AND WITH THE INDIANS, WHAT NOW?
Five hundred years of struggle and hope
Theme III. El Indiano, Spain July 26 - August 3, 1997
by Guillermo Michel Grupo Rosario Castellanos Mexico
ABSTRACT
Throughout this paper I intend to show that the more than 500
years struggle of the Mexican Indians, not only constitutes a
paradigm of today's battles against neo-liberalism, but is also part
of it, since the Indians are us and their dignity -in whose defense
they took up arms in Chiapas- is also the reason of our existence.
Consequently we shall have to discover that "peace means respect for
Indian rights" This peace, however, is systematically threatened by
the low intensity war that Mexico is experiencing.
Paper presented at the II Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity
and against Neo-liberalism Theme III. El Indiano, Spain July 26 -
August 3, 1997
AND WITH THE INDIANS, WHAT NOW?
Five hundred years of struggle and hope
Guillermo Michel
Come to be born with me, brother Give me your hand from the
profound zone of your disseminated pain. You shall not return from
the rocks' depths You shall not return from subterranean time Your
hardened voice shall not return Your pierced through eyes shall not
return....
Give me the silence, the water, the hope. Pablo Neruda
Invisible presence of a bleeding wound And with the Indians, what
now? Once and once again in recent years we have asked ourselves this
lacerating question. And today, we should ask it once again, not
without tears in our eyes and our heart a weeping sea. The question
itself places us afar, it makes us distant. They, the Indians, are
not us. It is they who are strange, they who are the strangers... A
latent racism, invisible and frequently unconscious, has marked our
relationship to them throughout the centuries. We have ignored our
Indian roots, the scent of our Indian blood, even the color of our
skin. They, on the contrary, have lived over 500 years of resistance.
They have resisted, among other things, social exclusion, hostility,
aggression and social rejection; they have resisted the slow genocide
and the chronic malnutrition that makes them even more vulnerable to
disease. They have resisted merciless exploitation, misery, the
pillage of their lands and riches. They have resisted the attempt at
dispossessing them of their culture, the "Indian" policies directed
to undermine their customs, their language and their traditions, in
actions justified by the "need" to "castillianize" them, to "civilize
them", to make of them people "of reason". They have resisted
mockery, disdain and indifference, first from the Spanish
conquerors, then from the criollos and mestizos, now from the urban
white. And yet, after over five hundred years of resistance they are
still here, among us. They had to take up arms so that we could see
their Face, a covered face, yes, a face somehow disfigured, but,
ultimately, their Face. Nevertheless, we still cannot see it
clearly, it seems to us as if it were submerged in a fog, as a
phantasmagoric presence. In fact, our not seeing their face takes
such dimensions, that we do not see them when we look at ourselves in
the mirror and we do not see ourselves in the mirror of us that is
them turned into street peddlers, tamemes, loaders, peons, gardeners
or the perpetually unemployed. They continue to be strange,
strangers, "distant neighbors". This insoluble difference that
nevertheless shows our essential unity and equality -so much more
equal when most different- is what neoliberalism denies and ignores,
capable only, at its best, of seeing in every one of you/we/them an
object of exploitation, that can be discarded, thrown to the social
garbage can, to the ignominy of misery, to the shame of unemployment.
For this reason it refuses to believe that the rebellious Indians
-tzotziles, tojolabales, tzeltales and choles- took up arms to
defend something so intangible that we have forgotten to defend it
with the same passion, with the same "tender fury": their dignity.
Their dignity that is also ours, and our dignity that is also theirs,
since "behind us, there are you", as Major Ana Maria expressed at the
opening of the I Encounter For Humanity and Against Neoliberalism:
"Behind our black face, behind our armed voice, behind our
unnamable name, behind the us that you see, behind (all this) are
you, behind are the same simple and ordinary men and women repeated
in every race, painted in all the colors, speaking all the languages
and living in all the places" "The same forgotten women and men
the same excluded ones
the same untolerated ones
the same persecuted ones.
We are the same you. Behind us are you" ("Cronicas
Intergalacticas": 25).
