Red & Black Revolution
 A magazine of libertarian communism

      Issue 1    October 1994

Produced by Workers Solidarity Movement

           The EZLN

The name of the Zapatista National 
Liberation Army (EZLN) rebels is taken from 
the Emilano Zapata who played a major role 
in the Mexican Revolution {1910 - 1921}.  73 
years has passed since the Mexican 
Revolution .  The memory of Zapata had faded 
onto the worn pages of history.Indeed the 
heirs of the betrayers of Zapata, headed by 
the Institutional Revolutionary Party and 
President Carlos Sallinas, are in power 
today in Mexico.  They  have remained in 
power for the last 75 years.  But the 
Zapatistas have come back to haunt them.

A New Year a New Dawn.

On New Years Day of 1994 people awoke to the 
news that four towns in the south-eastern 
state of Chiapas had been taken over by a 
group calling itself the Zapatista National 
Liberation Army.  Militarily they had timed 
their strike against the Mexican army well 
and thus even managed to capture General 
Abslon Castellanos (former Chiapas 
Governor).  Initially they took San 
Cristobal de Las Casas then  Oxchuc a town 
36km away.  They ransacked 10 government 
offices.  They freed 179 prisoners from the 
prison in San Cristobal and attacked the 
army garrison on January 2nd. 

They stated:  "We have nothing to lose, 
absolutely nothing, no decent roof over our 
heads, no land, no work, poor health, no 
food, no education, no right to freely and 
democratically choose our leaders, no 
independence from foreign interests, and no 
justice for ourselves or our children.  But 
we say enough is enough! We are the 
descendants of those who truly built this 
nation, we are millions of dispossessed, and 
we call upon all our brethren to join our 
crusade, the only option to avoid dying of 
starvation !"

On January 4th the big guns hit back.  Ten 
towns in the surrounding area of San 
Cristobal were bombed.  Reports came in of 
at least 400 killed in the bombing.  Five 
reported EZLN rebels were found dead in 
Ocosingo.   In another town, the Zapatistas 
shot down a helicopter, burned down the city 
hall and then left.  The bodies of 38 people 
who had been killed by the federal army were 
found.  The next day 70 tanks arrived in the 
conflict zone and the army attacked a van 
killing 5 civilians including one 8 year old 
girl.  Various government ministries 
circulated black propaganda about the group 
labelling them radical with a professional 
foreign leadership.  The authorities also 
stated that the presence of human rights 
organisations "hinders the dismantling of 
such a movement".

Why Chiapas ? 

The EZLN is based amongst the indigenous 
people who live in and around the jungle of 
Lacandona, east of the high plains of 
Chiapas.  Chiapas is an atrociously poor 
area.  41% of the population have no running 
water.   34.9% are without electricity. 63% 
of the people live in accommodation of only 
one room.  19% of the labour force has no 
possible income and 67% of the labour force 
live on or below the minimum wage - in 
Mexico you can take this as being very 
little.  Despite Article 27(1) which 
promises Land Reform in the constitution 
nothing has happened in this area.  
President Sallinas recently changed Article 
27 further wiping out any hopes for agrarian 
reform.  Northern Mexico has developed 
factories to cater for companies making use 
of cheap labour.  The southern part of 
Mexico has been left to become a wilderness.  
The EZLN fears that NAFTA(2) (North American 
Free Trade Agreement) will keep Chiapas 
further isolated and underdeveloped.

After the first initial days of hostilities 
the EZLN withdrew to the Lacandona jungle 
where they now are involved in negotiations.  
A cease-fire which began on January 17th has 
held despite the army breaking on a number 
of occasions.  In February negotiations took 
place inside a belt composing of 
representatives from the NGO's (4non-
governmental agencies).  Invitations were 
issued to the various political parties 
asking them to participate in the peace 
talks.  No weapons have been handed over to 
the Mexican army.

The State adopted a more conciliatory 
approach after the international 
condemnation of the bombing raid on January 
5th.  The move towards negotiation seems 
only to have come about due to the light of 
international attention, as prior to this 
Mexico's record in human rights is a 
diabolical one.

