A Rainbow at Midnight:Zapatistas and Autonomy by Patrick Cuninghame andCarolina Ballesteros Corona

THE BRUTAL MASSACRE of 45 indigenous sympathisers, mostly womenand children, of the EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army) in arefugee camp near Acteal in the south-eastern state of Chiapas, Mexico, last

December 22, at the hands of paramilitary death squads linked to the PRIgovernment served to remind world opinion that the ‘Rebellion of the Forgotten’of January 1994 has moved from a low to a high intensity conflict. The success ofthe Zapatistas in mobilising Mexican and international ‘civil society’, particularlythrough the Internet, in a common struggle against the disastrous human andenvironmental consequences of neoliberalism, globalisation and “free trade” andfor increased autonomy for indigenous peoples has forced the PRI regime, underthe instigation of the US government and World Bank, to adopt a more violent andpolitically riskier strategy of repression through state terror. This has effectivelyended the phase of negotiations which led to the signing of the San AndrésAccords on Indigenous Rights and Culture in February 1996, which the PRI(Party of the Institutional Revolution) regime has since refused to implement, sointensifying the conflict.

As in Bosnia and Rwanda, the war is notbeing fought so much against the armedguerrillas of the EZLN, but rather thecivilian population of the Zapatista ‘basesupport communities’. The PRI regime’saim is to exterminate and expel theZapatista communities, so depopulatinghuge areas of the oil, water and mineral-richLacandona Jungle, an area even morebiodiverse than the Brazilian rain forests. Inthis way not only will ‘the fish have no waterto swim in’, but the path towards the greaterexploitation of the area’s human and

natural resources by mainly US-basedtransnational corporations (TNCs) willhave been greatly smoothed, as was alwaysthe intention of the NAFTA free tradeagreement.

The Acteal Massacre has been cynicallyused by the PRI regime to step up therepression and harassment of the indige-nous Zapatista communities by both thearmy and PRI paramilitary groups who,despite some token arrests following themassacre, now enjoy ever greater impunityand support from the Mexican Federal

12

A Rainbow at Midnight 13

Army and the Chiapas state police force.The Zapatista communities have foughtback by accelerating their own implement-ation of the San Andrés Accords, settingup some 32 ‘autonomous municipalities’under the terms of the agreement. The PRIregime is now attempting to bulldoze itsrevised and heavily diluted version of theaccords through the Mexican Congress.Meanwhile, it has launched a campaign ofviolent repression against the mainautonomous municipalities such asTaniperlas and San Juan de la Libertad,where on June 10, eight Zapatistas and twopolicemen were killed during an attackinvolving a 1,000-strong column of soldiers,police and paramilitary forces, supported bytanks, helicopters and artillery. Hundredshave been imprisoned or forced to flee intothe mountains, leaving women, childrenand old people at the mercy of the Mexicanarmy and the MIRA (Revolutionary Anti-Zapatista Indigenous Movement), a PRI-linked paramilitary organisation which nowrules Taniperlas and other repressedcommunities by terror with the open co-operation of the security forces.

In order to intensify its repression ofthe insurgent Zapatista communities, thePRI regime has had to forcibly remove oneof the main obstacles to this course ofaction, namely the presence of largenumbers of foreign human rights observersmany of whom stay in ‘peace camps’ insideZapatista communities in order to providesome sort of protection from state terror.Over 200 such observers have beendeported in the last year as the PRI regimehas whipped up a crude xenophobiccampaign in the press, blaming the Chiapasconflict on meddling by foreign politicalactivists and local Catholic Church priestsof foreign origin. Some 40 Italian humanrights observers were permanently expelledfrom Mexico in May, the most extreme

deportation order, which before this yearhad only been used once in the last 15 years.

