CONFLICT-MEXICO: Guerrillas Leave the Forest to Tour the Nation

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Mar 13 1999 (IPS) - Hundreds Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) fighters will travel from Chiapas to various points around Mexico to promote a plebiscite, while their weapons – used for barely 12 days five years ago – gather rust.

More than 3,000 members and followers of the EZLN – a group not seeking power and considered “suicidal” for its efforts to disappear as a guerrilla movement – met up Wednesday in the forests of Chiapas.

Covering their faces with handkerchiefs and ski masks, the unarmed indigenous people split into small groups, preparing for truck rides Friday to various states.

Once there, they will work to spread word of the plebiscite, planned for March 21 with the support of several political and non- governmental organisations.

All of the Mexican population is entitled to respond to this questionnaire on the rights of the indigenous people of Mexico.

And the outcome of the survey is largely predictable, considering that most of the questions leave little room for doubt like “Do you think the rights of the indigenous peoples are respected?”

The questions have been formulated with no particular methodology in mind, they do not fulfil “even the minimal statistical conditions and are merely a propaganda coup,” said columnist on Mexican daily ‘Reforma,’ Enrique Canales.

Interior Minister Francisco Labastida, said this is an “absurd and false” process, claiming the questions are on a par with: “Do you want to be rich or poor? Happy or unhappy?”

The consultation aims to operate as a referendum of the EZLN stance on a bill on indigenous rights and culture, drawn up in 1996 by a commission in the Mexican legislative congress which was accepted by the armed group.

However, the government does not accept the bill, which it considers threatening to national unity as it grants the ethnic communities degrees of autonomy the authorities consider excessive.

The discrepancy over the content of this bill – which builds on the only agreement signed between the EZLN and the Ernesto Zedillo government in February 1996 – accounts for the paralysis of the peace negotiations in Chaipas since midway through that year.

Despite the lack of dialogue, and the fact that thousands of government soldiers surround the zones where the guerrillas are operative, a special law prevents confrontations between insurgents and soldiers and even permits the indigenous people to travel beyond the conflict zone, as long as they go unarmed.

Since the second week of January 1994, when the Carlos Salinas government (1988 to 1994) ordered an end to the offensive against the EZLN, the group has suspended the fighting, called meetings, national and international get togethers, marched to the capital and received visits from public figures in the forest.

A similar plebiscite was held in 1995. At that time, around a million people advised the EZLN to become a political force, supporting the group’s demands for land, housing, work, health, education, culture, democracy, peace, an end to corruption and defence of the environment.

Emilion Rabasa, the government coordinator for dialogue and negotiation in Chiapas, said the outcome of this poll will not be taken into consideration, as it was not considered valid.

Rabasa accused the EZLN of delaying resolution of the conflict until after the outcome of the presidential elections in 2000.

According to the guerrilla leader, known as subcomandante Marcos, the new poll “will be a very important step in the conflict being resolved rapidly and in the best possible manner.”

“We Zapatistas don’t want any more war nor destruction, nor for this situation of non starting dialogue to go on longer.”

“We don’t want power, we don’t want a post in government, we don’t want money. What we want is for indigenous rights to be respected. We want to live in peace,” he said.

The guerrillas accuse the Zedillo government of talking of peace while ordering the military to surround them, harrass them and persecute their followers in a low intensity war.

Since dialogue has been suspended in Chiapas, despite the massive military presence, dozens of indigenous people who live in the conflict zones have died in confrontations over politics, religion and land conflicts.