they maysimply be telling us what they reckon we’dlike to hear. The ongoing Low Intensity

War means that it can be very difficult toask questions (particularly in relation tothe military side of the organisation) nevermind get accurate answers. This has ledsome left critics to claim that visits to therebel zone are controlled so that “On a well-signed route, people have to agree to see onlywhat they have to see and to believe in the lead-er’s words”[4].

Indeed, there can be a point to such cri-tiques. Left parties, particularly in power,have been experts at arranging carefullycontrolled trips to model communities andworkplaces where international visitorscome into contact only with carefullycoached party members. Much of the dis-cussion around the Zapatistas has focusedon their communiqués and essentially di-vides into two camps, one that sees themoffering a new model of revolutionary or-ganisation, the other that criticises them onthe basis of problems with their politicalprogram. Little has been written aboutday-to-day life in the rebel area.

One of the immediate gains of theZapatista rising was the creation of a par-tially liberated zone of thousands of squarekilometers.Within this zone thousands ofZapatista communities have carried out along running experiment in self-mangagement. Sometimes this has beenon land they have occupied since the ris-ing but more often it is on new land clearedfrom the Lacanodon jungle in the decadesbefore 1994.

I don’t want to over state the liberated na-ture of this area. For one year to February1995 it was under the more or less uncon-tested control of the Zapatistas. Then thearmy launched an offensive which washalted only by massive demonstrations inMexico city. The years since have seen aLow Intensity War where up to 70,000 sol-diers have been installed in army basesthroughout the Zapatista area and dozensof paramilitary groups have been armedand encouraged to attack Zapatista com-

munities. In addition, the selective distri-bution of government aid and religioussectarianism have both been used to divideindividual communities and areas into proand anti government groups.

The importance of this area is not that itcan form some sort of permanent isolatedalternative. Even if this was what theZapatistas wanted there would be no waythey could defeat the far larger and betterequipped Mexican army (and if they didthe US would intervene). The importanceof this zone is that it provides a space inwhich the methods advocated by theZapatistas are being put into practise. Thisis in the most difficult circumstances, foreven without the army and paramilitarypresence, the extreme poverty, lack of edu-cation and infrastructure would presentformidable barriers.

Difficult conditions

The areas the Zapatistas openly organisein are rural and extremely poor. Small com-munities of a dozen to over 100 familiesare typical, forced to live off the land with-out the benefit of modern agriculturalmachinery. Some of the men will haveworked outside the village in local townsor even as far as the USA but in the vil-lages themselves the only political pres-ence tends to come from the Catholicchurch’s local variety of ‘liberation theol-ogy’, the EZLN itself and a variety ofcampesino organisations.

Prior to the rebellion many communitiesdid not have sufficient fertile land to pro-duce enough food. Typically ranchers(who boasted they were of pure ‘Spanishblood’) had seized the fertile land at thebottom of the canyons leaving the less fer-tile mountainside to the indigenous peo-ple. As well as getting the most fertile landthis also effectively forced the local indig-enous people to work for them, virtuallyas serfs. Stories of physical punishment ofthose they considered not to be workinghard enough and assassinations of thosewho sought to organise against them wereall too common. With the rebellion thelandowners fled and in many cases theirabandoned land was taken over and some-times used to establish new communities.

The ongoing Low Intensity War makesaccurate ground reports difficult. For thelast few years the government has run aprogram of roadblocks and observer de-portation designed to hide these commu-nities from the world’s eye. The war alsomeans ordinary people are deeplysuspicous of outsiders in general, and areparticularly wary of tall, white and com-paratively wealthy N. American or Euro-pean observers who look far more like thetraditional enemy then any sort of ally.However, thousands of people from out-side Chiapas have lived in Zapatista com-

munities as peace observers or workedwith communities on solidarity projectslike the construction of water pipe lines.

Dies de Abril

Many observers have been able to form areal idea of how Zapatista communitiesfunction. The Irish Mexico Group main-tained a peace camp in one community,Diez de Abril from the start of 1997 to early2000 (and still occasionally visits)[2]. Overthese three years at least 200 of people peo-ple visited Diez (including the author inSeptember ’97). The core presence wasmaintained by three or four people, eachof whom spent months in the communityduring these years and developed friend-ships with people living there.

Diez de Abril is situated between thetowns of Altamirano and Comitan in thehighlands of Chiapas. About 100 familieslived there in 1997. 80% of the people areTzeltal, the other 20% are Tojolobal. Lin-guists estimate these languages divergedover 3,000 years ago[27], so discussion inthe community requires translation fromone language into another or more com-monly through the use of Spanish. How-ever, while most of the men speak someSpanish only 1/3 of the women do andvery few are fluent. As elsewhere inChiapas, living conditions are difficult dueto poverty, poor education (typically onlyone year of formal education), a lot of illhealth and a high death rate (particularlyof children and old people). There is nosanitation in the community, except the la-trines they constructed themselves, no ac-cess to clean water and only a single‘unoffical’ electricity cable.

The ranch Diez is on was occupied on 10thApril, 1995. Those who moved onto theland had worked for the rancher before therebellion in atrocious conditions. In themonths before the takeover they met inassembly on the land to decide how to di-

vide up the land. One decision was thename of the new community ‘Diez deAbril’, after the day (10th April 1919) whenZapata was assassinated. As a communitydelegate explained“we had to move onto the ranchers’ land be-cause we were living like animals in the hills.The land there was very bad, and difficult toharvest. ...The majority of the community votedto call the village Diez De Abril. They chosethat name because it honoured Zapata who waskilled on that date. He was a companero, fight-ing against the government.”“We used to meet where the church is now, andthere decided where to put the houses, and togive a house to the international observers. Wemeasured the land and divided it up amongthe people. Each family has a plot of land oftheir own and then there are also collective[plots].”[38]

The church in Diez is the main assemblypoint for the community. All the people ofthe community meet there once a week -after mass on Sunday morning. These vil-lage assemblies, at which everyone mayspeak and everyone over 12 has a vote (al-though votes are very rare, most decisionsbeing made by consensus), decide all ques-tions that face the community, fromwhether to buy a lorry or a tractor to howthe repair of the fences or the bridge willbe done.

Sometimes it is necessary for more thenone assembly in a week, particularly attimes of high tension. In addition there areseveral sub-assemblies of the people thatwork on particular projects in the commu-nity. Two examples are the cattle collectiveand the sewing collective. Each collectivehas a co-ordinator, a secretary and a treas-urer. The co-ordinator is changed at leastonce a year.

The main assembly may also appoint del-egates to co-ordinate particular tasks.These delegates form a council that meetbetween assemblies and organise the day-

A view of Diez deAbril

to-day work. These ‘responsibles’ co-ordi-nate work in particular areas. They servea limited term (one to two years) and aresubject to re-call within this time if it’s feltthey are not ‘leading by obeying’ (theZapatista slogan for following the mandategiven to them).

The collectives that carry out particulartasks are set up by and answerable to theassembly but are otherwise autonomous.Collectives in Diez include ones for cof-fee, cattle, honey, horticulture, baking,sewing and chicken rearing. Some of theproduction of each collective goes to itsmembers; the surplus goes into a centralcommunity fund controlled by the assem-bly.

Very occasionally the Assembly structureis mentioned in EZLN communiques. Forinstance in Jan 2000 the community ofNicolas Ruiz was in dispute with a com-pany building a warehouse on its land, thecommunique they released read in part:“On various occasions, we have let EngineerEnrique Culebro Siles, State Delegate ofFIDELIC, know that in our community thereis a decision-making structure in place, whosehighest authority resides in the Assembly, andit is only by consensus of this assembly do wetake action on any given issue. In this case, wehave let him know that the Assembly has notdiscussed or made a decision on the establish-ment of a warehouse by the company he repre-sents. Thus, setting up a shed to buy corn inthe community is irresponsible and shows alack of respect for our authorities, since therehas been no agreement on the matter.” [13]

When several hundred soldiers ap-proached the community of Morelia onJanuary 8th 1998 they were driven off bythe women of that community. Roselia, “amiddle-aged women from Morelia” explained:“We held a meeting and decided that we weregoing to throw out the army if they came, …we have decided that we are going to defendour communities, … We want everything forthe pueblo and not just for a few people or forone community,”[9]

Activists who have visited othercommunites report a similar decision mak-ing mechanism, (see box opposite). Thereis a lot of variation from community tocommunity but the basic model of the as-sembly remains the same, its origins lie inindigenous tradition, a tradition commonto many other indigenous groups through-out the America’s.

Some problems

There are problems with the traditional in-digenous structure, especially the fact thattraditionally women had no voice exceptin some cases where widows were allowedto speak (because they had become respon-sible for family land). Another problemwas that the assemblies were often control-

led by a group of ‘elders’ rather thenrecallable delegates. In the past the Span-ish invaders and later the landlords wereable to make use of this by buying indi-viduals off as part of the cacique system.

The assemblies in the Zapatista area arestruggling against these elements. Womennow have the right to speak and vote - al-though what extent they actually do sovaries from community to community. InDiez the elders now only have automaticpower in questions of tradition. In 1997they were resisting a demand from theyounger people that the system of payingdowrys as part of marriage should be abol-ished.

This description of how the Zapatistamake decisions on the basis of a singlecommunity confirms the reality behind the‘decision making from below’ language ofthe interviews and communiques. But itis obvious that such a structure cannot eas-ily be scaled up to accommodate more peo-ple and larger geographical areas. An as-sembly of 10,000 or 100,000 people couldnot be a good decision making mechanismbecause very few people can speak at sucha gathering. And of course we don’t wantto spend our whole lives at (or getting to)such meetings.

This has led some to conclude that the de-cision making structures used in the smallvillages of Chiapas have little relevance forthose of us in large cities. (A discussionthat as we shall see is also taking placewithin the Zapatists). But even in Chiapasdecisions have to be made that affect tensand even hundreds of thousands of peo-ple. One of the strengths of the Zapatistamovement is that have a method for mak-ing such decisions that preserves the rightof ordinary people to decide what deci-sions are made (and not as in our ‘democ-racy’ merely who gets to make them.)

The method the Zapatistas use is a varia-tion of ‘delegate democracy’, a method thatis used in many countries at the base oftrade unions and student unions. An in-dividual is elected from amongst thosethey normally work with (eg a shop stew-ard or class rep). Rather than being thenallowed carte blanche to decide what theylike they are given a clear mandate to rep-resent the views of the group that selectedthem to regional meetings of delegates.Such systems also contain other mecha-nisms to limit the power delegates can in-formally accrue like• limiting the length of time any one per-son can represent a group• insisting that they still carry out at leastsome of their normal work• ensuring that they report back how theyvoted and what decisions were made tothe group that delegated them.

If they fail to do so then the group can im-

A couple of years ago I was asked to writea report about the work of a local NGOwith Zapatista communities in Chiapasand in the course of observing their work,I was fortunate enough to be present atan assembly of the men of a community.

I suppose it says something that only themen attended, they were the ones whowould do most of the work on the project,but the outcome would change things foreveryone in the village, men and women.Anyway, this is what I saw.

The assembly took quite a long time, andit seemed that no one was in a greathurry, and everyone got to say theirpiece. No one seemed to be told to shutup at any stage, though as the villagerstalked among themselves in their indig-enous language, Tojolabal, which I don’tunderstand. As far as I could make out,the man chairing the assembly was gath-ering opinions from everyone who wantedto give one, then summarising it, andthen people would add to that or disa-gree with it.

Every now and then he would translatefor the the outsiders - us, and again thiswould prompt others to add comments,and start a new round of the discussion.There were no votes, and no obvioussigns of people feeling they had been ex-cluded by a majority decision, everythingappeared to be decided by consensus,talked over until a point was reachedwhere everyone agreed. Perhaps that’swhy the assembly took a long time.

The most striking thing about it all wasthe respect with which the men treatedeach other. They listened to all opinionsand there was no sign of competition forprimacy of viewpoint. I was told by thegroup that took me to the village thatthis is the norm in other assemblies inZapatista communities too, and that inthe main weekly village assemblies menand women have equal rights, though thewomen are often slower to speak.

Apparently there are also women’s as-semblies, where men are not invited,which decide issues felt to be exclusivelythe concern of the women.

Donal

Another view

Regular news fromChiapas

If what you seek is regular news aboutChiapas we recommend using theinternet. We maintain a huge archive ofEnglish language documents athttp://zap.to/chiapas. For regular newswe run a mailing list where every weekwe sent the two or three most relevantEnglish language articles. To join thissimply mailimg_news-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

mediately re-call them and select someoneelse.

The Zapatista decision making structurebroadly functions along these lines. Thismakes it one where all levels of the organi-sation from the top down are answerableto the ordinary people at the base. TheZapatista communities form an organisa-tional and decision making network in-volving hundreds of thousands of people.There are 38* rebel municipalities, each onewith from 50 to over 100 individual com-munities.

Military command

The Zapatista military structure is nothowever internally democratic. Rather itis organised as a conventional army withofficers apparently appointed from the topdown. Some would argue that in a warsituation a democratic structure is not pos-sible. I would point to the Makhnovistaof the Russian civil war and the anarchistmilitia of the Spanish Civil War as histori-cal demonstrations that military systemswhere the rank and file select delegates toact as officers are feasible. [40] This ofcourse is not simply a debate about mili-tary tactics - in any situation where thepeople do not directly control the armythere is a real danger of the army beingused against the people.

Although the internal structure of theEZLN is not democratic overall commandof the army is. That is, unlike almost allother rebel armies, the command of thearmy does not end in its own military com-mand but rather in the hands of those atthe base whom it claims to represent. Thereare a number of extensive interviews withsubcommandante Marcos, in which hedescribes how this decision-making struc-ture evolved[1]. In essence, as the EZLNevolved from a few students who had goneinto the mountains with the authoratarianproject of leading the people to liberationinto an army of the people, it was forcedto accept that the people and not the armycommand should have the final say.

The CCRI

The ‘Clandestine Revolutionary Indig-enous Committee’ (CCRI) is the body thatcommands the army. This body (or indeedbodies as there are also regional CCRI’s)is composed of delegates from the commu-nities. It is not in itself a military structurealthough it appears to include permanentmilitary representatives like Tacho.

Important Zapatista policy communiquesare always signed by the CCRI and are nor-mally written in a style that carries thehallmarks of a document subject to discus-sion and debate by a large number of peo-ple (eg comprised of a list of numberedpoints). As well as being in control of the

army and issuing communiques the CCRIis also a structure for making day to daydecisions that affect the entire region.

When one community in the region ofMorelia wanted to occupy land shortly af-ter the rebellion “the local Clandestine Revo-lutionary Indigenous Committee, (CCRI) or-dered locals to wait, expecting a region-wideland settlement after the 1994 dialogue”[5]. Inthis sort of situation it is obviously vitalthat the CCRI really represents the collec-tive decision making of the communitiesand is not simply a leadership keepingcontrol of the base of the movement. Inthis case its judgement was wrong and waschanged by late 1994 allowing land sei-zures, including that at Diez, to go ahead.