"Torture was frequently used by law-
enforcement agents particularly the state 
and judicial police, throughout Mexico.  
Most victims were criminal suspects but some 
including leaders of indigenous communities 
and human rights activists were apparently 
targeted solely for their peaceful political 
activities."(3)  As of February'94  the 
Secretariat of Human rights of the main 
opposition party - Party of Democratic 
Revolution (PRD) - reported that 263 of 
their members, activists and supporters have 
been assassinated since the 1988 electoral 
campaign.  

The EZLN rejected a request to drop 
political points from the agenda saying that 
they were not going to force national 
agreements but that as Mexicans they had "a 
right to form opinions and to protest about 
aspects of Mexico's political life".  In 
this  letter they go on to say that "Peace 
without respect and dignity continues to be, 
for us, an undeclared war of the powerful 
against our people".  They then went on to 
show their willingness for 'peace with 
dignity' by withdrawing from certain towns 
and letting the International Red Cross move 
in and take control declaring them 'grey 
areas'.  They also said that they would 
allow free passage of civilians while 
maintaining mobile patrols to ensure no 
military, police, or government officials 
entered the 'grey zones'.

In another statement issued to national 
newspapers the EZLN asked "Why is everyone 
so quiet?  Is this the 'democracy' you 
wanted?  Complicity with lies?" Going on to 
say "How much blood must be spilt before 
they (PRI) understand that we want respect 
not charity ?"  The statement finishes with 
the important lines 

"The CCRI-CG (Clandestine Revolutionary 
Indigenous Committee General Command) of the 
EZLN will go to the negotiating table with 
reservation because of its lack of 
confidence of the federal government.  They 
want to buy us with a ton of promises.  They 
want us to sell the only thing we have left 
:  dignity.  The 1st of January was not 
enough for the government to learn to speak 
to its citizens as equals.  It seems that 
more than January 1 are necessary. 
...........Here Zapata lives.  Try to 
assassinate him again.  Our blood is a 
pledge.  That it be taken by he who is still 
ashamed." 

They also issued a communique to all the  
NGO's operating within the conflict zone 
saying that they continued to "respect and 
welcome their neutrality and humanitarian 
efforts".

The month of February and March is littered 
with accounts of the spreading popularity of 
the EZLN.  There was a march of 300kms by 
nearly 200 indigenous people to the 
outskirts of Mexico city.  Banners displayed 
read "This dialogue we don't understand" 
which was a reference to the massacre of 
students in 1968 and the more recent one in 
Chiapas.  A demonstration for agrarian 
reform in Oaxaca was attacked by police.  
Students calling themselves 'Zapatistas' 
protested at a stop by the presidential 
candidate of the PRI.  In Puebla local 
indigenous groups blocked the highway.  In 
Tamaulipas dissident oil workers at the 
state petro-chemical industry (PIMEX) broke 
with their unions and organised strikes, 
blockades and demonstrations at the plants.  
Unarmed Indians have staged land take-overs 
in the state of Chiapas - throughout the 
Mayan Highlands.  There are reports that 
over 120,000 hectares of land has been 
expropriated from large private land 
owners(5).  On April 10th, 77 years after 
the death of  Emilano Zapata large 
demonstrations were organised and took place 
in support of EZLN demands in Mexico city.  
In June the EZLN rejected a peace offer set 
forth by the Government. 

"Declaration of the Jungle" issued by the  
EZLN

"We call upon Article 39 of the Mexican 
Constitution which states 'the people have 
at all times the inalienable right to alter 
or change the nature of their government.'  
Therefore in accordance with our 
Constitution, we issue this DECLARATION OF 
WAR... People of Mexico, we call for your 
total participation in this struggle for 
work, land, housing, food, health care, 
education, independence, liberty, democracy, 
justice and peace."

Where are they coming from ?

