San Andres V- A "new" Solidarity By Cecilia Rodriguez National Center for Democracy, Liberty and Justice "We seek a new peace, not one of hunger, misery, submission, and humiliation, but one of dignity and justice..and we are willing to give up our lives in order to find it" Comandante David Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional July 24, 1995 CHRONOLOGY THE GOVERNMENT on the subject of reduction of military tensions--REJECTS EZLN proposal to move troops to positions held before the February 9th assault in order that the EZLN would return to the position held before January 1, 1994. It PROPOSES a plan for "routes" occupied by both armed forces, a plan similar to the one used to end the Salvadoran conflict. The EZLN would occupy areas within government troop lines. This proposal was referred to as "the plan for reservations". THE EZLN RESPONDS-- Immediately it counterproposes a route to Guadalupe Tepeyac, the site of the historic "Aguascalientes", but the government instantly rejects it. Upon its return to the July 6th negotiations it proposes a route from Ocosingo to San Quintin as a "trial" effort. THE GOVERNMENT-- Again rejects the counteroffer claiming it is "extemporaneous" and WITHDRAWS its route proposal. It accuses the EZLN of using the proposal for "propaganda" purposes. NO proposal remains on the table. THE GOVERNMENT on the subject of the timeline for the peace talks-Through Jorge Del Valle the government suggests "profound and intense" negotiations by holding 20 days of discussions for each theme on the agenda. According to simple calculations this would consume 4 years and 11 months, while the EZLN's proposal can have a potential duration of 3 years and 1 month. THE GOVERNMENT COMPLAINS--The EZLN is not serious about the peace negotiations and is utilizing delay tactics. It threatens to "move ahead to resolve the economic problems of the area without the EZLN". THE GOVERNMENT DECLARES in the words of Marco Antonio Bernal, the coordinator of the government peace delegation, "Why yes, we believe that the Zapatistas are liars who do not want peace, but to buy time in order to continue to lie and hide behind the mask and the mountains. WE also believe they are insolent and foul-mouthed and other things after what occurred this morning". Comandante Tacho responds--"Your face is that of a good person, but your heart is filled with hypocrisy." The possibilities of substantive agreements were distant in this 5th encounter between the Mexican Government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberacion. II-TWO The 900 military policemen who surround the site of the pace talks have, over time, acquired accouterments. Now they sport white braids hung from their right shoulder, spotless white shoelaces on shiny black boots and white gloves. They march into formation each time they post guard. With eyes shifting under low-brimmed helmets, they observe as civilian participants, campesinos, and the residents of San Andres conduct their business in the small, cluttered plaza. In addition to their spiffier appearance, the military has also deployed a new look-out post on a building catty-corner to the site of the peace talks, radio towers, and sundry undercover agents who seem to do little more than look like agents and pull on the antennas of their cellular phones. There is clear evidence of the hardening of the government line everywhere. Like a cauldron sitting on glowing coals, Mexico simmers with the growing resistance of its people. Weakened by its corruption and internal purges, the government is cautious before a growing national and international civilian movement which only gains in strength each time the government opts for armed force. Yet its strategy of low-intensity warfare against the Zapatistas creeps forward much as its troops do in the Lacandon jungle. In addition to the recent deportation of three priests in Chiapas, the publication of a recent book by Carlos Tello Diaz (a great grandson of Porfirio Diaz) is an expansion of the government's effort to publicly discredit the EZLN. Based largely on government intelligence reports, the book clearly attempts to legitimize the official government line. According to the book the EZLN is nothing more than a "rabid " handful of old-line leftists who use indigenous people to forward a socialist agenda, the CCRI holds no real power and bishop Samuel Ruiz and his church are a central spoke of the Zapatista movement. Tello's book received front page treatment in may national publications as well as a significant splash in the electronic media. It was conveniently made public days before the peace talks. The cauldron simmers in Mexico. The Zapatistas promote a mobilization of peaceful civilian movements, the organization of international solidarity efforts. They wage a battle of ideas and words, of innovative proposals, of calls to conscience and of an integral effort to fined a peaceful solution. The government meanwhile continues to use intimidation, starvation by occupation, selective assassination, illegal detention and the blatant manipulation of