A month after the rising ‘La Jornada’ in-terviewed some members of the CCRI.One of them, Isacc, explained the account-ability of the CCRI as follows;“If the people say that a companero who is amember of the CCRI is not doing anything,that we are not respecting the people or are notdoing what the people say, then the people saythat they want to remove us ...In that way, if some member of the CCRI doesnot do their work, if they do not respect thepeople, well compa, it is not your place to bethere. Then, well, excuse us but we will haveto put another in your place”[6].

This was an early description of the sys-tem of delegate democracy in place wherethe communities could recall their CCRIdelegate if they felt they were not repre-senting them. In a major interview withMexican anarchists in May 1994 Marcosdescribed the delegate system of decisionmaking before going on to outline the limi-tations on even the CCRI’s power to makedecisions.

“In any moment, if you hold a position in thecommunity (first, the community has to haveappointed you independent of your political af-filiation), the community can remove you.There isn’t a fixed term that you have to com-plete. The moment that the community beginsto see that you are failing in your duties, thatyou are having problems, they sit you down infront of the community and they begin to tellyou what you have done wrong. You defendyourself and finally the community, the col-lective, the majority decides what they are go-

ing to do with you. Eventually, you will haveto leave your position and another will take upyour responsibilities... strategic decisions, important decisions haveto be made democratically, from below, not fromabove. If there is going to be an action or seriesof actions that are going to implicate the entireorganization, the authority has to come frombelow. In this sense, even the Clandestine Revo-lutionary Indigenous Committee isn’t able tomake every decision. You could say that theEZLN is different because in most political-military organizations there is only one com-mander, and in the EZLN the ClandestineCommittees are composed of 80 people, 100people, 120 people or however many. But thisis not the difference. The difference is that eventhe Clandestine Committees cannot make cer-tain decisions, the most important decisions.They are limited to such a degree that the Clan-destine Committees cannot decide which paththe organization is going to follow until everycompanero is consulted” [15]

The first interview[6] with CCRI membersin Feb. 1994 also included the first men-tion of this form of decision making. (Theinterviews questions are in bold):“How did you decide collectively to riseup in arms?”“Oh, that has been going on for months now,since we had to ask the opinion of the peopleand because it was the people’s decision. Since,why would one small group decide to jump intowar? And what if the people don’t supportthem? What if the people haven’t spoken yet?Then you can’t struggle in that way.“It was the people themselves who said ‘Let’sbegin already. We do not want to put up withany more because we are already dying of hun-ger.’ The leaders, the CCRI, the ZapatistaArmy, and the General Command, if the peo-ple say so, well then, we’re going to start. Re-specting and obeying what the people ask. Thepeople in general. That is how the struggle be-gan.”

“How did you carry out your assemblies?”“They are done in each region; in each zone weask the opinion of the people. Then that opin-ion is collected from different communitieswhere there are Zapatistas. And Zapatistas areeverywhere in the state of Chiapas. They areasked their opinion, to say what they want: ifwe should start the war or not.”

“Will the people also be asked whetherthey want to negotiate?”“We cannot dialogue or negotiate by ourselves.First we have to ask the people. At the statelevel, where there are companeros, we have toconsult about whether we are going to negoti-ate or not over there. If the people say so, weare doing what the people say. Why? Becausewe are fulfilling our commitment to the peo-ple. Because the people have lived with this forso many years: a life that is so hard, with everykind of injustice. Because of this, it isn’t easyto enter the dialogue so quickly. If the peoplego to dialogue, well fine. If not, ‘sallright. No.That’s why it is not easy.”

The bread collective in Diez de Abril

So even the CCRI does not have the powerto make major decisions, such as to choosebetween peace and war. These must in-stead be made through a ‘consulta’.

Consultas

In June of 1994 the ‘Second Declaration fromthe Lacandona Jungle‘(these declarations arekey policy statements) agreed to enter intotalks. It explained that “The EZLN, in ademocratic exercise without precedent in anarmed organization, consulted its componentbases about whether or not to sign the peaceaccords presented by the federal government.The Indigenous bases of the EZLN, seeing thatthe central demands of democracy, freedom andjustice have yet to be resolved, decided againstsigning the government’s proposal.” [20]

How are such consultations carried out?Another communiqué from the same pe-riod explained the consulta process;“The consultations took place in every com-munity and ejido where there are members ofthe EZLN.The study, analysis, and discussion of the peaceaccords took place in democratic assemblies.The voting was direct, free, and democratic.After the voting, official reports of the resultsof the assemblies were prepared. These reportsspecify: the date and place of the assembly, thenumber of people who attended (men, womenand children older than 12 years old), opinionsand principal points discussed, and the numberof people who voted.”[7]

The consulta is similar to a referendum butone in which intense discussions in eachcommunity is as central to the process asthe vote itself. The purpose of these dis-cussions can be to frame the questions thatwill be voted on. This is important, as it isthrough dictating the wording of referendathat governments can often impose limi-tations on what their effect will be. TheZapatista consulta take weeks and havebeen a great source of annoyance to theMexican government, which always wantsan answer to its proposals on the spot orwithin days.

In his May 1994 interview Marcos had ex-plained how the process worked on thecommunity level - “The people meet in as-semblies and the representatives put forth, forexample in the case of the consultations, thedemands of the EZLN and the response of thegovernment. They’re explained. What is it thatwe asked for and what has the government saidin response? And they begin to debate, Well,this is bad and this is good. After the commu-nity says, We have already debated, we alreadyunderstand, now we can vote - this could takedays. In fact, almost all the consultations havegone on for two, three days now and theyhaven’t yet reached the point of voting. Theyarrive and say, Well okay, we are in agreement,let’s vote if we are ready to vote, if we alreadyunderstand what it is we are going to decide.

It’s not about raising your hand or putting acheck-mark for one option or the other. You haveto debate and analyze the pros and thecons.”[15]

An interview with EZLN Major Ann Mariapublished in March of 1994 referred to theconsulta that had happened before thelaunch of the Jan 1 attacks. ‘’First we votedon whether to begin the war or not. After thedecision the attack was organized, with thesupport of the high commanders’’[16] Inter-estingly in a video interview from 1998Marcos revealed that this consulta hadgone against the wishes of the militarycommand who did not consider the EZLNprepared for an offensive war. Later in thesame interview Ann Maria refers to how asimilar process had passed the Women’sRevolutionary Law“They’d given us the right to participate in theassemblies and in study groups but there wasno law about women. And so we protested andthat’s how the Law for women came about. Weall formulated it and presented it in an assem-bly of all the towns. Men and women voted onit. There were no problems. In the process opin-ions of women were asked in all the towns. Theinsurgents helped us write it,’’ [16]

Autonomous municapalities

The consultas are ideal for making the bigdecisions on the questions of war or peace.However, state wide votes are far too un-wieldy to settle smaller questions. Someof the more important can be settled by theCCRI, but from 1995 another regionalstructure emerged to deal with regional co-ordination and record keeping.The rebel-lion has also meant Zapatista communi-ties refusing all contact with the Mexicanstate - right down to refusing to registerbirths and deaths.

The practical problem thrown up by theneed for inter community co-ordinationsaw the formation of these regional coun-cils. These are known as AutonomousMunicipalities. For instance 100 commu-nities make up the Autonomous Munici-

pality named after the Mexican anarchistRicardo Flores Magon. Another, Tierra yLibertad, on the border with Guatemalacontains a total of 120 Tzotzil, Tseltal andTojolobal communities from the officialgovernment municipalities of LasMargaritas, Ocosingo, La Trinitaria, LaIndependencia and Frontera Comalap.[8]

EZLN Commandante Samuel explainedthe reason’s why the EZLN decided to cre-ate these liberated zones, “It was an idea thatsurfaced in 1994 as a way of not having tointeract with government institutions. We said‘Enough!’ to them controlling all aspects of ourcommunity for us. By creating autonomousmunicipalities we are defining our own spaceswhere we can carry out our social and politicalcustoms as we see fit, without a governmentthat never takes us into account, interferingfor its self- benefit.” [9]

The Non-Governmental Organization,SIPAZ, has this to say concerning the Au-tonomous Municipalities:“Considered from a western political perspec-tive, the autonomous municipalities make nosense. They have no resources or real power orlegal legitimacy, and they are dying, encircledby hunger, diseases, the paramilitary threat andthe security forces. However, for the indigenouspeoples, they constitute an eloquent symbol ofa culture which is resisting and defying thedominant culture, making a reality of a differ-ent way of understanding politics and of or-ganizing the economy, society, and even hu-man relations.” [10]

In fact SIPAZ is wrong to state that themunicapalities make no sense from thewestern perspective. Europe has seensimilar structures emerge at times of revo-lutionary upheavel, as Soviets in 1905 and1917 in Russia, as Workers Councils inGermany from 1918-23, as Factory Coun-cils in Italy in 1920-21, as Workers Com-mittees and Cantonal Federations in Spainin 1936-37 and as recently as 1974-76 inPortugal as Workers Committees andNeighboorhood Commissions. Irelandeven saw a short lived example during theLimerick general strike of 1919 when thetrades council took over much of the run-ning to the town and even issued its ownmoney. Although these structures differedfrom each other and from the structuresin Chiapas they all represented a mecha-nism for ordinary people to run their soci-eties directly.

The business of the Autonomous Munici-pality is concerned with the practicalitiesof day to day life rather then the issuing ofcommuniques[41] or the commanding oftroops. As such they are perhaps less ex-citing then the CCRI or the military com-mand of the EZLN and so only receivemedia coverage when the army invadesthe towns where they are based in orderto try and destroy them. But for the ordi-nary Zapatistas it is the very day to day

Seal of the Ricardo Flores Magonautonomous municipality

nature of the Autonomous Municipalitythat means they have a major impact onlife

One observer, Mariana Mora, explains that“Within the newly created municipal struc-tures, the communities name their authorities,community teachers, local health promoters,indigenous parliaments, and elaborate theirown laws based on social, economic, politicaland gender equality among the inhabitants ofdiverse ethnic communities.In the autonomous municipality 17 deNoviembre, located in the region of Altamirano,educational promoters from the region’s 75communities meet regularly through work-shops and meetings in order to create the mu-nicipality’s new educational system”[9]

Education is an important example of thedepth of the impact of the AutonomousMunicapilities, for instance in theOcosingo region “People from the commu-nities are saying that they might as well sus-pend the present education because it is beingimposed from above. We consider that thepresent education does not include the fourthemes that we think are the most important:the economic question, the political questionand the cultural and social questions. So nowwe are calling on all the teachers to elaborate anew educational project that is supported bythe community bases and that is based on thefour main themes mentioned. At this point allthe schools are closed which was agreed on bythe base communities. The communities (of ourregion) have said, we will close all the schoolsand call together all the professors who workin this region so that they can develop theirproposal, even though we also have ours.” [11]

How they function

Enlace Civil, another Mexican NGO in de-tailing the government’s attempts tosmash the Autonomous Municipalitiesexplains how they function;“The autonomous municipalities are made upby the indigenous communities within an areadefined by zapatista influence. The communi-ties of an indigenous zone or area are the oneswho decide, at an assembly of all their mem-bers, whether or not they will belong to the au-tonomous municipality.The autonomous municipalities, parallel to theconstitutional ones, do not receive any financ-ing from the state, nor do they collect taxes.It is the communities who elect their representa-tives for the Autonomous Municipal Council,which is the authority for the municipality.Each representative is chosen for one area ofadministration within the autonomous munici-pality, and they may be removed if they do notfully comply with the communities’ mandates.Generally, a Council is made up of a President,a Vice-President, a Secretary, a Minister ofJustice, a person in charge of Agrarian Mat-ters, a Health Committee and a director for theCivil Registry. Each members’ powers areclearly defined within their appointment, andthey function in a collegial manner, with the

advice of previous authorities or of the Coun-cil of Elders.The Councils are elected and renewed every oneor two years, according to the municipality.The activities and the responsibilities of eachautonomous municipality are dependent on thewill of their members, and on their level of con-solidation. They do not manage public re-sources, and their budget, if it exists at all, isvery limited, and due to the cooperation of someof their members. Those who hold a positionon the Municipal Council do not receive a sal-ary for it, although their expenses should bepaid by the same communities who requesttheir presence, through cooperation among themembers. In some cases, members of the Coun-cil are supported in their farm work, so theycan dedicate themselves to their [Council]work, and not have to go the fields.The autonomous municipalities resolve localproblems of coexistence, relations and ex-changes between communities, and they attendto minor crimes. The application of justice isbased on customary law. For example, in casesof common crimes, the punishment imposed bythe Autonomous Council is reparation of thedamages: instead of punishment by jail or fines,a sentence is imposed of working for the com-munity, or for the aggrieved family.In the autonomous municipality of Polho, inChenalho, where thousands of war displacedare found, the Autonomous Council receivesnational and international humanitarian aid,and it distributes it to the camps through theSupply Committee.” [10]

It is this sort of decision-making structurethat truly determines the health of a revo-lution rather then the fine words of its lead-ers or the slogans it is organised under.And also of course they present a clear al-ternative to the state (and seizing statepower) something the Leninist left is re-luctant to acknowledge. Strangely enoughboth the Mexican government and the lo-cal Catholic church seem to be more on theball here.

A document written by the Catholic Dio-ceses of San Cristobal de las Casas says“The naming of authorities through indigenousnorms and customs, signifies that the politicalparty system is no longer the only channel toelect authorities and government representa-tives. At a local level municipal presidentsimposed by the PRI are left governing onlythemselves, without being able to penetrate intothe communities. Basically this means the slowdestruction of the false democracy sustainedby the political party system and its replace-ment by communities and organizations thatconstruct their own history first as autonomousmunicipalities and eventually as autonomouszones.”[9]

It is revealing how much left commentaryon the Zapatistas ignores these structuresaltogether. Instead the Zapatistas areanalyised on the basis of the revolution-ary laws or the demands they have putforward in the peace process. Such an

analysis seems to stem more from the ob-servers wish to be in power then any trueunderstanding of what a revolution shouldlook like.

On the local level of Chiapas it is this is-sue of autonomy that the government mostfears as it threatens to remove their rightto impose decisions on the people com-pletely. “In its very basic form autonomy con-sists in recapturing and restoring the cultureand self-determination taken away over the last504 years. That is, in terms of territory, thatthe people that live in a region administer theirown economy, their own politics, their ownculture and their own resources.” [11]

The idea of autonomy provides the coreof the attraction many of the internationalsupporters of the Zapatistas have for therebellion in Chiapas. But, at least as theEZLN see it, it is not an idea without itscontradictions. Not least the danger ofperceiving these structures as just beingapplicable to Chiapas or co-existing withthe apparatus of state rule.

Some problems I see

The criticisms I’m moving on to make arefrom the perspective of anarchism. Mod-ern socialism first arrived in Mexico withthe Greek anarchist Plotino Rhodakanatyin early 1861. In the next 60 years Mexi-can anarchism went through many stages(parallel with the developments in Europe)which included the first agrarian uprisingwith a positive program and the formationof the Mexican trade unions. To this daythe anarchist flag (red in one diagonal,black in the other) is the symbol used toindicate a strike in progress in Mexico.

