Caracol I: Mother of the Caracoles, Sea of Our Dreams

La Realidad

Economic Resistance

Marisol (Former Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. MAREZ San Pedro de Michoacán)

In our zone the evil government is attacking us with the economic element, it is not giving to us directly but many projects, much aid, arrives to the brethren who are no longer Zapatistas. We see that it does this so that our compañeros see or we see in what way it is giving, but we to not pay attention to their projects or their programs.

We are prepared from the families, as towns, as regions, municipalities, and in the zone. Why from our families? To be able to sustain ourselves and our families, to be able to buy everything necessary for each family, so that when it is our turn to do a job our family also feels that it is strong in the struggle.

In our families we are prepared to resist the economic attacks working the mother earth that we have, for her we struggle. We are cultivating the land in milpas, bean fields, coffee, banana, sugar-cane plantations, we also have pastures for cattle, raising chicken, to resist and sustain ourselves as a family, like this we are resisting.

We are also prepared as towns, that is why we have various tasks, be it in collectives or in societies. The compañeros always have a milpa or bean field, there are towns which have cattle in collective, stores which are as societies or transportation which is also managed as societies.

One of the reasons for which we see that the organization of the collective work and societies is necessary is because in each town we have different workers, we have health promoters, education promoters, authorities, agents, commissioners, local persons in-charge, various authorities in the towns. That is why we have to think what work we can promote as a town to be able to at least sustain them with regard to their fares. Maybe we won’t be able to support them with much because they are several workers but at least with their fares so that they can fulfill the work within the organization, as a town we have to make that effort to organize ourselves in what the town can agree to.

Also we women have been organizing, seeing the need of each town and above all because we have compañeras who do the work, like the local persons in-charge or the authority of the town, they have outings and they need fares; to give them that it has been organized with chicken raising, bakeries, there also are towns in which the compañeras make a corn or bean milpa.

That work that we are doing as a family or as towns is with the purpose of creating economic funds to support with different situations which sometimes happen to us, like sicknesses and to support us with the fares in the various work areas.

In the regions we have various work collectives, there are cattle collectives, general stores, there are also trucks which belong to the region, there are regions which do milpa. The objective of this work is to create economic funds which are needed for any expense which there is as a region or for contributions, because sometimes celebrations are done and for that there are contributions. Also the compañeros from the nucleus are promoting the regional work because within our regions we have various workers, as health coordinators, education coordinators at the regional level, our regional compañeros in-charge, so we have to begin to create, to form collective work.

All this work is not with the purpose of dividing among ourselves the few resources that we are obtaining, but to create the small regional or town fund and be able to support ourselves among compañeros, support those who do various tasks within the organization. We are doing this work from the family to the region, they are not being done with any type of project or solidary support, the compañeros themselves organize to see how to obtain a fund and begin, even if it is with a little bit, that work, which goes along growing. It is the effort to construct the economy within our struggle, that work is always done with compañeras and compañeros.

Why are we making all these efforts? Because we see it as necessary due to the economic plan which the evil government has toward our communities in our zone, so we also have to prepare ourselves to be able to resist more, that is, do work within the struggle. All this work that is being done has an objective.

Roel (Former Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. MAREZ San Pedro de Michoacán)

At the municipal level our municipal authorities, the municipal councilmembers, have thought and the municipal collective work has been done in practice, because we have to think in our work with the objective of being able to sustain our own authorities into the future, the various workers that we have at the municipal level, like the municipal councilmembers, our municipal health coordinators, our municipal health trainers.

In this case the municipal councils in our zone have promoted municipal collective work in each municipality. Each municipality has a cattle project, which is the one that is sticking the most in our zone, each municipality has it own way of organizing itself. In the Autonomous Council there is a person in charge of looking after these animals, but also as towns or as regions they organize to have a municipal leadership and they aren’t there for everything that is needed to take that work forward, for example the pasture, the posting, the cattle’s vaccination, there is a special leadership to promote this work for it to not wane away.

For example the General Emiliano Zapata municipality currently has 50 heads of animals, Libertad de los Pueblos Mayas has 35 heads of cattle, Tierra y Libertad municipality has 20 heads of cattle, San Pedro de Michoacán 36 heads of cattle. All that goes along helping us to realize and create our own municipal fund.

We are doing the work at the municipal and zone level with solidary projects, all that work is being promoted through some projects but what is region, town, and family is with the effort of the compañeros themselves, the bases.

One of the problems that we have confronted is that some of the projects have been done and that the way has not been found for how to get them going. For example, in General Emiliano Zapata we have a rice huller, which is part of a project in which it was thought that in that municipality the compañeros were going to organize to plant rice, because it is produced there, and get it going. They did it once but due to lack of promotion, due to the lack of organization as a municipality, that machine is stopped.

We are lacking a great deal, there are things that do work and there are things that don’t, so we go along seeing what things are working in the municipality, just how it is, for example the cattle thing is working well, with its respective leadership, but this matter of the huller project is not working for us.

We have a blacksmith workshop which is in the Tierra y Libertad municipality, which has its own municipal leadership, and leadership in the towns to keep that record. It was closed, those compañeros had it resting, but it began to be promoted, it began to be demanded that the municipality organize for them to get it going, so the compañeros begun to be trained and today that blacksmith shop, with the leadership that they have, is working, they are making stoves those ones which they call “Lorena.”

The municipality has its way of organizing with its respective leadership for them to go to work, not permanently, every time they see that it is necessary or there is a petition from a community which needs stoves or a door, or anything which can be made in that blacksmith shop, then those compañeros already found the way for how to get it going.

We also have a shoemaking shop in Libertad de los Pueblos Maya, which due to the same thing, due to lack of promotion and organization in that municipality is stopped and in the town we have the teacher on-hand, he is trained. Right now there is an initiative of the compañeros from the nucleus of our zone, which as they see the things which are stalled, are paralyzed, that idea is born to take the word of the compañeros from that municipality and see if there is no way for them to pass it to the group of us compañeros who make up the resistance nucleus. Right now the compañeros are in that discussion because there is that desire within those of us compañeros who make up the nucleus to want to get things going which are stalled in our zone or in our municipality, the idea, the initiative, is up to there.

All that municipal work is helping us so that when it is necessary to make expenses of the municipalities we have somewhere to get it from. The Council has its own fund, even if it is in kind, for example cattle, but there is a fund which is growing little by little. From there is where in the future we can go sustaining the funds that we can have as a municipality, just like as a region, as a town, and as a family.

The store is one of the tasks that we have been able to do during all these years and which our authorities in the zone have been promoting. In the beginning that store had as an objective for the profits to be used to sustain our permanent workers in the hospital that we have in San José del Río.

With that store it was seen that it was helping us as a zone and that the communities which are very far away were benefiting because they no longer had to go out to the municipality of Las Margaritas, which is what is closest for us, we went to the store to buy. That was seen and it was thought about doing two more stores at the zone level. The first store is located in the San Pedro de Michoacán municipality, the second is located in Libertad de los Pueblos Mayas municipality, which together with the General Emiliano Zapata municipality is administering it; it was also thought for another store in the Tierra y Libertad municipality, which is adjacent to the Guatemalan border.

We have those three stores which are being administered by the municipalities in coordination with the Junta. There is a special person in-charge of commerce in the Junta who keeps that record, the municipality also has its person in-charge for them to be looking after everything, but the towns make up the leadership. That in the three stores, each store has its own leadership.

Right now the agreement of our stores, the objective that the Junta has, is that what they are generating in profits be used for when there is a mobilization as a zone, the resources have to come out from there, that is the final objective, for them to help us as a zone. We are no longer going to contribute as towns if something is needed, but the Junta now has a job as a zone and it goes along helping us, for example, if 30 thousand pesos are needed they meet with the Council to go along taking out maybe 10 thousand from each store and they can resolve that issue.

When the first store began we had our own leadership, we had to pass as towns to sell in shifts, the towns say who was going to pass. The problem was that they came lost because we sent someone who did not know how to do the accounts, that was teaching us that we had to find another way, the administration was not going to work like this. So within an assembly that was done in our zone with the municipal authorities, with the authorities from the towns, agents, commissioners, men and women, it was discussed.

Is it that we are going to continue losing like this in that store? And we thought that no, because the one who loses there is the town, because the agreement that the one who loses their town has to pay it, the town had to pay what the salesperson lost.

There were several towns that were losing, so the assembly discussed that problem. Is it that the administration, at the Junta level, has nothing to do with those losses? Why are there losses each time that they sell? What was happening began to be seen because those problems can be arranged seeing the way, that is why the assembly decided that if the compañeros from the towns are going to pay, they must contribute 75% of the debt from each town and 25% the person in-charge of those who keep the record in the Junta, like this is how we said that it must not continue happening.

