Neville Spencer
On July 1, following an internal discussion among the indigenous villagers who make up its base, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) issued the "Sixth Declaration of the Lacondon Jungle". The statement declares the EZLN's solidarity with other struggles in Latin America and around the world and proposes measures to gather together the Mexican left in a struggle for justice and a new constitution.
The Zapatistas first came to world attention when they took control of several towns in the largely indigenous southern state of Chiapas on January 1, 1994 — the day that the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect. They declared that NAFTA would be a death sentence for Mexican peasants (a prediction verified by the economic results of NAFTA's first decade) and condemned the Mexican government's racism, corruption and neoliberal policies.
After a number of days fighting with the Mexican army, the Zapatistas retreated into the jungle and back to their villages. On the military front, an uneasy truce has mostly been the state of play ever since.
On the political front, however, the Zapatista uprising sparked a flourishing of the Mexican mass movements. The number of demonstrations around every progressive cause skyrocketed. An independent union movement emerged to challenge the old unions, which were controlled by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) , which was in power until 2001, and often were used to crush workers' struggles.
Issuing communiques from the jungle, and giving press interviews, the EZLN highlighted the government's hypocrisy and continued to inspire revolt against harsh neoliberalism — a tactic that the "Sixth Declaration" describes as an "offensive ceasefire".
EZLN leader Subcomandante Marcos gained celebrity status in Mexico and around the world, delivering statements and interviews with wit rather atypical for a leftist guerrilla movement.
The surge in the mass movements produced cracks in the PRI regime that led to its downfall, despite the well-oiled system of corruption that had kept it in power for over seven decades. However, it was the major party to the right of the PRI, the National Action Party (PAN), rather than the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), that gained government in 2000.
Although the 1990s saw an upsurge in the mass movements, in more recent years this has plateaued. While the Zapatistas' talks with the PRI government had shown some promise of producing real change, producing an agreement on indigenous rights, it was never ratified, despite PAN's pre-election promises of a ceasefire with the EZLN.
At the time the Zapatista uprising began, US-sponsored neoliberal regimes were triumphant throughout most of Latin America. The bold actions of the Zapatistas were a beacon for those fighting against the neoliberal hegemony.
In recent years, however, much of the rest of Latin America has been challenging and even defeating this neoliberal hegemony. The "Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle" takes inspiration from these other successes:
"And we want to say to the people of Cuba, who have already spent years in your path of resistance, that you are not alone and that we do not agree with the blockade against you and that we are going to look for a way to send you something, even if it is just corn, to support your resistance.
"And we want to say to our Mapuche brothers and sisters in Chile that we see and we learn from your struggles.
"And to the Venezuelan people, that we watch very carefully your way of defending your sovereignty and your right to be a nation and to decide where you will go.
"And to the indigenous brothers and sisters of Ecuador and Bolivia we say to you that you are giving an excellent history lesson to all of Latin America because right now you are putting a stop to neoliberal globalisation.
"And to the piqueteros and the youth of Argentina we want to say that we love you.
"And to those in Uruguay who want a better country, we admire you.
"And to the landless of Brazil we respect you."
The declaration announces several, largely symbolic, gestures of solidarity, such as sending a bus loaded with corn and oil from Chiapas to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City and sending non-transgenic corn to their "indigenous brothers and sisters of Ecuador and Bolivia".
For Mexico, the declaration states the intention of the Zapatistas to form alliances with all organizations and individuals of the left. It proposes to send a delegation from the Zapatistas to all parts of Mexico to discuss the construction of an anti-capitalist "national fight plan".
With the next presidential election a year away, there appears a considerable chance that Mexico will follow the new trend in Latin America, electing a government opposed to the neoliberal economic recipes prescribed by Washington and the International Monetary Fund.
In April, a demonstration of more than 1 million people forced the government to back down on its attempt to block popular Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the PRD from standing in the election. A PRD victory might well increase the freedom with which the Zapatistas' proposed alliances can organise and increase their impact.
However, the declaration re-emphasises the Zapatistas' traditional hostility to government, to electoral politics and electoral parties. It insists that the new alliance of the left it is trying to build will be of non-electoral movements and organisations.
This hostility is part of a popular revulsion to the corruption of the PRI. As a split form that party, the PRD shares some of the same ways of operating. The Zapatista's views are also influenced by the experience of other Latin American presidents, such as Ecuador's Lucio Gutierrez, elected on anti-neoliberal platforms only to abandon them in office.
The Zapatistas' declaration says, "No to beginning movements that will later be negotiated away behind the backs of those who made them."
While the EZLN are drawing on some valuable lessons, this restriction will make it to replicate the examples of Cuba and Venezuela, where the left has successfully used governmental power to break with neoliberalism and direct resources to benefit the poor majority instead.
From Green Left Weekly, July 13, 2005.
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