A Letter to President Vicente Fox
by Subcomandante Marcos
December 2, 2000 - (translated by Justin Podur)
[Justin Podur covers Chiapas and South Asia for ZNet's at: http://www.zmag.org/chiapas1/index.htm].
Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Mexico.
December 2, 2000.
Señor Vicente Fox.
Los Pinos, México, D.F.
Señor Fox:
Six years ago we wrote a letter to Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, your predecessor. Now that you are the new head of the federal executive it's my duty to inform you that as of today you have inherited a war in the south east of Mexico: a war declared on the first of January 1994 by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation against the federal government, demanding democracy, liberty, and justice for all Mexicans.
From the beginning of our uprising we faced the federal government in conformity with the laws of war and the rules of military honor. Since then, the army has attacked us without any regard for military honor and in violation of international treaties. More than 70 thousand federal troops (including around 20 thousand "counterinsurgency specialists") have besieged and persecuted the Zapatistas for two thousand five hundred twenty five days (counting today). Two thousand of those days the army has been in violation of the Law of Dialogue, Negotiation and Dignified Peace in Chiapas, expounded by the Congress of the Union on March 10, 1995.
During these six years of war the Zapatistas have resisted and we have faced two federal executives (self-titled 'presidents'), two secretaries of National Defense, six secretaries of Government, five commissions of 'peace', five 'governors' of Chiapas and a multitude of mid-level functionaries. All of them are now gone. Some are being investigated for their links with organized crime, others are in exile or on their way to exile, and some others are unemployed.
During these six years the Zapatistas have insisted, time and again, on the path of dialogue. We have done so because we have made a promise to the civil society to keep our arms silent and try for a peaceful solution.
Now that you have assumed the title of the head of the federal executive, you should know that, in addition to inheriting a war in the south east of Mexico, you inherit the opportunity to choose how to confront it.
During your campaign and since the second of July, you, senor Fox, have said time and again that you are going to choose dialogue to confront our demands. Zedillo said the same in the months preceding his accession to power and he, nonetheless, two months later ordered a tremendous military offensive against us.
You will understand then, that a lack of confidence in everything that is government, independently of the political party in power, has been impressed on our thinking and our actions.
If to our understandable lack of confidence before the words of those in power we add the accumulated contradictions and frivolities that you and those who accompany you have spoken without a careful look here, well then it's my duty as well to inform you that with the Zapatistas (and I believe to more than just the Zapatistas) you have zero credibility and confidence.
We cannot confide in someone who has shown the superficiality and ignorance to claim that the demands of indigenous people will be resolved with televisions and shopping.
We
cannot give credit to someone who is willing to 'forget' (because that is
what 'amnesty' means) the hundreds of crimes committed by the paramilitaries
and the patrons who grant them immunity.
We cannot give our confidence to someone, who, with all the short-sightedness of management logic, has as a plan of government converting the indigenous people into mini-micro-business people or into employees of businesses in this six-year presidency. At the end of the day, this plan is nothing more than an attempt to continue the ethnocide which, under different modalities, has been the Mexican reality under neo-liberalism.
It is well that you know that none of this is going to happen on Zapatista territory. Your idea that "an indigenous person will disappear and a businessperson will be born" will not be allowed on our lands. Here, and beneath many another Mexican sky, to be indigenous means more than blood or origin-but also a way of seeing life, death, culture, land, history, tomorrow.
Those who have tried to eliminate us with guns have failed. Those who try to eliminate us by converting us into Business people will fail as well.
Understand that I have said that with the Zapatistas you have zero credibility and confidence. This means that you do not have to overcome anything negative yet (because it is fair to say that you have not attacked us yet). You can therefore make those who have bet that you will repeat the nightmare that the PRI was for all Mexicans, especially the Zapatistas, correct. You can also, starting from this zero, begin to construct with deeds what all governments require in their work: credibility and confidence. The demilitarization that you have announced (although you have changed it from time to time, from 'total retirement', to 'repositionment', to 'reaccomodation' which are not the same thing -- something you, your soldiers, and we all know) is a start -- not sufficient, but necessary, yes.