In the same assembly it was seen that it was necessary that the future salespeople must not be just anyone, the administration continues in the towns but the future salespeople are no longer going to be just anyone from the towns, the authority from each town has to make a commitment. We already tried that just anyone from the towns did not work for us, that there are many losses, we sought another way and we decided, by agreement of all, that the authorities are to pass to cover two weeks, the compañeros from the town have a role.

It is like this how the problems that are happening to us, that we find, go along teaching us, we have to go along finding a way and we are not going to lose hope and close that store because of the problems, on the contrary, it is finding a way so that if something does not turn out for us we find another way. The problems make us think what we are going to do, we do not stay because of the problem that happens there, they teach us that it is necessary to seek another mechanism for the problems. For example, the rule with which the BANPAZ began was being improved. If a role does not work for us we go along modifying, we go along improving as the time allows it, as the situation allows it.

In the BANPAZ rules other points were included, for example that in the event that a compañero from the zone does not pay their loan, the town itself has to demand from that compañero. That is, we already have the proof of the authority, from the health promoter from the authority to guarantee that the compañero does need it, but in the event that they do not come to pay us for any reason the town becomes obligated to demand them, because it knows that compañero, why they do not want to follow through.

While that town does not demand, other compañeros from that same town cannot receive loans because their time to pay that loan already passed. Right now our Caracol is like this, for example if in my town there is a compañero whose time passed and they did not pay, the town has to demand that they pay, if the town does not demand and in my family someone gets sick I cannot ask for a loan in the BANPAZ because I am not forcing that compañero to pay.

For us it has worked for the town to force the one who has debt with BANPAZ to pay, the rule is working, so the space is again opened for the town because the whole town is putting its part, then we again have the right to ask for loans. Like this we go along understanding that just as the compañero needed it other compañeros are going to need it, that we must fulfill that requirement that the authority asks of us.

Another one of the agreements that was made for the BANPAZ regulations is that in the event that it comes to pass that one of the compañeros who has a loan in our zone dies, be it the mother or the father, by agreement of the zone assembly, of the towns, nothing is charged to them, neither the capital nor the interest, it remains as forgiven, nothing is charged to them. If it has happened there, although it is not normal, it happened to us with the family of a compañero and we applied that rule, absolutely nothing was charged because it is the agreement of the assembly. If the parents are the ones who come to ask for the loan and something happens to their children, the agreement of the assembly is that the time to pay that money has to be extended in accordance with what the compañero can.

The assembly discussed what to do in the event that a compañero really cannot pay because the town already investigated and they do not have anything to pay with, they do not have anything to sell, but they had that need from a sickness and it could be resolved with that loan that they asked for. The assembly though that if it was already investigated well that the compañero cannot pay with money or with something that they can sell, the form of paying the loan is for them to go pay with work in the zone. The compañeros thought that, it is not closing ourselves but we go along seeking the way.

With that work that is being promoted at the zone level we are creating small economic funds to be able to resist at the zone level. We have at the zone level, another example, a task which is especially by the female compañeras. It is an initiative of theirs that they made an eatery-store, that is they have their little eatery and a general store. They began with 15 thousand pesos, they asked for a loan of 15 thousand pesos and their idea of doing that was born. The regional female representatives and local persons in-charge had the initiative, in coordination with the Junta.

They began with 15 thousand pesos, they have their leadership at the zone level, the local compañeras in-charge are taking a shift to prepare the food and to sell, that in the first business that they did they informed us that they obtained a profit of 40 thousand pesos. With those 40 thousand pesos they were able to pay the loan that they had of 15 thousand pesos, they were left with the rest free, which is 25 thousand pesos.

The compañeras saw that they were lacking some things to complete, the Junta supported them with dishes, with tables, but they came to think that they wanted to improve with the profits, so with the profits they were preparing themselves better. Right now the way in which they are working is that they have their leadership, among the compañeras they go along rotating the work and each year they change leadership. They have informed us that currently they have 56,176 pesos which they carry in cash from the last register check that they did.

All that is work that we go along doing at the zone level not with the objective of dividing it among ourselves, not to finish those small funds that go along being generated, but to be prepared for whichever need that we have as a zone, for things which help us within the struggle.

At this zone level we also have milpa work, this year for example, we have 12 hectares of milpa that we have planted. We were responsible for going to plow, in three days we did it, among 24 compañeros, now the milpa is plowed. The municipality keeps the record, what town is responsible for going to plow, what town is responsible for going to harvest.

The authority, the Junta, has its plan so that the corn we can plant in that zone milpa is to support our permanent workers that we have in the zone, for example those from the hospital. Part of what is planted goes to contribute to those compañeros in the hospital so that they can sustain themselves and another part maybe is going to be sold for other work that we have scheduled in the zone.

The final objective of those 12 hectares is for them to serve to have the zone cattle. Since the zone has 12 heads of cattle and right now does not have anywhere to put them, right now they are in the municipal pastures, we have those places borrowed for them to be in the meantime, they are distributed in each municipality, but the zone is intending to have its own pasture, its own little animals for them to serve us in the future, go along preparing ourselves little by little. Those 12 hectares were already foddered, fodder was planted for us to be able to sustain those animals and for those animals later to be able to help us to have funds at the zone level. What we have there in our zone is a little, how we are organizing ourselves from the towns, from the families, the towns, regions, municipalities, and zone. All this collective work, societies, are not with the objective of dividing up the profits among ourselves. We have to begin from the family, that is to sustain our family on our own and like so the collective work and societies on each scale have their objective in each body at the government level, it is how we are trying to organize ourselves to resist the economic question in our zone.

Doroteo (Former Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. MAREZ Libertad de los Pueblos Mayas)

There are different things which are done to be able to economically resist because we organize ourselves in education, in health, and in everything, but we do realize, I think that in all the zones it is like this, the first is the economic element. We have heard in all the expositions that money is necessary for the fares, we have heard about the support to go to where it is necessary to go, if there is not that sometimes they stop being promoters, they stop being members of the Junta, that is what happens.

We in the zone where we are organized are not 100% in collective, we work individually in each family, there we organize in the families with the children, with the couple, the man and the woman, we all have to do something. If the man goes off to the milpa, the woman has to do something in the home, for example she is going to raise chicken, she is going to raise pigs. For example, if I must go to Oventik and I need something for a soda or for whatever I need, we sell a chicken, here I do not know how much a chicken costs, but there a chicken is real cheap 150 pesos; if someone sells two chickens well then we already have enough to go and come to Oventik. That is how each family does it there.

I am going to tell something about a town, about a compañero who I heard talking about how that is confronted with the brethren who are not Zapatistas, who have their government project and all that; one town is Zapatista and the other is not Zapatista, they are neighbors. The Zapatistas are on and on, going and going in their milpa or in what they can, in their small businesses, because they know that later they are going off to the clinic or to the Caracol to cover their shift, or going to a meeting, according to the work that each one has, so the days that they are in their community they work hard, they have enough to feed themselves and what remains to sell.

Neighboring that Zapatista town is a community where they are 100% Priistas, they are with the government projects, they now barely plant their lands. The compas from the Zapatista town always arrive there to sell, the compas go every day and the buyers are those from that Priista community.

Some say that over there sometimes it even causes shame to sell, but I think that it is the most dignified thing because it is more shameful to steal, as it is said. They sell what they produce: avocados, oranges, chilies, tomatoes, beans, corn, sapodillas, bananas, plantains, everything that can be produced, chicken, pigs. One day a man from the Priista community and another from the Zapatista were making commotion, the Zapatista compa was going along eating a banana and the other man got pissed off and said: “Do you not have in your house what you are eating here?” “Yes in my house I have it but I do this because I am on my way, getting to my house I have things to eat. But more fucked-up in your community because it is a market,” and he mentioned the name of the other community. “It is a market because they go to sell everything there as if there were no land, as if they were not on the land.”

The one no longer answered and that is the truth, the Priista brethren are like that and the Zapatistas are not waiting. That is how to resist and not only in one town, it takes place in all the towns. Aside from the families resisting in this way the towns also seek their way to resist, their collective work.

There we have around N towns in the zone, that although there is not collective work in all we calculate that in those N towns 80% of the towns have a collective task, there are towns that have two, there are towns that have three collective tasks, four, and even five, it depends on how they are organized and it depends on the number of compañeros that there are in each town.

In the towns there are collective milpas of beans, of corn, there are cattle collectives, collective stores, chicken collectives, there are small businesses. It is not that they are permanent businesses which are there all the time, sometimes small events are done and there go the compañeros with their small business. A compañera told us that in a town in her region they began with a business of one chicken farm, ranch chicken, and every so often they killed one or two chickens and made tamales, they sold those tamales and little by little they went gathering a fund and with that fund they had they came to buy a nixtamal mill. Like this they went along creating their work.

One compañero who had knowledge of the other town told us that it is a center where many people from other communities arrive. The compañeras from there organized to make a tortilla-store, but it is not because a machine like those which we see in the cities was purchased, the compañeras make them with their little press or by hand, and there they are going to sell their tortillas to the people who buy it.