"We are not Marxists, nor are we guerrillas.  
We are Zapatistas and we are an army."
	EZLN Major

The first days of 1994 saw the resurgence of 
the name of Zapata on the airwaves of the 
world.  The EZLN, are only the most public 
face of the Chiapas conflict.  The EZLN act 
as an army, under the direction of a larger 
organisation, the CRIC-GC .  The CRIC-GC is 
comprised of delegates from many indigenous 
communities and it is they who are 
responsible for the politics and 
organisation of the EZLN.  The CRIC-GC is 
the highest authority of the movement.  The 
EZLN is subservient to them and exists to 
carry out their wishes.

  Major Benjamin of the EZLN says "We are 
not Maoists or Marxists, sir.  We are a 
group of campesinos, workers and students 
for whom the government has left no other 
path than arms to resolve our ancestral 
problems.(6)"  

To understand what being a Zapatista means 
one has to go back to the origins of todays 
EZLN.  In 1983 twelve young  people entered 
Chiapas to organise the oppressed 
population.  A vital lesson taught to these 
young people was that of democratic 
organisation. Sub Commandante Marcos 
revealed "The Zapatista army was not born 
democratic, it was born as a political 
military organisation. But as it grew the 
organisational methods of the communities 
began to permeate and dominate our movement, 
to the degree that the leadership of the 
EZLN has become democratic in the indigenous 
manner."

The CRIC-GC is organised though a delegate 
based democracy.  It is composed of 
delegates from each town and community.  It 
is responsible for the politics and 
organisation of the EZLN and is its highest 
authority.   The decision to take up armed 
struggle came first and the CRIC-GC grew 
from this decision.

"So we decided that there is no way other 
than to organise and rise up like this in 
armed struggle.  So we began to organise 
ourselves like that, secretly, in a 
revolutionary organisation.  But, as it 
advanced, each people elected its 
representatives, its leaders.  By making the 
decision in that way , the people themselves 
proposed who will lead these organisations.  
The people themselves have named us.  So 
first, someone from each people has been 
named responsible.  In that way we advanced 
town by town, so that there was time, then 
to name delegates.  In that way we came to 
be the CCRI.(7)" Sub commander Marcos is 
answerable to the CRIC-GC but remains the 
leader when it comes to military matters. 

The delegate based democracy on which the 
CRIC-GC is based is best explained by a 
young Zapatista Isaac "if some member of the 
CCRI does not do their work, if they do not 
respect the people, well compa it is not 
your place to be there.  Then, well excuse 
us but we will have to put another in your 
place."  This is how the community 
understand democracy and it is easy to see 
why they see no relation to what the 
'democracy' the PRI currently exercise in 
Mexico.

The conditions these people find themselves 
in are harsh yet they can still operate a 
form of participatory democracy.  This 
disproves the lie put forth by Leninists 
that in difficult conditions a dictatorship 
over the people must take place in 'their 
interests'.  It comes as no surprise that 
the Zapatistas repeatedly deny being 
Marxists or Leninists as these forms of 
political ideology have difficulty with the 
idea of participatory democracy.  

Through this democratic process the EZLN 
developed politics on a wide range of 
issues.  For example the Women's 
revolutionary law supports the right of 
women to participate fully in the  
revolutionary struggle, control their own 
fertility, choose partners, and has regard 
to their health, education, and well being.  
This signifies a major advancement for women 
of the indigenous population.  The peace 
proposal offered by the government was 
rejected by 97% of the people in the 
Zapatista controlled areas after 
consultation took place with all those over 
the age of 12.

In the negotiations with the Government, the 
EZLN put forward ten conditions which had to 
be met before a peace could be agreed.  Many 
of these points for example the dissolution 
of the present government to be replaced by 
a transitional one until proper elections, 
were obviously not going to be met by the 
PRI.  Also the EZLN demanded that NAFTA be 
revised.  Within the core of Zapatista 
politics there seems to be an inherent flaw.  
On one hand they know that their demands 
will not be met by the authorities yet on 
the other hand, given this, the demands they 
make are watered down versions of their own 
political line.  The question is when the 
Zapatistas were preparing their 10 point 
peace plan, what was their political 
strategy?  Assuming that they knew the 
government would reject most of their points 
why didn't they include a fuller expression 
of their program.  Perhaps they did have 
illusions in the government granting some of 
their demands, perhaps they felt that 
anything more radical would alienate the 
rest of the Mexican people, we don't know!  
These questions remain unanswered.

