MEXICO CITY – Zapatismo has returned to the streets. A collective cry from thousands of throats has colored the air between the Angel of Independence and the Zócalo in Mexico City on Thursday afternoon. The demonstrators have demanded a “stop to the war” against the communities of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), that group of guerrillas that took up arms on January 1, 1994 against the structural inequality suffered by the indigenous peoples of Chiapas and all of Mexico. Since then, the hooded men have become an example and a symbol of the advance, already at that time, unstoppable by globalization and capitalism, defending that another world was possible. His ideas took root as a kind of beacon for the international left and today they have returned to Paseo de la Reforma.
It is not a massive march, but it shows that Zapatismo continues to have a pulse in the streets despite its media silence. With barely a week’s notice, a few thousand protesters parade laden with flags, banners and revolutionary chants. The profile is varied, covers all ages and rhetoric. Here are the most educated and most practical discourses: those who have their feet on the ground and do not know inequality through political theories, but rather through leading it. Udelia García protects herself from the sun with a wide hat. She carries a sign that reads: “Stop the war against the Zapatista communities.” She is 83 years old, she comes from a peasant family in Oaxaca and says that she has always supported the EZLN: “They fight for something good, for the peasants, who are the ones who suffer a lot, work a lot and are poorly paid.
The situation in Chiapas threatens to explode. The State is experiencing low hours, besieged by a cocktail that includes paramilitary groups, armed self-defense groups, a growing militarization of police tasks promoted by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the incursion of organized crime. The EZLN and the experts who monitor violence in the region have spent years warning of the danger and denouncing the ineffectiveness and passivity of the authorities. The Zapatista communities are especially under constant siege by armed groups, the Army and the espionage of the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena), as revealed by a massive email leak from the organization .
Joaquina comes as part of a contingent from the Otomí community of Querétaro. She advances through Reforma in the center of a long flag carried by a handful of women. She is 26 years old: “For us, Zapatismo is an example of struggle, that is why we are here. Since they were able to rise up, we want to fight and raise our voices and not be afraid of this bad government. We have come to demand that the war there in Chiapas against the Zapatista communities stop. When this government came in, it said that there was going to be no repression, but nothing has changed.”
The straw that broke the camel’s back and brought Zapatismo back to the streets was the attack by a paramilitary group, the Orcao, against the Moisés Gandhi community, part of the Lucio Cabañas autonomous municipality, on May 22. During the incursion, Jorge López Sántiz, a member of the EZLN support bases, was wounded. The guerrillas regrouped through a wall of 800 international organizations and more than 1,000 personalities from the world of culture, the arts and politics who launched a joint manifesto in their defense. They called for an international mobilization that this Thursday has reached 22 Mexican cities and another 13 from the rest of the world.
“Chiapas is on the verge of a civil war,” warned that statement . And the response in Mexico City has been a demonstration that has been filled with posters with the white dove of peace —with the traditional red Zapatista bandana around the neck, yes— that demanded an end to the attacks against the EZLN and the situation of general violence of the State. The roots of the problem go back decades. After taking up arms, Zapatismo signed a truce with the government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari and since then has opted for the peaceful path. “Despite the fact that instead of investing their work in the war, they have done so in building hospitals, schools and autonomous governments that have benefited Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas, governments from Carlos Salinas to López Obrador. They have tried to isolate, delegitimize and exterminate them”, the manifesto reads.
Agustín wears a green cap with a red star, a red scarf around his neck and a T-shirt with the word freedom. He is 52 years old and it is not the first time that he has marched in favor of Zapatismo. From Mexico City, he belongs to a collective in “defense of work, land and territory of the native peoples.” “We have to come to raise our voices with what is happening in Chiapas. The situation is very serious, the rule of law in terms of citizen security is being violated. The communities are being displaced and the State does nothing”, he says.
Jessica Marjane is 26 years old, belongs to the Trans Youth Network, comes from a Hñähñu community and has come today “summoned by the movement for social justice and liberation, from the body to the territories”. “Sexual diversity movements,” she continues, “particularly the trans movement, find a lot of affinity with the Zapatista principles of freedom, of an anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal movement and for liberation from all oppressions. I also come because fear moves me, because I live in Mexico and because I am a trans woman in a country that ranks second in hate crimes. I want to stop being afraid and I find in Zapatismo principles of freedom for me and the communities”.
As evening falls on the Zócalo, protesters congregate between the Cathedral and the National Palace. Graffiti is made, shouts of “EZLN!” . From a small stage set up for the occasion, representatives of the National Indigenous Council, groups related to Zapatismo and personalities from the world of culture such as the actress Julieta Egurrola launched their demands: medical attention that guarantees the improvement of Jorge López Sántiz, that the armed attack against the communities, the punishment of the “material and intellectual authors of the paramilitary attacks”, and the disintegration of “the armed groups through which the war against the Zapatista communities is kept active and growing”.