Almost immediately the Mexican anar-chists realised the connection between thesociety they were fighting for and elementsof the traditional practise of the indigenouspeople. They advocated linking up withthe indigenous people on this basis. By1867 the anarchist Chávez López who de-clared “I am a socialist because I am the en-emy of all governments, and I am a commu-nist because my brothers wish to work the landsin common” had launched the first ruralinsurrectionary movement. In 1869 inApril they issued in a manifesto calling for“the revered principle of autonomous villagegovernments to replace the sovereignty of anational government viewed to be the corruptcollaborator of the hacendados”.[42]

There is no room here for a detailed dis-cussion of anarchism in Mexico, John MHart’s “Anarchism and the Mexican Work-ing Class” is a useful English language in-troduction. The introduction above is justto demonstrate that the history of anar-chism in Mexico is considerably longer andmore important then even the key figuresof Zapata and Ricardo Flores Magnon im-ply.

Mexican anarchism was destroyed as amass force by the 1930’s and althoughsmall collectives have kept the ideas aliveafter this point revolutionary politics, in-cluding those of the Zapatistas, tended tostem from Marxist origins. However theZapatistas represent a return to at leastsome of the ideas of the Mexican anar-chists.

Co-existance?

From this point of view the most attrac-tive aspect of the Zapatistas is that theydemonstrate how decisions can be effec-tively made without a need for electingindividuals to represent our views. On thehistoric level, there is a conflict betweensystems of direct democracy on the onehand and government on the other. InRussia 1918 and Barcelona 1937, as else-where, this conflict led to the governmentusing force to dissolve the structures ofdirect democracy. So from the anarchistperspective there is a choice to be madehere, you are for one or the other but notboth.

I cannot claim that the Zapatistas agree.Indeed it is precisely to these sort of de-bates that Marcos was responding in May1995 when he wrote (in imagining his po-litical trial)“The communists accuse him of being anar-chist: guiltyThe anarchists accuse him of being orthodox:guilty”.[43]

Because I disagree with a lot of what fol-lows, precisely because I consider theZapatistas to be somewhat ‘orthodox’ interms of electoral politics, I quote exten-sively below from the material they haveproduced explaining their position.

The Zapatisatas seem to argue for the co-existance of their system of direct democ-racy and the indirect electoral system ofthe Mexican state. They also talk of re-forming the electoral system, by introduc-ing some element of leading by obeying.Marcos in 1995 claimed that “What is in cri-sis is the system, the government, the old thingsand the anachronous ways of doing politics.But the nation can survive with a new pact,with a new political class, and with new formsof doing politics.” [18] The existance of adistinct ‘political class’ separate from theordinary people implies the continued ex-istence of some form of state system.

On December 8 2000 the CCRI referred toAmado Avendano who had probably wonthe 1996 election as governour of Chiapasand who was widely recognised as the‘rebel governor’. “Six years after his takingoffice, Don Amado Avendano has acquittedhimself well to those who elected him and, de-spite the electoral fraud committed against him,who supported him.

The zapatista indigenous communities,through the EZLN, are publicly recognizingthe former Governor of Chiapas today. He canhave satisfaction in having carried out hisduty.” [23] Again the implication here isthat if Amado Avendano had been allowedinto power the Zapatistas could haveworked with him. In the 1994 presiden-tial election it appears that most Zapatistasvoted for Cardinas, the candidate of theopposition PRD even if the Zapatistasstopped short of publicaly endorsing him.

Although the Zapatistas have broken withmany elements of their political past onething that appears to have carried over isa stages theory of liberation. In the olddays this would have talked about theneed for national liberation to preceed asocialist revolution. Today the Zapatistasstill seem to talk of the need for two stages,the first of which is equivalent to a nationalrevolution.

Their ideas were spelled out in some de-tail in the Second Declaration from theLacandon Jungle;“We aren’t proposing a new world, but some-thing preceding a new world: an antechamberlooking into the new Mexico. In this sense, thisrevolution will not end in a new class, factionof a class, or group in power. It will end in afree and democratic space for political strug-gle. This free and democratic space will be bornon the fetid cadaver of the state party systemand the tradition of fixed presidential succes-sion. A new political relationship will be born,a relationship based not in the confrontation ofpolitical organizations among themselves, butin the confrontation of their political proposalswith different social classes. Political leader-ship will depend on the support of these socialclasses, and not on the mere exercise of power.In this new political relationship, different po-litical proposals (socialism, capitalism, socialdemocracy, liberalism, christian democracy,etc.) will have to convince a majority of the na-tion that their proposal is the best for the coun-try. The groups in power will be watched bythe people in such a way that they will be obli-gated to give a regular accounting of them-selves, and the people will be able to decidewhether they remain in power or not. The plebi-scite is a regulated form of confrontation amongthe nation, political parties, and power, and itmerits a place in the highest law of the coun-try.” [20]

The 2000 elections

An EZLN communique released for thePresidential election in June 2000 discussesat length the flaws of the current systemsand possible reforms to it;“In Mexico, presidentialism has been a heavyburden and an obstacle for democracy. Eventhough we have not had a president in the last70 years who has not belonged to the officialparty, the possible arrival to the presidentialchair of the opposition does not mean “move-ment towards democracy,” if the executive

branch continues to be concentrated in one sin-gle person, and while the branches charged withlegislating and upholding the law are merelydecorative elements which are changed every3 or 6 years. The survival of the presidentialistsystem in Mexico is a fact. What kind of de-mocracy is this, in which the fundamental de-cisions of a nation fall to one single individualfor six years?An autonomous legislative branch, independ-ent of the executive, is essential in a democ-racy. Nonetheless, the campaigns for deputiesand senators have passed unnoticed. The natu-ral passion over the presidential contest hasmanaged to conceal an advance which has al-ready been seen during the last 6 year termwhich is now ending: a legislative branchstruggling for its independence and autonomy.In addition to confronting the executive, thelegislative branch should become independentof party leaders, who not infrequently replaceleaders of the parliamentary wings in thoseagreements and regulations which correspondexclusively to the legislative arena. Legislat-ing is not the prerogative of the political par-ties, but of those who are democratically electedto that task.At the back of the line behind the presidentialcampaigns, the campaigns by the legislativecandidates are not winning anything for them-selves, nor are they of any benefit to those whoare seeking executive office. They are differentelections, because their function is different.The legislative contests deserve an attentionthey have not received.We hope that the next legislature - which hasbeen so neglected during these elections - doesnot carry out their work tied to commitmentswith their party leadership or with the electedexecutive, but with the Mexican men andwomen who, having voted or not for their can-didacies, make up the Mexican nation and arethe ones with whom they must make laws.Today, in response to the current election proc-ess, the zapatistas declare ourselves to be infavor of an authentic balance of powers. Notjust in the exercise of their duties, but also inthe fight for seats. It is as important to knowabout the proposals and positions of those can-didates seeking to be deputies and senators asit is to know of those of the presidential candi-dates. The end of presidentialism is a condi-tion for democracy in Mexico.… Today, in response to the current electionprocess, the zapatistas denounce that it is notan election of citizens responding to politicalproposals, and those who represent them, butrather a state election, with the opposition con-fronting not only the official party, but the en-tire machinery of the Mexican state. No elec-tion can be called “democratic” under theseconditions.For zapatistas, democracy is much more thanan electoral contest or changes in power. Butit is also an election fight, if it is clean, equita-ble, honest and plural.That is why we say that electoral democracy isnot sufficient for democracy, but it is an im-portant part of it. That is why we are not anti-election. We believe political parties have a roleto play (nor are we anti-party, although we have

criticisms of party doings).We believe that the elections represent, for mil-lions of persons, a space for dignified and re-spectable struggle.Election time is not the time for the zapatistas.Not just because of our being without face andour armed resistance. But also, and above all,for our devotion to finding a new way of doingpolitics, which has little or nothing to do withthe current one.We want to find a politics which goes from be-low to above, one in which “governing obey-ing” is more than a slogan; one in which poweris not the objective; one in which “referendum”and “plebiscite” are more than just wordswhich are difficult to spell; one in which anofficial can be removed from his position bypopular election.Concerning the political parties, we say thatwe do not feel represented by any of them. Weare neither PRDs or PANs, even less PRIs.We criticize the parties’ distance from society,that their existence and activities are regulatedonly by the election calendar, the political prag-matism that goes beyond its mandate, the cyni-cal juggling act of some of their members, theircontempt for the different.Democracy - regardless of who is in power - isthe majority of people having decision makingpower concerning issues that concern them. Itis the power of the people to sanction those ingovernment, depending on their capacity, hon-esty and effectiveness.The zapatista concept of democracy is some-thing that is built from below, with everyone,even those who think differently from us. De-mocracy is the exercise of power for the peopleall the time and in all places.Today, in response to the current election proc-ess, the zapatistas reaffirm our struggle for de-mocracy. Not only for electoral democracy, butalso for electoral democracy.” [ 24]

The historical problem with this sort of ap-proach, in Mexico and elsewhere, is that itleads to a process by which liberal reform-ist parties can use the revolutionaries tohelp overturn more authoratarian govern-ments, but once this is achieved can thenrapidly isolate and neutralise the revolu-tionaries. This happened in 1914 duringthe Mexican revolution when Carranzawas able us use the anarcho-syndicalistsof the Casa to overturn the Huerta regime.The Constitutionalists then allowed theCasa to organise amongst urban workersand used their suspicion of the religiousnature of the armies of Zapata and Villa tomobilise ‘red battilions’ to fight them in1915.

Once they had been defeated and strikesbegan in Mexico Carranza simply dis-solved the red battalions in January 1916and by February began a process of clos-ing down the unions offices and arrestingthe leadership. When the unions called asecond general strike in late July the gov-ernment reacted with martial law includ-ing the death penalty for striking in essen-tial circumstances. It can be easily argued

that similar process accompanied the pe-riods of radical change everywhere fromthe Irish War of Independence to the end-ing of apartheid in South Africa. In thetransition the radicals were isolated andthen suppressed.

Stages theory

It remains unclear where exactly theZapatistas stand here. Part of the confu-sion may arise from the two distinct stagesthe Zapatistas see as being necessary. Partof it is a feeling that the way they makedecisions in Chiapas may not be applica-ble to the rest of the country. In a 1995 in-terview Marcos discusses these issues.Interestingly it also suggests a differencebetween the political leadership of theEZLN and the rank and file on this veryquestion.“We are planning a revolution which will makea revolution possible. We are planning a pre-revolution. That is why they accuse us of be-ing armed revisionists or reformists, as JorgeCasataneda says. We are talking about mak-ing a broad social movement, violent or peace-ful, which will radically modify social relation-ships so that its final product might be a newspace of political relationship.…I was saying that the communities are promot-ing democracy. But the concept seems vague.There are many kinds of democracy. That’swhat I tell them (the Indians). I try to explainto them: You can do that (to solve by consen-sus) because you have a communal life. Whenthey arrive at an assembly, they know eachother, they come to solve a common problem.But in other places it isn’t so, I tell them. Peo-ple live separate lives and they use the assem-bly for other things, not to solve the problem.And they say, no, but it means that yes, it worksfor us. And it indeed works for them, they solvethe problem. And they propose that method forthe Nation and the world. The world must or-ganize itself thus. That is what they call “torule while obeying”(“mandar obedeciendo”).And it is very difficult to go against that be-cause that is how they solve their problems.And the one who doesn’t work out, they dis-

miss him, and there is no big scandal. Whenthe ejido’s head authority makes a mistake, theyremove him and he goes on to become a mem-ber of the assembly.We have insisted upon the fact that what theEZLN proposes is not a representative democ-racy, that of the political parties. And they tellus in articles, and in the newspapers, that weare wrong, that in reality the Indigenous com-munities have been defeated, because what isworth here is the individual, and the commu-nities want to have the collective will valued.Yes. That’s why we say: we need another, dif-ferent non-partisan political force. When wepropose that, we do it as when we started thewar in 1994. At that time I used to tell them(the communities who had decided to start theoffensive), we are going to go to hell, they aregoing to fuck us up; the international correla-tion of forces is against us, they are going tocut us to pieces. And the brothers saying: Let’sgo, let’s go, and let’s go to war. And now it’slet’s go, and let’s go for this type of democracy.And how do you tell them that it is no good. Ifthey have used it for years...What better resultthan to have resisted all the annihilation cam-paigns! That is why they say: the country mustorganize itself like this.” … the brothers are saying: “That Parliamentshould obey those it claims to represent.” Iknow I am talking about something new whichis difficult to understand...Interviewer What you are saying is to takeover the power...To exert it.What you are not saying is how to em-body that.Because we don’t have the fucking idea of howto do it. I can imagine an assembly in a“canada” (canion), even within an ethnicgroup.Why? Because I have seen it. I know how theyorganize themselves and how they go on solv-ing their problems in the midst of a sort of mix-ture of representativity and assembly.And you honestly believe that that canfunction for a nation?I know that the other way does not work. Whatthere is right now does not work.” [19]

On this subject however, it is important to

CCRI at the 1st encounter

note that the EZLN has been very clear thatthey do not wish to become a politicalparty or promote the formation of one.When the Fourth Declaration of theLacadon jungle announced the formationof the FZLN (Zapatista National Libera-tion Front) it defined it as“A political force whose members do not exertnor aspire to hold elective positions or govern-ment offices in any of its levels. A political forcewhich does not aspire to take power. A forcewhich is not a political party.A political force which can organize the de-mands and proposals of those citizens and iswilling to give direction through obedience. Apolitical force which can organize a solution tothe collective problems without the interven-tion of political parties and of the government.We do not need permission in order to be free.The role of the government is the prerogativeof society and it is its right to exert that func-tion.A political force which struggles against theconcentration of wealth in the hands of a fewand against the centralization of power. A po-litical force whose members do not have anyother privilege than the satisfaction of havingfulfilled its commitment.” [21]

Economics

A second and related problem with theideas put forward (or in this case not putforward) by the Zapatistas is in the sphereof the economy. On the one hand theydenounce neo-liberalism and call for landoccupations as in this interview from Janu-ary 1994;“The immediate objective is that our agricul-tural laws begin to operate in the liberatedzones, that the campesinos organize themselves,taking land, respecting small rural propertyand working in collectives, ignoring all of thedebts with the government. Banrural (Bancode Cre’dito Rural), all of the taken assets, all ofthat, we don’t know anything about in the ru-ral zone because where we move those laws willstart to operate, that is, the old Constitutionbefore they reformed it. That is the immediateplan that we have, that is, to organize the ru-ral life of this country according to the will ofthe majority of our companeros. That is, thatthere be land, because there is land, and that itbe distributed, because they just said that theywere not going to give any more out.” [14]

As we have seen land occupations are areality but the rhetoric behind them is mostoften based on the occupiers being thelegtimate owners of the land rather thenon ‘the land to those who work it’. “We,who have been EZLN support bases since theyear of 1994, have recovered this land, whichwas previously called San Jacinto by the owner,but now we are the true owners.” [12]

And outside of the question of land occu-pations in Chiapas the EZLN have beensilent on the economic question. Whilethey have supported some strikes in thecities they have not put forward any ideas

on how the relationship of workers to thefactories might develop in the future. Suchworkers, indigenous or not, can’t claim tobe the original owners of the factories (al-though they can point out that the work-ing class built them).