They claim to have learned from the 
guerrilla movements in Latin America. 
Firstly, to greatly distrust the surrender 
of arms, and secondly not have confidence 
"only in the electoral systems"(8).  Yet 
this position seems to be contradicted by 
Marcos who refers to the creation of a 
"democratic space where the political 
parties, or groups that aren't parties, can 
air and discuss their social proposals."(9) 
The point is explained further in a 
communique by the CCRI-CG in June where it 
says "...this revolution will not end in a 
new class, faction of a class, or group in 
power.  It will end in a free and democratic 
space for political struggle."  The EZLN are 
fighting  a revolution for democratic space?  
Yet, the type of democracy which they wish 
is not tolerated in any Western society and 
is unlikely to be permitted in Mexico unless 
revolution spreads throughout the country.

While it is obvious that no such space 
exists in Mexico, even the creation of some 
form of social democracy will not bring 
about the changes which the Zapatistas so 
desperately need.  Social democracy does not 
provide liberty or justice.  This call for 
social democracy contrasts with the beliefs 
which Marcos says exist amongst the people 
that "they (politicians) are changing the 
leaves of the trees, but the roots are 
damaged...  We say  Let's uproot the tree 
and plant it again" .  The tree will not be 
uprooted though the creation of social 
democracy.

However the options for the EZLN seem 
limited.  Prior to the Presidential 
Elections in August they  organised a 
National Democratic Convention (CND) which 
took place in the Lacandona jungle.  This 
logistical miracle was attended by over 
7,000 people(10).  The conference was 
attended by many of the established voices 
of opposition to the Institutional 
Revolutionary Party (PRI).  Marcos said he 
wished to turn the CND into the leaders of 
civil society and that it should be they who 
decided how to respond to the PRI and the 
fraudulent State.  Marcos presented 
democratic change as something which should 
come via peaceful means. The military 
solution would be adopted solely as a matter 
of last recourse(11) and only be tried when 
the CND decided upon it. Two weeks later the 
PRI presidential candidate went on to win 
the election amongst accusations of fraud.  
The  creation of a democratic space through 
peaceful means to appears to have failed.  

Mexico still needs to build a strong 
revolutionary movement.  It will require 
greater numbers than the revolutionaries of 
the EZLN to destroy the rotten Mexican 
state.  This difficult task, facing all the 
people who wish for change in Mexico, is 
made more difficult because of its  dominant 
neighbour, the USA.

Within the EZLN, it seems, there is a 
widespread belief that their demands can 
only be met when as they say "the tree is 
uprooted."  They have developed a democratic 
structure from which ideas can flow and 
develop.  They have struck out against the 
system which causes them so much death, pain 
and suffering.  Support work has been done 
by the anarchist group 'Love and Rage' who 
have members in the USA and in Mexico.  They 
have sent people down to Chiapas to 
ascertain the facts, organised translations 
of EZLN communiques and helped in the 
production of a book on the EZLN.  Here in 
Ireland we in the WSM have held a picket on 
the Mexican Embassy and handed in a letter 
of protest.  This type of work though it may 
seem at first to be of minor importance, in 
fact ensures that the Mexican government 
knows that their actions are being monitored 
thus decreasing the likelihood of a 
government crackdown in the area.

The task facing Mexican revolutionaries is 
to spread their struggle and will for change 
to the cities and to the north of the 
Country.  Although Marcos and the CCRI-GC 
are emphasising the role of the media, it is 
more important for the EZLN activists to win 
support on the ground.

In the United States activists must work on 
raising  awareness of the EZLN amongst the 
resident Latino population.  Pickets can be 
organised.  Any  struggle that remains 
isolated will face certain annihilation.  It 
is the responsibility of all revolutionaries 
to ensure this will not happen. 

