

Support the Uprising in Chiapas! - Statement by the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement 15 January 1994 On January 1st 1994 hundreds of armed peasants arose in rebellion in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Their bold and daring action mobilized the support of thousands in the immediate area and aroused the enthusiasm of the masses throughout the whole country. The news was greeted with jubilation by the class conscious proletarians and revolutionary masses, especially those who suffer exploitation and oppression at the hands of U.S. imperialism, including within the U.S. itself. The rebellion demonstrates the deep revolutionary sentiments of the Mexican people and their basic needs: to be free of imperialist subjugation, (principally by the U.S. which is being even further tightened by the North American Free Trade Agreement); to implement a thoroughgoing agrarian revolution; and to overthrow the bureaucrat-capitalist class that rules Mexico in the service of U.S. imperialism and in league with the landowning classes. The Chiapas uprising struck panic into the hearts of the Mexican ruling class and its U.S. overlords who were in constant contact over how to suppress the uprising. It was met by counter-revolutionary dual tactics of vicious indiscriminate repression and terror directed against the people, on the one hand, and the spreading of false promises of reform on the other. Although the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement is not fully informed as to the political programme and ideology of the Zapatista National Liberation Army which has been leading the revolt in Chiapas, it is clear that this revolt is fully justified and merits the support of revolutionary communists and progressive forces the world over. Mexico is a populous country of Latin America which has the misfortune of being located on a long frontier of U.S. imperialism. The U.S. imperialists have long considered Mexico a private preserve to exploit to the maximum where they are free to interfere at will to defend their reactionary interests. Recent events have shown that revolutionary struggle can transform Mexico from a strategic reserve of U.S. imperialism into a strategic dagger of the world proletarian revolution aimed at the very heart of the U.S. empire. Mexico has a long revolutionary tradition of the masses of people rising to fight the oppressors. But in the past these struggles have never led to genuine liberation because they lacked the firm leadership of the proletariat and its vanguard party. What the people of Mexico need most is such a party, based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, determined and able to lead the people in waging a New Democratic Revolution. Today the People's War in Peru led by the Communist Party of Peru is a glorious example of the vitality of the Maoist road of liberation. The rebellion in Chiapas shows once again that the conditions for revolutionary explosions are maturing in Mexico and in the world. The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, which unites and concentrates the strengths of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organisations worldwide, pledges its support to the revolutionary masses in Mexico and to those forces in that country who are fighting to arm the people with the revolutionary ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism which alone can lead the struggle to victory.

