🚀 go-pugleaf

From: Cecilia Rodriguez <moonlight@igc.apc.org>

CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL DEMONSTRATIONS ON JULY 25, 1997
ACTION ALERT

But for the language, it was hard to differentiate the electoral
commentators on Televisa on July 6th.  They all sat around a table,
surrounded by large video screens, computer panels and keyboards, and
notebook pads.  They glibly tossed about their observations in much the
same style as any Peter Jennings or Dan Rather of the United States.  They
conducted spontaneous interviews with Cuahtemoc Cardenas and zoomed in on
the tumultuous scene at the Zocalo.  You could hardly tell that this was
an election in Mexico, or that these were Mexican commentators.

In Washington D.C., the few who understand the enormous impact of the
Mexican political reality on the U.S. economy, surely popped corks out of
champagne bottles and patted each other on the back, along with their
Mexican counterparts, thousands of miles away.  They are still gloating
over the magnanimous declarations.  Emilio Chuayffet Chemor, Mexican
Justice Secretary "The electoral reform has been the most profound of the
century...we have reached the highest level of political maturity in our
democratic life".    Manuel Jimenez Guzman, director of the Federal
Program of School Construction "July 6th reflects the maturity and
politicization of a more critical, vigilant, and participatory
democracy."  They must have heaved a huge sigh of relief on Wall Street,
even though the public com mentary was that the initial results of the
elections lived up to expectations and so their results were a
"non-event."  Election impact on the financial markets should be "neutral"
it was said.

The neoliberals decided and now agree. The waves of instability and
corruption emanating from the PRI were not healthy for their markets.
They would hand the "masses" a little taste of change, their market
comrades in the PRI would surely agree that a shift in the political arena
of Mexico was necessary in order to insure the long-term survival of their
plans.  Democracy on neoliberal terms would arrive in Mexico with the
arrival of a multi-party system, if enough people voted that way.  The
other agreements of the neoliberals on both sides of the border are not
prominent on television screens.  The lies which cover the monstrous
brutality of this system remain hidden to the majority of the peoples of
the world.  The poverty of the people of Mexico is unlikely to change.
The agreement a bout staying the brutal course of globalization takes more
than one election to change.  The agreement about the low-intensity war
being conducted against the indigenous people of Mexico will also remain
intact. Its casualties;

--Jailings of a Chinateco leader in the port of Veracruz
--Harassment, intimidation and threats against a Nahua leader in Jalisco
--The deaths of seven Chol people in Sabanilla, Emiliano Zapata, and
Shushupa, Chiapas, including an 11-year-old boy murdered by a paramilitary
group named "Peace and Justice".  The casualties include at least ten other
wounded.
--The displacement of the entire communities of Pasija, Shushupa, and
Emiliano Zapata in Chiapas who abandoned their homes in fear of continued
retaliation
--The increased militarization of the Huasteca region of Veracruz, the south
sierra of Oaxaca, the eastern and central zones of the Yucatan peninsula and
the diverse regions of Guerrero.  The unbridled activity of paramilitary
groups and assassins in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, Oaxaca, and Guerrerro.
--The aggressions suffered by the Mazateca and Mixe region in Oaxaca
including campaigns which condition public services in return for votes in
favor of the PRI; including the distribution of food, construction materials
and student scholarships.

In the isolated mountain ranges and villages inhabited by the indigenous
people of Mexico the true nature of the system which begins to deteriorate
in Mexico is manifest ; its profound racism, its arrogance, its brutal and
regressive oppression.  The death toll of this war continues.  It accrues
among those whose lives were already being ravaged by the neoliberal
proposal.

In Washington, D.C., the bureaucrats discuss sending Army troops to the
U.S. Mexico border.  It allows them to expend public money in order to
dictate the movement of their pool of cheap labor.  Why allow more
Mexicans into the country, when the U.S. is busily building its own cheap
labor source-workfare, prison labor, temporary or contract workers can
surely fill the needs of corporations who shred human beings in the same
way they do their piles of papers. Troops will come to the U.S. border if
possible. If not, the enormous budget of the Border Patrol will have to
do.  The hungry will continue to risk their lives hiding in the trunks of
cars, running across dangerous highways, paying strangers to secure their
escape from the suffocating poverty.  The U.S./Mexico border is a
militarized zone, a land where the two realities clash, the reality of
privilege built on the suffering of others, the lie about a democracy
which denies a voice to those who most need it, which claims it must build
walls in order to protect itself.