There can be little doubt that the PRIregime’s use of state terror in Chiapasenjoys the tacit support of the US and EUgovernments, the latter of whom signed afree trade agreement with Mexico lastDecember, despite its first clause making itsimplementation dependent on respect forhuman and democratic rights. Notwith-standing its ‘ethical’ foreign policy the NewLabour presidency of the EU has failed tocriticise President Zedillo’s policy of stateterror in Chiapas and the British press haveignored the issue. A possible explanationcould be that Britain is the EU’s secondlargest investor in Mexico and the fourth inthe world. It has also emerged that theLabour government continues to grantexport licences for the sale of weapons tothe Mexican Army.1

The Zapatista struggle since 1994

The EZLN implemented the decision ofthe Zapatista Mayan indigenous com-munities of Chiapas to militarily opposethe introduction of the North AmericanFree Trade Agreement (NAFTA) onJanuary 1 1994. San Cristobal de Las Casasand four other major towns were brieflycaptured, townhalls ransacked and landownership documents burnt during a 10-day revolt which the Mexican armyattempted to crush through the massmurder of prisoners and the aerial bombingof villages, leaving over 150 dead. However,the rapid national and internationalmobilisation carried out partially throughthe Internet, the first of many such ‘cybermobilisations’, quickly isolated the corruptand discredited regime of former PresidentSalinas, forcing it into direct negotiationswith the EZLN. Those liberated areas under

the control of the EZLN instituted theirown ‘revolutionary laws’ on a range ofissues from women’s rights to collectiveland use, in direct opposition to the PRIregime’s neoliberal policies. Although theyhave been broken off on various occasions,particularly during President Zedillo’streacherous attempt to arrest the EZLNleadership during a meeting with thegovernment in February 1995, negotiationseventually led to the signing of the SanAndrés Accords on Indigenous Rights andCulture between the government and therepresentatives of not just the EZLN butall the 32 indigenous peoples of Mexico,including those close to the PRI regimeitself. This was not a final peace agreementbut the first of what would have been aseries of five accords on different issues.These would eventually have led to thedisbanding of the EZLN and its integrationas a purely political organisation as part ofthe FZLN (Zapatista Front for NationalLiberation), set up partially for this purposein January 1996. Under the auspices of thepeace process a remarkable and historicallyunique event also took place in early August1996, the ‘First Intercontinental Gatheringfor Humanity and against Neoliberalism’,which saw some 4,000 grassroots politicalactivists and supporters of the EZLN fromthe five continents gather in five ZapatistaCommunities in Chiapas to share theexperiences of their different strugglesagainst global neoliberalism. The resulting‘Second Declaration of La Realidad’ helpedto promote the organisation of a secondgathering in Spain last year and theemergence of People’s Global Action, aninternational network of local movementswhich is now campaigning against the plansof global neoliberal institutions such as theWorld Trade Organisation.

The EZLN suspended its participationin the peace talks, again on the orders of the

indigenous Communities, in August 1996when it became clear that the PRI regimewas not taking a serious attitude towardsnegotiation but was simply buying timewhile paramilitary organisations wererecruited, armed and trained under ‘Plan1994’, a Mexican army document publishedin the political weekly Processo in Januarythis year. The document specifically sawthe role of peace talks as a masqueradebehind which the state’s repressive cuttingedge, the ‘plausibly deniable’ paramilitarygroups, would be organised and deployed.The EZLN then set five conditions for thepeace talks to be restarted, the first being theimmediate implementation of the SanAndrés Accords, as revised by theCOCOPA (the all-party CongressionalCommittee For Concord and Pacification)in December 1996. The PRI regime hasrefused to do so as it would ‘underminenational sovereignty’ and lead to the‘balkanisation’ of Mexico. The peaceprocess has not been officially ended bythe government but its actions haveeffectively killed it off. This situation wasacknowledged by Bishop Samuel Ruiz, theformer chair of the independent CONAI(National Intermediary Commission), themain link in the previous dialogue betweenthe EZLN and the government, when heresigned in June following a PRI smearcampaign, so causing the CONAI todissolve itself.