This acknowledgment of our common humanity, of our same struggle
against the power of money, so dear to the neo-liberal modernity, is
what has allowed their invisible presence to become more present,
more ours. And even more, when through the words of the same Major
Ana Maria we hear:
"Behind our masks is the face of every excluded woman. Of all the
forgotten Indians. Of all homosexuals. Of all the despised youth. Of
all beaten migrants. Of all humiliated workers. Of all who are dead
from oblivion. Of all the simple and ordinary men and women that do
not count, who are not seen, who are not named, who have no tomorrow"
(Ibid: 25-26).
In this way, the tzotzil, tzeltal, tojolabal and chol Indians take
upon themselves everyone's battles. In doing so, making our demands
become their demands ancestral and present, the question: what with
the Indians? should rather be turned into: what with us? Because
their face is also our face and our face is theirs. Therefore, the
important issue does not concern either the restoration of Indian
policies so that they can become like us, nor the need to return to
what Aguirre Beltran called "regions for refuge" so that we become
like them. It concerns the creation of a network of struggles, a
network where their presence is effective, tangible, fraternal, and
solidary. Above all, it concerns the launching of a common struggle
with them, to make their dignity shine in a country and a world where
liberty, justice and democracy do not have to be seized from power
through fire and blood, in daily fights leaving victims by the
thousands, but can be the expression of our own life, to make reality
be what the voice of the mountain spoke, "... saying that true men
and women would live free when they become the all promised by the
five pointed star. When the five peoples become one in the star. When
the five parts of man who is world find each other and find the
other. When the all that are five find their place and the place of
the other" (Ibid: 27)
To fulfill the prophetic voice of the mountain, the diversity of
roads of each and every one of us shall have to converge into a
single ample path, where the struggle that the Indians have launched
in our name, defending peace with dignity for all, becomes our
struggle too.
"Zapata lives... the struggle continues"
The images of the Indians, especially the photographs, appearing
in several media since the onset of the rebellion for dignity and
peace, cannot be more eloquent. In those days of January 1994,
bloodied, shot down bodies, with eyes lost in the void, inert,
massacred. The sequences transmitted by TV, direct and live, set
before our eyes the facts of war... And what with the Indians?, we
start to ask ourselves. Who is, who are, behind them? Bah! exclaimed
some with disdain, do you really think that they are truly Indians?
In those days, for those who ignored the Votan-Zapata myth, it
seemed impossible that those Indians, always depicted as submissive,
condescending and even servile, were now exclaiming Enough! (Ya
basta!) at the top of their voice. And were facing the Mexican army,
with their weapons so poor and scarce, asking for the resignation of
the president-usurper, invoking article 39 to apply and implement a
legality based in our Constitution (EZLN, 1994:34). The First
Declaration of the Sierra Lacandona contained their first demands for
the respect of their secularly denied rights. The basic rights. They
do not want yachts nor mansions in Dublin or New York, nor thousands
of steer. They ask for the essential. "Dictators -they say- have for
a very long time been applying a genocidal and undeclared war against
our peoples; for this reason we ask for your decided participation in
the support of this plan of the Mexican people fighting for work,
land, housing, food, health, education, independence, liberty,
democracy, justice and peace..." (Ibid: 35)
Three and a half years later, the same political system has not
only refused to accept that zapatistas have the right to live, but
even their promises and commitments signed by their representatives
have been violated by them, a fact which states that the Zapatistas'
opponents only make false promises. And if we need to find motives
for indignation, it suffices to take a quick look at what is going on
today in the North of Chiapas, in the Loxichas, Oaxaca, and in La
Monta~a, Guerrero, to realize what has been happening in recent
months, and confirm that the true criminals -the genocidal groups,
the white guards, the military and paramilitary groups, their
advisors and their bosses-, harass, threaten, displace, dispossess,
murder... and still remain unpunished. So, what with the Indians?
What with us?
Let us examine briefly only a few facts which occurred during the
last days of May, and were published in "La Jornada":
May 24: "Intensified terror in Oaxaca..., 62 Oaxacan Indians have
been detained to date and two more have been sacrificed... Since the
guerrilla appeared in Oaxaca -added the article- the citizens' human
and constitutional rights have been suspended and there has been a
constant and brutal repression imposed upon the Indians of the
Loxicha region by the "caciques" or political bosses, who are
unconditionally allied to the PRI (the official Institutionalized
Revolution Party), with the help of the white guards, the army and
the police. " In the meantime, surrounded by the military, San Pedro
de Michoacan, Chiapas, changes authorities". They are standing,
resisting.
