POLITICS-MEXICO: Zapatistas Bid Zedillo a Mocking Farewell

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Nov 30 2000 (IPS) - After five months of silence, Mexico’s Zapatista rebels have spoken, marking President Ernesto Zedillo’s departure from office with a jeering announcement that they will ensure that “tomorrow will thrive,” in allusion to the new government of Vicente Fox, who takes office Friday.

“The nightmare with you ends today,” said guerrilla leader Sub-Commander Marcos to Zedillo, the final president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) 71-year rule, who yields the presidency to Fox, of the centre-right National Action Party (PAN).

As far as the southern state of Chiapas, Zedillo’s six-year term was spent dealing with armed conflict, massacres of indigenous peoples, tensions with religious and non-governmental groups, massive military deployments in the guerrilla-held areas, the upsurge of right-wing paramilitary groups – and barely a hint of peace.

According to the outgoing government’s commissioner in charge of Chiapas negotiations, Emilio Rabasa, the National Zapatista Liberation Army (EZLN) was defeated during Zedillo’s term, but he did not explain in what way the rebels had been vanquished.

“For us the nightmare with you (Zedillo) ends today. Another may begin or the sun may rise at last, we do not know. We will do everything possible so that tomorrow will thrive,” wrote Marcos, leader of the EZLN, a group of at least 10,000 rebels, mostly poorly armed indigenous peoples.

The rebel leader, who Zedillo attempted to have arrested in 1995, just days after sending an emissary to attempt to launch peace talks, convened a press conference for Saturday, Dec 2, in the middle of guerrilla territory, to explain the EZLN’s position on the new government.

Marcos’ statements are likely to attract some of the media spotlights to Chiapas, away from Fox’s inauguration ceremony Friday, and observers point out that the declaration is an indication that the rebels would accept the new president’s call to relaunch the now-paralysed peace dialogue.

“We are going to be hanging on every word” of the EZLN, said José Luis Durán, the new communications secretary of the Interior Ministry, in statements Thursday.

Chiapas and the EZLN are a top priority for the incoming government, declared Adolfo Aguilar, an academic and former independent senator who Fox named as chief of the newly created National Security Council.

The president-elect made the offer to the EZLN to withdraw the army troops from the zone of conflict, to accept the legislative bill on indigenous rights drafted based on the only peace accords signed in Chiapas, in 1996, and to hold a personal meeting with Marcos, if deemed necessary.

President Zedillo, in contrast, had refused to fulfil such promises, and even considered them “dangerous” for the country.

In addition to Fox’s presidential inauguration Friday, on Dec 8, Pablo Salazar, a PRI rival with ties to the EZLN, will take office as governor of Chiapas state.

As his adviser for the conflict in the impoverished southern state, Fox named Luis Alvares, a former lawmaker who won the guerrillas’ respect when he served on a legislative commission that advocated for peace in Chiapas.

Welcome to the nightmare, the Zapatistas said to Zedillo six years ago. Thursday, the last day of his presidency, the rebels mirrored that statement, saying Zedillo’s administration was “a long nightmare for millions of Mexicans.”

Before taking office, and in his first weeks in the presidency, Zedillo had maintained written communication with Marcos, but in February 1995, after accusing the guerrilla leader of being a liar, he called a halt to the correspondence.

According to the president, Marcos’ true name is Rafael Sebastián Guillén, a former university professor whose only intention is to manipulate the indigenous peoples and make war against a government that had reached out its hand.

The rebel leader was never arrested and Zedillo was forced to abandon a military offensive against the EZLN after the Mexican Congress passed a law on peace for Chiapas – and because government repression had generated a wave of international criticism against him.

The short-lived peace talks concluded with the signing of an agreement on indigenous rights, but the government refused to allow it to go to Congress for approval.

There has been a massive military occupation in Chiapas, with as many as 30,000 to 60,000 troops present in the region, and ongoing reports of human rights violations, according to human rights organisations.

The EZLN, which took up arms in January 1994, maintained its deployment in the jungles of Chiapas, and from there pressured the government with its various political initiatives. The guerrillas’ strategy included inviting international observers to Chiapas and sending indigenous Zapatistas to the Mexican capital and abroad.

In addition, the rebels, whose unorthodox discourse won the attention of the international media, organised a public referendum on indigenous rights, a vote in which more than a million people took part.

They were also visited in the jungle by international personalities including French intellectual Regis Debray, Danielle Mitterrand, the former wife of the late French president Francois Mitterrand, and US filmmaker Oliver Stone.

For Zedillo and his governing team, which human rights groups charge committed violations in Chiapas, the EZLN action lacks force and now constitutes little more than a futureless “war of ink and Internet,” as José Gurría said, who served as finance and foreign minister.

But minimising the guerrillas did not prevent 45 indigenous people, mostly women and children, from being massacred in December 1997 by paramilitaries known for their opposition to the EZLN, and did not prevent government forces from harassing the native communities that back the rebels, say human rights groups.