The social and political composition ofthe Zapatistas

January 1 1994 was chosen by the EZLN’sbase support communities as the startingdate for armed rebellion as NAFTA, due tobe implemented on that day, represented alethal threat to their collective way of life,land use and indeed existence. Ex-President

14 Capital & Class #66

A Rainbow at Midnight 15

Salinas’ reform of the Constitution’s Article27, protecting the ejidos (community-ownedcollective lands) from privatization, hadalready opened the floodgates to USagribusiness and Chiapas’ large landownerswho increased their use of guardias blancas(hired guns) to force indigenous com-munities off their lands. The removal of alltrade barriers and forms of protection forthese communities from TNC predators inthe name of ‘joining the first world’ waseffectively a death sentence. The situation ofMexico’s ‘forgotten’ peoples had beenworsening at an even greater rate than therest of the population since the debt crisis of1982, with levels of poverty, disease, infantmortality, and life expectancy worse inChiapas than anywhere else in Mexico.Resistance and organisation by variousautonomous campesino (farmer) andindigenous organisations had also beenincreasing throughout the 1980s. The EZLNslowly emerged over 13 years from theremnants of those organisations whorefused to be bought off or intimidated, ahybrid mixture including ex-Maoistguerrillas with roots in the 1968 studentsmovement, such as the mestizo intellectualSubcomandante Marcos. But its founda-tions have been the indigenous traditionalpractices of the direct participatorydemocracy and the autonomy of thecommunity assembly. One of the EZLN’smain innovations has been the use of thelanguage of storytelling and poetry ratherthan political dogma, as epitomised inMarcos’ stories of Don Durito, Old Antonioand the rebellious child Heriberto. Somecommentators have tried to present Marcosas the ‘leader’ of the EZLN rather than theCCRI (the Rebellious IndigenousClandestine Committee), while others seehim more as a spokesperson, chosen by thecommunities to act as a cultural bridgebetween the indigenous world and that of the

Mexican and international antagonistmovements who have become its allies.While the EZLN is mainly composed of theindigenous Mayan peoples of the state ofChiapas, it is neither a separatist Chiapan-ecan movement nor exclusively indigenousin its composition or demands. It claims toexist throughout Mexico and to be madeup of people from all the main ethnic groupsin Mexico, both from urban and rural areas.

Following the 1994 rebellion it wasdescribed by the Mexican intellectual CarlosFuentes as a ‘post-modern guerrillamovement… the first rebellion of the 21stcentury’, because, in stark contrast withthe rest of Latin America’s ‘focoist’ traditionof armed struggle, it was not interested inthe seizure of state power. Instead, theEZLN’s strategy has been to build a series ofalliances with what they term as ‘organisednational and international civil society’made up in Mexico of social movements,such as the inner city Assemblea de Barrios(Neighbourhood Assemblies), and ElBarzon (The Yoke). The latter is a move-ment of small and medium scale farmers,business people and general debtors such asmortgage holders, whose struggle toreschedule or cancel their debts has helpedto deepen the crisis of the Mexican bankingsector. This sector is itself part of an overalltendency towards fragility among LatinAmerican banking which some economistssee as the Achilles tendon of the globalisa-tion process. The EZLN’s aim is to help toconstruct a network of such movements,both nationally and internationally, againstthe designs of NAFTA in Mexico and ofglobalised neoliberalism in general, sotransforming society ‘from the bottomupwards’ and autonomously from thepolitical and economic institutions of boththe state and the market.