That already is a collective work, like this many other things are organized in the towns. And what is that good for? So that if a compañero from that town, if they are the education promoter, the health promoter, and have to go do their work, they have something to give them for their fare, to give them something that can serve them where they are going to do their work.

There the majority of the regions have their collective work, some have their passenger vehicles on the route where they are there, others have a milpa, others have cattle, others have stores. That now is like a custom, that if you have a compañero that is going to do a job on behalf of the region well the collective work of their region is what responds, aside from that their town also is going to support another little bit.

Also in the municipal element there is collective work, the majority is with cattle, some with stores, but here we are seeing that all the municipalities have from two to three collective tasks, at the municipal level we have 8 or 10 collective tasks. That is used so that if the municipality is responsible for giving personnel for the zone, the municipality responds, if that compañero who is named is responsible for doing a job in the zone the municipality responds with its collective work.

Like this is how we are resisting in the economic element, we are seeking it according to the possibilities of each town, the towns do not remain there saying that they cannot, we go along looking for it. Like that example of cane, it is to resist the sugar issue that the price is going up, the compañeros who do that work do not have that problem. Like this each town goes along seeking so not have that complaint, “it’s that I cannot because I am missing this.” According to our possibilities in each town is how we go along handling it in our zone, sometimes it looks very simple but it is good for something later.

Ideological Resistance

Anahí (Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno)

The evil government uses all forms of media to control and misinform the people, for example television, radio, soap operas, cell phones, newspapers, magazines, and even sports. With television and radio it puts in many commercials to distract the people, the soap operas to hook the people, and we believe that what happens on TV is going to happen to us.

In education the evil government’s system makes the children be in school well-uniformed every day, regardless of if they know how to read or write, it is only to put up appearances or for them to look good. It also gives them scholarships for them to have studies but at the end of the day the only ones that benefit are the businesses that sell the supplies or those uniforms.

How do we resist all these bad things of the government’s ideology in our Caracol? Our principal weapon is autonomous education. In our Caracol the promoters are taught true stories related to the people for them to be transmitted to the girls and the boys, also making known our demand. Political talks also were begun to be given to our youth for them to be awakened and not fall so easily into the government’s ideology, also the local representatives of each town are giving talks to the town about the thirteen demands.

Gabriel (Former Member of the Autonomous Council. MAREZ General Emiliano Zapata)

In our zone they present many of the government’s ideologies to us but we are resisting so that our towns, our youth, and even our children, have the idea of our struggle. Since some time ago we were resisting per se, since our clandestine period, in a part of our zone there were many divisions from other organizations that were compas per se, but we resisted all those ideologies.

What the government has done since ’94 until now is counter-attack the collective work that we do. For example if the compañeras from a town are organized to do a bread making collective, they counter-attack that collective, the ones who are not compañeros do a project with the government, giving the idea that they too have it with the government and saying that what the compañeras do is of no use because it is more humble, more simple, that they get more.

Also on television there are many things that the government puts and our youth go off to all those ideas. For example with the soap operas, there are youth who now are awaiting the time in which the soap opera is going to be on; if they already saw a scene that happened that tomorrow the guy is going to get married to the girl, they are awaiting what is going to happen there, and if there is a meeting the youth now barely come. In the movies it is seen that there someone goes off with I don’t know what, showing that it is very fucked up, but they just put up appearances, just to lose the mentality of our struggle, we explain this to our compañeros.

What we do is give talks about our struggle with the youth and explain to them that these things are not good for the people. We are resisting all these things, we are working so that our youth, our bases, do not fall into those ideologies of the government.

They also use sports, like soccer, that if Mexico is going to compete with Spain, so even if it is Monday or Tuesday, a work day, the youth lose that time, they even go pay 5 or 10 pesos to go see that thing. What we have done in our zone is promote sports, do youth encounters, make sport of soccer, basketball with the compañeras, we are doing all that, although a little but we are doing it in our zone.

In ideological resistance we do children’s encounters, were they are going to perform their poetry, their dance programs, so that like this the children go along understanding about what our struggle is and know that we, the compañeros, are those who have to construct education. All that is also working a little, but we are working it in our zone.

The encounters are done at the zone level and also at the municipal level, the Junta and the municipality have to give their part, the two levels of government have to have that attention of the encounter with the children. If it is at the local level, in the municipality, the encounter is done in a town and the support bases go there to make the food with the children, also those who are the education committee go to supervise the children.

Psychological Resistance

Flor (Former Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. MAREZ Libertad de los Pueblos Mayas)

How is the evil government attacking us and how are we resisting it? There is the issue of alcoholic beverage consumption, the government is bringing in many alcoholic beverages for the brethren to consume it and for us to have a problem with them. But it seeks not only for them to consume it, it brings in those products so that we as Zapatistas fall into that error of consuming it and lose the meaning of saying what as Zapatistas we have in secret.

What do we do to counteract it or to resist it? We as Zapatistas organize ourselves and make our agreements or our laws, for example that the Zapatista compañero who consumes those products is given a punishment, but it is explained to them that it is not necessary for it to come to that, because aside from the fact that alcoholism does not leave us with anything good we have to pay a punishment for consuming it, so the compañeros realized that what we explain to them is true and they stop consuming alcoholic beverages. Like this we are resisting against that psychology that the evil government wants to put in us.

William (Member of the Autonomous Municipal Council. MAREZ San Pedro de Michoacán)

There is also the issue of the programs, the government projects. The government begins to bring in projects so that the brethren receive from those projects and believe that it is good, so that they begin to receive from that and forget about their work. They do it so that the brethren no longer depend on themselves but depend on the evil government.

What do we do to resist those things? We begin to organize ourselves to have collective work, we have collective work from the town, the region, in the municipalities, and in the zone. We do that work to satisfy our needs for various types of work and it is how we resist to not fall into the evil government’s projects and for us to do our own work, do depend on ourselves and not on the evil government.

There is also the problem of witchcraft. The brethren still in that sense of witchcraft are very cheated because the evil government, after ’94, by means of the radio stations began to bring in many hoaxes that witchcraft exists. They, when one of their family members gets sick, go to those spiritualists and the spiritualist tells them:

“That brother who lives close to you is doing the evil to you or is eating you,” they tell them. The evil government brings in all that for us to continue having problems, with other brothers, sometimes they accuse one of us as Zapatistas that we are the witch. What do we do as Zapatista to resist or to not fall into those hoaxes? We begin to see with our compañeros, to tell them that it is not true, how can we believe that among us we are going to eat each other, we begin to orient the compañeras that it is pure lies. It is how we are resisting those things and I think that the compañeros no longer believe in those things because we are clear that it simply does not exist.

Cultural Resistance

Lizbeth (Future Junta de Buen Gobierno Authority. MAREZ San Pedro Michoacán)

In our Frontier Jungle Zone we speak various languages: Tojolobal, Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Chol, Zoque, and Spanish. We identify ourselves with our regional clothing, like so we know what language each one speaks, except with Spanish. There are towns which maintain our culture alive, but there are other towns which go along losing language, their dress, even regional music.

With regard to regional music we have the violin, the marimba, the drum, and the reed, which now is only used in traditional celebrations for special ceremonies. Before the town dances were done with these instruments, now it is no longer used for dances, the keyboard is very much in style.

The religions celebrations which are done in our zone, which are maintained in the towns, are December 12th, December 24th, Easter Week, All Saints, and May 3rd. But as Zapatista peoples we also have commemorative dates which have their history, like November 17th, the arrival of the six compañeros to the Lacandon Jungle; January 1st, the armed uprising in 1994; April 10th, the death of general Emiliano Zapata; March 8th, International Revolutionary Women’s Day. In the community celebrations tamales, atole, or community foods are custom.

Nicodemo (Former Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. MAREZ General Emiliano Zapata)

We have almost completely lost crafts because we know well that neoliberalism is modifying what our grandparents had on-hand, but we still have 50% on-hand. We have clay crafts, clay jewelry, clay griddles. We have them because we need them to resist, like the griddle which serves to make tostadas because they do not burn there, the metal griddle has disadvantages, the flame is very direct and the tostada burns immediately from lack of care.

We still have the matamba basket on-hand because it serves for us to resist what is made of plastic. We also have a sugar mull because there where we live is very far away, there are transportation difficulties and it works for us to not buy sugar. We resist, we plant sugar in order to not buy jarochos, those are expensive and in addition they rust upon handling, you need to wash it well to use it because if not, the sugar juice comes out mixed with bad odors, those that we have are made of wood.

The sugar mill helps us to resist to not buy sugar because the price of sugar is rising every few months or days, it rises and drops, it depends on the business of the sugar-dealers in Oventik, in Pujiltic, in different places. We also use thatch to resist and not buy sheet metal. There in the zone we have the knowledge on-hand to make partitions for the floor, also for walls.

