"We believe that the consultation is going to be possible, because we've already seen that civil society has the full capacity to make it happen," declared Comandante Tacho, after the conclusion of the encounter convoked by the EZLN with various sectors of society and which, according to the zapatista delegation, "was a success."
A few hours before returning to their communities, Comandantes Tacho and Zebedeo, and Major Moises held an interview with La Jornada, Reforma and Reuters. They talked about indigenous rights as an axis of zapatista demands, about the encounter with civil society and with Cocopa, about the organization towards consultation within zapatista communities and about their assessment of the independent indigenous movement.
Comandante Tacho said also that the EZLN will not lay down their arms "until all demands are guaranteed solution and we have what we really deserve in order to live." In his opinion, the encounter between the zapatista delegation and civil society "was a success" which surpassed the EZLN's expectations and marked the beginning of the consultation.
Regarding the national consultation, the rebel leader downplayed the difficulties that the 5000 representatives of their organization might have as they travel to every municipality in Mexico: "What's difficult is killing and dying. It doesn't seem difficult to us to travel around on trains, buses, horses, burros and mules, or whatever." Tacho added that "if indigenous rights are not approved, there will be no peace in Mexico." Moments before, he had asserted: "We are not calling for war, we are opening a space; we are illuminating the path of the search for peace, but that can only come from the people."
For his part, Comandante Zebedeo affirmed that "the EZLN's politics are still solid;" regarding the Cocopa's role in the national consultation on the San Andres Accords and the law proposed by the Cocopa, he said that the members of the legislators' commission "have the commitment and the obligation to offer guarantees so that we can arrive at the peace that we all want. And if they refuse to support that consultation, it means they are retracting the document that they drafted, that it remains stagnant."
It would mean, according to the Tzeltal representative of the EZLN, that they "agree that the San Andres Accords should not be fulfilled and, if that is so, they would be agreeing to all of those incarcerations, persecutions and harrassment that our communities have experienced."
"It is fully possible for us to carry out the consultation," reiterated Comandante Tacho. "We already have the 5000 companheros ready to go." He also said that the zapatistas hope "that the government will not impede that process."
At that point he referred to "the campaign against us," waged by the government during the zapatistas' period of silence. But that strategy "is diluted, doesn't work. The government tries to discredit us by spreading rumors that we were dead, that we were fighting with Subcomandante Marcos, that there were internal fractures. All of that wasn't reality. That made the government lose credibility and its campaign hasn't succeeded."
Having maintained silence throughout almost all of the interview, Major Moises put aside his pipe to intervene:
"The people of Mexico realize that the government supposedly of the people, isn't," now that "the people are saying what they want, and the one who is supposedly governing is turning a deaf ear;" he expressed his confidence that the people "are going to create their own consciousness about the need to organize in order to demand, and the people will know what to do with that deaf and blind government." In response to the question by a reporter as to whether this is "a peaceful revolution," Comandante Tacho asserted, "We can't give it that name. What we want is the fulfillment of the accords on the Law of Indigenous Rights and Culture, the resolution of that problem."
On his expectations for the consultation, Tacho said: "We hope it will obligate the government to comply with what it signed in San Andres. If Congress assumes its responsibility and acts so that the law will be enforced, that will unshackle the dialogue for peace."
For Zebedeo, the government's attempts to make people believe that the zapatistas no longer exist has turned it into "a skeleton which no longer has flesh."
On Subcomandante Marcos' absence, he denied that this has diminished the impact of the encounter. "The success was in the fact that the people organize themselves and carry on," and it was a success. "The way to go is for people to listen to each other, and we are doing away with the custom that someone has to speak for the indigenous people."
Moreover, he pointed out that the security conditions in this encounter were insufficient. "The conditions didn't exist such that our companhero" (who "has lived for many years in the mountains") "could come." For Marcos to come, he said, would have put him in danger.
"When we arrived, the afternoon of the 19th, we didn't have the security that the Cocopa had arranged on other occasions," like a belt of unarmed police "to impede any attempts. We were not going to put him at risk." According to Comandante Tacho, during the meeting with the Cocopa the zapatistas pointed out that this "is not a mediating body" and that the support commission "has the opportunity to accompany at all moments the consultation, with the power given it by Congress, because it is a way to resolve the conflict with the participation of all Mexicans."
He adds: "We had to tell the Cocopa that it is indispensable that the five conditions we have laid out are fulfilled," and that if the government does not comply, "we cannot speak of dialogue nor of the peaceful solution to the conflict. We can't speak of anything," said the Tojolobal representative.
To the question of "in what kind of Mexico would the zapatistas lay aside their arms?" Comandante Tacho responded:
"We are not willing to lay aside arms until the resolution of all the demands is guaranteed. To begin with, the demands of indigenous rights and culture, of the teachers, of the workers, of the housewives. When we all have a dignified life in this country, when there really is democracy, when there are all these things which are translated as the word "justice." And wen there is freedom, when there are spaces in which we can say what is right and what is wrong in government action."
"We see that something is happening," said Tacho. "A lot of young people are participating because of a growing discontent. People who believe in the zapatista struggle and its proposals are the only thing that guarantees them that they can be taken into account in this country. More people came than we expected; it was twice what we expected. The encounter has been a total success," he repeated.
In regards to the importance of the struggle for indigenous rights, this member of the CCRI remarked:
"For us, the zapatistas, indigenous rights and culture represent the idea that after achieving that, other demands will follow; that this will create an enduring precedent for the Mexican people, that the solution is that we all make demands, that we all participate in making demands; we see that otherwise, this will not be possible. The consultation will be one way for the government to comply with the demands of the people, and not only that, but a great democratic exercise."
Along these lines, on the EZLN's impression of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), Tacho said that the Fifth Declaration of the Lancandon Jungle was well understood as an invitation to a consultation process that was "inclusive, tolerant and participatory" for indigenous and non-indigenous people.
About the CNI, specifically, he said:
"We have seen that the brothers and sisters of the CNI are full of spirit, they are ready to struggle together with us, they have decided to participate, to organize, to mobilize. We perceived, when we met to speak with them, that they are very energized. We see that the EZLN's way of doing politics surpasses us. Along the sides more people are emerging, who are not only indigenous, and we see that we have to understand that it doesn't matter whether they are indigenous or not; what matters is that we are all taken into account, that we all participate in this inclusion, that after this big national consultation on indigenous rights and culture more will come, and that they need to see that it is no longer just the responsibility of indigenous people, for example the Table on Democracy and Justice. This is another fundamental topic that has to do with State reform: democracy in Mexico."
He elaborated, "When the fifth declaration became known, we saw that consultation is a new form of struggle and doing politics." And this "has provoked hundreds of organizations to come."
He recapitulated, "When we appeared in January, 1994 and civil society obligated both sides to suspend the shooting war, as we call it, of real fire, we encountered new forms of struggle. We began to attempt approaches, first when we called for the constitution of a National Democratic Congress (CND), of a Continental American Encounter and later of an Intercontinental one. Then, we began to find it in the dialogues at San Andres. Then, as soon as we see it, it began to emerge in the forums on indigenous rights and culture. That's why we say that the organizations themselves, that civil society itself created it and now is assuming the Accords as their own. And in this way they committed themselves, because they themselves were the ones who participated in the Accords and now it's all of our job to make demands together."
Tacho concluded by saying: "We see that several things are happening; one, that organized civil society is here, and second, that unorganized society is going to organize more," and that everyone will unite in this democratic exercise, the consultation. "All of a sudden, something is appearing that includes them." And finally, "We see that the consultation is a way to take power away from the government and pass it on to the people, to obligate the powerful to "rule by obeying."
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