On a dirt road to La Realidad, Chiapas the Mexican immigration service
serves with the same tenacity.  Their objective is somewhat different;
they want to secure the right of the Mexican government to murder the
indigenous rebels in whatever way necessary, at whatever time they
please.  The military convoys which patrol the communities on a daily
basis have been greatly disturbed by the presence of dozens of
international witnesses running to videotape and photograph them just as
they do to the communities.  So the order was issued by the Army; the
Mexican immigration service should do everything it can to stop
international observers from arriving at Zapatista communities.  The
immigration officers persecute the other immigrants; other because they
belong to many nations, immigrants beca use they leave their own countries
seeking hope.  These immigrants seek to protect the example of the
Zapatista communities. They go to observe the military convoys who patrol
the communities on a daily basis.  These immigrants speak Italian, or
French, or Catalonian.  In the months since the suspension of the peace
talks, some of these immigrants have been issued deportation orders,
others have broadside until the coast is clear; engaged in the same cat
and mouse game which plays itself out on the U.S. Mexico border.

So the Mexican immigration service changes the rule of the game.  They
maintain a 24-hour watch.  They close the checkpoint and drive out in
their trucks into the community of Nuevo Momon.  They establish other
checkpoints.  They shine their flashlights into the vehicles with the same
demeanor of intimidation, they collect hundreds of pictures, they threaten
and persecute.

If in reality the election of Cuahtemoc Cardenas and the new Congress is
a real step towards democracy, their first order of business should be to
advocate for an end to the low-intensity war in Mexico and to re-establish
a negotiations process.  The victory of new democratic forces in Mexico
should be manifest in a process where the spark of hope began, in those
indigenous communities who taugh t the rest of us the necessity of all
forms of struggle.  Democracy cannot continue to be a game of shells; "now
you see it, now you don't, watch it, watch it closely and see if your eye
is faster than my hand." The possibility of a multi-party system in
Mexico, should not limit all struggle to elections.  We must continue to
exert many other forms of politics, we must continue to push for genuine
change.  We want an end to the lie that there is no war in Mexico,  that
there are only a few Indians fighting amongst themselves.

The truth screams out to be said; 1)  It was the Indian peoples of Mexico
in January 1994, who said "Ya basta!" to the lies. It was their blood
which awoke the conscience of the peoples of Mexico and which began to
move citizens towards the possibility of a different political system.  It
is their tenacity which has held the door open and which makes possible
this tenuous opening in the electoral arena.  It is their moral authority
which exposed the deteriorated state of the Mexican political system.  2)
It was civil society of Mexico and the world which picked up the banner
raised by the blood of those Zapatista rebels and which now fights in many
places and in many ways to carry it forward.  It was the pressure and the
mobilization and the tenacity of those civilian forces which forced the
neo-liberals to take a second look, and which continues to expose the
cruelty of this global system.  3)  Democracy is more than a multi-party
system.  It is the ability of the citizens of a nation to have the active
right to decide the distribution of wealth, the deployment and nature of
public services, the quality of life.  4)  All peoples of the world seek
the possibility of a real democracy, and the right to struggle to advance
the definition of democracy.

We call upon all peoples to continue to say "Ya Basta!"; to demand a
continued transition to a genuine and different kind of democracy, to call
for an end to the abuse of power including the low-intensity war being
waged in Mexico.  THE ACTION

We call upon the peoples of the United States specifically, and the
peoples of the world in general to stand together with those who will be
meeting for the Second Intercontinental Encounter to be held in Madrid,
Spain.  Not all of us have the resources or the ability to attend the
Encounter; but hundreds share the hope and the commitment to a new
alternative for humanity.

For this reason we are calling upon those who are able, to participate in
demonstrations to be held at Mexican consulates and embassies in all parts
of the world on July 25th, the first day of the Encounter.  Our demands
are few and specific;

1)  An end to the militarization of indigenous zones in Mexico.
2)  An end to the terror campaigns of paramilitary groups in Mexico.
3)  An end to the harassment of international observers to the conditions of
Zapatista communities.
4)  A denouncement of the low-intensity war and the death and suffering it
is bringing to indigenous communities.

Our voices must be raised once again.  We cannot abandon the rebels who
helped us to remember who we are; human beings with the right to dream and
build a new world, citizens whose contributions to the wealth of nations
cannot be ignored.

ORGANIZE ACTIONS AND DEMONSTRATIONS I N FRONT OF MEXICAN CONSULATES AND
EMBASSIES ALL OVER THE WORLD!!

SEND A MESSAGE TO THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF MEXICO-YOU ARE NOT ALONE, WE ARE
STILL HERE, WE WILL NOT SURRENDER!

By Cecilia Rodriguez
National Commission for Democracy in Mexico