Also education is important, we always go along training our compañeros even if there are personal-life obstacles or due to lack of support from our communities or municipalities. But we go along resolving in good ways, if a compañero no longer wants to continue their work of being an educator we propose it to other compañeros, we do it like this.

We see that it is important to have an education promoter in each community because they are our future, those who are going to take our place, they are our successors, they are those who are going to give continuity to our struggle. That is why in each community and at the zone level we do not leave education to be thrown-out because our promoters give us a good history for our future, they can share the language with our children ,with our sons and daughters, so that the children understand our struggle and continue after us, so that they are not cheated with the plans or with the government’s lies.

Questions

The culture that the capitalist system has created for us, in this case in Mexico, teaches us that to choose governments there are elections and to be able to do the voting it is necessary to get a credential, do the compañeros there still vote for parties like the PRD, PRI, PAN, or Green Environmentalist Party?

We understand that what the government seeks is power, properties, cheating the people with a soda, with a pack of cookies, and with that for it then to go to shit, the beneficiary is going to be the ruler, the one who buys the vote. That is why we are in the understanding that none of that, that we are seeking, whoever it is that is going to govern, for them to do what we ask. What we understand is that.

It was mentioned that you still have a sugar mill to grind sugar cane, do you have that work in the zone or in collective in each town or municipality?

In my community we have what is sugar cane in collective, in community, and we are now advancing to have it in the region, but here was a failure in what pertains to the plot, it does not allow sugar cane to grow, there were no results, we planted sugar cane but it grew very salted and in addition there is not water to work in that place, we are going to move it from there. We are going to see what solution we are going to put for the sugar mill issue because there are compañeros who still propose for it to be made of metal, but we are going to see if it is necessary because we have the wood one on-hand, but it does not matter what it is we are now going to see what solution we are going to put for it. It is like that in the community, we do have it because it works for us for a meeting, a community celebration, we use it with that, to not make much expense in the store because the store is a business, we take out for the collective work.

Are the authorities seeing how to resolve the problem of our culture’s things which are being lost, is there a plan about that?

At the Junta level the promotion of the rescuing of some things is being attempted but there is not a plan on how to push the whole zone recovering that. We see that there are towns which do keep culture strong, so work is being done with that. How? Through the education promoters who have to teach in their own dialect.

Since the work of the Junta is to be in-charge of promoting so that in our zone they realize that it is important to rescue our culture, so the Junta itself has to give the example, it is not just saying. The example of adobe is there, in the majority of the communities of our zone construction is done with other materials, so the Junta decided to make its new office with adobe, as a demonstration that things can be made with our own materials in the region. The Junta office made of adobe is in the Caracol center as an example so that not only are we convincing the compañeros that we can rescue our culture, but also the one who says, in this case the compañeros of the Junta, is demonstrating that it is possible.

There also is the example of the sugar mill, that is taking place in the towns, it is very local but we still maintain it present and it helps us a great deal to not buy sugar. We are accustomed to planting sugar cane as families and from that we sweeten coffee or we drink cane-sugar water and that helps us to not spend, we do not buy in the store. The majority of our towns do have our own cane field.

All these things go along helping us. As Zapatistas we have to endeavor, work maybe double what those who are receiving government programs do, so that is the meaning of our form of working, we have to endeavor as Zapatistas, do everything possible to be able to resist. But there is not a development plan up to the moment, but it is being thought about, the steps are being taken, maybe we won’t find the way how to do it, but we are seeing the possibility.

How are you handling the production of thatch?

In my community we use thatch a great deal because it is fresh, it is more comfortable, and more economic than buying sheet metal. Those of us who produce thatch are many, we still have that knowledge. But that work is very tough and very delicate, it is against the rain, to produce the thatch a hot time is needed, dry time because the water undoes the thatch, it is very delicate and it is not so easy to prepare it to construct. This work is just communitarian, it is not regional, it is not much.

How do the compañeras make their dresses, do they handle needles or in a sewing machine?

In some towns the custom of weaving is still maintained, of embroidering, and in some towns they do have their little machine, both things take place.

In order to make the outfits, for example the Tzeltal outfit which is different from the Tojolobal outfit, from the Chol, they just buy cloth and they make it to their way of dressing. There also is the Tzotzil outfit, just that then they use thicker cloths, they are more expensive, but they buy the cloth and they are the ones who make it to their way of dressing. That now is almost being lost, those who wear it are now few, what is defeating us is the clothing which is in-style. What we do, little by little, is not so immediate, it is attempted to convince a compañero to use the traditional outfit. But our organization also says:

“It does not matter if you dress like those from above but if your sense of struggle is here present with us.”

We know very well that the sense of struggle is to orient our children so that they do not go so much with the style because there also we are going to resist a great deal. There is for each one, that the situation in each home is going to see.

In order to make clay pots, clay griddles, clay plates, are you working in a collective way or just in the community do a few compañeras do it?

That work is very local, family-based, because the teachers, principally women, who have that knowledge are few. Those who maintain that custom, who know how to make the clay pots, griddles, are few, but the town does use it because it is a different flavor, for example, to make beans it is a different flavor cooking it in an aluminum pot than in a clay pot.

It is thought that the work of the Junta is to see how to rescue that knowledge which still remains with us in each town, the compañeros have given us the example. If the teachers who still exist are few, how can we multiply it in the zone? It is the task of the authority to promote that knowledge that still remains with us in each town.

Political Resistance

Marisol (Former Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. MAREZ San Pedro de Michoacán)

In our zone the evil government is attacking us with constructions. In the beginning, in what is the Caracol center, it made a clinic with the interest of seeing if some compañeros would approach their clinic, now it is constructing a children’s hospital also in the center. We see that it is their politics to counter-attack us in our demand for health.

We in the zone are counteracting with autonomous health, because we the compañeros and compañeras are accustomed to going to our health promoter, we go to our municipal clinics or where there is closest, we also have our zone hospital. The compañeros realize that upon going to a government clinic what they first ask is if we have a booklet, public insurance, they even ask us if we have identifications and we do not have any of that, so they do not give us the consultations or the treatment that is due. To counteract this government politics in health, we have the constructions for the clinics in the municipalities and health houses in the towns.

We are also seeing that instead of us losing we are winning. Brethren who are not Zapatistas go to our clinic because when they go to their hospitals or clinics the medicine that they give there does not cure them, they go to our promoters and see that it is a great advantage with the medicine that our compañeros give them they are cured faster. We are seeing that we are winning with our own health promoters.

In our zone we began with the rescuing of our culture, of the knowledge of our ancestors, our grandfathers, our grandmothers, with what were the three areas that we named. There healers were trained, compañeros and compañeras of medicinal plants, as well we have a group which are midwife compañeras. To no longer go to the government hospitals or clinics in the towns we have the compañeras. We are making our autonomy stronger, our demand for health.

In education the evil government is attacking us with secondary school constructions, around our zone there now are even high schools, before that was not seen or was not heard. We see that maybe we have not arrived to secondary school or high school but the experience that we have is that the compañeros, compañeritas, that our promoters or trainers have taught, now have participation as authorities, municipal councilmembers, in the Junta and in other areas. It is the advance that we have in health and education, with that we counteract what is the politics that the evil government has been doing to us.

Roel (Former Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. MAREZ San Pedro Michoacán)

The government is attacking us politically with constructions, with roads, in health, with schools and many times we do not value the work that our own health promoter, education promoter compañeros are doing.

We who live very close to a government hospital and can get an idea on how we are resisting the government’s politics and how we are prepared, thanks to our compañeros who prepared us, who taught us to prepare all the personnel who work in those areas, we can defend ourselves from that government politics.

There is a huge hospital in a community called Guadalupe Tepeyac and right now the government is constructing another very close, a half-hour or one hour trip, in the center of La Realidad, it is a children’s hospital. But what happens, what have we seen in that hospital which is functioning in Guadalupe Tepeyac? In spite of the fact that it has all its equipment, the people from various communities, from various municipalities, end up going to our hospital.

It turns out that those people go to the government hospital and need to do an ultrasound study, for example, or a laboratory analysis, the doctors send them to our hospital. The doctors know that the hospital that we have, the Hospital-School Los Sin Rostro de San Pedro is very close, and they know that they cannot do the studies in that government hospital because they do not have the trained personnel, the machine is there but there are no personnel, so what they do is give the consultation and send the patients to the Zapatista hospital- school so that their studies are done there.

That study is going to be done and of course, there are rules in that hospital to charge a fee to those who go, and they do the study on them. So the people go along realizing, being astonished that in an official hospital there is not what many expect, the solution to their problem, so they go to our hospital, although simple as we say, but there is where they say what problem they have when the result of the ultrasound or laboratory study comes out.

In the Guadalupe hospital there is a laboratory technician but there are many things, many studies, that he cannot do and he sends them to our hospital-school. We have a compañero who is trained and already trained several more compañeros, he does various studies, but not alone.