Such an approach necessarily eschewselectoral politics, leading to a sometimes

conflictual relationship with the maincentre-left opposition party, the PRD (Partyof the Democratic Revolution), as well asthe Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyistorganisations and some of the independenttrade unions. Disagreeing with theZapatistas rejection of the state as the site forthe construction of a socialist society, anduneasy with the replacement of the mestizoindustrial worker by the indigenouscampesino as the central figure of the classstruggle, some of these more ‘historical’Left groups have formed a rival front, theFAC-MLN (Broad Front for the Construc-tion of a National Liberation Movement).This is linked to the EPR (PopularRevolutionary Army) guerrilla movementoperating in the states of Guerrero andOaxaca since 1996, with which the EZLNhas declined to develop relations due tothe EPR’s dubious origins2 and stateddesigns on state power. Overall, theMexican Left, after initial enthusiasm for arevival in armed struggle following the 1994rebellion, leading to widespreadparticipation in the CND (NationalDemocratic Convention) and later theMLN (National Liberation Movement),has been deeply divided more recently in itsattitude towards the Zapatistas. This wasreflected in the split in the MLN in 1995which led to the separate formation of theFZLN and the FACMLN in 1996.

The EZLN takes its name and to someextent its ideology from the libertarian,anti-statist element of the 1910-1917Mexican Revolution gathered around thepeasant army led by Emiliano Zapata andthe slogan ‘Land and Freedom!’. It callsitself an army of ‘national liberation’ as itsees Mexico (and not just Chiapas) as anoccupied territory, conquered and pillagedfirst by European colonialism, then post-colonial ‘latifundism’ where economicpolicy was dominated first by the interests

of land-owning and later industrial elites,and now by the interests of the TNCs, withtheir neoliberal project of free trade andfree markets. The EZLN’s use of theMexican flag, its ‘social patriotism’ and itsbreak from the traditions of therevolutionary Left have led to accusations ofpetit-bourgeois nationalism and socialdemocratic reformism by the moredogmatic sections of the internationalradical Left. They have, however, failed tounderstand the EZLN’s concept ofnationhood based on a network ofautonomous communities rather than thehistorically centralised, hierarchical nation-state. Nor do they appreciate the originalityof its strategy for revolutionary trans-formation to a post-capitalist society whichis based not on a vanguardist seizure of thestate and the commanding heights of theeconomy, let alone parliamentary reform-ism, but on an alliance with other grassrootssocial movements, including the Colonos,rural migrant squatters on the peripheryof the main urban centres, the students,gay and women’s movements, and theindependent unions of teachers, electricaland transport workers. The EZLN hasrefused to lead or hegemonize this gatheringnetwork of movements, but instead hassought to struggle side-by-side with them,consulting civil society at every stage in itsnegotiations with the government, alsothrough self-organised referenda on anational scale to hear their opinions andsuggestions for changes in its strategy. Thisstrategy of grassroots autonomousnetworking is an extension and develop-ment of the indigenous practice of directlydemocratic decision-making through thesearch for consensus rather than theimposition of the ‘majority’ on the‘minority’ through voting.

As part of this process the FZLN wasformally constituted in September 1997, at

16 Capital & Class #66

A Rainbow at Midnight 17

the same time as the historical Caravan toMexico City of 1,111 Zapatista delegates,one from each of the Zapatista communitiesin Chiapas. Popular support was re-mobilised and new alliances built withpreviously sceptical popular urbanmovements. The Zapatistas also demon-strated their growing autonomy from theirallies among some sections of the CatholicChurch and the NGOs in Chiapas. At itsfounding congress the FZLN confirmedthat it would not participate in electionsnor could its members belong to politicalparties, leading to further problems withthe PRD over ‘double membership’.Interestingly, the EZLN declined to jointhe FZLN at this stage, preferring to keep itsautonomy also from its civilian comrades.

A further criticism is that the directparticipatory democracy of the indigenouscommunities’ assemblies is a myth, withreal decision-making power remaining inthe hands of traditional elites of villageelders, leaving youth and particularlywomen excluded. However, both youthand women, who make up a majority ofthe officers, are well represented within theranks of the EZLN, which remains at theservice of the communities as part of itsadherence to the principle of mandarobediciendo (leading by following). Theindigenous Zapatista communities havemade huge strides towards a real form ofdirect participatory democracy since 1994,but as with women’s rights, this remainsan ongoing process of consolidation withinthose communities.

