Castañeda, Jorge
"Hemisphere"
Winter/Spring 1994

Chiapas and the National Crisis

With the outcry of "no que no, hijos de la chingada," the feared Mexican bronco awoke from his lethargy and submission in the remote highlands of Chiapas-the land of indigenous people and anthropologists, of huipiles and syncretism. The emergence of a Mexican guerrilla movement has unleashed a political crisis for the country, an image crisis outside of Mexico and-the only positive result imaginable-a crisis of conscience among a Mexican elite separated by an abyss of centuries from the indigenous masses that have taken up arms.

Lacking better information on what the final outcome will be- though no doubt tragic-and examining the insurrection with the caution that is necessary for any event of this type in Mexico, four reflections come to mind. The first has to do with the nature and structure of the guerrilla force itself. In contrast to the 1970s campesino uprisings in the state of Guerrero, the Chiapas rebels are genuine guerrillas and not simply one more group of angry and insurrectionist peasants.

Although not all the members of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación National (EZLN) carry the powerful modern weapons of its television spokespersons, several thousand combatants form part of a defined and coordinated structure guided by a single leadership with a politically consistent, albeit archaic, discourse. The Zapatistas' organizational, logistical, public relations, and communications capacity and their tactical and military strategy reveal that this group has been preparing itself for years. They have well-trained units and qualified instructors. This is not a millenarianJacquerie; it is a highly current and contemporary guerrilla group.

Second, the EZLN's emergence in itself denotes either a functional failure or an incomprehensible mystery for the Mexican state apparatus. Almost three years ago, rumors of a guerrilla uprising in Chiapas abounded. In July and August of 1993 the newspaper La Jornada and the magazine Proceso published long articles regarding battles in the Lacandona Jungle and the town of Ocosingo. Carlos Montemayor-the well-known Mexican writer and an authority on armed insurrections in Mexico-stated that "in those regions, the mountains have eyes." Everything is known, and the Mexican intelligence services-no matter how corrupt or repressive-have a well-deserved reputation for efficiency and quickness. When they want to capture someone, discover something, or infiltrate and disarticulate a group, they do it well.

Sophisticated Warriors

No one understands how thousands of chiapaneco campesinos, led by indigenous and mestizo leaders from both that region and the rest of the country, were able to train and prepare for a complex and tremendously ambitious operation without raising any suspicions. This is even less comprehensible if one remembers that the current secretary of the interior and the man responsible for the security of the Mexican state, Patrocinio González Garrido, served as governor of Chiapas until the beginning of 1993; in reality he has also retained political control over his home state. A grave deficiency exists in the government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari that reveals either an unconscious calculation that purposely allowed the eruption to achieve a specific political objective or an acute state of internal decomposition.

Third, the Chiapas revolt supports the argument of those obstinate and maligned critics and skeptics who, since 1988, have insisted that the route taken by the Salinas government would lead, sooner or later, to a major crisis. Such a crisis, they noted, would occur, not in a country magically propelled to the First World by news media headlines and elite trade agreements, but one firmly anchored in the permanent Third World within Mexico-that part of the country that includes several segregated nations, injustice and inequality, authoritarianism and corruption, and poverty and marginalization.

Deeper Crisis

The Chiapas uprising is a symbol of a much deeper crisis. It is neither an exclusively ethnic phenomenon nor the product of the undeniable poverty and backwardness of the state of Chiapas. While Chiapas is one of the most backward states in Mexico, it is also one of the four states where the government has concentrated its efforts and resources to fight poverty through its so-called National Solidarity Program.

What gave rise to the guerrillas in Chiapas was not only its backwardness and the marginality and isolation of its indigenous population but, above all, a political problem. In Chiapas the Salinas government spent money, but the corrupt, oligarchic, and authoritarian social and political structures were maintained and strengthened. State authorities and the army itself encouraged cattle ranchers to seize land from the communities. The security forces and, again, the army repressed the indigenous peoples without mercy: they violated human rights, raped women, jailed leaders and priests, burned towns and villages, and left legitimate ancestral claims dangling. The typically economic and despotic conception of the Salinas government resulted in a policy that was doomed to fail. The chiapanecos, like millions of other Mexicans, want more than a trickle of money-they want real resources. They also want to participate in deciding how, by whom, and where money will be spent. Above all, they want to be treated with dignity, not humiliated, beaten, and repressed.

The fourth and final reflection is that Mexico cannot continue to be governed the way it has been so far. The problem of Chiapas is Mexico; it is not social or economic, but political. The appearance of a guerrilla force-no matter how ephemeral it may prove to be- means that there are Mexicans who do not believe in the electoral route to channel their demands. This was already well known. Poll after poll revealed that more than half of all voters do not believe in the transparency of the electoral processes. The Salinas government dedicated five years, millions of dollars, thousands of liters of ink, and an infinite number of international friendships to destroying Cardenismo, the only opposition force that could have electorally channeled the demands and discontent of groups such as the ones in Chiapas. Cardenismo was accused of radicalism, extremism, violence, and anachronism, in the forlorn hope that 90 million Mexicans would be convinced or compelled to fit within the confines of a country seemingly composed of nothing but magnates and "yuppies" of the Partido Revolucionario Institutional, and Creole lawyers and middleclass supporters of the Partido de Acción National. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas appeared as an evil to be avoided at all costs-including democracy, human rights, and international image.

Several Evils

It is clear today, as many originally thought, that Cárdenas is the lesser of several evils. The real evils-violence, desperation, impotence, and rage-are on Guerrero Mountain in Chiapas, in the barrios of Netzahualcoyotl, or in the barrancas of Tijuana. The one overwhelming evil is the irrational and condemnable recourse to arms and the rejection of legality and the electoral route. The new configuration of the Mexican political spectrum that will emerge from Chiapas is loyal to the real country. If the eternally postponed Mexican democratization can occur, the indigenous ire of Chiapas and other rages and resentments lodged within the end-of-century Mexican mestizo will be able to express themselves through the ballot boxes. The true evil will have been avoided and the lesser ones-reformed Cardenistas, democratized priistas, and provincial panistas-would exist in a country where everyone, including Commander Marcos and the inhabitants of San Juan Chamula, would fit. This would not be the worst development to stem from the takeover of San Cristóbal de las Casas.