Volume 6, No. 11, December. 2005

(Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee - General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Mexico, in the sixth month, or June, of the year 2005. )

On 19th of June 2005, EZLN raised a "RED ALERT" in Chiapas, Mexico .They shut down the five Governing Centers they established in Chiapas in 2003 and withdrew inside Lacandona forest for further consultation. After that they published their Sixth declaration from the Lacandona forest which is very significant for the future of Mexico and its people. EZLN which started their work among the Indigenous people of the Chiapas and took up arms against The Mexican government On 1 st January 1994 opposing the Imperialist crafted NAFTA, the free trade agreement of the north America involving USA,CANADA and MEXICO which was bound to create unimaginable misery for the Indian communities ,small farmers and workers .EZLN on their sixth declaration gave a call for a national broad unity of the struggle of the indigenous people with the struggles of the workers, farmers, landless laborers, students, intellectuals, gays, lesbians . . . .all marginalized people of the Mexican society and for international solidarity among working peoples and poor peoples’ movements throughout the world to fight the neo-liberal economic policies of the imperialists and their local cronies. They categorically gave a call for a nationwide leftist political movement involving and incorporating the lefts who do not take part in election. Sub-commandant Marcos criticized the next presidential candidate, Mayor of the Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and a member of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution, calling him a false leftist. In their own word:

"Now then, what we want to do in Mexico is to make an agreement with persons and organizations just of the left, because we believe that it is in the political left where the idea of resisting neo-liberal globalization is, and of making a country where there will be justice, democracy and liberty for everyone. Not as it is right now, where there is justice only for the rich, there is liberty only for their big businesses, and there is democracy only for painting walls with election propaganda. And because we believe that it is only from the left that a plan of struggle can emerge, so that our Patria, which is Mexico, does not die." ——Sixth declaration from the Lacandona Forest

Consultation and discussions with the nationwide representatives of the leftist organizations have been completed .Results of that yet not published .In their declaration EZLN said that they will send a delegation of Zapatistas across Mexico to unite indigenous people ,workers ,peasants ,students ,women and all those oppressed in this lumpen bourgeoisie system. The mission of this movement will be to write a new constitution and to construct an alternative to neo liberal policies from the grass root .What is significant in this new turnaround by the masked rebels is that after almost 11 years of their armed uprising they are trying to build a peoples front, a front of the revolutionary classes that is not interested in electoral participation and which has the true potential of throwing away the imperialist system of slavery ,loot ,oppression and drain. The EZLN carried out several such initiatives in the 1990s, including the calling of a National Democratic Convention (CND), various referenda (consultas), and the creation of the Zapatista Front for National Liberation (FZLN) as the EZLN’s political arm. All of these previous attempts to build a national political movement inspired by the EZLN failed.

Indian question is closely linked to the class struggle and the 500 years history of Mexico. The existence of the Indian movement for the struggle and resistance, which is supported by a significant fraction of the 12 million Indians living in the country, bears witness of the persistence of the Indian problem. The problem of the property of land suggests the following: firstly the large estate, which belongs mainly to big landlords, to big cattle dealers and owners of large agro-industries (such as cane, vineyards, wood, coffee, corn, tomato, forage) and to other big companies, which use the manpower of the Indians who live nearby. The modern Lords not only have control over the means of production, but also over the work force of adults and under age Indians through a complex web of contractors. Indians are hired for half the minimum wage to pick the crops of corn, coffee, fruits, in the production of wooden goods and textiles, during feudalism and afterwards in Imperialism the Indian peoples being exploited by the lords were forced into poverty, discrimination and ignorance. In fact the Indian question embraces a number of ethnic questions of administrative, educational, cultural and racial characters. These questions have been studied in certain depth, by EZLN however the main issue has been always neglected, namely, the access to the ownership of the means of production in general, and particularly of the land. Other main issue is the right for an autonomous territory that includes the demand of expropriation of the big lords, who plunder the Indian peoples.