The advantage that our compañero has, that the one from the official hospital does not have, is that when the people come sent by the doctors from the Guadalupe hospital he does the study on them, but at the same time he gives them the prescription, the treatment for their sickness. Because he has had a great deal of knowledge, in that area of the laboratory, in contrast the one who works in the official hospital only does the study and that’s that, he sends it to another doctor for them to give a treatment.

We realize that things like that have happened, maybe as peoples who have not understood, we have not valued the work that we have been doing, how we are preparing ourselves to politically resist the programs that the government does. We are not competing, but rather we are doing as Zapatistas the work that a health promoter should do, giving the service.

The government in our zone has tried to divide politically with various civil organizations, organizations which have much to do with the government, with new parties and has brought in programs. The worst is that it has used our own indigenous brethren from our very communities, from our zone, for them to provoke us and us to confront each other as an internal problem among ourselves. What we do when this happens is try to find the best solution, take steps to not fall into those types of provocations because at the end of the day what the government plan wants is for us to fight among ourselves as indigenous people.

If we fall into those provocations we aggravate the situation, so we try to find the best way to resolve it, to finish everything and if getting a solution by the peaceful way is achieved it is the best. There have been many provocations in our zone but the authorities, the compañeros from the Junta, the autonomous municipal councils, have tried to resolve all those problems that are presented in our zone, so these organizations or those brethren who want us to fall in their provocation or to respond in another way do not achieve their objectives. Up to the moment those types of provocation have been presented, it is a plan that the government has in our zone, in other communities that is taking place, it is not very general, they are issues of communities closest to our Caracol.

We also are politically resisting the government’s educational programs. Today in our zone there is talk of new official schools and that all of the children who go to those schools they force them to put on uniforms for them to look better. But we do not go with that, they do not learn more from being uniformed better, that is not of worth in education but rather the quality of teaching that the teacher or education promoter gives.

Our education promoters work with the children making known to them everything important about the struggle, for them to learn to differentiate what is autonomous education and official education. There are communities where there is official education and there is autonomous education, we cannot stop or be less because we see that there is a school, but on the contrary, go strengthening ourselves more in our zone, in our communities, in our regions, and in our municipalities.

The greatest and most valuable thing with which we are politically resisting everything that the evil government’s system is trying to do in our zone is the work of our authorities, our autonomous towns, the municipal agents, commissioners, our municipal authorities, the creation of the autonomous municipalities, the Junta de Buen Gobierno level. They are our principal weapon, all the Zapatistas, to counteract all those government plans.

It precisely is the strongest work that right now we have to get going, strengthening more to be able to continue resisting everything with which the government is politically counter-attacking us, we see it like this, that the strongest, the most valuable thing that is there are the authorities and workers that there are in the municipalities, in the Junta, they are the ones who directly confront the problems that there are in the zone. The towns are working but our autonomous authorities which have to wrack their heads twice as much to resolve all the problems that are happening in the zone, be it in a community or in a municipality. We see that the work of our authorities is very valuable, from the towns, municipality, and Junta de Buen Gobierno, it helps us a great deal.

Social Resistance

Flor (Former Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno)

In our Frontier Jungle Zone there have been many changes. Before 1994 the communities had another way of organizing themselves because our grandparents had a way of understanding things, the work that was done in common maintained a communitarian living. What they did not practice is for women to be able to participate in the assemblies, they were not taken into account, as if they did not have the right to participate.

After 1994 with the Revolutionary Women’s Law the participation of women begun to be practiced, that space was given to them for them to occupy positions from the community, as agents, commissioners, health, education, and three area promoters, local and regional persons in-charge, Committee substitutes, radio broadcasters, Council authorities, municipal councilmembers, and Juntas de Buen Gobierno.

We still have the custom of relating to each other in community living, where we make agreements to have celebrations. We organize for the work that is needed to take the celebrations forward, tamales, atole, are prepared, food with beef is prepared for all.

William (Member of the Autonomous Municipal Council. MAREZ San Pedro de Michoacán)

We have a way of resisting in what is the social element in our communities or in our towns, we assist each other, for example when there is a death, we still have that custom of assisting each other with what is needed, how to dig up the tomb and transfer the deceased to the burial. We also have that resistance that in the towns we live organized, for example in the ejidal work, with opening the paths, with making hammocks and bridges, we still have that work which is the work of the community.

Resistance to Military Presence

Anahí (Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno)

Since 1994 in our zone we have been preparing ourselves, as much men, women, and children, to peacefully resist the military presence. In the year 1995, on February 9th, when Zedillo sent 60 thousand soldiers to capture the Zapatista leadership, many towns had to withdraw from their towns to not provoke the military personnel. There were towns that returned to occupy their communities, they only left one month or more, but there were towns that spent more time outside of their territory because the army had positioned itself on it. We have as an example the town of Guadalupe el Tepeyac which over 6 and a half years was in exile resisting until the army withdrew. They returned on August 7th, 2001, they returned supported by civil society and the Zapatista peoples to rebuild their houses.

Gabriel (Former Member of the Autonomous Council. MAREZ General Emiliano Zapatista)

On August 11th, 1999 the military arrived to the Amador Hernández ejido, General Emiliano Zapata municipality, we compañeras and compañeros resisted that military entry. The military wanted to take the community, they arrived to a dance hall and what the compañeras did was confront them, the military took them from the community, they put them in a place outside of the community.

The military continued there and an encampment was made in which the whole zone from La Realidad Caracol participated, civil society also arrived to that resistance and it was endured because it was the time of skeeters, time of mud, it was the time of rain. We did not fall into the provocations, we did non confront militarily but peacefully we came before them. In that encampment dances were organized, we danced in front of the military personnel, religious worship was done, programs of the compas’ events were done, suddenly we gave them the political talk on the struggle. What happened with the military? As if we were convincing them because we were face to face with them, so what the military leaders of the army did was put some speakers so that they no longer heard our words and it withdrew them a little more.

Afterward the compañeros invented another way, I think that they had heard about paper planes, so they began to make them writing why the encampment is there and we threw the paper planes to the military and they picked them up. It was when the first air force of the Zapatista army was made in Amador Hernández, they were planes made of pure paper.

All that happened in that military resistance and sometimes we got to pushing with the military, the compañeros and compañeras were in front and the military personnel in two files. The military personnel pushed us with their shields and they had those clubs as they call them, they pushed us and there was a short compa, that compa stepped on the foot of a soldier and they stepped on his foot too. Since another bigger soldier was there as if it made him curious and he laughed, he began to laugh because the compa stepped on the foot of the other and they stepped on his foot too. The soldier began to laugh and the shorty compa said to the soldier fucker, “what are you laughing about you shorty?”, the soldier was bigger and the compa shorter, it was something funny that happened there. It was a resistance that was able to be done there in that time when the military entered into Amador Hernández. All that we compañeros are doing in what is military resistance. The compañeros were already getting used to seeing the military. There are communities who lived around the road and when they military passed they already saw them as if they were public transportation, as if the fear of them was going away.

Caracol II: Resistance and Rebellion For Humanity

Oventik

Resistance to Military and Paramilitary Attacks

Emiliano (Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. MAREZ San Pedro Polhó)

Since the year 1994 many attacks, many problems, have happened in this Highlands Zone, the support bases have suffered a great deal in this zone.

In the year 1995 the support bases took the municipal seat of Polhó. The government responded with its force militarily, attacking the support bases with blows, 60 of them were imprisoned, they were taken from their land. There were three days that the 60 support bases were in prison, but they did not stay there, the Council, the support bases, the people continued and even established a seat in Polhó in a borrowed house. The autonomous authorities resisted the great suffering in that year.

The Polhó municipality received great attacks another time in the year 1997. The truth was that what the evil government did in that year was very painful, there were deaths, there were wounded persons, and there were support bases who remained entrapped, remained detained. There is a community called Yaximel, there were many support bases there, men and women, who remained detained by the paramilitaries. The paramilitaries were asking for 10 thousand pesos each person, they wanted them to remain in their party by force, there was a fine which later was decided that they would give 5 thousand pesos each person.

“Yes, I am going to pay. Give me permission for some 15 or 20 days. Yes, I am going to give the 5 thousand pesos,” they told them, there are support bases they are very tricky.

Those compas left hiding themselves in the mountains, they went to find their compañeros who were displaced, they did not give the 5 thousand pesos. There were support bases who did pay the 5 thousand pesos but later on they went to follow their organization, there they left the PRI party. There are compas who did not stop struggling, there are compas who have a great deal of conscience. It happened like that in that year.

When there was that paramilitary attack with police who came uniformed, with people paid by the evil government, people who came from other municipalities, the compañeros abandoned their houses, they went to another community, there were many communities that came to Polhó. There are support bases who were in the mountains I don’t know how many days, in the river, there are compas who disappeared, who forcibly abandoned their houses, their animals, everything that they had. The paramilitaries stole everything that the support bases had and even burned houses.