propaganda. It will soon be 19 months since the Zapatistas burst into the public eye. The initial outpouring of romanticism, spontaneity and curiosity has ended. The difficult and important task of building a peaceful national liberation movement and maintaining the viability of a peaceful transition remains. In addition to that the Zapatistas face the formidable task of advancing history in Latin America. The Zapatistas and their supporters struggle to overcome the cannibalistic habits of the left and the clear failures of socialist theory. They struggle to integrate the grassroots as no other group in history has done. After spending ten years educating, training, and building communities; the Zapatistas are intent on avoiding the mistakes of other armed struggles. At great military and political expense, they have held off the war in the hopes that national and international consciousness would develop and that moderate and progressive forces could forge a unity capable of harvesting the kind of social change as yet unknown to history. To that end, the Zapatista's latest innovation is the national and international plebiscite. Mexico has had only one other plebiscite in one hundred years of its history. This one however has been requested by an armed and clandestine group; it is the first in world history. It is being organized by a non-governmental organization and promoted by the Democratic National Convention, a civic group that is a brainchild of the EZLN. In addition to the difficulties that arise naturally with such a novel task, the Plebiscite confronts the challenge of a lack of resources, and the establishment of working relationships among such disparate groups. Yet the civilian movement has undertaken the task with such enthusiasm that major ideological differences have been set aside. In its insistent search for a democratic practice, the EZLN offers the people of Mexico a moment in which to exercise it, to find a voice for the will of the populace, something that the present government of Mexico has been unable to do. While some may claim that the innovations of the EZLN have not been completely successful, no one can say that they have not changed Mexico and world history forever. Yet the change a t this moment is intangible and fragile. It is manifest in the tiny steps which ordinary citizens take in an effort to re-awaken or even give birth to a new kind of democracy, a representative democracy whose base is civic involvement. It struggles to survive in a cynical world more prepared for despair than possibility. It challenges all previously held concepts about how change takes place. The Zapatistas depart from traditional leftist theory, precisely in what the government refuses to acknowledge--- their indigenous base. This is a clear departure from traditional "guerrilla" theory, as is their open and frank dialogue with the populace as well as their willingness to allow others to take the lead, and to engage in debilitating peace talks with a group of negotiators who appear to be deaf. The Zapatistas do not negotiate from a machista position of force--they use reason and the moral authority that comes from the sacrifice of their lives to continue to persuade people to seek a change in Mexico. From the Mexicans and the Zapatistas we learn that the ideals contained in the words "democracy, liberty and justice" are expensive and difficult to achieve. They cost lives, health egos and sacrifice. They require imagination, flexibility, integrity, and the ability to take enormous risks. "The plebiscite" said Comandante David "is very important. It is a form by which to dialogue on a national level, by which to break the silence and change the attitudes of the government and of the powerful. It is a way in which to give voice to the smallest ones, the voice of the faceless, nameless ones without history, and a method of work of those who want a just and dignified peace." In the witless style of Chicken Little, the government delegation commented that "the results of the plebiscite would not be an obstacle" for the peace negotiations." It then promptly concluded the 5th encounter arguing that the EZLN was only buying time for the plebiscite. The EZLN proposed the 6th peace talks be hold on August 20th. The government prefers September 5th. III- THREE The civilians who post guard in the peace cordon at San Andres Sacam'chen must stand for four hours each shift. When they are lucky, the clouds crawl slowly down the green mountains and the sun peeps out occasionally from behind them. Then, the hours drift by in a silent dance of aching feet. Most of the time though the rain pours and the civilians carefully hold out the front of their ponchos, in order to made a small circle of dry land at their feet. Or the sun glares down mercilessly, and they shift their hats in order to keep it from their eyes. Unable to hear or see anything, they carefully study the enclosed building where the Zapatistas and the government delegation are meeting. Otherwise, one can sleep, read, converse with old friends, wander from one end of the plaza to