500 years of colonialism and free trade has exploited Latin America to the maximum. The conquest of the land placed the Latin America in a situation of perpetual economic dependence. The ultra exploitive export economy, dependent on the developed countries, restricted the development of national bourgeoisie and local market created the economic interest of the exporters of raw materials, big landowners, mine owners whom we can call lumpen bourgeoisie. Spaniard Cortez invaded Mexico in the lust of gold .Gold mining and exporting from Mexico started the first drain from the country .Enslavement of Indigenous population, using them as slave labour in the mines and fields and inhuman exploitation through this method began. The agrarian system of the Latin American countries and Mexico in specific was transformed to fit the commercial opportunities in the export market .After1580 predominance of latifundam or hacienda (Landlord/feudal lord) in the Mexican economy increased when agricultural prices increased in the European market and profits from agriculture increased in comparison to mining. Epidemic reduced the supply of labour and small scale native agricultural products declined due to the depopulation and the feudal system of Latifundam which engaged farm labourer/share cropper or peon became the dominant mode of production and labour use. From 1779 to 1803 the value of agricultural production exceeded the value of mining activities. The price increase made the landlords richer and in turn they started increasing their landholding more which displaced more and more marginal farmers and rural labourer. On 1810 Hidalgo initiated the revolution which made Mexico independent 10 years later .This independence movement was in the interest of the producers of exported raw material , i.e. hacienda which severed its ties with the previous metropolis to serve the emerging imperial powers of England to establish this economy of export more efficiently. This policy of underdevelopment could not be implemented fully unless and otherwise the national bourgeoisie which was emerging in the colonies and who believed in industrialization and development of the local market and seek protectionist measures from the foreign /imperial competition ,can be defeated .Conflict between the path of self development by strengthening local market and the path of dependence on the metropolis and export orientation, i.e. conflict between the National bourgeoisie and lumpen bourgeoisie was reflected through out the civil wars of 19th century in Mexico.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century with the increased penetration of North American and British imperialism the demand for Mexican agricultural export and mining export increased. Between 1891 and 1910, mining production increased by 239 per cent. As the profit from the land increased in a short time a large number of landlords along with foreigners created a landed aristocracy. Concentration of the land increased and the rate of wage decreased rendering more the wretchedness of the people. Landowners increasingly tried to occupy the indigenous land. The Indians (13 per cent of the 15 million inhabitants at the time), whose uprisings in 1885 and 1898 had been crushed, were thrown off their common land. The haciendas, those relics of the era of Spanish rule, absorbed their land in a move to concentrate agricultural exploitation. On the eve of the 1910 revolution, land concentration reached incredible proportions: 97 per cent of arable land belonged to a tiny minority of owners who represented one per cent of the rural population. Eighty per cent of the rural families had no land whatsoever. Together with the agricultural workers of the large estates, most of the peasants were treated like serfs (peons) and lived under feudal conditions: In 1910, when the revolution broke out, the dictator Porfirio Diaz had been ruling the country for over 30 years. The national bourgeoisie was insignificant in comparison to the imperialist predators – United States, Britain and France and their agents the lumpen bourgeoisie. In the countryside much land remained unproductive or was used to cultivate products for export. The farming of basic foods was rare, and the corn used to make tortillas, which have been part of the staple diet of the poor for thousands of years, had to be imported.

During the 1910 electoral campaign, Diaz found Francisco Madero blocking his road. Madero, a big bourgeois from the north, who thought that the political regime was favoring foreign capital over the national bourgeoisie. Diaz put Madero into prison. Madero escaped from prison and fled to Texas, from where he issued a call for an uprising. In May 1911, an angry demonstration in Mexico City demanded that Diaz resign. The revolution had begun. Madero, was arrested and shot in February 1913. Civil war spread. In Chihuahua in the north, a breeding and mining region, and in Morelos, a large sugar-producing region, the poverty-stricken peasants rose up. This uprising helped two peasant armies grow and gain strength: one led by Doreteo Arango, better known as Pancho Villa, and the other by Emiliano Zapata from Morelos.

Zapata was a strong supporter of the destruction of the haciendas and the restitution of the stolen land to the peasant communities. "Land and Liberty," he proclaimed in the Ayala program (1911). These were not mere promises: he led the beginning of an agrarian reform in Morelos. At the revolutionary Convention of March 27, 1915, in Aguascalientes, the Zapatistas used a radical language while the Villaists continued to defend the traditional 19th century rights of individual property.

But the answer to the agrarian question was closely linked to the question of power. The two peasant armies entered into the capital city of Mexico and went back to their respective regions. No working class leader, even the most radical, understood or wanted to understand that it was necessary to establish a link between the town and the countryside which would have increased the workers’ and peasants’ strength and that such an alliance, if the working class took its lead, could achieve victory through seizure of power.