May 25: Blood in La Monta~a: "The military and the ERP
(Revolutionary Army of People) clash in Guerrero. Two dead on each
side." According to the official bulletin, the military were
ambushed... The persecution against the ("alleged") aggressors
started immediately.
From Tepic, Nayarit, the FAC-MLN (Ample Front for the Construction
of the National Liberation Movement) denounced that at the same time
that "the federal government intensifies the militarization in states
such as Guerrero, Chiapas, Hidalgo, Veracruz and Oaxaca, the number
of white guards and paramilitary groups is increasing and with them
assassinations, disappearances and imprisonment... At present in
Mexico there are over 200 political prisoners ... and in places like
Chiapas and las Huastecas (in Veracruz, Hidalgo and San Luis Potosi)
on the one hand the number of military is growing and, on the other,
caciques and large landowners are being protected, through an
increase of the number of their white guards and paramilitary
forces."
May 26: El Financiero informs that since yesterday, the SEDENA
(Defense Ministry) has ordered a massive army mobilization in
Guerrero. It is estimated that there are some 45 thousand soldiers
searching for alleged or true ERP members. Nevertheless, many of
those captured, tortured, hounded and disappeared are quite
frequently the region's social leaders or poorest peasants ... "La
Jornada" in turn informs that "PRI sympathizers kidnapped three
tzotzil Indians of the Puebla settlement and threatened to murder
them ... by orders of Chenalho's municipal major."
May 27: During the International Congress on Indian Rights,
Rodolfo Stavenhagen denounced the persistent selective repression
against Indians. From Polho, Chenalho, Chiapas, Ïthe municipal,
autonomous council of this place informed that a civilian Zapatista
died and two more were wounded by bullets when ambushed by militant
priistas (members of the official party) at the community of Union
Yeshemel...
Furthermore, hundreds of Indians (tzotziles), belonging to the
EZLN base of support, had to leave their locations because of priista
threats..."
May 28: "New EPR attack in Atoyac, Guerrero. Five dead. The
victims: three military and two "aggressors". Six villages surrounded
by the military... People of the area informed hearing a shootout,
and shortly thereafter they were surrounded by military forces which
had mobilized around at least six communities. Two military planes
and an armed helicopter overflew the area in search of the
attackers, without results... At the Sierra of Guerrero, there is a
persistent whispering: "we are at wari. "In Polho, Chiapas, the
autonomous Municipal Council stated with certainty: "last Saturday's
shootout (May 24) was provoked by priista sympathizers to justify the
entrance of army and police forces, intending to gain terrain to
more effectively surround the Zapatistas and to force them to give
up arms and vote for the PRI".
Several NGOs (Non-Government-Organizations) denounced that in
Guerrero and Chihuahua freedom of expression , travel, gathering and,
especially, freedom of the press rights are being violated : "These
are actions violating Mexican Constitutional Rights."
* May 29: "Emergency security plan in Guerrero: More military and
federal police arrived. Vigilance over strategic points. In Atoyac,
the army traces the EPR command by means of air and land
surveillance, elite batallions, light tanks and other armed vehicles
in the area. The military siege of communities continues" (state of
siege?)... And, more to the north, a new increase of the police corps
is announced with the presence of the Beta group that shall operate
in Mexicali, starting next August. This new group will serve, it is
stated, "as migrant protection."
May 30: Troops from Acapulco and Atoyac extend their siege to the
Filo Mayor region: the rounds of military vehicles carrying dozens of
soldiers surprised the communities of Rincon de las Parotas, San
Andres, Santiago de la Union and San Vicente de Benitez".
In the meantime, Tepetixtla and Atoyac peasants declared
themselves in peaceful civil resistance, due to the prevailing
climate of insecurity and the support to caciques and white guards
which is increasingly fostering violence: "there have been more than
30 people assassinated, besides the 17 from Aguas Blancas..."
And from the capital city, during the International Congress of
Indian Rights, Luis Fernando Sarango, Quechua leader, warns that "The
lack of respect for Indian rights is a time bomb: The Indian people
(of this continent) call for a new time of refoundation, of
reconstitution of the State..."
