Surprise winner: Jospin MAGDALENA VILLIERS has rocently returned from Mexico. She offers an eye witness account of the rebellion in Chiapas led by forces echoing the legendary Emiliano Zapata. ON THE FIRST day of 1994 Mexico jumped into the news when armed insurgents took over three towns in Chiapas in the extreme south of the country.
This was the first notice that most people, including many Mexicans, had that the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Na- nanas are exported. cional (EZLN) existed.
But in fact the EZLN had been working quietly in Chiapas for at least a decade and had built a strong presence among the indigenous peoples, the campesinos and the working class.
The demands being presented by the EZLN are basically the same demand that were made during the Mexi- ycal. can revolution of 1910 by Emiliano Zapata himself water, drainage, For electricity. (hence the name).
Why, given that the 1910 revolution gave birth to one of the world's greatest progressive constitutions, have these issues surfaced again?
The answer's simple -Chiapas is the richest state in the Mexican federation in resources, and the people are the poorest. in Chiapas.
More than 60 per cent of Mexico's electricity is generMexican army convoy rolls in to Chiapas - but fails to locate Marcos! ated here, mainly from hydroelectric plants - but the price of electricity is the highest in Mexico. Huge amount of coffee, beef, cereals, cocoa, spices, minerals and baThe state is lying on a huge, virtually untapped, pool of oil, but the only people who profit are large landowners and multinational companies like Nestle.
Campesinos make up 80 per cent of the 3.2 million population of Chiapas, and many earn only 100 pounds a.
Malnutrition is rife. Few homes that have running bathrooms are often 8 hours ride away over the mountains. Half of The terrain is extremely the children are growing up rugged, made up of moun- illiterate because the schools tains and jungle, and there are are two hours walk from their few paved roads. In conse- homes - and anyway they quence, the PRONASOL and have to work in order to eat. SOLIDARIDAD programs, What is needed is a prowhich have built utilities, gramme of itinerant teachers schools and hospitals that and doctors. serve the people well in other Given that Mexican uniparts of Mexico, have failed versity students get virtually free tuition in exchange for a The ratio of hospital beds (paid year's has been increased - but they state, this could easily be provided. The EZLN has articulated the cries of the people, but the uprising is far from confined to an elite political group. The slogan that has emerged is "Somos todos Marcos" -"We're all Marcos" - a reference to the pen name of the EZLN leader. When the Federal Army thought it had penned the Two more who clalm to be Marcos EZLN in a remote part of the mountains, it was unable to discover where any of the Zapatistas were — everyone is a Zapatista.
The military presence is very large, with machine gun emplacements at the entrance to every village and town. Harassment is still widespread.
(It's not confined to Chiapas - my bus to Mexico City was stopped and searched by machine-gun toting soldiers, work for the not just once, but four times in three hours between midnight and 3.30 am) At least 15;000 people were forced out of their homes by the Federales prior to March 1995, when an amnesty law was passed to enable them to retur home without army reprisals. Of course, the harassment hasn't stopped, but it is a bit muted now, especially since Archbishop Samial Ruiz, a liberation theologian, has taken several human rights violations to the Supreme Court, unmoved by assassination attempts. And then there's the Caravan for Peace, organised by nongovernmental non-UN organisations, to watch over the people's return home. (Not a very safe activity - the Federales opened fire on the group a few days ago).
Unfortunately for the Mexican government, the EZLN has not disappeared, in spite of the Federal army harassment and other actions, including the bombings.
Instead its support has become so strong and widespread across the whole of Mexico that the Zedillo regime has been forced to conceded some of the EZLN's first demands and to open talks on other issues, including agendas for indigenous and women's rights and the dire economic situation. • For more information, contact the Mexico Solidarity Group or the Mexico Committee for Human Rights, both based in Casa Latina-America, Kingsgate Place, London NW6. debate in parliament in