The revolutionary laws produced by theEZLN on January 1st 1994 [30] cannot becalled anti-capitalist. They restrict but stillvery much allow for wage labour, rent andeven multi national investment. For ex-ample the law that “ Foreign companies willpay their workers an hourly salary in nationalmoney equivalent to what would be payed indollars outside the country.” [29] while a bigstep forward for many Mexican workershardly amounts to the abolition of capital-ism.

Perhaps the simple reason is that theZapatistas don’t wish to be a vanguard inany sense of the word and so are waitingfor a program for the urban centres andfactories to emerge from those who liveand work there. Or perhaps they are wor-ried that at this stage of the transforma-tion to talk of economic democracy in thecities would simply serve to alienate someof their supporters.

The first of these two options is the moreacceptable but it also contains its own dan-gers. During the Mexican revolution it wasprecisely such a lack of clarity that enabledthe government of Carranza to mobilisethe anarcho-syndicalist unions of the Casaagainst the rural Zapatistas. The Fox gov-ernment which has the advantage of be-ing able to claim to have ended the oneparty state will no doubt seek to use thiscredibility to isolate the Zapatistas from theworkers in the cities. If we accept it wasprimarly the enormous mobilisations ofurban workers and students that stoppedthe government counter offensive of 1994and the offensive of Feburary 1995 the dan-ger of Fox suceeding becomes clear.

Urban Workers

The few Zapatista communiques directedto workers in struggle tend to support suchan interpretation. Marcos writing to thestriking workers of Ruta 100 for instancesays “Whatever the outcome of your move-ment, today you represent what is best aboutthe Mexican working people, you represent thedignity of the workers of the city, you repre-sent the hope of that great revolutionary forcewhich is the force of workers awakened from along night in which the arrogance of money,the corruptness of phony labor representativesand the criminal action of the government haveheld down all Mexicans.Be well, workers of Ruta 100. In our poverty,there is little we can give, but we give it withadmiration and respect.”[31]

The Zapatistas organised an encounter forteachers struggling against low wages and

democratic unions in August of 1999. Atthis Marcos declared the Zapatistas “arealso democratic teachers and electrical work-ers and university students and workers in thecity and the country and artists and intellec-tuals and religious men and women andneighbors and homosexuals and lesbians andordinary women and men and children and oldones, that is, rebels, dissidents, inconvenientones, dreamers.Because of that, the most important thing wezapatistas want to ask you is to see us as an-other democratic union section. That you donot see us as someone who must be helped, poorthings, out of pity, out of alms, out of charity.We want you to see us as your companeros, asbeing as willing as anyone to mobilize and tosupport the teachers struggles. Not only be-cause your demands are just and because youare good and honest persons, but also, andabove all, because they are our demands as well.Because nothing will be complete nor finishedif teachers continue to be oppressed by pro-man-agement unions, if bad labor conditions con-tinue - and the low salaries - , if education con-tinues to breed oppressed and oppressors, ifschool continues to be - for millions of Mexi-cans - as distant as dignified housing, a fairwage, a piece of land, enough food, full health,freedom of thought and association, populardemocracy, authentic independence and truepeace.Now, taking advantage of the fact that you arehere, we want to ask something special of you.We want to ask you to support the studentmovement at the UNAM and the struggle ofthe Mexican Electricians Union. The one isagainst the privatization of education, and theother against the privatization of the electricalindustry.” [32]

The clearest appeal for unity with theworkers is contained in the CCRI’s 1st ofMay statement from 1995. “The workers thatbuild this country bleed from three wounds.The powerful bleed them with unjust salaries,humiliations, and threats. The heads of the greatcentral government unions bleed the workerswith extortions, beatings, and death. Those whosell the country bleed the workers with the dis-patches of usurpation, writing the laws thattheir treason dictates.Let your voice run together with ours.... Ac-cept this hand that your smallest brothers andsisters offer you. Three forces should unite their

—-—* It may well be that some have not yet been publicallydeclared to exist

1 See http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/marcos_index.html for English translations of many ofthese2 For letters from observers, pictures and other informa-tion about Diez see http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/diez.html3 This section summarises extensive notes I took. Forother articles making use of these see http://www.struggle.ws/andrew.html4 Behind the Balaclavas of South-East Mexico, SylvieDeneuve, Charles Reeve, Paris, August 1995 , http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/comment/balaclava.html5 Making Zapatismo irreversible, Michael McCaughan,20-8-96, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/reports/land_se96.html6 First interview with EZLN CCRI-CG, La Jornada, 2/4/94 & 2/5/94, Blanche Petrich and Elio Henri’quez, http:// w w w . s t r u g g l e . w s / m e x i c o / e z l n /ccri_1st_interview.html7 How the consultations with the communities was done,CCRI, La Jornada, June 3, 1994, http://w w w . s t r u g g l e . w s / m e x i c o / e z l n /ccri_how_consult_june94.html8 Tierra y Libertad, One Year Later, Luis FernandoMenendez Medina (Human Rights defender and pris-oner in Cerro Hueco), http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/1999/pris_1year_terr_jun.html9 The EZLN and Indigenous Autonomous Municipali-tiesby Mariana Mora - Apr 1998, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/comment/auto_munc.html10 Enlace Civil, A.C., Autonomous Municipalities:Theresistance of the indigenous communities in response tothe war in Chiapas, Nov. 1988, html http://w w w . s t r u g g l e . w s / m e x i c o / c o m m e n t /auto_munc_nov98.html11 IV. On autonomy an interview of Zapatistas from theOcosingo region Published in “El Navegante” (Sailors inevery port) translated by Beto Del Sereno12 San Manuel New Town, Francisco Go’mez Autono-mous Municipality, August 3, 2000. http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/2000/com_sm_our_lands_aug.html13 The company fails to respect the assembly, NicolasRuiz, Chiapas; January 20, 2000, http://w w w . s t r u g g l e . w s / m e x i c o / e z l n / 2 0 0 0 /assNR_corn_conflict_jan.html

14 Excerpted transcriptions that were published in LaJornada. They were recorded in San Cristo’bal de lasCasas just after the EZLN liberated the city on January 1,1994, and the transcription was published in La Jornadah t t p : / / w w w. s t r u g g l e . w s / m e x i c o / e z l n /marcos_interview_jan94.html[15] Interview with Subcomandante Marcos, May 11,1994, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/anmarin.html[16] Don’t Abandon Us!, Interviews with EZLN women,Interview conducted by Matilde Prez and LauraCastellanos, published in La Jornada’s special supple-ment for International Women’s Day, March 7, 1994.http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/woint.html[17] Commadante Javier demands federal army leave Simjovel,By: Jose Gil Olmos and Hermann Bellinghausen, LaJornada, Los Altos Chiapas,December 21, 1994[18] Interview with Marcos - August 1995, La JornadaAugust 25, by Carmen Libra, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/inter_marcos_consult_aug95.html[19] Interview with Marcos about neoliberalism, the na-tional State and democracy. Autumn 1995, by SamuelBlixen and Carlos Fazio, Taken from Uruguay’s “Brecha”newspaper, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/inter_marcos_aut95.html[20] Second Declaration from the Lacandona Jungle, June10, 1994, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/ccri_2nd_dec_june94.html[21] Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, January1, 1996, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/jung4.html[22] 2nd Declaration of La Realidad, August 3rd 1996,xico/ezln/1996/ccri_encount_aug.html http://w w w . s t r u g g l e . w s / m e x i c o / e z l n / 1 9 9 6 /ccri_encount_aug.html[23] Don Amado Avendano has acquitted himself well, Com-munique’ from the Clandestine Revolutionary Indig-enous Committee, December 8, 2000.[24] EZLN communique regarding elections, June 19,2000. http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/2000/ccri_elections_june.html[25] “What makes us different is our political proposal”Marcos, August 30, 1996, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/marc_to_cs_se96.html[26] EZLN communique “to the soldiers and command-ers of the Popular Revolutionary Army, August 29, 1996,h t t p : / / w w w. s t r u g g l e . w s / m e x i c o / e z l n /ezln_epr_se96.html[27] The ancient Maya, 5th ed, Robert J. Sharer, p585[28] Toward the New Commons: Working Class Strategies andthe Zapatistas by Monty Neill, with George Caffentzis andJohnny Machete[29] Labour Law & Industry and Commerce Law, Jan 1,1994, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/law_labour_industry.html[30] The EZLN Revolutionary laws, Jan 1 1994, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/revlaw.html[31] Marcos: To the workers of Ruta 100 - Aug ’95, http:// w w w . s t r u g g l e . w s / m e x i c o / e z l n /marcos_ruta100_aug95.html[32] Marcos in ‘ Teachers are a mirror and window’ toClosing Session of the “Democratic Teachers andZapatista Dream” Encuentro, August 1, 1999, http://w w w . s t r u g g l e . w s / m e x i c o / e z l n / 1 9 9 9 /marcos_teachers_close_aug.html[33] CCRI of the EZLN to the Workers of the Republic onMay 1st 1994, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/ccri_may1_94.html[35] See The story of how we learnt to dream at Reality,h t t p : / / w w w . s t r u g g l e . w s / a n d r e w /encounter1_report.html[36] see for instance James Joll, The Second International,Ch. The struggle with the anarchists[37] see Where do we come from? Where do we go to?(talk to S26 Prague counter summit), September 2000,http://www.struggle.ws/andrew/prague3.html[38] For a discussion of Bolshevik policies in the 1918-21period see Aileen O’Carroll, ‘Freedom and Revolution’,Red & Black Revolution no1, 1994.[39] Interview conducted by the author in Diez de Abril,Chiapas, September 1997[40] See Can you have an anarchist army?, WS59, Spring2000, http://www.struggle.ws/ws/2000/makhno59.html[41] Although some have issued communiques seeAbout the Zapatista autonomous council’s, http://www.struggle.ws/mexico/councils.html[42] John M Hart’s “Anarchism and the Mexican Work-ing Class”[43] La Jornada, May 5, 1995[44] Mike Gonzalez, The Zapatistas: the challenges of revo-lution in a new millennium, International Socialism, Win-ter 2000

paths: the force of the workers, the force of thecampesinos, the popular force. With these threeforces there will be nothing to detain us.…Receive our voice, which, although far away,says: “Greetings, workers of the sea and of theland! The Zapatistas follow you in their strug-gles! With you there will be a country and fu-ture for all some day! Without you, night willcontinue to rule these lands!”[33]

These statements demonstrate that theZapatistas recognise a common strugglewith urban workers in Mexico (and the op-pressed everywhere). The fact that havedonated considerable resources in holdinggatherings for radical students and teach-ers as well as the American and intercon-tinental encounters shows they take build-ing such links very seriously.

A very lengthy discussion, from an autono-mist Marxist perspective, around thesepoints was published by Midnight Notesas Toward the New Commons: Working ClassStrategies and the Zapatistas. They “thinkthe Zapatistas are strategizing how to unitethe 80% or more, and doing so in relationshipto the existing and historical class compositionin Mexico and in light of their understandingof global capital, in order to help overcome capi-tal. In this context, and if it is correct that capi-tal cannot now (for at least several generations)be other than neoliberal, then the actualZapatista practice and strategy are indeed anti-capitalist.” [28]

It is also not irrelevant that given theirLeninist origins the Zapatista leadershiphave made clear that they consider the fail-ing of the eastern regimes in 1989 was thefailure of socialism. They have tended tosteer very clear of traditional socialistrhetoric. But it does make you wonderhow they could see such a system as so-cialism when it was so clearly a top downdictatorship. All the more so when as earlyas 1918 Lenin made no secret the immedi-ate goal of the Bolshevik government wasthe creation of state capitalism.

Which leadership?

There are two meanings to the word lead-ership. The first one is where a person ororganisation is put in a position of author-ity over others and can therefore tell themwhat to do. This is the sort of leadershipexercised by elected politicans. The sec-ond which is often confused with the firstis where the person or group has no powerover others but they are recognised as an‘authority’ in a given area and so peopleare willing to try what they suggest. An-archists refer to this as being a ‘leadershipof ideas’. In reality the Zapatistas are al-ready this kind of leadership (whether theywant to be or not) not only in Mexico butalso elsewhere in the world.

In that context perhaps the Zapatistas need

to move from simply supporting the strug-gles of others to suggesting the ways inwhich those struggles could be organisedand what their goals should be. To someextent they have done this, as for instancein the 2nd Declaration of Reality. But it isalmost certainly true that if they were tostart to do this in Mexico their suggestionswould almost certainly create a debate inwhich those who already agree with theirmethod in the cities could organise.

The power of the Zapatatistas is the powerof example. Their methods of organisa-tion are radically different from what hasbecome the norm in trade unions, commu-nity organisations and left groups. Theirrejection of seizing power is radically dif-ferent from the project of much of the left,a project that sees revolutionary actionmore in terms of paper selling and ‘votingleft with no illusions’ then ordinary peo-ple taking power into their own hands.

In holding the Zapatistas up as an exam-ple we must also point out the need to gobeyond the point they have reached. Oursolidarity with them must remain critical,in particular of the points they have yet tomake clear or perhaps even decide on. TheZapatistas represent one example of a dif-ferent way of doing things, not the solemodel to be blindly followed.

Modern globalization, neoliberalism as aglobal system, should be understood as a newwar of conquest for territories.

The end of the III World War or “Cold War”does not mean that the world has overcomethe polarity and finds its stability under thehegemony of the victor. At the end of thiswar there was, without doubt a loser (the so-cialist camp), but it is difficult to say whowas the victor. Western Europe? The UnitedStates? Japan? All of them? The fact is thatthe defeat of the “evil empire” (Dixit Reaganand Thatcher) signified the opening of newmarkets without a new owner. Therefore astruggle was needed in order to possess them,to conquer them.

Not only that, but the end of the “Cold War”brought with it a new framework of interna-tional relations in which the new struggle forthose new markets and territories produceda new world war, the IV. This required, asdo all wars, a redefinition of the nationalStates. And beyond the re-definition of thenational states, the world order returned tothe old epochs of the conquests of America,Africa and Oceania. This is a strange mo-dernity that moves forward by going back-ward. The dusk of the 20th century has moresimilarities with previous brutal centuriesthan with the placid and rational future ofsome science-fiction novel. In the world ofthe Post-Cold War vast territories, wealth,and above all, a skilled labor force, await anew owner.

But it is a position of owner of the world,and there are many who aspire to it. And inorder to win it another war breaks out, butnow among those who call themselves the“Good Empire”.

If the III World War was between capitalismand socialism (lead by the United States andthe USSR respectively) with different lev-els of intensity and alternating scenarios; theFourth World War occurs now among thegreat financial centers, with complete sce-narios and with a sharp and constant inten-sity.

Since the end of the Second World War until1992, there have been 149 wars in all theworld. The results are 23 million dead, andtherefore there is no doubt about the inten-sity of this Third World War (Statisticalsource: UNICEF). From the catacombs ofinternational espionage to the astral spaceof the so-called Strategic Defense Initiative

(the “Star Wars” of the cowboy RonaldReagan); from the sands of Playa Giron, inCuba, to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam; fromthe unbridled nuclear arms war to the sav-age blows of the State in the tormented LatinAmerica; from the ominous maneuvers ofthe armies of the North Atlantic Treaty Or-ganization to the CIA agents in the Boliviawhich oversaw the assassination of CheGuevara; the badly-named “Cold War”reached temperatures which, in spite of thecontinuous change of scenery and the inces-sant ups-and downs of the nuclear crisis (andprecisely because of that) ended up sinkingthe socialist camp as a global system, anddiluted it as a social alternative.

