Mexico's Zapatistas opt for nonmilitary strategy

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 19, 1996 by Patty Coleman, Bill Coleman

CUERNAVACA, Mexico - Amid colorful celebrations, all-night dancing and a flurry of poetic communiques, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) celebrated the second anniversary of its Jan. 1, 1994, uprising in which it took the Mexican army by surprise and occupied a major part of the southernmost state of Chiapas.

In the midst of this year's celebration, the EZLN stunned the nation when it announced it would become a nonmilitary political front independent of all political parties. EZLN leaders said the movement, which will be called the Zapatista Front for National Liberation (FZLN), would not propose candidates for elected office.

No announcement about the disarming of the Zapatistas was made. But legendary EZLN leader Subcomandante Marcos, appearing in Chiapas at the National Meeting of Indigenous Peoples early this month, dramatically handed over his ammunition to an indigenous leader.

"Dialogue is the only solution," he announced.

Analysts noted that, symbolically, Marcos was not giving his bullets to the government; he was giving them to the indigenous people of Chiapas.

Whatever the interpretation of Marcos' gesture, Mexicans greeted the new of the Zapatista's change of focus catiously: The announcement left many unanswered questions. The Mexican stock market, however, soared at the promise of peace.

Julia Garcia, a human rights activist and militant of the opposition Revolutionary Workers Party, told NCR, "No one yet understands what the EZLN wants. They have not yet laid down their arms, and I do not think they plan to until the government makes clear an public concessions."

El Proceso, Mexico's leading news weekly, devoted half of its Jan. 7 issue to an analysis of the EZLN's new strategy, but it offered little insight into the rebels' strategy. The same day, Reforma, a conservative daily, suggested that the Zapatista move followed a secret agreement between Marcos and Mexican can President Ernesto Zedillo.

Despite the confusion surrounding the EZLN's intentions, the rebels made their first foray into civilian politics by demanding the return of former president Carlos Salinas de Gotari to face charges of treason and corruption. They also requested the expulsion of papal nuncio Archbishop Gerolamo Prigione for his support of the Salinas administration (1988-94).

Since the EZLN uprising two years ago, Mexico has been shaken politically and economically. Illustrating the changes that have taken place are the figures of Salinas and Marcos.

Two years ago, Salinas was a darling of the world economic community, nicknamed the father of 'the Mexican miracle." He was a powerful and popular man in Mexico. Marcos, meanwhile, was seen as the largely unknown, mysterious leader of the Chiapan Indian revolution.

Today, Salinas is in exile in Cuba. His brother, Raul Salinas, is being held in a Mexican prison, facing accusations that he masterminded the murders of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the presidential candidate for the ruling Independent Revolutionary Party (PRI), and Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, PRI secretary general.

Marcos, on the other hand, is, according to public opinion polls, the most trusted political leader in the country. Sort of a folk hero, people affectionately call him "El Sup" - an abbreviation of "the subcommander."

During the Christmas holidays, Mexican children broke pinatas painted as effigies of Salinas - complete with the protruding ears that characterize the former president in cartoons. Market places, meanwhile, were filled with Marcos dolls, T-shirts and portraits.

A Jan. 1 poll by Reforma placed Marcos as the only political leader in Mexico who enjoyed the support of more than half those surveyed. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the 1995 presidential candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), a popular figure in liberal political circles, was not included in the survey.

Then there are the jokes: "What has fallen even harder than Salinas? The peso!" Two years ago, the Mexican peso was worth 34 U.S. cents. Today it stands at 13 cents, and the Chicago Board of Trade futures market predicts it will drop to 10 cents by September 1996.

Some analysts say the answer to the joke - what else has fallen? - should be Salinas' theory of unregulated capitalism or "neoliberalism" as it is called in Latin America.

In 1993, neoliberal economic policies appeared to be leading Mexico into the First World. Interest rates were low, the stock market hit historic highs, credit was easily available, construction was mushrooming, inflation seemed under control, the peso was stable and unemployment was dropping substantially. Wealthy and middle-class sectors - or the top 20 percent of the population - were consuming at a record pace. The United States courted a share of this expanding market by implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Largely ignored in the euphoria of the time, however, was Mexico's impoverished majority. The poor and advocates for economic justice complained bitterly that the new economic theory of Salinas and his Harvard-trained advisers was leaving the poor more impoverished than ever. Research backed these claims: Buying power slipped to 1935 levels.