The demands of the Zapatistas

During the self-organised referendumcampaign of August 1995 the EZLN putforward 13 demands as the basis for itsstruggle: land, work, food, health, housing,

education, independence, democracy,justice, freedom, culture, access to informa-tion and peace. Four more demands wereadded during the course of the campaign:equal rights for women, security, an endto corruption and protection of theenvironment. However, the three maindemands which it continually asserts inevery public statement as a preconditionto the others are democracy, freedom andjustice.

By democracy, the Zapatistas also meansupport for the immediate transition toparliamentary democracy, with local andnational elections free from fraud andintimidation, signifying the end of the PRI’s70-year one-party-state, even if they do notintend at the moment to participate inelectoral politics. But above all they meanthe application at all levels of society of thedirect participatory democracy of the localassembly, involving collective and inclusivedecision-making based on consensus ratherthan voting. For the Zapatistas, freedommeans autonomy and self-determinationand in the context of Chiapas, indigenousautonomy and self-determination withinthe confines of the Mexican nationalterritory. This desire and need forautonomy implies the right to self-organisesociety according to the needs, customsand practices of the immediate localcommunity, rather than submit to a form ofgovernment formerly imposed by thecentralised nation-state and now by theglobal interests of neoliberal capital. Justiceis synonymous with dignity and respectfor indigenous cultures and ways of life,indeed for all ‘differences’ within Mexico,linking up with the demands of thewomen’s and gay movements. It also meansan end to the impunity of the PRI regime,the punishment of its appalling humanrights abuses and the endemic corruption ofits ‘narco-political’ alliance with business,

military and organised crime elites.Ultimately, justice for the EZLN meanssocial and economic justice in a post-capitalist society.

Economic background to the conflict inChiapas

In Chiapas an increasingly bitter conflictis being fought between the EZLN with its‘support bases’ among the indigenous andmestizo campesinos, and the PRI regimewith its land owners and local caciques(tribal leaders), whose power has nowmutated into the form of paramilitary deathsquad activity. Beneath this conflict lies theclash between two directly counterposedprojects: that of Mexican and internationalneoliberal capital and that of indigenousautonomy. Neoliberalism is keen tointensify its exploitation of Chiapas’strategic reserves of natural, mineral andhuman resources. Chiapas contains one ofthe world’s largest untapped oil fields. Withthe prospect of the privatization of PEMEX,the nationalised oil industry, the oil TNCsare already jockeying for position. Chiapasalso provides 55% of Mexico’s electricityfrom hydroelectric schemes, but 30% ofhomes and 90% of indigenous householdsin the state are without electricity. Chiapashas 30% of Mexico’s total water resourcesbut only 10% of indigenous householdshave running water. The Lacandona Jungle,the Zapatista heartland, is the world’s mostbiodiverse area and pharmaceuticalcompanies such as the UK’s GlaxoWellcome group are positioned to exploitit as the competition between pharma-ceutical companies accelerates overbiogenetic products. Chiapas is also a majoragricultural producer of coffee, corn andcattle. Despite this wealth in naturalresources, 87% of indigenous school

children in 1997 suffered from seconddegree malnutrition, with symptomsincluding stunted growth, as well as 100%of indigenous women over the age of 10(Rovira 1997, p.220).

