MEXICO: EZLN to Hold Continental Meeting against Neoliberalism

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Apr 2 1996 (IPS) - More than 250 human rights activists, politicians, artists, intellectuals, union and indigenous leaders from throughout the continent have been invited by Mexico’s Zapatista rebels to participate in a 6-day meeting against neoliberalism.

The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) sees the Continental Meeting for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism as the seed for a new international political movement.

From Apr. 3-8, public figures from throughout the hemisphere will meet in a small village, La Realidad, in the jungles of the southeastern state of Chiapas, said Paulina Fernandez, spokeswoman for the meeting’s organising committee.

In a letter signed by EZLN leader “subcomandante Marcos”, the rebels invited Uruguayan writers Eduardo Galeano and Mario Benedetti, U.S. linguist Noam Chomsky, and film directors Francis Ford Coppola and Oliver Stone.

Also invited were U.S. actors and actresses Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Jane Fonda and Jodie Foster, Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa and Cuban singer-songwriters Pablo Milanes and Silvio Rodriguez, among others.

During the meeting, the social, economic, political and cultural impact of the neoliberal model will be discussed. The goal is to come up with a regional position to be presented at an intercontinental meeting set for August in Chiapas.

In January, the EZLN, a largely indigenous movement that has been involved in peace talks with the government since 1995, called on its sympathisers throughout the world to organise regional meetings against neoliberalism in Germany, Australia, Mexico, Japan and some (unspecified) area of Africa between April and July.

The goal is the creation of a broad international movement that would encourage political change and define alternative routes towards overcoming poverty, injustice and the problem of the growing underclass in the world, the Zapatistas said.

Fernandez, the organising committee’s spokeswoman, said the government of President Ernesto Zedillo is obligated by law to allow all Mexicans and foreign nationals who wish to participate in the meeting to travel to the village of La Realidad.

She said that in order to avoid problems, those who have been invited – the names of the majority of whom have not been revealed – will be given a pamphlet in English and Spanish that details the civil rights guaranteed by the Mexican State, and provides the telephone numbers of several local and foreign human rights organisations.

“The indigenous people of Chiapas are offering the people of the Americas the opportunity today to exchange knowledge and experiences, the possibility for everyone to understand what it is like to live under neoliberalism in each country, and also how to fight against it,” the letter of invitation states.

According to the organisers, more than 50 Mexican and foreign journalists have been accredited to attend the conference.

Guests have been recommended to bring tents, sleeping bags, food, bug repellent and flashlights. La Realidad is a small jungle village without electricity, potable water or telephones.