The job of anarchists in Mexico is to spread 
their ideas  and to share their experience 
as revolutionaries with the people of 
Chiapas.  The Zapatistas have already 
rejected the ideas of the authoritarian 
left.  The demands of the EZLN for liberty, 
justice, and democracy will not be realised 
under capitalism. These demands have never 
arisen out of reform of any system in any 
country.  Mexican anarchists should utilise 
the fertile ground that now exists for 
anarchist ideas in Chiapas.

What has happened in Chiapas is encouraging 
and needs to be supported.  The 
revolutionaries of the EZLN, however, have 
not stumbled onto something new.  The basic 
principle of participatory democracy is one 
of the foundation stones of anarchism.  The 
EZLN deserve praise for the way they have 
integrated democracy into their struggle 
against the state.   Now in Mexico where 
history stopped with the usurpation of power 
by the PRI seventy-five years ago, the 
people are still struggling towards having 
control over their own lives and destinies.  
True democracy needs to be established and 
implemented as part of the process of 
destroying the oppressive state which keeps 
all of us chained.

1  Article 27 in the Mexican Constituition 
is the one which promised agrarian reform.  
It was included in the constituition after 
the revolution and was always seen as the 
guarantee of similar land reforms as those  
Zapata implemented in his own region of 
Morelos during the revolution.
2  NAFTA will also drive down the prices 
paid for some of the basic crops produced by 
the indigeniuos people for their crops.  The 
timing of the uprising was to coincide with 
the first day that NAFTA was supposed to 
take effect in Mexico.
3 Quoted from an Amnesty International 
Report.
4   Non-Governmental Organisiations (NGO's) 
are groups such as the Red Cross, Amnesty 
International, etc.
5   Source Peter Martin Morelost who 
attended the National Democratic Convention 
and posted his report onto the internet..  
(24.9.94  Mexico's National Democratic 
Convention.)
6  Quoted from early newspaper coverage of 
events - listed in Chapter 2 - The first 
days.
7  Quoted from interview with Javier  of the 
CCRI 3/2/94  in La Jornada.
8  Quoted from interview  with Subcommander 
Marcos in La Jornada 4.2.94 - 7.2.94
9  Interview  with Marcos 11 May '94 
10  Attendance figure quoted from report by 
Peter Martin Morales.
11  Peter Martin Morales 

BOX Who was Emilano Zapata

Emilano Zapata was from the Morelos region.  
He joined the army after being caught as a 
highway man.  His other option was to be 
shot.  After his release in 1910 he 
supported the Liberals and had to take to 
the hills when they lost the elections 
despite having more votes.  He was now the 
leader of an army of peasants and they 
fought and defeated the tyrant Don Porphyry.  
Then the liberal Francesco Madero came to 
power and he spoke of freedom of the Press 
and Democratic elections. Zapata published a 
charter which called for 'Land and Liberty.'  
Despite the charter not much changed and 
eventually power struggles broke out again.  

In the course of the following years Zapata 
in the south and Pancho Villa in the north 
defeated many power mongers who tried to 
grip the reins of power.  Yet, despite many 
opportunities Zapata never took control 
himself.  "A strong people do not need a 
government" he once said.   Zapata was  
influenced by the manifesto drawn up by 
Ricardo Flores Magon {Mexico's leading 
Anarchist at the time who went on to die in 
an American Prison}.  In the manifesto 
issued by Zapata and signed by 35 officers 
in August 1914  he wrote "It (the country) 
wishes to destroy with one stroke the 
relationships of lord and serf, overseer and 
slave, which in the matter of agriculture 
are the only ones ruling from Tamaulipas to 
Chiapas and from Sonora to Yucatan".   
During the revolution the Zapistas destroyed 
public papers, deeds, property transfers, 
titles and mortgages in the hope that the 
land would return to the only true owners, 
the people.  In 1918 Zapata was lured into 
an ambush and killed.  Evidently there are 
some in Chiapas who still wish to destroy 
the relationship which Zapata spoke off 80 
years ago