[NYTr] Zapatistas Brainstorm in the Lacandon

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Counterpunch - July 30, 2007

Brainstorming in the Lacandon

Zapatista Intergalatica Lands on Earth

By JOHN ROSS
Ejido Morelia, Chiapas

In the annals of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN),
the 1996 "Intergalactica "was a high water mark of international
solidarity. Formally dubbed a "Forum In Defense of Humanity and
Against Neo-liberalism", the conclave drew 6,000 activists from five
continents to the wilds of Chiapas's Lacandon jungle to brainstorm on
the growing menace of the corporate globalization of the Planet Earth
(the World Trade Organization had just been formulated the previous
year). The event is often considered to have been the seedbed for
historic demonstrations against the WTO in Seattle 1999 from which
the anti-globalization movement blossomed.

The gathering in a jungle clearing on a Zapatista ejido with the
haunting name of La Realidad ("The Reality") 11 years ago was
nicknamed the "Intergalactica" because in his convocation the rebels'
spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos invited all sentient life forms
from other planets in the galaxy to participate in the event. "We
don't know if they actually came to the first Intergalactica"
Zapatista Lieutenant Colonel Moises mused recently, "at least they
never identified themselves."

After more than a decade of anti-globalization struggles and World
Social Forums, the Intergalactica has literally returned to earth.
The scaled-down version of the event pitched as an "Encounter of the
Peoples of the World with the Peoples of the Zapatista Communities"
to defend indigenous territories throughout the Americas staged July
20-28 at three rebel "caracoles" or public political/cultural centers
in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas, zeroed in on the land and
those who work and live upon it.

Whereas Intergalactica I attracted such literary luminaries as
Eduardo Galeano and European intellectuals Yvon Lebot, Danielle
Mitterand, and Alain Touraine (Nobelist Jose Saraamgo and Susan
Sontag would soon follow), the 2007 edition brought together
representatives of poor farmers from 13 mostly-southern countries to
swap experiences with Zapatista base communities in the highlands,
the canyons, and the jungle of Chiapas, and develop mechanisms for
mutual self-defense against the ravages of neo-liberalism.

The privatization of communal lands, the destruction of native crops,
and the forced migration of millions of poor farmers constitutes a
declaration of "the fourth world war again humanity", Marcos charged
in welcoming 3000 activists and Zapatista bases to the caracol
"Resistance and Rebellion Before The World" at Oventik in Los Altos
of Chiapas.

Much as at last New Year when the EZLN celebrated its 13th year on
public display, the interchanges at Oventik, on the Ejido Morelia
(the Caracol "Whirlwind of Our Word") and La Realidad ("The Mother of
the Sea of Our Dreams") featured presentations by civil Zapatismo (as
opposed to the rebels' political-military structure) as local health
and education promoters laid out the nuts and bolts of building
autonomous communities. Other lay Zapatista leaders delineated the
rebels' justice system and how land is distributed and cultivated in
the autonomous zones.

In response, farmers invited under the aegius of Via Campesina, an
international grouping of millions of poor farmers with affiliates in
over 70 nations, spoke to the struggle for land and justice in their
own countries. Among the participants: Yudhmir Singh of India's
Bartya Kissan Union who described Ghandian civil disobedience by poor
farmers to resist neo-liberal agrarian policies foisted on those who
work the land, and representatives of the Thai Assembly of the Poor
who farm the jungle along the Cambodian border.

First world farmers were represented by George Naylor, outgoing
director of the U.S. Family Farm Association, who told the Zapatistas
of the resistance of small corn farmers in Iowa to the dissemination
of genetically modified seed. Dong Uk Min of the Korean farmers
union, invoked the memory of the campesino Lee Kwang Hai who
committed suicide at the 2003 World Trade Organization assembly in
Cancun.

 From further south, Soraya Soriana, a leader of Brazil's militant
Movimento Sem Terras (MST) and speakers from Venezuela's Wayuu nation
cautioned encounter-goers against the "neo-imperialist" policies of
such left-wing leaders as Lula and Hugo Chavez. The Zapatistas share
a similar distrust of Latin America's social democratic left.

The colloquy between farmers in defense of indigenous lands unfolded
against an appropriate backdrop of spiring "milpas" (cornfields) and
the deep green of surrounding hills at the height of Mexico's
bountiful rainy season - uniformed militia men and women in their
green and black uniforms seemed almost to organically blend into the
abundant vegetation.

The encampments in the caracoles thrummed with conviviality. Nightly
cultural presentations brought the campers together under the stars.
Nuns chatted with ski-masked rebels and rangy Nordic punksters danced
in the mud with pint-sized Mayan companeras while horses grazed
placidly in nearby pastures. In contrast to the 1996 Intergalactica
when Mexican immigration authorities sought to prevent foreign
activists from attending the encounter under threat of deportation,
access to the Zapatista zone was unrestricted.

In a world where five live shooting wars dominate front pages with
daily doses of death and destruction, and in a country where an
infuriated underclass's demands for justice are met by brutal
government repression, the Zapatista caracoles for once seem to be
pockets of peace.

It wasn't always that way.

During the first days of the rebellion in January 1994, the Mexican
military invaded the Ejido Morelia. They forced the men to lie flat
on the basketball court, kicking and torturing them for hours under
the jungle sun. Three of the community's leaders were taken away and
never seen alive again. Their bones were found by hunters months
later. No one has ever been prosecuted for the murders.

In classic Zapatista fashion, these gristly events were depicted on a
mural painted on the schoolhouse wall here while 13 years later,
inside the school, Zapatista women told of how they organize their
autonomy.

It has been eight years since the last armed confrontation between
the Mexican government and the EZLN but the peace that seems to
thrive in the Zapatista autonomous zone, is an uneasy one. Skirmishes
over land taken in the 1994 rebellion between Zapatistas and other
Mayan Indian campesinos (the rebels characterize them as
"paramilitaries") are endemic and thousands of troops continue to
occupy sprawling bases at strategic points in the EZLN geography.

A just-issued study by the San Cristobal-based Center for Political
Analysis and Socio-Economic Investigation (CAPISE), "The Face of
War", indicates that the nature of the occupation has changed in
recent years with elite brigades now stationed in the conflict zone
reporting directly to Mexico City rather than regional commands. As
Mexico joins the U.S.-directed War on Terror, the border region with
Guatemala where many key Zapatista autonomous municipalities are
located, attract enhanced attention from security forces.

Despite the "Santa Paz" (Sainted Peace) the "Mal Gobierno" (Bad
Government) claims to reign in Chiapas, the EZLN remains an armed
organization. Certainly, of its two weapons - "El Fuego" (The Fire)
and "La Palabra" (The Word) - the latter now predominates. But the
fire is not forgotten. "We will never give up our arms or remove our
pasamontanas (ski masks) until our demands for justice are satisfied"
Comandante David pledged to a packed auditorium to close the Oventik
segment of Intergalactica II as the rain fell in sheets outside from
the bountiful southern sky.

Note: Intergalactica II was only one of several upcoming
international events to be programmed by the Zapatista Army of
National Liberation and The Other Campaign in 2007. Indigenous
peoples from throughout the Americas will gather next October at
Vicam Sonora in the heart of Yaqui Indian Territory, and an
all-woman's international gathering is being planned for next
December in Chiapas.

[John Ross is in Mexico City, plotting a new novella. If you have
further information contact johnross at igc.org]