There is a community where the compañeros could no longer enter to see their land, their houses, and up to the present are there in Polhó, they continue displaced. Thousands of support bases are suffering right now, since ’97 to the present continue displaced, they do not have their houses, they do not have anything. There are communities where they can now enter to work a little but not everyone. But they did resist the attacks, the attacks were very strong because there were very well-trained people.

The paramilitaries were going to enter again where the support bases were but they could not enter because it was already well-controlled day and night, they made posts day and night. They did not enter because the support bases already had more force because thousands of Zapatistas were reunited, they could not go out to work, they were there for several months looking after their places. But the paramilitaries day and night were firing their weapons to threaten the support bases more, supported by the one who was the municipal president, his name is Jacinto Arias Cruz, he continues prisoner right now. That fucker, Jacinto Arias Cruz, supported his people, his paramilitaries, with boxes of bullets.

The support bases endured that suffering, those attacks, but there were also support bases who did not endure that suffering, those attacks, there were support bases who returned to their community, to their houses, they admitted in the hands of the enemy, but the greater part are still there, they continue firm in the struggle. Thanks to the solidary brothers and sisters who supported the displaced that is why they endured. There the support bases saw that in the struggle they are not alone, they saw that there are many brothers and sisters in other countries of the world who are supporting our struggle. Every 2 weeks they sent a little bit of corn, beans, oil, soup, every 2 weeks the displaced received their rations, that is why they endured the suffering. They have been displaced for years now but they are still there.

There were support bases who forgot about that suffering, although their husband, their wife, their children died. Some now are in another party, there are others who sought other organizations, others went to the other side because the resistance was very hard, but they were only some, not all. It happened like this in that year 1997 in Polhó, the problems began on May 24th and continued until December 22nd of the same year.

The last attack was on December 22nd when they killed 45 people, they were not exactly support bases, they were from Sociedad Civil Las Abejas, but they were supporting our struggle, it is the same idea, so that there is not more problem, for no more problem to happen. The support bases already knew that great attacks were going to happen, the support bases were already on the other side in the mountains, it is that those from that organization did not want to leave.

“God knows that here we are praying,” they said.

A moment came in which a ton of paramilitaries came, there they killed the poor indigenous people, 45 men and women. It was the plan of the evil government to put more soldiers and police in. The evil government sent thousands of soldiers when there were many deaths in that place which is called Acteal, they made their encampments in various places, in various communities. The support bases suffered a great deal because they could no longer leave, the women could not walk each afternoon, they checked their backpacks. What the federal soldiers did was very rough, they made encampments in that municipality to control the Zapatistas more, planes passed every while.

The damn soldiers even carried marihuana seeds to provoke more problems. They disseminated on the radio that the Zapatistas are planting marihuana, but it was pure lies, they were the ones who were planting marihuana. It happened like this but much later the soldiers abandoned their encampments. There were some communities which they left but it was due to the force of our compañeros and the brothers and sisters from other countries of the world, who went all the way to that place. There is a place which is called Poconichim, there a ton of people came from other organizations to criticize, to mock those soldiers, the damn soldiers hid in the mountains. They were afraid.

The support bases endured, they resisted those threats. There are some communities where those encampments of soldiers are still there, but not in all the communities. What happened in that year 1997 in the Highlands Zone was very rough.

The town San Juan de la Libertad created its government in the official municipality with an autonomous authority. In 1998 the evil government cleared it with its military force so many compañeros were imprisoned and many threatened by the police persecution. But the town did not remain with its arms crossed, it took more force and followed its government, although retreated because it did not have a stable seat, until little by little it established its seat in another place so that the town had its fixed self-government.

In April of 1998 San Andrés Sakamchen was dismantled by the evil governments, so it was seen necessary for the other towns to support to rescue the municipality and remove the police from there but the threats continued each time greater and with more force. An indefinite encampment was seen necessary to protect the seat of the autonomous municipality, that encampment lasted almost two years.

The military attacks happened like that in those years, not only in those places but there have been many attacks in other communities. There were attacks in Chavajebal, in Unión Progreso, in San Pedro Nixtalucum. There are several communities where the military attacks were very strong, but the town did not remain silent, it continued forming its authorities and everything.

In that zone when the towns in struggle were threatened and harassed they took more strength to form other autonomous municipalities. The Santa Catarina Autonomous Municipality was established, then the 16 de Febrero municipality, then Magdalena de la Paz, and then San Juan Apóstol Cancuc. Like this the 7 MAREZ in our zone were formed.

Questions

Currently how many support base compañeros are there still in Polhó as displaced persons? Has the Junta proposed living on recovered terrain, even if it is in other Caracoles, to the compañeros who currently live displaced? Yes compa. There are communities where there are a ton of weapons, there are a ton of paramilitaries and the support bases can no longer go to work. Our command said that there is recovered terrain in other Caracoles, one day the support bases put themselves in agreement and went to work there. They said that the corn does not grow well there or that the corn was stolen, they said so many things, they returned. But there are many families who are still there, the majority returned, they are in Polhó right now.

Right now they no longer want to go to work, they have various ways how they are living, there are some who work in collectives. It has been years since they went to work, it appears that in 1998 they went to work on recovered terrain. The majority did not stay there but there are some who already have their houses there, they have their animals, they have their milpas, they have their beans.

For the compañeros who remain, for example in Polhó, has the possibility been proposed to them of doing as those compañeros who do not only go to work but now live in other Caracoles? That is the possibility of positioning themselves on a plot or making a village on a recovered plot.

Right now they already have another plan. I don’t know how to explain well how many families are organized in the various communities, in various groups. There are some families who are working, they only go to work and bring their corn to their group, in their community, they work collectively. But a little while ago, last year, they organized it, a ton of support bases went to work on recovered land but they did not stay to live there definitively, they only went to work and returned to their houses. There are other families who went to live there, they no longer returned, they left their houses, they left what little they had in their groups.

But we do not have the list of how many families go and return, we do not have the record of how many families went to work and stayed to live there. Nor does the Council know well how many families stayed and how many went and returned. But yes right now there are a ton of support bases who are working on recovered terrain but just last year they organized it. We do not have the record good of how many families are there still and how many families have left, how many are now in the PRI or in other organizations, we do not have the record well. We as a Junta do not have the record good, that is our error, our failure in the work.

Here you say that then the Junta does not have a plan to resolve the problems with those compañeros, the Junta does not have intervention in that the compas go to work on a recovered plot and return, you say that there are a ton but there is not that exact number, record of how many go and how many return. What role does the Junta have with the displaced compañeros?

We still do not have a plan as a Junta. Much earlier when the regional persons in-charge gave their lists we did have the number of how many they were, but right now there are compas who no longer want to go to work. Right now there is a loss of spirit again, I don’t know how many support bases lost spirit that year, that is why we do not have the record good. Just last week we were saying to the other compañeros from the Junta that we are going to again record how many families are working, how many already have their houses there, and how many went and returned.

Situation of the Displaced Persons In San Pedro Polhó

In the municipality of San Pedro Polhó they received many attacks since 1997, in that time there was already a Council, there was not Junta de Buen Gobierno. First taking the town hall in San Pedro Chenalhó was attempted, that is the name of the official municipality, but the government entered there to remove the Council and the compañeros, 60 more people went to prison during three days. The place that they dismantled was in Chenalhó, not in the center of Polhó.

The compañeros returned and sought a place, a seat in the center of Polhó where until now they continue governing, the Autonomous Council began to function in a borrowed house. The toughest thing that happened were the attacks in 1997, well thousands of compañeros from various communities were attacked. Many compañeros left their places, they were displaced, they left their houses, their lands, their coffee plantations, everything. Some fell in the hands of the paramilitaries but the majority was able to leave and the greater part of them concentrated in the center of Polhó, where they began to organize in an encampment of displaced persons, almost 10 thousand men, women, and children concentrated there.

In that time there was not a Junta, only the Council. The Council as if it did not know what to do with those thousands of displaced compañeros. Little by little it was being heard that there were many problems and many displaced persons, so the international solidary organizations began to know that there are many grave problems. Those organizations saw what happened arriving directly there because there was not somewhere for them to pass first, they arrived directly to ask what happened. Support began to be sought and the International Red Cross even arrived, they began to give a little bit of aid, a little bit of corn, of beans, of canned food.

The problem was that it was uncontrolled, it did not work well for how that Council can govern, they only were seeing what arrived there, there it wanted to lead and directly give to the displaced, but the people, the support bases, began to get accustomed to receiving the little bit of aid. Every while they came to give that aid but the Council did not keep the record, so people became accustomed.

