The following book review will appear in the April 1995 Industrial Worker: Rebellion from the Roots: Indian Uprising in Chiapas, by John Ross. Common Courage Press, 1994, $14.95. "When. on the international level," the mysterious Subcomandante Marcos tells us, "everyone was saying 'no' to armed struggle, the indigenous farmers of Chiapas were saying "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.'" But that assent to armed struggle was not lightly given, as author John Ross, an old Mexico hand, assures us. While the Zapatistas may have burst on the American media scene like the proverbial thunder clap when they seized San Cristobal de las Casas on New Year's Day, 1994, this first Third World uprising since the end of the Cold War had been in the planning stage for over a year, agreed upon in village after village. Indeed, serious trouble had been brewing in Chiapas for nearly a decade. Amnesty International, dismayed by a state penal code that officially sanctions the use of torture to obtain confessions, had issued its first bulletins on human rights abuses there in 1985, and the situation was not improving. But the secret of the rebellion had been well kept. An old friend of mine and a long-time resident in the area knew nothing of the gathering storm. In a broader sense, of course, the trouble in Chiapas dates back to the Spanish conquest, which saw the Indians deprived of their land and reduced to peonage, a condition the Mexican revolution against Spain did little to improve. Throughout the 19th century, periodic Indian uprisings took place as the natives, driven beyond endurance by the casual cruelty of their overlords, took up arms. These revolts were put down with even greater cruelty, but the grievances that gave rise to them were never properly addressed until the revolution of 1910, when Emiliano Zapata, himself a Nahua Indian, demanded the return of communal lands taken from the Indians, first by t he Spaniards and later by Mexico's own ruling elite. He fought one central government after another for nine years, until he was treacherously slain at Chinameca in 1919. But the land issue did not go away. At the heart of this conflict lie two mutually exclusive concepts of land and its ownership. To the cattle ranchers and the agribusinessmen who control most of the useful land, land is a thing P a commodity like any other, to be owned, bought, sold and exploited by whoever can pay for it. Having at some time paid somebody something for the land, these latifundistas recognize no other claims and view any complaints as a demand for the expropriation of their lawfully acquired goods. But to the Indians land is community property, not owned or even ownable by any one person, and it cannot be bought or sold P only properly used. Any individual attempting to buy or sell this community property is a dangerous fool, and anyone who asserts he has acquired this land for himself is a criminal. Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917, as Ross relates, made an attempt to redress this balance, recognize inalienable community property, and provide for some redistribution of obviously stolen lands. The opposition of the great landowners was formidable and there were frequent land takeovers by the exasperated Indians, sometimes ending in bloody clashes with the police and military. But progress, slow everywhere, was nearly invisible in Chiapas, where the Indians were driven farther and farther into the Lacandon jungle in a land that produces one half of Mexico's electricity but has electric light in only one third of its homes. The 1989 collapse of the coffee market replaced grinding poverty with abject misery. In 1992, Mexican President Salinas and his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) pushed through a change in Article 27 which provided for up to 40 years imprisonment for anyone illegally occupying private land. 1994 was to bring NAFTA and a flood of cheap American corn into Chiapas, spelling the end for the small farmers and making their lands ripe for takeover by the vast landed estates. The Indians of Chiapas decided they'd had "Enough already!" or, as they inscribed on their banners, "ABasta ya!" In describing the background and aftermath of the fighting a year ago, Ross provides an invaluable guide through a veritable alphabet soup of governmental and non-governmental agencies, foreign and domestic, that became involved in Chiapas either in conducting the war or trying to broker a peace. He does a fine job of introducing the reader to a cast of characters ranging from the Roman Catholic "red" Bishop Ruiz, still officially thought to be the brains behind the uprising (as if the Indians were too stupid to plan the rebellion themselves), to General Absalon Castellano Dominguez, one of the more odious latifundistas, and on through the masked Subcomandante Marcos against a political backdrop resembling more than or Ancient Rome than a modern republic. To his credit, Ross resists speculating at length on the identity of the subcomandante but is quick to note the foolishness of the government and the media in attempting to learn who is behind the ski mask and manufacturing a modern myth in the process, making the bandanna and the ski mask national symbols of dissent. If there is any point at which Ross's narrative wanders, it is in the chapter devoted tot he assassination of the PRI's Presidential Candidate, Luis Colosio, in March of 1994. While the story is fascinating, and Ross's investigative work is as good as could be done in a country where freedom of the press is far from secure, he is not able to connect the murder to the Chiapas situation by any but the thinnest speculative threads. When he returns to the jungle of Chiapas, however, Ross is obviously at home with his subject and the concerns of those beyond its borders. He points out that the Zapatistas are basically reformist in that they do not seek to overthrow the government and take state power. Their revolution is not modeled on Lenin's nor Mao's nor Ho Chi Minh's. but on that of Zapata who sought not power but agricultural reform and justice. "For everyone, everything," their motto proclaims, "for us, nothing." Women, Ross informs us, make up about a third of the guerrilla forces and many of the Zapatista senior officers, and are treated with absolute equality. Among these young warriors, romance is widespread, but contraception is virtually mandatory since no one can be "indisposed" when there is fighting to be done. Even the environment is to be spared in the Zapatista program. Water pollution is to cease and deforested lands are to be replanted. As this review is being written, the Mexican government has opted once more for a military "solution" to what is essentially a political problem. Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo is now "standing tall," apparently having decided that the latest collapse of the peso has made it financially impossible to fulfill the commitments made to the rebels at the Cathedral Conference in San Cristobal last year. The Zapatistas are once again "transgressors" under the spell of the "red" bishop and "outside agitators" from Guatemala and other mysterious lands beyond the border. Now only punishment awaits them if they do not give up their arms, surrender their leaders and throw themselves on the mercy of the government. This posturing has played very well with Mexico's rulers and with capitalist circles in the United States, although those who still dream of democracy and peace in that country have been less favorably impressed. But President Zedillo would do well to read Ross's book before he commits an army that has not fought a serious opponent in 75 years and is made up largely of Indians to a protracted Vietnam-style conflict with fairly well armed and very well-led fellow Indians who have an excellent grasp of modern media and are fighting on their own jungle turf for a cause they deeply believe in and are ready to die for. The Mexican military has already barred the press from the are and begun issuing triumphal bulletins. But the real situation remains obscure at best, and the war, like the insurgencies in Guatemala and El Salvador, could go on for years, if not decades. There will undoubtedly be more news from Chiapas, as casualties on both sides mount, and hapless civilians are slain by the score. Rebellion from the Roots is ideal background for understanding the reports coming from this desperate land. John Gorman DO NOT REPRINT WITHOUT PERMISSION Subscriptions to the Industrial Worker are $15 per year. Write: Industrial Workers of the World, 103 West Michigan Avenue, Ypsilanti MI 48197 USA (313/483-3548). Industrial Worker bundles are available at reasonable rates. Ask for details.