Not only in Chiapas, but more so here than anywhere, you can make correct those who want you to fail or those who give you the benefit of the doubt or even those whose hopes reside with you.
Senor Fox: unlike your predecessor Zedillo (who came to power with the support of that corrupt monster which is the state party system) you came to your position because of the repulsion cultivated by the PRI in the population. You know this well, senor Fox: you won the election, but you did not defeat the PRI. That was done by the citizens. And not just those who voted against the state party, but those of older generations who in one form or another, resisted and fought the culture of authoritarianism, and the crimes the PRI governments constructed over 71 years.
Although there is a radical difference in the way you came to power, your political, social, and economic project is the same as the one we have suffered in previous presidencies. A project for the country which means the destruction of Mexico as a nation and its transformation into a department store, something like a mega-store that sells human beings and natural resources at the prices dictated by the world market. The privatization of electricity, petroleum and education, and of the IVA which claims to provide medicine and food, are just a small part of the greater 'readjustment' plan which the neo-liberals have for Mexicans.
Not just that. With you we see a regression to moralistic positions whose origin is in intolerance and authoritarianism. Not for nothing did the religious right open up an offensive of persecution and destruction beginning on July 2. The brunt of this offensive has been suffered by women (raped or not), youth, visual and performing artists, gays and lesbians. Together with the old and retired, together with the disabled, together with the indigenous and together with about 70 million poor Mexicans, these groups are called 'minorities'. In 'your' Mexico, senor Fox, these 'minorities' are disempowered.
We will oppose that Mexico and we will do so in a radical way.
You can worry or not that a group of Mexicans, mainly indigenous, are not in agreement with the corporate plan or with the belligerance of the right. But don't forget that if the PRI lost power it is because the majority of Mexicans rebelled and threw it out.
That rebellion is not over.
You and your team, since July 2nd, have done nothing but insist that the citizenry return to conformity and immobility. But it's not going to be that way. Your neo-liberal project will face the resistance of millions.
A number of members of your cabinet have claimed that the EZLN must understand that the country has changed, that the Zapatistas have no choice but to accept it, take off the ski masks, and fill out their credit applications to have a little shop, buy a television and pay the payments on a little car.
They are wrong. We fight for change, but to us change means democracy, liberty, and justice. The failure of the PRI was a necessary condition for change in this country, but not sufficient. There is much still to do, and you and your cabinet know this. There is still much missing, and this is the most important thing, millions of Mexicans know this.
For example, the indigenous people are missing. Their rights and culture are unrecognized in the constitution and believe me, none of them has to do with business promotion. The demilitarization and deparamilitarization are missing. Freedom for political prisoners is missing. The reconstruction and defense of the national sovereignty are missing. An economic program that satisfies the needs of the most poor is missing. The chance for citizens to participate is missing. Honesty in government is missing. And peace, peace is also missing.
Senor Fox: for more than six months your predecessor Zedillo claimed he wanted dialogue and made war on us. He chose confrontation and lost. Now you have the chance to choose.
If you choose the path of dialogue, sincerely, seriously, and respectfully, just show us that with deeds. You can rest assured that you will receive a positive response from us. That way we can reinitiate dialogue and, soon, begin to construct a real peace.
In the public communication we've sent you, the EZLN has made known a series of minimal signals by the federal executive. If you provide these, everything will be ready to return to dialogue.
What's at stake here is not whether or not we will oppose what you represent or what you mean to this country. In that there can be no doubt: we are against you. What is at stake is whether that opposition will express itself through civil, peaceful channels, or whether we will have to continue our armed uprising with our faces covered until we find what we are looking for, which is nothing more, senor Fox, than democracy, liberty, and justice for all Mexicans.
Vale. Salud and I hope it's true that in Mexico and in Chiapas there will be a new dawn.
From the mountains of southeastern Mexico, for the CCRI-EZLN,