After it began to indicate that what was happening there was not good, as if it were the same as with the evil government, the compas only received the aid. It began to be indicated that it was not good how it was happening, it was said that the Red Cross’s aid can continue but that first it had to pass through the Council, for the Autonomous Council to control it. Little by little it began to be indicated like so but that aid from the Red Cross took time because they wanted to give it directly, take advantage of the support bases’ suffering, so it stopped giving that aid and left. Then another problem came, the compas began to complain.

“Now, what are we going to do?”, they complained to the councilmembers. “now you Councilmember well you do not let us receive that aid,” came the people’s grievance.

“Here it is not good what we are doing,” now the Council does get strong. “If more aid comes you are no longer going to receive it the same as has happened before, it has to be seen first if it is suitable or not.”

The Council began to organize a little, another support for a project was received. The Council organized a few different tasks but now in that center, in its encampment, because the displaced persons could not return nor could they work on their land and see in their houses, it continued closed.

It was like this for some years, later a bit of aid was attained with other organizations and collective work with gardening, cattle herding, chicken raising, began to be organized. Other aid was also attained now with the Council, for example, there is a large sand and gravel bank in the municipality and the Council began to see how it can work so that the bank is taken advantage of.

There a project was achieved, a machine was bought which can dig up the gravel and the sand, like this a bit of income began to enter, from the hand of the Council because there still was no Junta. It was there where it began to change a bit, but the compañeros felt more rough, they thought that it was bad how the work of the Council was done, people still did not understand.

Like this the problem has been happening, the paramilitaries continue enclosed from their community, they do not let those who left displaced enter. What the Council did was begin to organize a little better, it began to ask people if they could endure more and how many compañeros can organize, they ask other Caracoles where the recovered land is. It was proposed how many compañeros were willing to go to recovered lands to live because it was not going to be allowed for them to go and come back each while because there they had another agreement for how to work the recovered land. It was posed like this.

I do not remember how many families made the decision to go there, but it was only for a time, little by little they went returning to their own places. It is the problem that happened there. If they only cheat us and are not decided better it is not asked, for them to endure there. A time passed like that but the Council began to see what can be done with those from that municipality.

It is what has been happening, so that you know that a very bad time passed because they got accustomed to only receiving humanitarian aid from the International Red Cross. Even if it is a little bit of salt, of soap, of sugar, of corn, people get accustomed as if it were with the evil government. A time passed like this but it was indicated that it cannot happen like this, the Council itself has to organize. Little by little it was being organized until the Council took into its hands for how to organize the compañeros there.

The resistance was strong because nobody could enter to their place because the paramilitaries were waiting. It changed a little when it was seen that there are compañeros who cannot handle going to recovered lands, so it was sought in what other way they could resist, they continued with the small collective work and others created a women’s store which is for bread and another compañeros’ store which continues functioning.

Later there was another change and little by little those who could enter to their own land in the place from where they had left were returning. Others then arrived to their land to work but they could not stay there because they could receive another attack from the paramilitaries. The compañeros are organizing in small groups, small collectives, each group is organized to return to work on their land, only to make their milpa, bring their wood, and seeing a little of their coffee if it exists still.

There is a town where 15 years ago the compañeros left and up to now they are not allowed to enter because it is the center where the paramilitaries are concentrated, any support base who arrives there can be attacked again.

There is another town to which the majority are returning to see their land but they cannot live there, they have to return again. That is why the work on recovered land was proposed again, it was asked who are those who are willing to go to work, if they cannot decide to stay there on recovered land even if it is that they are only going to work. The problem there is that it is going to take a great deal of expense only to go to their milpa, I do not know what can be done there.

But that is an agreement of the two Juntas, the compañeros from La Garrucha have gone to the Oventik Junta, they have discussed if there is still terrain where the compañeros can work even if they are not going to live there, but there already is an agreement. The path is now being opened, there are compañeros who are in Benito Juárez, in Río Naranjo, right about there, there already is land, they are arriving but it is not known how much time they are going to be able to endure because it is not known if they can last there and return. That still needs to be seen but there now is an agreement with the two Juntas, not only from San Pedro Polhó but also for other municipalities in which they are going to ask if they are willing to work on those lands.

Aquileo (Member of the Municipal Council. MAREZ San Pedro Polhó)

It is a bitter story in that autonomous municipality San Pedro Polhó, the truth of that year 1997 many compañeros and compañeras went astray in the mountains, some stayed in the river, many compañeras remained sick, there were compañeras who were pregnant and some suffered, their children were born in the mountains, on the path.

When the military entered in 1995 there was much work to cheat the people from that place, they gave things away, they gave out food, they acted as doctors, they acted as haircutters, they are tricky. The very people from the officials, asked the military for their food, the women arrived, the girls, the Zapatista compañeras did not, they arrived with the military and they even left their children in that encampment where they were located and gave that food donation. When that attack in 1995 was we did not remain with our arms crossed, really we were more organized, we took more force, we took more idea on how to organize ourselves.

Currently in the autonomous municipality San Pedro Polhó, where we had that small donation of a scraper machine and a dump truck, the community itself together with the local and municipal authorities and the Junta de Buen Gobierno are seeing how it can be organized and how it can be improved to be able to work in that sand and gravel bank.

There it was organized to see the way how to begin to work and keep the record of that work, that is why compañeros were sought who can keep that record. Those compañeros work weekly and keep record of the backhoe, of the dump truck, and of the block-maker which we have too. The support bases rotate weekly in that work, the authorities don’t because they are in their office or in their municipal seat, those compañeros have the record of the money entries each week, that money comes to the hands of the municipal secretary, of the Municipal Council, municipal treasurer, and municipal representative, they are the ones who keep the record.

The quantity which arrives does not stay in the office or in the treasury, but the municipal expense comes from there which the municipal treasurer handles, a little bit remains with the treasurer of the project and another part with the municipal treasurer. The municipal treasurer handles that money when there are withdrawals from the local and regional authorities and also from other work areas like health, agroecology, healers, midwives, etcetera. The money for their transportation also comes from there, it is helped a bit with travel, the municipal treasurer has to give that transportation. The bank is handled like this, we are working like this organized in each municipality and in each community.

The Evil Government’s Economic Attacks

Victor (Former Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. MAREZ San Juan Apóstol Cancuc)

The evil government could not finish off our compañeros killing them with their soldiers and had to look for another way how to finish them through the economic element to see if our people resist or do not resist. In that way the government sought how to divide the people, how to make us fight among ourselves, that was a strong attack for the Zapatista people, those who struggle. But the compañeros and compañeras resisted, endured, even if the saddest thing had happened like everything that was already mentioned, they resisted more, endured although they suffered. The government could not finish our compañeros, it had to find another way how to finish them.

The compañeros sought how to resist those attacks in other ways, with the work. They sought the way to work in collectives, they sought the way how to survive to continue resisting the attacks. The evil government thought that it was easily going to finish off the Zapatista bases but it was not like this, they endured, although with great suffering but they did endure.

In our Highlands Zone we responded to the attacks with collective work, very few but work collectives did exist. There are cooperative stores, there is very little milpa work because in this zone we have very little terrain. There is not sufficient land but the compañeros and the compañeras had to find the way how to continue, they had to do chicken raising, craft stores, and some bakeries.

Only in that way can we the support bases survive. Whatever may come, whatever may happen but we have to endure. The ways are different, the extensions of terrain that we have in each zone or in the municipalities. In our zone it has not been possible to make the collective work big but it is due to lack of terrain, because sometimes there is nowhere to do them. In this zone we have endured. In that way we have responded to the economic attacks, through the work. The people have resisted like this.

Gonzalo (Former Judge. MAREZ San Andrés)

The CCRI compañeros, that is the Committee, the local and regional persons in-charge, before ’94 told us that when the time came to rise up in arms for us to be careful, it was what the persons in-charge recommended to us in each community. “Be careful, when the moment comes to rise up in arms or declare the struggle, the evil government is going to come with its economic attacks.”

I did not believe it but it was the truth, those economic attacks came, I have in-mind too and in conscience, the other compañeros and compañeras also still have the knowledge, the conscience that before ’94 had told us that the government always attacks by means of economic resources. That is what they told us, that they always are giving out money and other things, we know that the evil government always sends productive projects, sends materials for the construction of housing.

It did happen like the local and regional persons in-charge had said, what they said is true, that is why before 1993 we always made collectives, we were always strong, we made the work in collective totally complete. The compañeros and compañeras from each group or community, from each town, always organized well, they were very strong, they did complete collectives, all the expenses, all the entries, everything that comes from economic resources, the planting of milpas, the poultry, everything like that in collective.

Unfortunately after the armed uprising in ’94 the economic resources came from the evil government, many compañeros saw that the evil government sent those resources passing as if it were good government. The compañeros and compañeras realized that the government does as if apparently it is good, but other compañeros as if each one had little conscience, that is why many compañeros stuck to the evil government’s economic resources.