The Third World War showed the magna-nimity of the “complete war” (in all placesand in all forms) for the victor: capitalism.But the scenario of the post-war was pro-filed in fact, as a new theater of global op-erations. Great extensions of “No man’sland” (because of the political, social andeconomic devastation of Eastern Europe andthe USSR), world powers in expansion (TheUnited States, Western Europe and Japan),a world economic crisis, and a new techno-logical revolution: the revolution of infor-mation. “In the same way in which the in-dustrial revolution had allowed the replace-ment of muscle by the machine, the infor-mation revolution replaced the brain (or atleast a growing number of its important func-tions) by the computer.” This “generalcerebralization of the means of productio n(the same as occurred in industry as in serv-ices) is accelerated by the explosion of newtelecommunications research and the pro-liferation of the cyberworlds.” (IgnacioRamonet “La planete des desordres” in the“Geopolitique du Chaos” Maniere de Voir3. Le Monde Diplomatique (LMD), April of1997.)

The supreme kind of capital, financial capi-tal, began then to develop its strategy of wartowards the new world and over what wasleft of the old. Hand in hand with the tech-nological revolution which placed the entireworld, through a computer, on its desk andat its mercy, the financial markets imposedtheir laws and precepts on the entire planet.The “globalization” of the new war is noth-ing more than the globalization of the logicof the financial markets. The National States(and their leaders) went from being direc-tors of the economy to those who were di-

rected, better said tele-directed, by the basicpremise of financial power: free commercialexchange. Not only that, but the logic of themarket took advantage of the “porosity”which in all the social spectrum of the world,provoked the development of telecommuni-cations and penetrated and appropriated allthe aspects of social activity. Finally therewas a global war which was total!

One of the first casualties of this new warwas the national market. Like a flying bulletinside an armored room, the war begun byneoliberalism bounced from one side to theother and wounded the one who had fired it.One of the fundamental bases of power inthe modern capitalist State, the national mar-ket, was liquidated by the shot fired by thenew era of the financial global economy.International capital took some of its victimsby dismantling national capitalism and wear-ing it out, until it disabled its public powers.The blow has been so brutal and definitivethat the national States do not have the nec-essary strength to oppose the action of theinternational markets which transgress theinterests of citizens and governments.

The careful and ordered escapade which the“Cold War” handed down, the “new worldorder” quickly became pieces due to theneoliberal explosion. World capitalism sac-rificed without mercy that which gave it afuture and a historic project; national capi-talism. Companies and States fell apart inminutes, but not due to the torments of pro-letarian revolutions, but the stalemates offinancial hurricanes. The child(neoliberalism) ate the father (national capi-talism) and in passing destroyed all of thediscursive fallacies of capitalist ideology: inthe new world order there is no democracy,liberty, equality, nor fraternity.

In the global scenario which is a product ofthe end of the “Cold War” all which is per-ceptible is a new battleground and in this one,as in all battlegrounds, chaos reigns.

At the end of the “Cold war” capitalism cre-ated a new bellicose horror: the neutronbomb. The “virtue” of this weapon is that itonly destroys life and leaves buildings in-

(Neoliberalism as a puzzle: the useless global unity which fragments and destroys nations)

The Seven Loose Pieces ofthe Global Jigsaw Puzzle

“War is a matter of vital importance for the State, it is the province of life and death, the path whichleads to survival or annihilation. It is indispensable to study it at length”.The Art of War, Sun Tzu

Article written by EZLN spokespersonSubcommadante Marcos (above) in 1997

tact. Entire cities could be destroyed (thatis, their inhabitants) without the necessity ofreconstructing them (and paying for them).The arms industry congratulated itself. The“irrationality” of nuclear bombs could bereplaced by the new “rationality” of the neu-tron bomb. But a new bellicose “marvel”would be discovered at the same time as thebirth of the Fourth World War: the financialbomb.

The new neoliberal bomb, different from itsatomic predecessor in Hiroshima and Naga-saki, did not only destroy the polis (the Na-tion in this case) and imposed death, terrorand misery to those who lived in it: or, dif-ferent from the neutron bomb, did not solelydestroy “selectively”. The neoliberal bomb,reorganized and reordered what it attackedand remade it as a piece inside a jigsaw puz-zle of economic globalization. After its de-structive effect, the result is not a pile ofsmoking ruins, or tens of thousands of inertlives, but a neighborhood attached to one ofthe commercial megalopolis of the newworld supermarket and a labor force re-ar-ranged in the new market of world labor.

The European union, one of the megalopolisproduced by neoliberalism, is a result of theFourth World War. Here, economic globali-zation erased the borders between rivalStates, long-time enemies, and forced themto converge and consider political unity.From the National States to the Europeanfederation, the economist path of theneoliberal war in the so-called “old conti-nent” would be filled with destruction andruins, one of which was European civiliza-tion.

The megalopolis reproduced themselves inall the planet. The integrated commercialzones were the territory where they wereerected. So it was in North America, wherethe North American Free Trade Agreementbetween Canada, the United States andMexico is no more than the prelude to thefulfillment of an old aspiration of U.S. mani-fest destiny: “America for Americans”. InSouth America the path is the same in termsof Mercosur between Argentina, Brazil,Paraguay and Uruguay. In Northern Africa,with the Union of Arab States (UMA) be-tween Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Libya andMauritania; in south Africa, in the Near East,in the Black Sea, in Pacific Asia, etc., all overthe planet the financial bombs explode andterritories are re-conquered.

Do the megalopolis substitute the nations?No, or not only. They also include them andreassign their functions, limits and possibili-ties. Entire nations are converted into depart-ments of the neoliberal megacompany.Neoliberalism thus operated Destruction/Depopulation on the one hand, and Recon-struction/Reorganisation on the other, ofregions and of nations in order to open newmarkets and renovate the existing ones.

If the nuclear bombs have a dissuasive, co-ercive, and intimidating character in WorldWar III, in the IV global conflagration thefinancial hyperbombs play the same role.These weapons serve to attack territories(National States) Destroying the materialbases of national sovereignty (all the ethi-cal, judicial, political, cultural and historicobstacles against economic globalization)and producing a qualitative depopulation ontheir territories. This depopulation consistsin detaching all those who are useless to thenew market economy (as are the indigenous).

But, in addition to this, the financial centersoperate, simultaneously a Reconstructionof the National States and they Reorganizethem according to the new logic of the glo-bal market ( the developed economic mod-els are imposed upon weak or non-existingsocial relations).

The IV World War in rural areas, for exam-ple, produces this effect. Rural renovation,demanded by the financial markets, tries toincrease agricultural productivity, but whatit does is to destroy traditional economic andsocial relations. The results: a massive exo-dus from the countryside to the cities. Yes,just as in a war. Meanwhile, in the urbanzones the market is saturated with labor andthe unequal distribution of salaries is the“justice” which await those who seek bet-ter conditions of life.

Examples which illustrate this strategy fillthe indigenous world. Ian Chambers, direc-tor of the Office for Central America of theILO (of the United Nations), declared thatthe indigenous population of the world, es-timated at 300 million, live in zones whichhave 60% of the natural resources of theplanet.

Therefore the “Multiple conflicts due to theuse and final destination of their lands asdetermined by the interest of governmentsand companies is not surprizing ... The ex-ploitation of natural resources (oil and min-erals) and tourism are the principal indus-tries which threaten indigenous territoriesin America” (interview with Martha Garciain “La Jornada”. May 28, 1997). Behindthe investment projects comes the pollution,prostitution and drugs. In other words, thereconstruction/reorganization of the destruc-tion/depopulation of the zone.

In this new world war, modern politics asthe organizer of National States no longerexists. Now politics is solely the economicorganizer and politicians are the modern ad-ministrators of companies. The new ownersof the world are not government, they don’tneed to be. The “national” governments arein charge of administering the businesses inthe different regions of the world.

This is the “new world order”, the unifica-tion of the entire world in one complete mar-ket. Nations are department stores withCEO’s dressed as governments, and the new

regional alliances, economic and political,come closer to being a modern commercial“mall” than a political federation. The “uni-fication” produced by neoliberalism is eco-nomic, it is the unification of markets to fa-cilitate the circulation of money and mer-chandise. In the gigantic global Hypermar-ket merchandise circulates freely, not peo-ple.

As in all business initiatives (and war), thiseconomic globalization is accompanied bya general model of thought. Nevertheless,among so many new things, the ideologicalmodel which accompanies neoliberalism inits conquest of the planet is old and moss-covered. The “American way of life” whichaccompanied the Northamerican troops inEurope during World War II, and in Viet-nam during the 60’s and more recently, inthe Persian Gulf War, now goes hand in hand(or hand in computers) with the financialmarkets.

This is not only about material destructionof the material bases of the National States,but also (and in a very important and rarely-studied manner) about historic and culturaldestruction. The dignity of indigenous his-tory of the countries of the American conti-nent, the brilliance of European civilization,the historic wisdom of Asian nations, andthe powerful and rich antiquity of Africa andOceania, all the cultures and histories whichforged nations are attacked by the model ofNorthamerican life. Neoliberalism in thisway imposes a total war: the destruction ofnations and groups of nations in order to ho-mogenize them with the Northamerican capi-talist model.

A war then, a world war, the IV. The worstand cruelest. The one which neoliberalismunleashes in all places and by all meansagainst humanity.

But, as in all wars, there are combats, win-ners and losers, and torn pieces of that de-stroyed reality. In order to construct the ab-surd jigsaw puzzle of the neoliberal worldmany pieces are necessary. Some can befound among the ruins this world war hasleft on the planetary surface. At least 7 ofthese pieces can be reconstructed and canfan the hope that this world conflict not endwith the death of the weakest rival: human-ity.

Seven pieces to draw, color, cut, and arrange,next to others to form the global jigsaw puz-zle.

The first is the double accumulation, ofwealth and poverty, at the two poles of glo-bal society. The other is the total exploita-tion of the totality of the world. The third isthe nightmare of the migrant part of human-ity. The fourth is the nauseating relationshipbetween crime and Power. The fifth is theviolence of the State. The sixth is the mys-tery of megapolitics. The seventh is themulti-forms of pockets of resistance of hu-

manity against neoliberalism.

FIRST PIECE

The concentration of wealth and thedistribution of poverty.

The first figure can be constructed by draw-ing a dollar sign.

In the history of humanity, different socialmodels have fought to hoist the absurd as adistinctive world orders. Surely,neoliberalism will have a place of privilegeat the time of the awards, because its “dis-tribution” of social wealth does no more thandistribute a double absurdity of accumula-tion: the accumulation of wealth in the handsof a few, and the accumulation of poverty inmillions of human beings. In the actualworld, injustice and inequality are distinc-tive characteristics. Planet earth, third of thesolar planetary system, has 5 billion people.Of them, only 500 million live with comfortwhile 4 1/2 billion live in poverty and levelsof subsistence.

Doubly absurd is the distribution among richand poor: the rich are few and the poor aremany. The quantitative difference is crimi-nal, but the balance between the two ex-tremes is secured with wealth: the rich sup-plement their small numbers with millionsupon millions of dollars. The fortune of the358 wealthiest people of the world (thou-sands of millions of dollars) is superior tothe annual income of 45% of the poorest in-habitants, something like 2 1/2 billion peo-ple.

The gold chains of the financial watches areconverted into a heavy chain for millions ofbeings. Meanwhile the “total number oftransactions of General Motors is largerthan the Gross National Product of Den-mark, that of Ford is larger than the GNP ofSouth Africa, and that of Toyota far sur-passes the GNP of Norway” (IgnacioRamonet, In LMD 1/1997 #15). For allworkers real salaries have fallen, in additionto having to survive the person-nel cuts in companies, the clos-ing of factories and the reloca-tion of workplaces. In the so-called “advanced capitalisteconomies” the number of un-employed has arrived at a totalof 41 million workers.

Little by little, the concentrationof wealth in the hands of a fewand the distribution of povertyamong many begins to trace theprofile of modern global soci-ety: the fragile equilibrium ofabsurd inequalities.

The decadence of the neoliberaleconomic is a scandal: “Theworld debt (combining that ofall companies, governments andadministrations) has surpassed33 trillion dollars, or 130% of

the global GNP, and grows at a rate of 6 to8% per year, more than 4 times the growthof the global GNP” (Frederic F. Clairmont.“Ces deux cents societes qui controlent lemonde”, in LMD, IV/1997.

The progress of the great transnationals doesnot imply the advancement of developed Na-tions. To the contrary, while the great finan-cial giants earn more, poverty sharpens inthe so-called “rich nations”.

The chasm between the rich and poor is bru-tal and no tendency appears to the contrary,indeed it continues. Far from lessening, wewon’t say eliminating it, the social inequal-ity is accentuated, above all in the developedcapitalist nations: in the United States,1%of the wealthiest Americans have conquered61.6% of the total national wealth between1983 and 1989. 80% of the poorestNorthamericans share only 1.2% of thewealth. In Great Britain the number of home-less has grown; the number of children whosurvive on social welfare has gone from 7%in 1979 to 26% in 1994, the number of Brit-ish who live in poverty (defined as less thanhalf of minimum wage) has gone from 5 mil-lion to 13,700,000; 10% of the poorest havelost 13% of their purchasing power, while10% of the richest have gained 65% and in aperiod of the past 5 years the number of mil-lionaires has doubled (statistics fromLMD,IV/97).

At the beginning of the decade of the 90’s“...an estimated 37,000 transnational com-panies held, with their 170,000 subsidiar-ies, the international economy in its tenta-cles.” Nevertheless, the center of power situ-ates itself in the most restrictive circle of thefirst 200: since the beginnings of the 80’s,they have had an uninterrupted expansionthrough mergers and “rescue” buy-outs ofcompanies.

In this way, the part of transnational capitalin the global GNP has gone from 17% in the

middle of the 60’s to 24% in 1982 and morethan 30% in 1995. The first 200 are conglom-erates whose planetary activities cover withdistinction the primary, secondary, and ter-tiary sectors: great agricultural exploitation,manufacturing production, financial serv-ices, commercial, etc. Geographically, theyare divided amongst 10 countries: Japan (62),the United States (53), Germany (23), France(19), United Kingdom (11), Switzerland (8),South Korea (6), Italy (5), and others (4)”.(Frederic F. Clairmont, Op.Cit.).

$$ Here you have the symbol of economicpower. Now paint it the green of the dollar.Don’t worry about the nauseating odor, thearoma of manure, mud, and blood which itcarries since its birth...

SECOND PIECE

The globalization of exploitation

The second piece is constructed by drawinga triangle.

One of the fallacies of neoliberalism is thateconomic growth of the companies bringswith it a better distribution of wealth and agrowth in employment. But this is not so. Inthe same way as the growth of politicalpower of a king does not bring as a conse-quence a growth of political power of thesubjects (to the contrary), the absolute powerof financial capital does not better the distri-bution of wealth nor does it create major em-ployment for society. Poverty, unemploy-ment and instability of labor are its struc-tural consequences.