The bourgeoisie’s political representatives had managed to prevent the working class movement and the insurrectionist peasantry from joining together having alliance with groups of the urban petty bourgeoisie. It was a success for the Constitutionalist government, which represented this alliance; and it reassured the United States which publicly recognized the Constitutionalist government in 1915. The Constitution of 1917 had to give some concessions in favor of the poor classes like, the liquidation of large estates, agrarian reform and work laws; and it affirmed the right of the state to own the national resources.

In 1929, Calles, leader of this alliance, founded the PRN (National Revolutionary Party) which finally ended up being called the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party). The PRN started as a coalition of generals and politicians. Putting reforms and nationalization on hold, effectively they gave the upper hand to foreign capital, mainly North American. In 1934, General Lazaro Cardenas became president; Due to the severe economic crisis the export oriented economy was in a bad condition and that gave the nationalist bourgeoisie a chance to choose the path of self reliant development to some extent. Resting on these nationalist sentiments, he carried out the single largest agrarian reform in Mexico’s history.

     In order to mobilize the population behind him, he changed the party’s name to the PRM (Party of the Mexican Revolution) and adopted the slogan "for a workers’ democracy." His agrarian reform benefited about 730,000 people. Moreover, the plots of land which were distributed were two-and-a-half times bigger. Most of this land was given to town communities in the form of "ejidos" (communal landholding). In 1938, in order to re-establish the balance in favor of national capital, the government decided to expropriate the oil fields belonging to British and American imperialism. This brave decision resulted in instant disapproval from the imperialist world. Foreign stockholders also lost their influence over the railways whose administration was handed over to the trade unions. In order to be able to expropriate the hacienda owners, as well as to take the field against foreign capital, Cardenas’ regime dared to lean on the mobilization of the peasants and agricultural workers and on the working-class organizations.

This land reform was just a prelude to a more severe and dangerous future for the poor farmers and workers of Mexico. In 1993 Mexico govt. signed a free trade agreement with USA and Canada which will reduce all the tariff walls in trade between USA Canada and Mexico. It paved the way for foreign imports of food grain and other foodstuff and uninterrupted inflow of foreign capital. For small indigenous subsistence corn farmers of Mexico NAFTA was like a death sentence. Cheap imported maize from the US – the world’s most efficient (??) and most heavily subsidized producer – would be a boon (??) to Mexican consumers and will just create havoc for the small and marginalized farmers of Mexico. They will be forced to leave their land and be a landless destitute and will either work as a wage laborer in imperialist controlled huge agri-farms which produce export quality cotton, coffee, fruits, wine, liquor for the developed world or in the severely low waged assembly shops in the export processing zones where no labour law is implemented. And despite a huge drop in the price farmers received for their corn, consumers often ended up paying more. The price of tortillas – the country’s staple food – rose nearly fivefold as the Government jettisoned domestic subsidies and giant agribusiness firms took over the market opening the floodgates to tons of imported US corn. Maize imports tripled under NAFTA and producer prices fell by half. The drop in income immediately hit the most vulnerable members of rural society. While more than a third of the corn grown by small farmers is used to feed their families, the rest is sold on local markets. "Monthly income for self-employed farmers fell from 1959 pesos a month in 1991 to 228 pesos a month in 2003". (Trade Impact Review (TIR) by Women’s Edge Coalition). When the price of crops like coffee drops and non-farm sources of income dry up, families grow more maize to feed their families. Growing genetically modified maize is illegal in Mexico. But 99 per cent of imported corn in Mexico comes from the US and analysts estimate that at least a quarter of that is GM. The GM corn got cross-pollinated and created a genetic pollution in the fields of Mexico. Over 100,000 campesinos marched in the streets of Mexico City last year ‘in defence of corn’ demanding that the agricultural chapter of NAFTA be renegotiated to remove staple food crops (corn and beans). The Government has refused.

This free trade agreement was meticulously crafted to extract most from the developing country. It was a test case, a model, which would be followed later on in FTTA and WTO to maximize the exploitation of the underdeveloped and developing countries by omnipotent imperial capital.

"For centuries England relied on protection, carried it to extremes, and got good results from it .There is no doubt that it is to this system that that country owes its present power. After two centuries, England has found it desirable to adopt free trade because protection no longer offers advantages. Very well gentlemen ,the knowledge that I have of my country leads me to believe that within two hundred years ,when America has gotten all that she can get from protection ,she too will adopt free trade"—Victorious general Ulysses S. Grant after winning war against the exporters and free traders of south in American civil war.

