From the nearest main road, the path to the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) autonomous community of Bolon Ajaw
is narrow and long, winding through dense jungle along the edge of a steep
mountainside. As the setting sun gave way to pitch darkness during my first
trek to the community, one of the fifteen or so machete-wielding Zapatista
security escorts walking at my side suggested we be especially cautious because
we were passing by “OPDDIC territory.” OPDDIC (Organization for the
Defense of Indigenous and Peasant Peoples) is an Institutional Revolutionary
Party (PRI)-affiliated anti-Zapatista paramilitary group that staged an armed
attack against Bolon Ajaw only months before.
The attack occurred on February 6, when Bolon
Ajaw residents confronted a group of some 80-90 PRI supporters—known members of OPDDIC, according to residents of Bolon Ajaw—from the nearby
Agua Azul ejido and tourist site who had invaded the Zapatista community with the
intent to seize valuable land adjacent to a river and a series of large
waterfalls. Reports suggest that some of the PRI supporters had been occupying
parts of the community since January 20th. [1] When Bolon Ajaw
members, with the help of Zapatistas from other communities in the
region, eventually gathered to peacefully remove their uninvited guests, a
violent conflict erupted.
Contrary to the Chiapas Attorney General’s
statements [2] suggesting that the Zapatistas had been armed, David, a Bolon Ajaw
resident present at the conflict stated, “The OPDDIC members arrived with the
guns. There were more than 300 of us Zapatistas defending the land but only
with sticks and machetes. At first, people were only exchanging blows but then
it got worse.”
David went on to explain how the dispute made its
way to the other side of the community where the PRI supporters eventually
opened fire. According to the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center
(Frayba) of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, the PRIistas began shooting
houses and then ransacked the community church—after which, they turned their
weapons on the people. By the end of the shooting, one PRI member was
left dead as a result of friendly-fire wound while 11 others were
injured—including three Zapatistas. [3] Even though Bolon Ajaw has been
relatively calm since the February attack, the community is still reeling and
ultimately anticipating future incursions.
Threats and attacks have been plaguing the
community for years. [4] While paramilitary violence and intimidation have been staple components of state counterinsurgency strategy against
the Zapatistas since the mid-1990s, [5] the situation in Bolon Ajaw has been
particularly contentious.
The autonomous community land—recuperated from
large landowners during the Zapatista armed uprising of 1994, and eventually
converted into a community in 2003—is now inhabited by some 25 families but fiercely
sought after by a number of external parties. The reason: Bolon Ajaw sits along
the banks of a pristine emerald-blue river that flows into a series of towering
“cascadas," or waterfalls. While the residents of Bolon Ajaw see the river
and cascadas as a source of livelihood in the middle of the sweltering Chiapan
jungle, the other interested parties have something else in mind—profit. The
campaign to seize and privatize the Zapatista land, for sale to resort
developers, is part of a much larger plan to convert the entire region
surrounding the river into a tourist destination.
“Right now we’re working to defend our community
from the construction of these megaprojects,” said Gloria, a resident of Bolon
Ajaw, “We use the river for everything: to bathe, to drink, to cook. We need
this land to survive.”
For the people of Bolon Ajaw, the mere act of existing constitutes a form of resistance to CIPP and its capitalist motivations.
The Zapatistas Today—Making the State Obsolete
Despite these ongoing struggles, interest in the
Zapatistas has been ever-dwindling since their armed uprising on January 1,
1994. While the present-day realities of organizing for indigenous autonomy and
resistance to the ravages of modern capitalism in Chiapas may not always be
sensational or gripping, they are certainly still relevant to the contemporary
international movement for social justice. As sociologist Immanuel
Wallerstein notes, “The Zapatistas were saying from the outset that their
five-century-long protest against injustice and humiliation and demand for
autonomy was linked today organically to the worldwide struggle against
neoliberalism and imperialism...” In Wallerstein’s assessment, “There is
no question that the Zapatista insurrection of 1994 became a major inspiration
for antisystemic movements throughout the world.” However, Wallerstein is also
quick to rally attention to the movement’s current work on the construction of
autonomy as a source of lessons for the rest of the world. [8] Such processes are
today largely characterized by the development of Zapatista support-base
communities like Bolon Ajaw.
According to Richard Stahler-Sholk, a professor
of political science at Eastern Michigan University who studies the Zapatistas,
the establishment and consolidation of support-base communities—which are
designed to function independently from the Mexican state—allow local
preferences to take priority over the dictates of global capital. The
autonomous communities are a major part of the movement’s resistance to what he
refers to as “neoliberal homogenization” – i.e. the marginalization and co-optation
of people and cultures by market forces under the brokerage of the state.
In the book Dancing with Dynamite: Social
Movements and States in Latin America journalist Benjamin Dangl describes how
the “dance”, or dynamics, between Latin American social movements—like the
Zapatistas—and the state constitute a frontline in the modern struggle for
global justice. Dangl explains how processes of grassroots social action erode
the capacities of illegitimate and oppressive power-structures and
institutions, writing, “In this dance, the urgency of survival trumps the law,
people acting based on the rights they were born with makes the state
irrelevant...” [9]
Stahler-Sholk, who describes the Zapatista
project in its current form as a “quiet and persistent rebellion,” specifically
emphasizes their various non-market alternatives for life and community
development when commenting on the movement’s reshaping of socio-political
landscapes. He writes, "Since 1994, [the Zapatistas] have developed a
variety of self-sufficient production, exchange, and social service projects:
collective garden patches, rabbit raising, beekeeping, candle making,
agroecology experimentation, locally controlled schools, networks of health
promoters trained in combinations of modern and traditional healing, etc.” [10]
While community-run schools and primary health
care may not be the kinds of rebellion that make newspaper headlines,
Stahler-Sholk argues that these aspects of the movement are the essence of
modern Zapatista resistance, stating, “What is so impressive and powerful about
the Zapatistas is startlingly simple. People are just living their everyday
lives as though they are in charge of their own affairs, not waiting for
permission.”
The Struggle Continues
During one of my last days in Bolon Ajaw, I was
approached by a young community-member with a pamphlet detailing the
aforementioned plans for neoliberal development of the region. The text was
entirely Mayan Tzeltal but he translated key points for me about resource and
territory privatization plans under CIPP, Plan Puebla Panama, Plan Merída and
other capitalist megaprojects bent on compromising the well-being of indigenous
peoples for the sake of profit. “We’re really struggling for this land,” he told
me, “OPDDIC and the government may want this property to make money but it is
ours. It’s not for sale.”
As our conversation drew to a close, the young
man said to me, “It’s like a war against the poor…it seems that our governments
and these companies are just trying to kill campesinos.” I immediately thought
back to a 1995 Chase Manhattan Bank internal memo I had once read in which the
author, Riordan Roett, argued a “need” for the Mexican government to
“eliminate” the Zapatistas in order to ease concerns about the then-fledgling
rebel movement among members of the international investment community. A startlingly clear illustration of the “profit over people” mentality at the
core of neoliberal capitalism.
“Yes,” I responded, “it does seem that way.”
“Yes,” I responded, “it does seem that way.”
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