During the years of the decades of 1960 and70’s, the population considered poor (withless than a dollar a day of income for theirbasic necessities, according to the WorldBank) was about 200 million people. By thebeginning of the decade of the 90’s thisnumber was about 2 billion. In addition tothis the “mainstay of the 200 most impor-tant companies of the planet represent morethan a quarter of the world’s economic ac-tivity; and yet these 200 companies employ

only 18.8 million employees, orless than 0.75% of the world’slabor force.” Ignacio Ramonetin LMD. January 1997, #15).

More poor human beings and anincrease in the level of impov-erishment, less rich and an in-crease in the level of wealth,these are the lessons of the out-line of the First Piece of theneoliberal jigsaw puzzle. Toachieve this absurdity, theworld’s capitalist system “mod-ernizes” production, circulationand the consumption of mer-chandise. The new technologi-cal revolution (the informationrevolution) and the new politi-cal revolution (the emergingmegalopolis on the ruins of theNational States). This social“revolution is no more than a

readjustment, a reorganization of the socialforces, principally the labor force.”

The Economically Active Population on aglobal level went from 1,376 million in 1960to 2,374 million workers in 1990. More hu-man beings with the capacity to work, inother words, to generate wealth.

But the “new world order” not only rear-ranges this new labor force in geographic andproductive spaces, it also re-orders its place(or lack of a place, as in the case of the un-employed and subemployed) in the globaliz-ing plan of the economy.

The World Population employed by sectorwas substantially changed in the last 20years. In fishing and agriculture it went from22% in 1970 to 12% in 1990; in manufac-turing from 25% in 1970 to 22% in 1990;while in the tertiary sector (commerce, trans-port, banking and services) it grew from 42%in 1970 to 57% in 1990; while the popula-tion employed in the agricultural and fish-ing sector fell from 30% in 1970 to 15% in1990. (Statistics from “The Labor Force inthe World Market in Contemporary Capital-ism”. Ochoa Chi, Juanita del Pilar. UNAM.Economy. Mexico, 1997).

This means that each time more workers arechanneled towards the necessary activitiesto increase production or to accelerate theelaboration of merchandise. The neoliberalsystem operates in this way like a mega-boss,conceiving the world market as a single com-pany, administered with “modernizing” cri-teria.

But neoliberal modernity appears more likethe beastly birth of capitalism as a world sys-tem, than like utopic “rationality” . “Mod-ern” capitalist production continues to baseitself in the labor of children, women andmigrant workers. Of the 1 billion, 148 mil-lion children in the world, at least 100 mil-lion of them live in the streets and almost200 million of them work. It is expected that400 million of them will be working by theyear 2000. It is said as well that 146 millionAsian children labor in the production of autoparts, toys, clothing, food, tools and chemi-cals. But this exploitation of child labor doesnot only exist in underdeveloped countries,40% of English children and 20% of Frenchchildren also work in order to complete thefamily income or to survive. In the “pleasure” industry there is also a place for chil-dren. The UN estimates that each year a mil-lion children enter sexual trafficking (Sta-tistics in Ochoa Chi, J. Op. Cit.).

The neoliberal beast invades all the socialworld homogenizing even the lines of foodproduction “In global terms if we observeparticularities in the food consumption ofeach region (and its interior), the process ofhomogenization which is being imposed isevident, including over those physiological-cultural differences of the different zones.”(“World Market of means of Subsistence.

1960-1990. Ocampo Figueroa, Nashelly, andFlores Mondragon, Gonzalo. UNAM.Economy.1994).

This beast imposes upon humanity a heavyburden. The unemployment and the insta-bility of millions of workers all over theworld is a cutting reality which has no hori-zons and no signs of lessening. Unemploy-ment in the countries which make up the Or-ganization for Cooperation and economicDevelopment went from 3.8% in 1966 to6.3% in 1990. In Europe alone it went from2.2% in 1966 to 6.4% in 1990.

The imposition of the laws of the market allover the world, the global market, have donenothing but destroy small and medium-sizebusinesses. Upon the disappearance of localand regional markets, the small and medium-size producers see themselves without pro-tection and without any possibility of com-peting against gigantic transnationals.

The results: massive bankruptcy of compa-nies.

The consequence; millions of unemployedworkers.

The absurdity of neoliberalism repeats itself:growth in production does not generate em-ployment, on the contrary, it destroys it. TheUN calls this stage “Growth without employ-ment.”

But the nightmare does not end there. In ad-dition to the threat of unemployment work-ers must confront precarious working con-ditions. Major on-the-job instability, longerworking days and poor salaries, are conse-quences of globalization in general and the“tertiary” tendency of the economy (thegrowth of the “service” sector) in particu-lar. “In the countries under domination, thelabor force suffers a precarious reality: ex-treme mobility, jobs without contracts, ir-regular salaries and generally inferior to thevital minimum and regimes with emaciatedretirement benefits, independent activitieswhich are not declared and have hit-and-miss salaries, in other words, servitude orforced labor within populations which aresupposedly protected such as children”(Alain Morice. “Foreign workers, advancesector of instability.” LMD. January 1997).

The consequences of all this translates itselfinto a bottoming out of global reality. Thereorganization of productive processes andthe circulation of merchandise and readjust-ment of productive forces, produce a pecu-liar excess: left-over human beings, not nec-essary for the “new world order”, who donot produce, or consume, who do not usecredit, in sum, who are disposable.

Each day, the great financial centers imposetheir laws to nations and groups of nationsin all the world They reorder and readjusttheir inhabitants. And, at the end of the op-eration, they find they have “left-over” peo-ple. “They fire upon the volume of the ex-

cess population, which is not only subjectedto the brunt of the most cruel poverty, butwhich does not matter, which is loose andseparate, and whose only end is to wanderthrough the streets without a fixed direction,without housing or work, without family orsocial relations-with a minimal stability—,whose only company are its cardboard andplastic bags” (Fernandez Duran, Ramon.“Against the Europe of capital and economicglobalization”. Talasa. Madrid, 1996).

Economic globalization “made necessary adecline in real salaries at the internationallevel, which together with the reduction ofsocial costs (health, education, housing andfood) and an anti-union climate, came toconstitute the fundamental part of the newneoliberal politics of capitalist reactivation”(Ocampo F. and Flores M. Op. Cit.).

THE THIRD PIECE

Migration, the errant nightmare

The third figure is constructed by drawing acircle.

We spoke beforehand of the existence of newterritories, at the end of the Third World War,which awaited conquest (the old socialistcountries), and of others which should havebeen re-conquered by the “new world or-der” . In order to achieve it, the financialcenters carried out a criminal and brutal thirdstrategy; the proliferation of “regional wars”and “internal conflicts” , which mobilizedgreat masses of workers and allowed capitalto follow routes of atypical accumulation.

The results of this world war of conquest wasa great ring of millions of migrants in all theworld “Foreigners” in the world “withoutborders” which the victors of the ThirdWorld War promised. Millions of peoplesuffered xenophobic persecution, precariouslabor conditions, loss of cultural identity,police repression, hunger, prison, death.

“From the American Rio Grande to the ‘Eu-ropean’ Schengen space, a double contra-dictory tendency is confirmed. On one sidethe borders are closed officially to the mi-gration of labor, on the other side entirebranches of the economy oscillate between

instability and flexibility, which are the mostsecure means of attracting a foreign laborforce” (Alain Morice, Op. Cit.).

With different names, under a judicial dif-ferentiation, sharing an equality of misery,the migrants or refugees or displaced of allthe world are “foreigners” who are toleratedor rejected. The nightmare of migration,whatever its causes, continues to roll andgrow over the planet’s surface. The numberof people who are accounted for in the sta-tistics of the UN High Commission on Refu-gees has grown disproportionately fromsome 2 million in 1975 to 27 million in 1995.

With national borders destroyed (for mer-chandise) the globalized market organizesthe global economy: research and design ofgoods and services, as well as their circula-tion and consumption are thought of in in-tercontinental terms. For each part of thecapitalist process the “new world order”organizes the flow of the labor force, spe-cialized or not, up to where it is necessary.Far from subject ing itself to the “free flow”so clucked-over by neoliberalism, the em-ployment markets are each day determinedmore by migratory flows. Where skilledworkers are concerned, whose numbers arenot significance in the context of global mi-gration, the “crossing of brains” representsa great deal in terms of economic power andknowledge. Nevertheless, whether skilledlabor, or unskilled labor, the migratory poli-tics of neoliberalism is oriented more to-wards destabilizing the global labor marketthan towards stopping immigration.

The Fourth World War, with its process ofdestruction/depopulation and reconstruction/reorganization provokes the displacement ofmillions of people. Their destiny is to con-tinue to wander, with the nightmare at theirside, and to offer to employed workers indifferent nations a threat to their employmentstability, an enemy to hide the image of theboss, and a pretext for giving meaning to theracist nonsense promoted by neoliberalism.

This is the symbol of the errant nightmareof global migration, a ring of terror whichroams all over the world.

FOURTH PIECE:

Financial globaliszation and the globali-zation of corruption and crime

The fourth figure is constructed by drawinga rectangle

The mass media reward us with an image ofthe directors of global delinquency: vulgarmen and women, dressed outlandishly, liv-ing in ridiculous mansions or behind the barsof a jail. But that image hides more than itshows: the real bosses of the modern Ma-fiosi, or their organization, or their real in-fluence in the political and economic regionsare never divulged publicly.

If you think the world of delinquency is syn-onymous with the world beyond the grave

and darkness , you are mistaken. During theperiod called the “Cold War” , organizedcrime acquired a more respectable image andbegan to function like any other moderncompany. It also penetrated the political andeconomic systems of the national States.With the beginning of the Fourth World War,the implantation of the “new world order”and its accompanying opening of markets,privatization, deregulation of commerce andinternational finance, organized crime “glo-balized” its activities as well.

“According to the UN, the annual global in-come of transnational criminal organiza-tions are about 1000 billion dollars, anamount equivalent to the combined GNP ofcountries with weak income (according tothe categories of the global banks) and its 3billion inhabitants. This estimate accountsfor the product of drug trafficking, the ille-gal trafficking of arms, contraband of nu-clear materials, etc., and the profits of ac-tivities controlled by the Mafiosi (prostitu-tion, gambling, black market speculation...).

However, this does not measure the impor-tance of investments which are continuouslyrealized by criminal organizations within thesphere of control of legitimate businesses,nor the domination which they exert over themeans of production within numerous sec-tors of the legal economy” (MichelChossudovsky, “La Corruptionmondialisee” in “Geopolitique du Chaos”.Op. Cit.).

The criminal organizations of the 5 conti-nents have made theirs the “spirit of globalcooperation” and, associated, participate inthe conquest and reorganization of the newmarkets. But they participate not only incriminal activities, but I legal businesses aswell. Organized crime invests in legitimatebusinesses not only to “launder” dirtymoney, but to make capital for their illegalactivities. The preferred business endeavorsfor this are luxury real estate, the vacationindustry, mass media, industry, agriculture,public services and ... banking!

Ali Baba and the 40 bankers? No, somethingworse. The dirty money of organized crimeis utilized by the commercial banks for itsactivities: loans, investments in financialmarkets, purchase of bonds for foreign debt,buying and selling of gold and stocks. “Inmany countries, the criminal organizationshave become the creditors of the States andthey exert, because of their actions on themarkets, an influence over the macroeco-nomic politics of the governments. Over thestock markets, they invest equally in thespeculative markets of finished products andraw materials” (M. Chossudovsky, Op. Cit.)

As if this were not enough, organized crimecan count on the so-called fiscal paradises.There are all over the world at least 55 fiscalparadises (One of these, the Cayman Islands,has fifth place in the world as a banking

center and has more banks and registeredcompanies than inhabitants). The Bahamas,the British Virgin Islands, the Bermudas,Saint Martin, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands,Luxembourg, Maurice Island, Switzerland,the Anglo-Normandy Islands, Dublin, Mo-naco, Gibraltar, Malta, are good places sothat organized crime can relate with the greatfinancial companies of the world.

In addition to the “laundering” of dirtymoney, the fiscal paradises are used to avoidtaxes, so they area point of contact betweenthose who govern, CEO’s and capos of or-ganized crime. High technology, applied tofinances permits the rapid circulation ofmoney and the disappearance of illegal prof-its. “The legal and illegal businesses over-lap more and more, they introduce a funda-mental change in the structures of capital-ism of the post-war era. The Mafiosi investin legal businesses, and inversely, they chan-nel financial resources towards the crimi-nal economy, through the control of banksand commercial companies implicated I thelaundering of dirty money or which haverelations with criminal organizations. Thebanks pretend that the transactions are car-ried out I good faith and their directors ig-nore the origin of the funds deposited. Therule is to ask no questions, the bank secre-tary and the anonymity of transactions, allthis guarantee the interests of organizedcrime, they protect the banking institutionfrom public investigations and from blame.Not only do the large banks accept launderedmoney, in view of their heavy commissions,but they also concede credits to at high in-terest rates to the Mafiosi, to the detrimentof productive industrial or agricultural in-vestments.” (M. Chossudovsky, Op. City.).

The crisis of the world debt, in the 80’scaused the price of prime materials to godown. This caused the underdeveloped coun-tries to dramatically reduce their income. Theeconomic measures dictated by the WorldBank and the International Monetary Fund,supposedly to “recuperate” the economy ofthese countries, only sharpened the crisis ofthe legal businesses. As a consequence, theillegal economy has developed in order tofill the vacuum left by the fall of nationalmarkets.

In accordance with a report by the UnitedNations, “The intrusion of the crime syndi-cates has been facilitated by the structuraladjustment programs with the indebted coun-tries have been obliged to accept I order toaccess the loans of the International Mon-etary Fund” (United Nations. “La Globali-zation du Crime” New York, 1995).

So here you have the rectangular mirrorwhere legality and illegality exchange reflec-tions.

On which side of the mirror is the criminal?On which side of the mirror is the one whoprosecutes the criminal?

FIFTH PIECE

The legitimate violence of an illegitimatepower?

The Fifth Piece is constructed by drawing apentagon.

The State, in neoliberalism, tends to shrinkto the “indispensable minimum”. The so-called “Benefactor State” does not only be-come obsolete, it separates itself of all it wasmade up of as such, and it remains naked.

In the cabaret of globalization, the Stateshows itself as a table dancer that strips ofeverything until it is left with only the mini-mum indispensable garments: the repressiveforce. With its material base destroyed, itspossibilities of sovereignty annulled, its po-litical classes blurred, the Nation States be-come, more or less rapidly, a security appa-ratus of the megacorporations thatneoliberalism builds in the development ofthis Fourth World War. Instead of directingpublic investment towards social spending,the Nation States, prefer to improve theirequipment, armaments and training in orderto fulfill with efficiency a duty that its poli-tics could no longer carry out some yearshence: control of society.