The local population has considerableland use, animal husbandry and otherenvironmental skills which ‘ecological’capitalism is interested in exploiting.Although neoliberalism’s plans necessarilyinvolve the wholesale depopulation andenclosing of the area, a small minority ofthose with such skills will still be neededto help exploit its natural resources.International Paper, the world’s largestpaper producer, has plans to buy up hugeswathes of the Mexican south-east anddevelop eucalyptus plantations, which willdevastate the soil and environment withina few years, leaving it completely exhausted,as well as necessitating the large scaleremoval of the local population and theirdumping in urban shanty towns. Accordingto the daily newspaper, La Jornada,International Paper’s lobbyist within theMexican government is a close advisor ofPresident Zedillo, playing a key role in hisdecision to renege on the San AndrésAccords. Chiapas is also close to the highlystrategic Isthmus of Tehuantepec, due tobecome the new ‘Panama Canal’ after the1999 handback, with Japanese and SaudiArabian money already invested indeveloping high speed rail and motorwaylinks between two major port develop-ments. Together with oil-rich Tabasco andOaxaca, Chiapas will form one of the fourmain ‘corridors of development’ plannedby Clinton and Zedillo’s technocrats toslash across Mexico on a north-east/south-west axis, so forming areas of intenselypopulated and deregulated urban sprawlwhere the maquiladora factory and thesecond cheapest labour supply in the worldwill form the productive base, as a more

18 Capital & Class #66

A Rainbow at Midnight 19

efficient outlet to the Pacific Rim marketsfor the north-east seaboard industries ofthe USA than the West Coast.

Against this macro-project of neoliberalexpansion and human and environmentaldevastation, is the project of autonomy ofthe indigenous peoples of Chiapas and therest of Mexico. The need for autonomyfrom NAFTA was the driving force behindthe January 1994 rebellion which in turneventually lead to the signing of the SanAndrés Accords in February 1996.

The San Andrés Accords on IndigenousRights and Culture

The importance of the Accords lies almostas much in the consultative and partici-patory process of their negotiation andformulation as in their contents. Some 500representatives of Mexico’s 32 indigenouspeoples and from 178 indigenous organisa-tions were invited by the EZLN and PRIgovernment negotiators to a NationalIndigenous Forum in San Cristobal de LasCasas in January 1996. Regional indigenousforums took place throughout the countrysimultaneously. The EZLN adopted thedemands of these forums as their own,leading to the signing of the accords withthe government a month later. The Accordscall for ‘a new relationship between TheState and the indigenous peoples’, includingthe recognition of indigenous rights andautonomy as defined in Convention 169of the International Labour Organisation.The Accords necessitate the remunicipal-isation of indigenous regions, the freedetermination of the indigenous peoples,the promotion and protection of indige-nous cultures and customs, the promotionof bilingual and culturally aware education,the creation of autonomous indigenousmass media, including radio and TV

stations, and the rights of indigenouswomen to hold positions of authority andto have equality with men at all levels ofgovernment. Most crucially, they demandthe direct control and use of the naturalresources on and beneath indigenous lands.This demand represents a direct threat toneoliberal designs to expropriate andexploit the natural and human resourcesof these areas for the interests of the TNCsand international investors, a far moreradical form of autonomy than that whichalready exists in some states such as Oaxaca,which would break up and possibly renderimpossible the realisation of the planned‘corridors of development’. As such theAccords represent a revolutionaryprecedent which other non-indigenousgroups and movements might well beinspired to take up in the struggle for theirown kinds of autonomy.

Women’s struggles against NAFTA

Ironically, while the feminist movementis relatively weak in contemporaryMexico, women’s participation in bothurban and rural social movements againstneoliberalism has never been higher, asthey struggle to end their invisible,isolated status within Mexican society, asituation even more exacerbated forindigenous women, who have become thevery symbols of popular resistance toNAFTA and the PRI regime. Followingthe implementation of NAFTA in January1994, many small and medium scalebusinesses closed, unable to compete withUS and Canadian TNCs, resulting in amassive growth in unemployment. Manywomen were forced into the sex industriesand other branches of the ‘informal’economy in order for them and theirchildren to survive, where there are no

