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Abstract
Examined here is the formation, structure and dynamics of the ‘armed community in rebellion’ amongst the Tojolab'ales between 1988 and 1996. The crisis of peasant organizations that emerged during the 1970s as a vehicle of ‘liberation’ for indigenous peasants brought about the presence and growth of a Zapatista guerrilla movement in the Cañadas region of Las Margaritas. It patiently infiltrated and penetrated ejido unions and Tojolab'al peasant communities, as a result of which the EZLN gained an impressive social base with common experiences of organization and conflict plus a shared social identity. Together with the resource provision via the collective groups, this process generated the grassroots solidarity on which was built Zapatista resistance by the ‘armed community in rebellion’.
Notes
1 The empirical material for this article is the result of almost two years fieldwork in the Tojolab'al Cañadas of the municipality of Las Margaritas.
2 On the Tojolabal experience of colonizing the Lacandón Rainforest between 1940 and 1960, the importance of the catechism of the San Cristóbal diocese, and the constitution of regional peasant organizations as the background to this study, see Estrada Saavedra Citation2003; Citation2004a; Citation2004b. In these texts I argue that the departure (or expulsion, in this case) of the Tojolab'ales from the fincas and the search for their own land in the Lacandón Rainforest, was driven by a collective project to establish a community beyond the ‘baldío’ – that is to say, outside the hacienda system and its form of tenancy (demsne land worked by peons), which lasted in Chiapas from the second half of the eighteenth century until the mid-twentieth century [Ruz, Citation1992;Gómez and Ruz, Citation1992. This colonization initiated a struggle for autonomy which, over the last 60 years, has resulted in several distinct structures and forms of organization in the Tojolab'al jungle communities: the ejido community, the civitas christi, the ‘republican mass community’, and the ‘armed community in rebellion’. Each of these models of social organization corresponds to the collective experience of conflict and resistance on the part of the Tojolab'ales.
3 See Guillén Citation1998: Chapters 2–4]; Harvey Citation2000: Chapters 6–7], also his contribution to this volume; García de León Citation2002: Chapters 2, 3 and 5], also his contribution to this volume; Villafuerte Solís and García Aguilar Citation1998; and Legorreta Díaz Citation1998: 235ff.].
4 Names of ejidos and persons have all been changed, for obvious reasons.
5 On the Zapatista revolutionary programme, see the Statutes of the National Liberation Forces [Womack, Citation1999: 192].
6 Among rebel peasants, the EZLN is simply known as ‘the organization’.
7 Interview with Pedro, an ex-insurgent, in May 2004.
8 From this heterogeneous origin a series of internal tensions and conflicts would later emerge in the Zapatista movement, resulting in its slow but steady dismemberment, a process starting in the early 1990s.
9 Interview with Pedro, an ex-insurgent, during May 2004. Finqueros and rancheros are commercial farmers with large amounts of land.
10 That is ARIC, the Word of God, the EZLN and Slop (Root). On the latter, see De la Grange and Rico Citation1998: 269], Legorreta Citation1998: 183] and Tello Citation2000: 118].
11 For the history of ARIC and its relationship with the EZLN, see Legorreta Citation1998 and Acosta Chávez Citation2003.
12 One year later CIOAC returned to the civilian struggle. The EZLN was incapable of maintaining the loyalty and co-operation of peasant leaders and grassroots within its project, not least because CIOAC still had sufficient autonomy to negotiate its participation on more equal terms.
13 Interview with Rafael, an ex-insurgent, August 2003.
14 Interview with Gerardo Arriaga, leader of the Union of Jungle Ejidos, in August 2003.
15 Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was one of the guerrillas who participated in the 1959 Cuban revolution. After unsuccessfully attempting to spark a peasant uprising in eastern Bolivia, he was captured and murdered by the US Central Intelligence Agency and Bolivian military during October 1967.
16 All these programmatic claims were made by Pedro, an ex-insurgent, in the course of an interview during May 2004.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Interview with Gerardo Arriaga, leader of the Union of Jungle Ejidos, in August 2003.
20 The civitas christi and comunidad republicana de masas represents the different processes of identity formation that have taken place in Tojolob'al communities over the last seventy years. The civitas christi developed in the Tojolab'al Cañadas between 1960 and 1975 under the influence of pastoral agents from the dioceses of San Cristóbal. During this period the discourse and practice of Liberation Theology contributed to the formation of new social groups, organized and directed by catechists and deacons, and new structures of power parallel to those of the ejidal authorities. As a result, many Tojolob'ales came to see themselves as ‘sons of God’, whose dignity rested on the collective project of ‘saving souls’ and constructing the ‘kingdom of God’ in the ‘here and now’. Since pastoral agents lacked a clear conception of political organization with which to mobilize the peasants against social injustice, they entered into alliances with groups of leftist political activists, principally Maoists, who had experience of organizing collectives and independent popular movements in other Mexican states. Between 1975 and 1990, under the influence of institutions constructed by Maoist activists – that is, independent ejidal unions – a new structure of community authority developed, parallel to the existing civil and religious authorities [Estrada Saavedra, 2005]. This became the comunidad republicana de masas, characterized by a combination of religious roots, radical politics, republican spirit, and revolutionary ideals.