The “professionals of legitimate violence”as the repressive apparatus of the modernstates call themselves. But, what is there todo if violence is already under the laws ofthe market? Where is the legitimate violenceand where is the illegitimate? What mo-nopoly of violence can the battered NationStates pretend if the free game of supply anddemand defies that monopoly? Didn’t theFourth Piece demonstrate that organizedcrime, governments and financial centers aremore than well related? Isn’t it evident thatorganized crime counts on real armies whichhave no borders except the fire power of itsrival? And so the “monopoly of violence”does not belong to the Nation States. Themodern market has put it on sale. . .

This is taken into account because under thepolemic between legitimate and illegitimateviolence, there is also the dispute (false, Ithink) between “rational” and “irrational”violence.

A certain sector of the world’s intellectuals(I insist that their duty is more complex thanto simply be of the “left or right” , “pro-gov-ernment or opposition”, “good etcetera orbad etcetera”) pretends that violence can beexerted in a “rational” manner, administeredin a selective way, (there are those, also, whoto something like the “Market technologyof violence”), and can be applied with theability “of a surgeon” against the evils ofsociety. Something like this inspired the laststage of arms policy in the United States:precise “surgical” weapons, and military op-erations like the scalpel of the “new worldorder” . This is how the new “smart bombs”were born (which, as a reporter who cov-ered Desert Storm told me, are not that in-

telligent and have difficulty distinguishingbetween a hospital and a missile depository.When in doubt, the smart bombs don’t ab-stain, they destroy). Anyway, as thecompañeros of the Zapatista communitieswould say, the Persian Gulf is farther thanthe state capital of Chiapas (although thesituation of the Kurds has horrifying simi-larities with the indigenous of a country whopraises itself as “democratic and free”), andso let us not insist on “that” war when wehave “ours” .

And so the struggle between rational and ir-rational violence opens an interesting andlamentable path of discussion, it is not use-less in present times. We could take for ex-ample what is understood as rational. If theresponse is that it is the “reason of the State”(assuming that this exists, and that above all,one would be able to recognize some reasonin the actual neoliberal state) and then onecan ask if this “reason of the state” corre-sponds to the “reason of society” (alwaysassuming that today’s society retains somereason and furthermore if the rational vio-lence of the state is rational to the society.Here there is no point in rambling (idly), the“rationale of the state” in modern times isnone other than the “rationale of the finan-cial markets”.

But, how does the modern state administerits “rational violence”? And, paying atten-tion to history, how much time does this ra-tionality last? The time it takes between oneelection and another or coup (depending onthe case)? How many acts of violence by theState, that were applauded as “rational”during that time, are now irrational?

Lady Margaret Thatcher, of “acceptable”memory for the British people, took the timeto prologue the book “The Next War” ofCaspar Weinberg and Peter Schweizer(Regnery Publishing, Inc. Washington, D.C.1996).

In this text Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, advancessome reflections about the three similaritiesbetween the world of the Cold War and thatof the Post Cold War: The first of these isthat the “free world” will never lack poten-tial aggressors. The second is the necessityof the military superiority of the “demo-cratic” states above possible aggressors. Thethird similarity is that this military superior-ity should be, above all, technological.

To end her prologue, the so-called “ironlady” defines this “rational violence” of themodern state by stating: “A war can takeplace in different ways. But the worst usu-ally happens because one power believes itcan reach its objectives without a war or atleast with a limited war that can be won rap-idly, resulting in failed calculations.”

For Misters Weinberg and Schweizer thescenes of the “Future Wars” are: North Ko-rea and China (April 6, 1998), Iran (April 4,1999), Mexico (March 7, 2003), Russia

(February 7, 2006), and Arabs, Latinos andEuropeans. Almost the entire world is con-sidered a “possible aggressor of moderndemocracy”.

Logic (at least in neoliberal logic): In mod-ern times, the power (that is, financial power)knows that it can only reach its objectiveswith a war, and not with a limited war thatcan be won rapidly but with a total war,world wide in every sense. And if we be-lieve the secretary of state MadeleineAlbright, when she says: “One of the pri-mary objectives of our government is to en-sure that the economic interests of the UnitedStates can extend itself to a planetary scale”(“The Wall Street Journal”. 1/21/1997), weneed to understand that all the world (and Imean everything, everything) is the theaterof operations of this war.

We should understand then that if the dis-pute for the “monopoly of violence” doesnot take place according to the laws of themarket, but is rejected and defied from thebottom, the world power “discovers” in thischallenge a “possible aggressor”. This isone of the defiances (of the least studied andmost condemned among the many it repre-sents), launched by the armed indigenousrebels of the Zapatista National LiberationArmy against neoliberalism and for human-ity. . .

This is the symbol of North American mili-tary power, the pentagon. The new “worldpolice” seeks that the “national” army andpolice only be the “security corps” that guar-antee “order and progress” in the neoliberalmagapolis.

SIXTH

Megapolitics and the dwarfs

The Sixth Piece is constructed by drawing ascribble.

We said before that Nation States are at-tacked by the financial centers and “obli-gated” to dissolve within the megalopolis.But neoliberalism not only operates its war“unifying” nations and regions, its strategyof destruction/depopulation and reconstruc-tion/reorganization produces one or variousfractures in the Nation State. This is the para-dox of the Fourth World War: it is made toeliminate borders and “unite” nations, yetwhat it leaves behind is multiplication of theborders and a pulverization of the nationsthat die in its claws. Beyond the pretexts,ideologies and banners, the current worlddynamics of the breaking up of the unity of

You will find a collection ofwritings and talks by Marcos athttp://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/marcos_index.htmlNew material is posted to the IMG news list,join this by sending an email toimg_news-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

the Nation States responds to a policy;equally universal, that knows it can betterexert its power, and create optimum condi-tions for its reproduction, on top of the ruinsof the Nation States.

If someone had doubts about characterizingthe process of globalization as a world war,they should discard it when adding up ac-counts of the conflicts that have been pro-voked by the collapse of some nation states.Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, USSR are ex-amples of the depth of the crisis that leavesin shreds not only the political and economicfoundations of the Nation States but also thesocial structures. Slovania, Croatia andBosnia in addition to the present war withinthe Russian federation with Chechnia as abackdrop, not only mark the outcome of thetragic downfall of the socialist camp in theforbidding arms of the “free world” , all overthe world this process of national fragmen-tation repeats itself in variable stages andintensity. There are separatist tendencies inthe Span ish state (the Basques, Cataloniaand Galicia), in Italy (Padua), in Belgium(Flanders), in France (Corsica), United King-dom (Scotland, Galic peoples), Canada(Quebec). And there are more examples inthe rest of the world.

We have also referred to the process of theconstruction of the megalopolis, now we talkof fragmentation of countries. Both proc-esses are based upon the destruction of theNation States. Is it about two parallel, inde-pendent processes? Two facets of the glo-balization process? Are they symptoms of amegacrisis about to explode? Are theymerely isolated cases?

We think it is about an inherent contradic-tion to the process of globalization, one ofthe essences of the neoliberal model. Theelimination of commercial borders, the uni-versality of tele-communications, the infor-mation super highways, the omnipresence ofthe financial centers, the international agree-ments of economic unity, in short, the proc-ess of globalization as a whole produces, byliquidating the nation states, a pulverizationof the internal markets. These do not disap-pear or are diluted in the international mar-kets, but consolidate their fragmentation andmultiply. It may sound contradictory, but glo-balization produces a fragmented world, fullof isolated pieces (and often pieces whichconfront each other). A world full of stag-nant compartments, communicating barelyby fragile economic bridges (in any case asconstant as the weathervane which is financecapital). A world of broken mirrors reflect-ing the useless world unity of the neoliberalpuzzles.

But neoliberalism not only fragments theworld it pretends to unite, it also producesthe political economic center that conductsthis war. And yes, as we referred to before,the financial centers impose their (laws of

the market) to nations and grouping of na-tions, and so we should redefine the limitsand reaches pursued by the policy, in otherwords, duties of political work. It is conven-ient than to speak of Megapolitics. Here iswhere the “world order” would be decided.

And when we say “megapolitics” we don’trefer to the number of those who move inthem. There are a few, very few, who findthemselves in this “megasphere”.Megapolitics globalizes national politics, inother words, it subjects it to a direction thathas global interests (that for the most partare contradictory to national interests) andwhose logic is that of the market, which isto say, of economic profit. With this econo-mist (and criminal) criteria, wars, credits,selling and buying of merchandise, diplo-matic acknowledgements, commercialblocks, political supports, migration laws,coups, repressions, elections, internationalpolitical unity, political ruptures and invest-ments are decided upon. In short the survivalof entire nations.

The global power of the financial centers isso great, that they can afford not to worryabout the political tendency of those whohold power in a nation, if the economic pro-gram (in other words, the role that nationhas in the global economic megaprogram)remains unaltered. The financial disciplines

impose themselves upon the different colorsof the world political spectrum in regards tothe government of any nation. he great worldpower can tolerate a leftist government inany part of the world, as long as the govern-ment does not take measures that go againstthe needs of the world financial centers. Butin no way will it tolerate that an alternativeeconomic, political and social organizationconsolidate. For the megapolitics, the na-tional politics are dwarfed and submit to thedict ates of the financial centers. It will bethis way until the dwarfs rebel . .

You have here the figure that represents themegapolitics. You will understand that it isuseless to try to find within it a rationalityand even if you untangle it, nothing will beclear.

SEVENTH PIECE:

The pockets of resistance

The seventh figure can be constructed bydrawing a pocket

“To begin with, I beg you not to confuse Re-sistance with political opposition. The op-position does not oppose power but a gov-ernment, and its achieved and complete formis that of a party of opposition: while resist-ance, by definition (now useful) cannot be aparty: it is not made to govern at its time,but to...resist.”

Tomas Segovia. “Allegations”. Mexico,1996.

The apparent infallibility of globalizationclashes with the stubborn disobedience to re-ality. At the same time as neoliberalism car-ries out its world war, all over the worldgroups of those who will not conform takeshape, nuclei of rebels. The empire of finan-cial pockets confront the rebellion of thepockets of resistance.

Yes, pockets. Of all sizes, of all colors, ofthe most varied forms. Their only similarityis their resistance to the “new world order”and the crime against humanity that theneoliberal war carries out.

Upon its attempt to impose its economic, po-litical, social and cultural model,neoliberalism pretends to subjugate millionsof human beings, and do away with all thosewho do not have a place in its new distribu-tion of the world. But as it turns out these“disposible” ones rebel and they resistagainst the power who wants to eliminatethem. Women, children, the elderly, the in-digenous, the ecologists,homosexuals,lesbians, HIV positives, work-ers and all those men and women who arenot only “left over” but who “bother” theestablished order and world progress rebel,and organize and struggle. Knowing they areequal yet different, the excluded ones from“modernity” begin to weave their resistanceagainst the process of destruction/depopu-lation and reconstruction/reorganizationwhich is carried out as a world war, byneoliberalism.

In Mexico, for example, the so-called “Pro-gram of Integrated Development for the Isth-mus of Tehuantepec” pretends to constructa modern international center of distributioand assembly for products. The developmentzone covered an industrial complex whichwould refine the third part of Mexican crudeoil and elaborate 88% of petrochemical prod-ucts. The routes of interoceanic transit willconsist of highways, a water route follow-ing the natural curve of the zone (the riverCoatzacoalcos) and as an articulating center,the trans-isthmus railroad line (in the handsof 5 companies, 4 from the United States andone from Canada). The project would be anassembly zone under the regime of twinplants.

Two million residents of the place will be-come stevedores, assembly line workers, orrailway guards (Ana Esther Cecena. “ElIstmo de Tehuantepec: frontera de lasoberania nacional”. “La Jornada delCampo”, May 28, 1997.) In SoutheastMexico as well, in the Lacandon Jungle the“Program for Sustainable Regional Devel-opment for the Lacandon Jungle” begins op-erations. Its final objective is to place at thefeet of capital the indigenous lands which,in addition to beig rich in dignity and his-tory, are also rich in oil and uranium.

The visible results of all these projects willbe, among others, the fragmentation ofMexico (separating the southeast from therest of the country). In addition to this, andnow we speak of war, the projects have coun-terinsurgency implications. They make up apart of a pincer to liquidate the antineoliberalrebellio which exploded in 1994. In the mid-dle stand the idigenous rebels of the ZapatistaArmy of National Liberation (EZLN).

(A parenthesis is now convenient int hetheme of indigenous rebels: the Zapatistasthink that, in Mexico (attention: in Mexico)the recuperation and defense of national sov-ereignty is part of an antineoliberal revolu-tion. Paradoxically, the EZLN is accused ofpretendeing to fragment the Mexican nation.The reality is that the only ones who havespoke of separatism are the businessmen ofthe state of Tabasco (rich in oil) and the fed-eral deputies of Chiapas who belong to thePRI. The Zapatistas think that the defenseof the national state is necessary I view ofglobalization, and that the attempts to sliceMexico to pieces comes from the governinggroup and not from the just demands forautonomy for the Indian Peoples. The EZLN,and the best of the national indigenous move-ment, does not want the Indian peoples toseparate from Mexico, but to be recognizedas part of the country with their differences.

Not only that, they want a Mexico with de-mocracy, liberty and justice. The paradoxescontinue because while the EZLN strugglefor the defense of national sovereignty, theMexican Federal Army struggles against thatdefense and defends a governmet who hasdestroyed the material bases of national sov-ereignty and given the country, not just topowerful foreign capital, but to the drug traf-fickers).

But resistance does not only exist in themountains of Southeast Mexico againstneoliberalism. In other parts of mexico, inlatin America, in the United States andCanada, in the Europe which belogs to theTreaty of Masstrich, in Africa, in Asia, inOceania, the pockets of resistance multiply.Each one of them has its own histoyr its dif-ferences, its equalities, its demands, itsstrugles, its accomplishments.

If humanity still has hope of survival, of be-ing better, that hope is in the pockets formedby the excluded ones, the left-overs, the oneswho are disposible.

This is a model for a pocket of resistance,but don’t pay too much attention to it. Thereare as many models as there are resistances,and as many worlds as in the world. So drawthe model you prefer. As far as this thingsabout the pockets is concerned, they are richin diversity, as are the resistances.

There are, no doubt, more pieces of theneoliberal jigsaw puzzle. For example: themass media, culture, pollution, pandemias.We only wanted to show you here the pro-files of 7 of them.

These 7 are enough so that you, after youdraw, color and cut them out, can see that itis impossible to put them together. And thisis the problem of the world which globali-zation pretends to construct:

the pieces don’t fit.

For this and other reasons which do not fitinto the space of this text, it is necessary tomake a new world.

A world where many worlds fit, where allworlds fit...