We all know that the government is sending poultry, goats, sending greenhouses because on cold land frost always falls and that is why they send greenhouses where the product which is planted can be protected, they are sending fruit trees to San Andrés and other colder places some compañeros trust that very much, so they stick there. But not only in that way, they also are sending material for housing, we realize that on the path and on the road gravel, sand, blocks for the construction of housing are piled up. They are also sending hard floors which they call them and construction of outhouses, that is what they are sending to the party-members.

The response that we are giving is the collective work, although it is little. For example the women are organizing, the compañeros have the idea that they should not trust the government. Many compañeros do not trust the government that is why they are resisting, they are not trusting the evil government’s projects.

We are responding a little with the planting of milpas because we do not have much land here. We do not have much land, we only have the land where a house can be constructed, where the compañeros can live with all their animals, poultry. That is why many compañeros went to the recovered land, they went there in collectives, they went to work, to plant milpas, some are planting coffee, there are also a few who are planting bananas.

That is what is happening with the evil government and its economic blow here in Highlands. The Junta and the municipalities still are not organizing much collective work, but what we need to know to exchange experiences is what the Junta is doing there, what response is it giving to the economic blow in this zone?

We still cannot find the best way how the towns can be organized. The Junta does not have some collective work in-hand, it is very different from what the compañeros from La Realidad and La Garrucha have discussed, where there is milpa work, there are cattle collectives, but here it is not possible to have that. The greater part of how resisting is done is through the force of the town, the majority is individual, of course there is already a part where there are collectives but the towns are those who go along organizing a little.

It is necessary to say clearly that in the beginning when there was no Council, there was no Junta, there was what we call central regions, before 1994 the people was already organizing a little. I think that some still know, those who are old like us, that here was called “Zoological Zone,” there were closer regions, they were not the regions that we are taking about now in the zone, when the towns began to be formed, to enlist the towns, it was advancing politically but not with the Council, not with the Junta, simply with the local and regional persons in-charge, and the CCRI.

In that time the collective work was advancing a little, there came a time, about six or seven years that were organized, the compañeros got together to work the corn, the bean field, the chickens, the goats. They did all of it in collective work almost like in socialist, it was not allowed for anyone to work only their part but in collectives. They had lived like this a little but clandestinely but more information went coming out.

“What are those groups doing? What are they? Are they communists? Are they socialists?” They began to accuse us like this.

That was what there was one time, but unfortunately since 1994 that organization began to disappear, I don’t know if due to a failure of the CCRI, of the persons in charge, I don’t know, but it went down. The majority of the compañeros dispersed, what they were organizing was lost, that is why it is no longer easy to rise up again. We hope that it is understood that here in Highlands it is totally different, the best way with what to work has still not been found. The majority of the municipalities are communal land but the terrain is also parceled, the compañeros have their little piece where they make their houses, their small milpas where they can do.

The problem is that in this zone there is no way how to organize what they have explained to us from other Caracoles, it is the justification, we think that it is like this or maybe only it is that we are not finding the best way how to organize but currently it is like this.

There are some compañeros who are now trying the collective work in each municipality, but it is not the Junta’s initiative, only the towns’. I do not know what size the Magdalena municipality has but since ’94 they have been organizing, they still continue resisting but no longer everything, but they continue organizing since that time until now. The compañeros from that municipality have part of their individual work but there is another part that is in collective, like coffee and other work that they do but the Junta does not keep the record.

The compañeras are just now organizing in San Juan, but not with their own money, but also they have supported the compañeras a little, they put their store, they are grouping together the compañeras in the collective store, but not like the other Caracoles told who sell from their coffee, from their cattle to begin, it is totally different.

That is the response to the economic blow, everything that the evil government is doing cannot be told in one day, they are totally dividing the communities, the little groups are separate, there are the official people, there is the official school and the autonomous school, in San Andrés there is the Autonomous Council and across the street are the officials, they are face to face. It is very different in this zone, that is why it cannot be said in only one word how the towns are organizing.

Another Compañero (Former Member of the Junta de Buen Gobierno. MAREZ San Juan Apóstol Cancuc)

In the year 2005 when I was a member of the Junta we made a plan for the 7 autonomous municipalities, I still remember that there it was invested but as it was almost when I left my position I do not remember very well the quantity but a little bit was invested in the autonomous municipalities to begin a collective work.

For example my municipality San Juan Apóstol Cancuc, where I continue participating, was responsible for more or less 18 thousand pesos to create a cooperative store for the municipal councils, it is a way to resist what is of the economy. That small collective for the store continues up to the present, the advance is not much but there it goes more or less.

One time a problem happened in the year 2010, when there was a confrontation in the community of Pozo, there the quantity of money that there was in the store went down a little. The Council took from there to maintain itself, in fact it was displaced, that is why the quantity that those councilmembers went down a great deal but that work still exists, it still continues there.

That was what the Junta did in the 7 municipalities, not only in the municipality of San Juan Apóstol Cancuc, when that investment was divided up it was already 2006 that is why I do not remember well how much each autonomous municipality got.

In my municipality, San Juan Apóstol Cancuc, there are 12 small groups for collective work but the truth it is not due to the initiative of the Junta. We saw that there is no way to realize large collective work due to not having land, but we have realized small work in the greater part of the communities in that municipality, there are collectives for cultivation of avocado, of milpa, of pineapple, bean fields, and also there is the store, but it is a small group of small collective work.

Also there are compas who are analyzing how to be able to resist in what is in the economy, because we always analyze, we always discuss, we are always organizing. So in that municipality they currently are beginning a collective work but it is just beginning, we have begun that work but still a great deal is lacking, the compañeros are lacking a great deal for them to understand.

Those compañeros who are beginning the work are doing it in another place, on the recovered land, for example in La Garrucha, up to now they are working there. They are beginning that collective work but it is not that they are going to position themselves there, they are only going to work and return, but since they are going to organize by shifts they are always going to be there. That is being done thanks also to our leaders who authorized that plan. We have not found another way how to be able to begin that collective work, that is why the only way that we have right now is to go to work even if it is far away, but still it is not known if the compañeros are going to be able to endure.

Ideological Resistance

Bulmaro (Member of the Autonomous Council. MAREZ Magdalena de la Paz)

We are resisting what the evil government does in all the municipalities with their political parties. Since we are in resistance the evil government enters into each community by means of its political parties, in our autonomous municipalities it does everything it can to convince us to abandon the struggle.

There are many things that it puts on its media, that is on the radio and the television, but we in the autonomous municipalities and in the zone we are making an organization so that the evil government does not convince our compañeros with what it says on the radio and the television. We are responding in the revolutionary ideological element with the community radios. It is what we are doing to not fall into the evil government’s politics, we have Radio Resistencia, Radio Amanecer, and Radio Rebelde.

Questions

Can you tell us what the evil government is doing and what is happening to people in what they call “Ciudad Rural,” the one in Santiago el Pinar? What is happening to people there?

The government made the Ciudad Rural in the official municipality Santiago El Pinar, we are living very close but we are organizing what we are going to do. The natives of Santiago are living in that Ciudad Rural but what the government did is not a dignified house, it is now seen well that it only cheated the people of Santiago. We, as we are in our organization as Zapatistas, are seeing that the evil government is doing poorly and we are organizing the resistance more and more.

Response from another compañero: In the Ciudad Rural in the beginning there were housing constructions. What the compañeros tell us is that the materials with which the constructions are made are those very thin plywood things, not like the boards that we have here. Currently the constructions are inflated like balloons, they are already undone because they do not hold up when there are strong winds, when it is the hot season and rainy season, all the materials of the houses are now bad.

Several families from various communities went to live a few days in that municipality, they were in those houses. According to the communications in the media about the Ciudad Rural, there is a kitchen that is built with the measurement of 3x3 meters, very small, and a little room, a living room on the side. But nothing was able to be done there because they could not make their fire in that house. Currently it is not working, the families were there a few days but what we know is that they had to return to their communities. Some families are still there but in very bad conditions. According to what they say on a hill, above where the constructions are, they made water tanks but they are not working.

They say that there is a bank there to invest money, I don’t know if it is a state or municipal bank but it is not working. They are pure shells already fallen apart. It is not how they say about the Ciudad Rural, that the name is very pretty but really there is nothing. Why are we going to believe in the idea that there are projects and other little things? They are pure lies.

That is part of the enemy’s war, that is why if some compañeros from this zone have let themselves be convinced with those ideas it is because they got up to there, it is not because they are now going to have a more dignified life. Those who leave the organization or those who are in the parties have not had a better life than the support base compañeros. From the Ciudad Rural what they have said and what they are doing there plainly are pure lies.

An example of the ideological manipulation that the evil government does in Santiago El Pinar is that for the women they are promoting that they were going to give them farms of egg-laying hens. In the egg-laying farms the feeding of the hens is necessary, when they gave them that they gave them many hens for them to lay eggs, so everything very beautiful in the 