the other and watch the children play. The unifying task is waiting. The civilians stand at attention when the door suddenly opens .. They clutter together at strategic points in order to catch a glimpse of the unfolding events. These are either brief narratives of agendas and the always-moving communiqus of the Zapatistas. Long days filled with waiting, and even longer damp nights filled with silence and the unbearable desire to sit or gaze at something new. The hundreds of people committed to the vision of the Zapatistas at San Andres Sacam'chen however, do not complain. They are proud and anxious to stand, happy to give up the subsistence routine of their lives in order to come to San Andres and wait, regardless of the hunger and exhaustion. This is their grain of sand after all, to stand through inclement weather, and use their bodies to protect the Zapatistas. And in the silent waiting of these indigenous communities lays the most powerful lesson of all, more powerful than all the weaponry assembled against the Zapatistas, more powerful than the hundreds of television hours now being used to discredit them. Resistance is the ability to fight with whatever one has, in whatever way possible. Resistance is collective. The campesinos together meld in a long chain of humanity, indistinguishable one from the other. It will require significant financial, moral and physical support in order for the national democracy movement that the Zapatistas have helped to birth, to succeed. Like everything else in its wake, its success will require a "new solidarity". This solidarity can not be based on a pedestal upon which we place a people struggling to find a new way of doing things, and which we abandon when we learn, that they are people just like us. It cannot be a solidarity filled with rhetoric about "imperialism", "the masses" or cluttered with perfectionism that will never exist in the very human process of social change. This new solidarity must take risks-- it must organize in base communities. It must develop "unprecedented proposals"--it must collaborate in ways it has not done before and avoid becoming an expensive parasite which absorbs all the resources and fails to accomplish its goals. It must combine the financial donations which allow a people to survive and struggle, with the political tenacity and vision to complement the fierce determination of the Mexican people. it must leave behind the armchair psychosis of the left which glorifies armed struggle as the superior method by which to resolve political conflict. It must leave behind its self-righteous absorption with its own agenda, and be willing to learn, to wait, and to engage. Only then will this new solidarity be a fitting companion to the new peace so eloquently expressed by Comandante David. together they will overcome the exhaustion of a world embittered by the failures of all previous economic theory. Hand in hand, they will stand at the threshold of a new international order based on democracy, liberty and justice. NUTS AND BOLTS Given the critical nature of the struggle for a new peace in Mexico, you can personally do the following almost immediately; 1. Send a substantial contribution to the Mexican Commission for the National Plebiscite. The commission must raise $100,000 in order to make the plebiscite happen. Contributions should be sent to the Banco Inverlat SA (branch #038), account # 910695-2, in the name of Esperanza Ayar Macias. 2. Support the humanitarian aid caravan being organized by Pastors for Peace due to arrive in Chiapas on August 27th. For more information, please call Pastors for Peace at (612) 378-0062 or for specific information. The campesinos have been severely impacted by the militarization of southern Mexico. Unless there is a significant increase in humanitarian aid, the widespread hunger and illness which already grips the area will intensify. Will we allow hunger to be the only compensation for a people who dared to stand for their dignity? 3. Participate in the International Plebiscite by personally filling out a ballot. Take a bunch to your union, school, health club, church. Talk to people and explain the importance of their participation. The International Commission of the CND has authorized three stages for the International Plebiscite to correspond with national events. Participation in the International Plebiscite is open to all peoples of the world. Please plan other events and gather as many ballots as possible. JULY 31 - Deadline for the completion of the first stage. AUGUST 20 - Completion of the second stage to coincide with the National Plebiscite. SEPTEMBER 13 - Completion of the third stage to coincide with the completion of the National Student Plebiscite. 4. Participate in the peace camps located in many of the villages which have been militarized. your presence and hard work in these communities are an enormous moral support, and a deterrent to continued military harassment and intimidation. For more information about "new" solidarity contact the Center for Democracy, Liberty and Justice at (915) 532-8382 or email at .