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,Subcomandante Insurgente MarcosZapatista Army of National Liberation Mexico,June of 1997.P.S. Which tells of dreams that nest in love. The searests at my side. It shares with me since some timeago anguish, doubts and many dreams, but now itsleeps with me in the hot night of the jungle. I look atits agitated wheat in sleep and I marvel once again athow I have found her as always; lukewarm, fresh andat my side. The asphyxia makes me get out of bedand takes my hand and the pen to bring back Old ManAntonio as was years ago...I have asked that Old Man Antonio accompany me inan exploration to the river below. We have no morethan a little bit of cornmeal to eat. For hours we fol-low those capricious channels and the hunger and theheat press on us. All afternoon we spend after a droveof wild boar. It is almost nightfall when we catch upwith them, but a huge mountain pig breaks away fromthe group and attacks us. I quickly take out all mymilitary knowledge by dropping my weapon andclimbing up the nearest tree. Old Man Antonio re-mains defenseless before the attack, but instead ofrunning, goes behind a grove of reeds. The giant pigruns frontally and with all its strength against thereeds, and becomes entangled in the thorns and thevines. Before it is able to free itself, Old Man Antoniopicks up his old musket and shoots it in the head, set-tling supper for that day.At dawn, after I have finished cleaning my modernautomatic weapon ( an M-16, 5.56 mm. Caliber, withcadence selector and effective reach of 460 meters,in addition to telescopic site, tripod and a 60 shot drumclip), I wrote in my military journal, omitting theabove: "Ran into a pig and A. killed one. 350 m. abovesea level. It didn't rain."While we waited for the meat to cook I told Old ManAntonio that the part which I would get, would servefor the parties being prepared back at the camp. "Par-ties?" he asked as he tended the fire. "Yes" I said "Nomatter the month, there's always something to cel-ebrate." Afterwards I continue with what I supposedwould be a brilliant dissertation about the historiccalendar and the Zapatista celebrations. In silence Ilistened to Old Man Antonio, and assuming it did notinterest him, I settled in to sleep.Between dreams I saw Old Man Antonio take mynotebook and write something. I the morning, wegagve out the meat after breakfast and each one tookto the road. In our camp, I report to my superior andshow him the logbook so he'll know what happened."That's not your writing" I'm told as he shows me apage from the notebook. There, at the end of what Ihad written that day, Old Man Antonio had written inlarge letters:"If you cannot have both reason and strength, alwayschoose to have reason and let the enemy have all thestrength. In many battles strength can obtain the vic-tory, but in all the struggle only reason can win. Thepowerful can never extract reason from his strength,but we can always obtain strength from reason".And below in smaller letters "Happy parties."It's obvious, I wasn't hungry anymore. The parties, asalways, were very joyful. "The one with the red rib-bon" was still, happily, very far from the hit parade ofthe Zapatistas..

FAIR TRADEORGANIC

COFFEE

100% Chiapaneco Coffee -Caf_ Mut Vitz, grown by the

people of the autonomouscommunities of the highlands

of Chiapas, Mexico.

100% Arabica Beans. Grown inChiapas. Roasted in Galway.

• Produced using traditional eco-logical methods with respect forthe environment and the coffeeitself.

• Direct from the producers. Firsthand fair trade certification.

• Buying this coffee will help sup-port further imports to Europe,thereby aiding the Mut Vitz co-operative to combat the severepolitical and economic chal-lenges that confront them.

• Available green, roasted, orground from the Galway Cof-fee company in Galway, emailenquiries tocoffeeproject@nada.buz.org

There are around 1000 producers in the co-opwith an annual estimate of total coffeeproduction which exceeds 690 tonnes.

The Mut Vitz co-operative is made up ofindigenous Tzotzil farmers Mut Vitz isrecognised under Mexican law and has recentlyacquired its export licence.

At this time, the producers are in a period oftransition from traditional ‘natural production’to ‘organic certification’, both being methodswhich place particular attention on sustainablepractices for cultivation and development ofcoffee.

Mut Vitz co-ordinates a network of 48 organicpromoters, working in 24 communities. Theyare involved in a participative process oftransfer of ‘know-how’ of organic coffeeproduction. The promoters have already madelarge advances towards consolidating their ownorganisational structure and local leadership.

Because of the governmental attacks sufferedby the population of this mountainous zone,the producers have moved to create alternativesocial and economic structures to develop theircommunities.

A critical aspect in the creation of alternativeeconomic models which help in the search forsocial ends for justice, democracy,sustainability, and also to cover the most basicnecessities of the people; food, health, localinfrastructure, is the sale of their coffee on theFair trade Market.

Local Initiatives for sustainable Development

Co-ops like Mut Vitz are examples of the levelof local initiative which exists, working inconditions which allow them to struggle for achange in relation to Indigenous rights andhuman dignity in Chiapas.

The principle objectives of the program for co-operative development and the betterment ofproduction by organic practices include:

• Improve knowledge of appropriate

technology for organic production.• Improve potential for selling at Fair Tradeprice on national and international markets.• Improve the infrastructure of each memberand collectively of the co-operative toguarantee strict quality control and lower costof processing, transportation and care of thecoffee.• Improve the general and economic well beingof each member and their families.

The producers of Mut Vitz continue to beenthusiastic, despite the political and economicchallenges that confront them. The membersof autonomous initiatives continually findthemselves under threat of attack.

Since the beginning of 1995, starting with theinvasion of the Lacandon Jungle by MexicanFederal Army and continuing with the currentsituation of ‘low-intensity war’ against theindigenous people of Chiapas. Organisationsthat maintain independence from the party inoffice live under constant intimidation,aggression and threats.

This has, of course created a series of obstaclesto each and every proposal for communitydevelopment. However, the members have notbecome disheartened with continuing to pursuetheir co-operative and economic goals.

This is why the self sufficient model, in respectto production by the indigenous community in

Fair Trade OrganicCoffee from ChiapasIn July of 2000, one bag (69 kilos) of green coffee beans from the Mut Vitz co-operative inChiapas finally arrived in Ireland. It was roasted in Galway at the Galway Coffee Company andsubsequently received much praise for it’s quality from all who tried it. Samples were given tovarious coffee sellers who are very interested in the coffee, but I found that’s it is very difficult tomake a deal and sell something to somebody if you are not sure that you can supply the product.Importing coffee requires a lot of capital, and storage space.

It is hoped that there will be a constant supply available, at least in Galway. From this point wewill to be able to expand and follow up on the connections that were made this year.Keith

Mut Vitz Coffee Co-operativeThe communities which are linked together to make up the Mut Vitz co-operative live inthe mountainous regions of the highlands of Chiapas, southern Mexico, in the following sixmunicipalities: El Bosque, (Autonomous Mucicipality of San Juan de la Libertad) Simojovel,Bochil, Jitotol, San Andrés Sacam’chén Chenalhó.

Last year we followed with extreme worry, the wave of attacks suffered by the Mut Vitz producers.We feel the need to raise our voice to report the deaths of the following members of Mut Vitz:

13 January 2000Martín Sánchez Hernández Chabajeval1st February 2000Rodolfo Gómez, Martin Gómez, Lorenzo Pérez Hernández, Chabajeval16th Febuary 2000Manuel Nuñez Gómez Bochil, La Lagunita25th July 2000Pascual Sánchez Gomez, Chabajeval9th September 2000Marcos Ruiz Hernández, San Antonio El BrillanteWe join in the pain of these communities, and we send them our support and love,

resistance has drawn attention from thegovernment, paramilitary groups and coffeeplantation owners to the members of Mut Vitz.

19th September 2000, Solidarid Directa conChiapas, Zürich, Switzerland.

The valley below is filled with clouds ofteargas where another strand of the many-headed demonstration has attempted to breakthrough the lines. Prague has been turnedinto a battlefield again, although no shotshave been fired on either side. This despiteassurances that all of the police have beenissued with live ammunition and are readyto use it.

Today is a Tuesday, but most of the demon-strators have been in the city since last Fri-day. Exchanging ideas at the counter-sum-mit, where an impressive array of speakersfrom around the world have been broughttogether to bear witness to the new sloganof our times: “Our resistance is as global asyour capital.” From sociologists to musiciansto webmasters to journalists, as well as doz-ens of contributions from the floor, this hasbeen a barrage of new thinking from someof the best-informed people on the planet.Remarkable not only because of the wealthof experiences represented there, but also be-cause of the convergence between them thatgrows from one hour to the next. There’ssomething happening here. You’d have to bea rare cynic indeed not to sense it, thoughthere are the inevitable ironies too. At thecoffee dock in the counter summit peoplehave been learning Czech because if you or-der in English, they give you Nescafe.

Not far from Wenceslas Square, where JanPalach set himself alight in protest over 30years ago, Jubilee 2000 have been holdingtheir own meetings. A survivor of the UnionCarbide accident at Bhopal in India invitesus to join him in a minute’s laughter at thevery notion of the world’s poorest peoplemaking debt repayments to the countries andthe companies which owe them such a stag-gering ecological debt. An indigenous per-son from Colombia moves many of the au-dience to tears when he speaks of the relent-less injustices that have been perpetuated onhis people over the last five hundred years.It’s an emotional time for us stiff-lipped Eu-ropeans, so unused to expressing ourselves

with anything other than the controlled voiceof rational, male, enlightened logic. We haveso much to learn from these people.

Tuesday’s demonstration inevitably has itstears too, given the amount of gas the copsare slinging about, but there is laughter aswell. Inexplicably, the area immediately

around the conference centre has been leftpoorly defended, and now a couple of groupshave managed to break through and run upa grassy slope to the building where the del-egates are assembled. A company of munici-pal police run headlong when chased by ahuge fairy in a sequined pink dress brandish-ing a silver wand covered in tinfoil. Wellwhat would you do?

Up on the bridge there is a final charge froma group of Italians dressed completely inwhite: the Tutti Bianchi. They form part of agroup that calls itself “Ya Basta”. It’s not thefirst time I hear echoes of the Zapatistas inPrague...

“Ya Basta!” was the cry of thousands of in-digenous peasant soldiers as they marcheddown through the towns of the state ofChiapas on January 1st 1994. This was theZapatista Army of National Liberation(EZLN), bursting onto the stage with a flour-ish on the very day the North American FreeTrade Agreement came into effect. Few ofthese insurrectionaries carried modern weap-ons; many of them indeed had only paintedwooden rifles to point at the soldiers. Warhad been declared on the Federal Army bysome of the poorest people on the continent,on the very day Mexico had supposedly ar-rived in the “First World”.

Five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall,the Zapatistas took the world very much bysurprise. Commentators were soon dubbingthem “the first postmodern revolutionaries”and they have had a major impact on politi-cal thinking over the last six - seven years.The CIA has conducted a hefty amount ofresearch into their methods, considering theirstyle of “netwar” to be a future trend amongresistance groups. Indigenous groups aroundthe Americas have been heartened by theirability to command respect from mestizopoliticians. If the defeats suffered by theWorld Trade Organization and the BrettonWoods bodies at Seattle and Prague are re-ally knock-ons from that rainy night inChiapas seven years ago, then what’s it allabout? Have the old icons of BolivarandGuevara been supplanted by a gang ofbeardless Indians?

First, let’s take a look at the supposedpostmodernity of the EZLN. Postmodernideas are understood by most of us to be allabout challenging the frameworks in whichthe old ideologies of progress - whether Leftor Right - are developed. No way of think-ing can be understood without reference tothe culture that produced it as well as themedium through which we view it. Old cer-tainties are swept aside. One man’s meat isanother man’s poison. My solutions are yourworst nightmares. The different languagesof love and hate and human happiness aremutually exclusive, and any apparent simi-larities can be explained by the tinted spec-tacles our respective cultures impose upon

S26 - Zapatistastake Prague?

Under a sweltering sun in early Autumn, Czech riot police stand guard over a hugeconcrete roadbridge that looms over a valley in the ancient city of Prague. Grim-facedand probably sweltering in their black uniforms, the cops are facing off several thou-sand protestors who are determined to cross the bridge and force their way into theconference centre where the World Bank is holding yet another annual meeting/public-ity stunt. Cameras flash routinely in their faces: this is a first-rate photo opportunity forthe assembled journos from both the big TV stations and the self-proclaimed Indymedia.On September 26th 2000, this is the new and loveable face of global democracy. Be-hind the police is a line of tanks, then the rest of the bridge is blocked up with policetransport buses. It’s a long way across.

us. The notion of development is deeplyproblematic.

Much of this rings bells with the words ofthe Zapatistas, but it also sounds some verydiscordant gongs. Indigenism - a philosophyexpressed in the writings of Native Ameri-can intellectuals like Ward Churchill and inthe struggles of indigenous peoples aroundthe world - certainly goes against the grainof materialism, exposing it as a colonialist,oppressive mentality. Theirs is the voice thathas been excluded throughout all of capital-ist/Marxist modernity, and their notion thathumans were born to live in harmony withnature rather than to exploit it confronts suchthinking head-on.

The Zapatistas do not stop at this, however.The families which support the indigenousrevolution in Chiapas are often the very onesthat fled from arch-conservative, tradition-alist communites in earlier decades. Theybelieve that attempts to ignore change in thelarger world can only lead to domination andeventual extermination. Zapatista network-ing is the obvious consequence of a philoso-phy that seeks to build links with very dif-ferent groups around Mexico and around theglobe. Even their spokespersonSubcomandante Marcos - a university-edu-cated mestizo - is a kind of bridge to exter-nal cultures. It is a non-hierarchical relation-ship: as Marcos says, the Zapatistas speak“not as the one who imposes his will, but asone who desires a place where everyone fits,not as the one who is alone and feigns acrowd at his side, but as the one who is eve-ryone even in the silent solitude of the onewho resists.”

The language is that of postmodernism, butthe underlying idea is one of unity amongall peoples, even at the moment when weare most different. Foucault’s idea that

postmodernity is not a historical stage butrather a mood that is thrown up at criticaltimes of flux when former ways of thinkingno longer seem adequate, may help to ex-plain the contradiction. Much of Marcos’postmodernism is taken from Cervantes’classic ‘Don Quixote’ - published in the veryearly years of the seventeenth century. It is adifficult book to comprehend, for Cervantesseems to sympathise most with his anti-heroeven at the very moment he is splitting hissides laughing at him. Modernity withinpostmodernity?

The serried ranks of black-clad riot policeon that bridge in Prague last September werethere to defend more than a conference cen-tre and a few thousand delegates from thewrath of a “mob”. For the Zapatistas andtheir ideologues, they were defending theSingle Way of Thinking, the model of de-velopment prescribed by the West and forthe West, the tablets of stone handed downby the World Bank and the IMF and pre-sented to the peoples of the earth as the onlyvalid future. Among the protestors there werea thousand different ways of thinking, ecolo-

gists and feminists and socialists and liber-als and anarchists, a thousand different col-ours and several dozen different languages,but everyone was trying to go pretty muchthe same place. Across the bridge.

1989 would appear not to have signalled theend of history after all, but perhaps Marx’sdialectics have been subsumed into some-thing broader and deeper.

The delegates at the annual conferences -most of whom had come just for the junket -decided not to turn up for the Wednesday,and Thursday was abandoned altogether. Fora couple of days at least, the lights went offin the shop window.

Nick

Irish Mexico GroupAddress: Irish Mexico Group, c/o LASC, 5 MerrionRow, Dublin 2, IrelandPhone: 6760435Fax: 6760435Email: lasc@iol.ie

www.struggle.ws/mexico.html

News from Chiapas and theIrish Mexico Group

IMG News is a very low volume mail list ofposts selected from the various Chiapasemail lists. Most weeks it will only have twoor so posts, at times of tension this may riseto 5 or 6. All posts are in English and areselected for accuracy and ease of understand-ing. All EZLN communiques are also sent tothis list. This is a news only list - there is nodiscussion.

To subscribe send an email toimg_news-subscribe@yahoogroups.com