May 31: At the closing of the International Congress of Indian
Rights, the OIT (the UN International Labor Organization: ILO) warns
that: "The Mexican government must comply with the Pact of San Andres
(since) the San Andres Agreements correspond, both in their substance
and form, to the contents established by ILO agreement 169...,
( (that establishes): the definition of peoples and the
recognition of their autonomy as a constitutional guarantee of these
people and their communities, and of the exercise of their right to
their free auto-determination in the territories they now occupy..."
Nevertheless, contrary to what could be expected, as denounced by
the Human Rights Center Fray Bartolome de las Casas, "the major of
Chenalho incites to confrontations among Indians..." The Center also
informed that Yashemel priistas -having taken refuge in the Puebla
ejido-, "have threatened our 534 comrades that they will not be
allowed to return to their community...". To further complicate the
situation that prevails in the North of Chiapas, at Venustiano
Carranza "four new police posts have been established...
Approximately 500 soldiers of the State's Public Security and
Judicial Police corps have established themselves permanently (since
April 21). This situation has strengthened the paramilitary groups,
mainly the one called Fuerzas Armadas del Pueblo".
In the meantime accusations have been pouring in about robberies,
torture and abuses perpetrated by the military at Temazcalcingo,
municipality of Olinal·. During the last few days, two peasants have
disappeared and one more was detained by the army at the Sierra of
Atoyac. Furthermore, "many children have been interrogated by the
military".
Tree of hope, stand firm
The overwhelming evidence arriving day by day, notwithstanding the
information siege and the conspiracy of silence, points to the
growing militarization throughout the country. From north to south,
from east to west, there is a growing number of military and police
force effectives, continuously establishing new posts, subjecting
the population to a great many more surveillance points, provoking
fear and insecurity, supporting and training paramilitary
groups,violating the peoples constitutional guarantees, among others,
that of free transit.
Consequently, what has come to be called Ïthe transition to
democracy" is no more than a veil of smoke covering up the true
nature of a rotten regime which, in order to remain standing, must
support itself on bayonets, armed vehicles, helicopters (Huey?) and
airplanes.
Paradoxically, instead of attaining the pacification of the areas
in conflict, this State the violence promoted by this State terrorism
only worsens the prevailing climate of violence.
The account presented here as "a small chronicle of infamy" is no
more than a weak reflection of the pain, the oppression, the
suffering that is being imposed upon millions of Indians and peasants
in Mexico. The 7 day trip (May 24-31) on which the written press
-less unfaithful than electronic media- has taken us through some
regions, shows us a country where political decadence is truly
palpable. We can see that caciquismo, closely linked to white guards
and paramilitary groups, is pouring terror, destruction and death
under the protection of the army and different police corps.
Thus, we are confronted to what the Human Rights Center Fray
Bartolome de las Casas, based on solid documentation, has so
precisely called "a low intensity war" (LIW). Their well documented
report, titled "Neither Peace nor Justice", proves that what is
happening in Chiapas (and in many other parts of the country as we
could see in our trip) "corresponds to a global contra-insurgency
strategy carried out at different levels: military, economic and
psychological, and implemented by means of a low intensity war
developed on three fronts: military, social institutions, and public
opinion..." (1996:156). It is important to underline that the
relevant issue is this global strategy and that the actions and
decisions that day by day are being carried out in different areas
of the country, should be considered as elements of such a strategy.
They are not thoughtless or isolated actions, nor timely responses to
unexpected situations. On the contrary, unexpected situations are
used to justify the application of this global strategy on different
settings and -according to the statements of many who profit from
political power- are directed to "re-establish order", meaning the
re-establishment of the same structural violence masked as "social
peace" and veiling the facts of caciquismo, as well as the spoilage,
the repression of those who do not conform, the daily deaths due to
hunger or curable diseases, the torture and persecution of social
opposition leaders, among many other apparently imperceptible
phenomena.
From these conditions, we could very well infer, without fear of
error, that civilian authorities are no more than the operators of
the tactics and strategies dictated by the military command. And
being so, we would be living in conditions similar to those of Peru,
where the Fujimori regime is subordinated to the military. In the
case of Mexico this cannot be thoroughly demonstrated; nevertheless,
a detailed examination of the systematic violations of human rights,
not only in Chiapas but in many other states in the country, would
make it possible to prove that both, army and police, enjoy the
highest degree of impunity and are responsible for the overwhelming
majority of victims. Consequently, a low intensity war operates as
the global strategy applied throughout the country, considering the
three fronts theory as summarized by the "Neither Peace nor Justice"
report.