workers rights or social welfare such asmaternity leave and where insecurity istotal. Furthermore, the level of illiteracyamong indigenous women is 86% andmalnutrition and homelessness are rife(Rovira 1997: 220). The response of poor,working class and indigenous women tothis direct attack on their living condi-tions has been to join or form their ownmovements and co-operatives of ex-maquiladora workers where often womenare in the majority. Two of the mainexamples where women are fighting backagainst neoliberalism can be found in theAssemblea de Barrios and the CUT, two ofthe main urban social movements. Theformer emerged as a result of governmentinaction and corruption following the1985 earthquake in Mexico City which leftat least 10,000 dead and millionshomeless, a date which in many waysmarked the resurgence of the popularmovements after the repression of the1970s. The CUT (United Community ofTepotzlan), a popular movement whichtook control in 1995 of a small town nearMexico City to stop developers building agolf course on sacred ground anddepriving the community of its waterresources, has seen women participate inan experience of the self-management ofa community which has resisted armedpolice incursions for three years.

However, the most important exampleof women’s participation in an antagonistmovement are the Zapatistas of the EZLNand FZLN, who represent the constitutionof a new way of doing politics, startingfrom the feelings and practices of women:‘The awakening to fight against the presentand the past which threatens them(women) as a probable future’(Comandante Ramona). An InternationalWomen’s Day march in San Cristobal in1996 was the first ever by indigenous

women. The Women’s RevolutionaryLaws, drawn up by the women of all theZapatista communities in Chiapas,guarantee women the right to marrywhoever they wanted to or not at all (amajor break with both indigenous andrural traditions), to speak publicly inassemblies, to study and to own land.Despite patriarchal resistance within theircommunities, indigenous women havebecome the protagonists of the Zapatistamovement, involved in squatting land,occupying PRI-controlled town halls,motorway blockades and marches forpeace. They have been particularly activethis year in leading the resistance to theattacks on Zapatista communities by theMexican Army since the Acteal massacre,driving out soldiers with their bare hands.Some have been killed or wounded inconfrontations with the security forceswho regularly use gunfire againstdemonstrations. While men are forced toflee into the mountains when theircommunities are attacked, women haveinsisted on staying to maintain their co-operatives and keep their communitiesalive, resisting the army and paramilitarygroups’ rule of terror, as is happening inTaniperlas and other autonomousmunicipalities which the PRI regime isattempting to dismantle. Ultimately,indigenous women’s protagonism in theZapatista rebellion has led them toexamine their lives and decide whichcustoms are worth keeping and whichrights need to be recuperated. They havedemanded that public meetings andassembles be no longer held in Spanishwhich effectively excluded them fromparticipating in community decision-making as only men tend to speak it. Forthe same reasons they have also demandedthat the Women’s Revolutionary Laws betranslated into indigenous languages.

20 Capital & Class #66

A Rainbow at Midnight 21

1. ‘Ethical foreign policy in tatters’, TheGuardian, 24 June 1998: 1.

2. One of the 14 armed groups that collectivelyform the EPR is the PROCUP, whose origins liein the Partido de los Pobres, founded by the

guerrilla leader Lucio Cabañas in Guerrero in1967, but often suspected, following his death,of being infiltrated and used by the PRI toassassinate Leftists.

Conclusion

Notwithstanding its arrogant impunity andcynical provocations, the PRI regimeremains divided and in crisis, a liabilityand embarrassment to its ‘ethical’ neoliberalmasters, its increasing violence a sign that ithas lost control of the political mechanismsof consent which it once so skillfullymanipulated. Its strategy of state terror hasalso begun to backfire. Some of the‘dismantled’ autonomous municipalitieshave refounded themselves, despite thethousands killed, wounded, imprisoned ordriven into starvation in the mountains ora reign of terror in the refugee camps.President Zedillo is again coming underincreasing internal and external pressure,with a significant demonstration in MexicoCity on June 18 demanding demilitar-isation, the release of the Zapatista prisonersand the implementation of the San AndrésAccords. An international campaign hasbeen started to ensure that for every foreignobserver deported 10 will take their place(with a free trip home guaranteed). Even the