General Grant was absolutely correct in his prophecy and only his prediction came true about hundred years earlier. The USA the greatest imperialist power on earth is one of the strongest advocates of free trade. This is mere imperialist logic as they must have a free flow of goods and capital throughout the world in order to intensify their neo-colonial domination and loot around the world. While themselves resorting to increasingly protectionist measures they seek open the markets of the world by smashing all restrictive trade and investment practices. So, once again we find that trade, structured in this way, makes the country totally vulnerable to the imperialists.

Amidst wide protest and as presidential election is due within 1 year President Fox has shelved the proposal of draconian labour reform for the time being. The pro-employer pro imperialist labor law reforms being pushed by the PAN and the PRI have been opposed by the independent union organizations, the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), the National Union of Workers (UNT) and the Mexican Union Front (FSM). The PRI and PAN, backed by the employers associations and the Congress of Labor, have announced that they will return to the Federal Legislature with their labor law reform proposal. "Workers in Mexico already face unacceptable obstacles to exercising their rights to join independent unions, bargain collectively, and strike," said José Miguel Vivanco, America’s director at Human Rights Watch. "President Fox’s reforms would make it next to impossible." The Fox administration’s proposal would create new mandatory procedures that workers must fulfill prior to exercising these fundamental human rights.

Before they could strike, compel their employers to bargain collectively, or call a vote to gain representational rights and supplant a pre-existing union, worker would have to obtain a variety of documents certifying union registration. But these papers are only available from authorities typically hostile to independent unions. Furthermore, prior to striking or holding a vote for an independent union, workers would also have to present to the Board a document, containing their names and signatures, expressing their desire to exercise these rights. But widespread retaliation against independent union members in Mexico makes workers reluctant to publicly declare their wish to join an independent union or to strike. Exclusion clauses in "protection contracts" that give pro-business unions the right to demand that certain workers be fired only exacerbate this climate of fear. These clauses are regularly cited to successfully call for the illegal dismissal of independent union sympathizers.

Human Rights Watch documented systematic pregnancy-based discrimination in Mexico’s free trade zones, both post-hire and in the hiring process, in August 1996 and December 1998. In January 1998, the U.S. National Administrative Office also concluded that the practice was widespread. And the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) stated in 1999 that it was "deeply concerned about the situation of women workers in the maquiladoras, some of whom are subjected to pregnancy tests upon recruitment and at intervals during work, and are dismissed if found to be pregnant."

At this crossroad the national leftist front proposed by the EZLN has a profound responsibility of carrying out the struggle of indigenous people , farmers , workers , students, women and other oppressed sectors of the Mexican society against the comprador lumpen bourgeoisie and their imperialist masters .They should throwaway all illusion about bourgeoisie democracy and reform which is like an opium that create a haze around the true character of the state and ruling class .For the liberation of oppressed class in a semi colony the question of seizure of power by the proletariat and peasantry is very very important .On the question of seizure of power concrete conviction by the revolutionary command is required .Any confusion in seizure of power will only help the ruling class of imperialists, compradors and landlords .After the 1910 revolution though the revolutionary peasantry defeated the oppressor armies and the working class in the cities organized massive strikes ,demonstration they did not gave stress on the seizure of power by the unified revolutionary command of peasantry and working class. Other way it can be said unification of the two revolutionary classes was lacking due to the absence of a communist party. Mere theory of "exercising power" rather than "seizure of power " will only thrill post modernists intellectuals and ruling classes. Petty bourgeoisie dilemma about armed struggle and seizure of power will only strengthen the ruling classes. Only the demand for a new constitution will not guaranty the emancipation of the people; which will only be sure if this exploitive state structure along with the ruling classes is thrown away.

EZLN along with other revolutionary lefts should strive for an agenda that will truly liberate the oppressed people from the clutches of imperialism and their local cronies. The only consistent alternative consists of the complete appropriation of the land held by land lords and agri-business to the tillers or community including the appropriation of all means of production. To free Mexico from the grip of compradors, landowners and imperialists a strong revolutionary front and a strong revolutionary communist party is needed which can lead the proletariat and poor and landless peasants towards a true new democratic revolution, which will remove all the feudal and imperialist landholdings, distribute land to the landless and poor, create a local market for the nationalist self reliant bourgeoisie and take the country in the path of true socialism; then only the dream of thousands of Zapata s will come true .

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