On the military front: "The application of the LIW (low intensity
war) has produced the following, in both the military and the
external civilian institutions: A. The formation of elite corps. B.
Special Commands. C. High performance groups and/or rapid
displacement forces... The creation of rapid displacements units,
according to Pentagon reports, are already a fact in Mexico and are
operating in Chiapas. A secret Pentagon report reveals that the
Mexican army acquired Condor spy airplanes to observe and localize
enemy troops..." (1996:159)
On the second front -that of civilian auxiliaries- the purpose is
to develop "a program of non-military content, such as humanitarian
aid, social assistance, etc. An economic project is indispensable to
the counter-insurgency scheme. It is part of the strategy of
"contention" and "reduction" of the rebels..." (1996:164). The ones
supposed to carry out the productive projects to "solve" problems are
civilians, and it is civilians who announce "millionaire
investments", "national financial programs for development" (whatever
that means), "the end of the agrarian development delays", "the
reconciliation of the parties in conflict", "the peaceful return of
the displaced", and other such niceties.
Finally, on the third front, called of public opinion, the purpose
is to disseminate information that is nothing more than deformed,
minimized, veiled and manipulated versions of what really occurs.
"This LIW front has been acting in Chiapas for some time oscillating
between strength and clumsiness. National public opinion is being
indiscriminately bombarded with lies mixed with partial truths. The
purpose is to harass the public, make them divert their concept of
reality and distort the role of the actors that do not participate as
allies of the State's strategy" (Ibid:165)
Thus the State succeeds in obtaining the company of the fourth
power in its counter-information or manipulative-information battle,
violating the constitutional right to information. Nevertheless, in
spite of the censorship and restrictions imposed by the LIW's global
strategy, a careful reading of the written press (not the electronic
media) allows us to visualize processes such as the one revealing
itself so clearly in this account. This means that behind the so
called transition to democracy or democratization process, what is
being implemented throughout the country is a process of growing
militarization, parallel to the evident clumsiness at undertaking
peaceful solutions to the acute problems that the population is
experiencing. Furthermore, the cost of maintaining real occupation
armies in Chiapas or Guerrero could partly alleviate the tremendous
wants of those who have been or have fallen into the claws of
extreme poverty.
The scenario depicted above allows us a glimpse at the dark
horizon marking the process of pacification in Chiapas, Guerrero and
Oaxaca. The non-compliance of the San Andres Agreements implies, once
again, not only the governmentÌs treason and breach of its own
word signed on February 16, 1996, but the threat of extermination for
rebel Indians, dissident peasants and, in general, all of the
country's poor. The Zedillo administration has refused to recommence
peace talks, notwithstanding its declarations to the contrary and
well ornamented scenario.
Recently, in spite of the IOL (International Organization of
Labor) demands for the respect of Indian peoples rights, as according
to the commitment accepted by the Mexican government, there is an
intensification of the Ïdirty war", perhaps hoping that the EZLN
will respond to the systematic provocation. of the paramilitary
groups and so justify the genocide before public opinion. For this
reason regarding the question: what with the Indians?, we cannot
evade our historical responsibility of making genocide impossible.
Consequently, here again the second question: what with us? What will
we do to accompany the Indians in their fight for their rights, that
are also ours? How will we attain the modification of the
StateÌs repression policies, and undertake the transition to
democracy with justice and liberty? If behind us are you, how can we
make visible the Indian Face of all of us, in a country where the
Indians have stood up to defend the most valuable good of our
bodies, that is, dignity? If we truly believe that peace is the
respect of Indian rights, what actions should we undertake to stop
the systematic violation of Indian rights? I ask these questions
because, evidently, I do not have the answers and maybe we can find
them between all of us. That is, at least, my hope.
June, 1997
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CDHFBLC . "Neither Peace nor Justice" (General report of the civil
war being suffered by the choles of the North of Chiapas are
suffering: December 1994 to October 1996). Centro de Derechos Humanos
Fray Bartolome de las Casas, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas,
octubre, 1996.
"EZLN. Documentos y comunicados" (1), ERA, Mexico, 1994.
"EZLN. Cronicas Intergalacticas: Memorias del I Encuentro
Intercontinental por la Humanidad y Contra el Neo-liberalismo",
Edicion privada, Mexico, 1996.