US Secretary of State, Madelaine Albright,has had to publicly lie that US arms willnot be used for internal repression inMexico. The Mexican economy remainsin crisis following the Peso Crash of 1994,unemployment and poverty continue togrow and the Zedillo presidency is rapidlybecoming the most hated in recent history,with the presidential elections in 2000looming and victory for CuahtemocCardenas, the likely PRD candidate,increasingly possible. But what will probablydetermine whether or not the Zapatistasoutlive the PRI regime is their relation ofinterdependence with a significant sectionof international civil society, those whoneeded the inspiration of the Zapatistas’struggle and ideas to emerge from 20 yearsof defeat and begin to construct new formsof globalised political collective action. Nowthey must once again remobilise globally toput maximum pressure on the PRI regimeand its US and EU backers, not out of‘solidarity’ with the EZLN but as an integralpart of their own struggle for autonomyfrom neoliberalism.

Acknowledgement

Notes

We would like to acknowledge that much ofthe information and opinions in this article,particularly concerning the neoliberal plansfor ‘corridors of development’ and on thepolitical impact of the September 1997Caravan of 1,111 Zapatistas, derive from anunpublished interview carried out by one of

the authors in December 1997 with Dr.Andres Bareda, an Economics lecturer andresearcher at the National AutonomousUniversity (UNAM) in Mexico City, a formeradvisor to the EZLN in their negotiations withthe Mexican government and a regularcontributor to the political journal, Chiapas.

References

Bareda A. (1997a) ‘Corredores estrategicosnorteamericanos a través de México’ in LaJornada, 17 November.

__________ (1997b) La sublevacion de Chiapas enla lucha mundial por valores de uso anticapital-istas. Unpublished article. Mexico City.

Barkin, D., I. Ortiz and F. Rosen (1997) ‘Global-isation and Resistance: The Remaking ofMexico’ in NACLA: Report on the Americas,Vol 30, No 4: 14-27.

Bonfil Batalla, G. (1989) Mexico Profundo: UnaCivilizacion Negada. Grijalbo, Mexico City:

Cleaver, H. (1994) ‘The Chiapas Uprising and theFuture of Class Struggle’ in Common Sense15: 5-17.

Esteva, G. (1997) ‘The Zapatistas and CurrentPolitical Struggle’. Unpublished paper given atthe Second Intercontinental Gathering forHumanity and Against Neoliberalism, Spain,July 1997.

Esther Cecena, A.(1997) ‘Cómo ve Europa a losZapatistas’ in Chiapas 4: 111-134.

EZLN (1997) Cronicas intergalacticas: PrimerEncuentro Intercontinental por la Humanidady contra el Neoliberalism - Chiapas, Mexico,1996. Mexico City. ISBN: 9709179500.

Garcia de Leon, A., E. Poniatowska and C.Monsivais (eds)(1994) EZLN: Documentos yComunicados, 1 de enero / 8 de agosto de 1994.Ediciones Era, Mexico City:

Garcia de Leon, A., and C. Monsivais (eds)(1995)EZLN: Documentos y Comunicados 2, 15 deagosto de 1994 / 29 de septiembre de 1995.Ediciones Era, Mexico City:

Holloway, J. (1997) ‘Dignity and the Zapatistas’in Common Sense 22: 38-42.

Katerina (1997) ‘Mexico is Not Only Chiapas, Noris the Rebellion in Chiapas Merely a MexicanAffair‘ in Common Sense 22: 5-37.

La Jornada (1994) Chiapas - El alzamiento. LaJornada Ediciones, Mexico City:

Rovira, G.(1997) Mujeres de Maiz. La JornadaEdiciones, Mexico City.

Various authors (1996) Crisis económica, políticay militar actual 1996. Taller de análisis sobreChiapas. Mexico City.

Newspapers, Magazines & Journals:ChiapasEl Viento del SurLa GuillotinaLa JornadaLas BrujasProcesso

Internet:EZLN website: http://www.ezln.orgEnlace Civil website: http://www.laneta.apc.org/enlacecivilUK Zapatista Challenge website: http://www.acephale.org/encuentro

22 Capital & Class #66