21 These groups were not a creation of Zapatismo. In a strict sense, the innovations of Zapatismo were twofold: the army and the training camp. Lack of space does not allow a consideration here of the importance of either the training camp or external pro-Zapatista groups and their support for the rebels' resistance in the internal dynamics of Zapatismo.
22 Interview with Pedro, an ex-insurgent, in May 2004. The same source observed: ‘If the community is divided and the ejidal commission is not a compa [that is, not Zapatista] then he only oversees or attends to the needs of his compañeros, which is the case in many communities. [In cases where there is a division within the leadership of the ejido union, sometimes a negotiation between Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas occurs] There are even many compañeros who are part of the constitutional ejido and part of the ‘organization’ [whose tasks included] finding a balance [between the EZLN and ejidal interests]. Often they go to the meetings and [afterwards] they tell everything [that happened in the ejidal assemblies] to the responsable, what the proposals are, what they will do, what kind of government support they will receive, etc. So in that way government revenue is often shared collectively with Zapatista compañeros, who are not even always ejidatarios.’
23 Interview with Pedro, an ex-insurgent, in May 2004.
24 Ibid.
25 Interview with Marisol, an ex-insurgent, in August 2004.
26 Another leadership post which links the communities and the EZLN is the responsable in charge of militants, who normally has the rank of sergeant and, as his name indicates, is ‘responsible for training of militants and coordinating those who go to the camps to receive specific training; but he is subordinate to the responsable of the community.’ (Interview with Pedro, May 2004).
27 Interview with Pedro, May 2004. The Zapatista model of organization acquired a similar structure and form to the peasant organizations of the republican mass communities.
28 Interview with Marisol, an ex-insurgent, in August 2004.
29 Interview with Guadalupe Santos, ex-leader of a peasant organization and ex-Zapatista leader, in July 2003.
30 PEMEX is the nationation petroleum company of Mexico.
31 Interview with Guadalupe Santos, ex-leader of a peasant organization and ex-Zapatista leader, in July 2003. With respect to points two and three, it should be noted that with the demobilization of a large part of the militia and insurgents in 1997, these functions of the Zapatista support bases became defunct.
32 ‘With regard to military equipment, this basically came from the contributions of teachers, from workers in Mexico City; I even noticed that there were workers' unions which had formed EZLN cells.’ (Interview with Rafael, August 2003).
33 Interview with a healthcare activist in La Vida during January 2004.
34 Ibid.
35 Interview with a healthcare activist in La Alegría during January 2004.
36 Ibid.
37 Interview with an educational activist in La Vida during January 2004.
38 Interview with an educational activist in La Vida during January 2004, who observed: ‘From the Spanish Conquest onwards, the independence of 1810 and the revolution of 1910.’ They also teach the children the history of their communities, how and why they left their villages to colonize the jungle, and how they started to organize and became Zapatistas.
39 Interview with an educational activist in La Alegría during January 2004.
40 Services and goods provided by the collectives not only help to maintain resistance, and identification with Zapatismo, but also encourage self-management. Before Zapatismo there was no organization, and – as one elderly female in the support networks remarked – everyone ‘kept to his own thinking and his own life.’
41 Generally speaking, the communities have a school, a church, an ejidal house, shops (privately owned, co-operatives, or regional and/or municipally owned), and recreation areas (basketball or soccer fields). Some have their own ‘hospital’, like in San José del Rio, or lodgings exclusively for the campamentistas, as in Realidad Trinidad. In some communities, a water pipeline brings water directly to the homes. Not all communities have electricity; some obtain electricity from the utility company without paying for it, as is the case of those located next to pylons, and others generate their own electricity (for example with solar panels or turbines). Communities such as La Realidad Trinidad, headquarters of the Autonomous Municipality, have lorries ‘of the organization’ to transport goods and people. (In the case of people, anyone may use this Zapatista service for travelling between Las Margaritas and San Quintín).
42 Interview with Josefina in July 2003.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid.
45 Interview with a Zapatista in April 2003.
46 Collective interview in La Vida during January 2004.
47 Ibid.
48 In reality the supposed priistas do not belong, nor have they ever belonged, to the PRI. Members of the PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática), the PAN (Partido de Acción Nacional) and the PT (Partido de Trabajadores), that is all those who have any relationship with the government, are also labelled priistas.
49 In keeping with this discourse about ‘not us’ negative characteristics, Zapatistas maintain that priistas should not be trusted because they fail to keep their promises, they speak badly about others, and generally speaking they cause all kind of problems.
50 Interview in La Luz during April 2003.
51 Collective interview in La Luz during February 2004.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.