Copyright © 1998 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Mexico 1998: ABOVE AND BELOW: MASKS AND SILENCES "To the man in public, especially the politician, we must demand that he posses public virtues, all of which can be summed up in one: fidelity to his own mask (…), be sure there is no political entanglement which is a barter, a confusion of masks, a bad comedy rehearsal, in which no one knows his role.

Be sure, nevertheless, of those who become politicians, that your mask be, wherever possible, your own work, make it yourself, in order to avoid they put one on you—or impose one on you—your enemy or your fellow believers: and don’t make it so rigid, stiff and impermeable that you suffocate your face, because sooner or later, you must show your face." --Antonio Machado, "Juan de Mairena".

I. Mexico, in the middle of 1998 Leaning on my shoulder, the sea sighs to see the complicated plans of this newly-formed construction built during long and silent dawns, thinking from behind the masks we are. Suddenly a repentant wind comes beating the trees which are our windows, and shaking the great strands of paper filled with drawings, with climbing scales, with incomprehensible logarithms, with illegible letters which seem to be more obscure formulas of alchemy than scientific calculations.

It is the middle of the year 1998 and a wind comes to break silences and take off masks.

After a long and heavy drought, the rains begin to peek over the horizon of this country whose rulers are determined to take it to catastrophe. Protected by a shred of cloud, from the privileged golden balcony which the sea offers me for these cases, wet and astonished I see half the year go by in 1998 and the last death rattling of a century which refuses to leave without scandals and tyrannies.

Far from here the World Cup concentrates and summons sentiments. The sorcery which begins each time the ball rolls has been well understood by two South Americans, one to describe it and the other to play it. Eduardo Galeano, the gatherer of those daily rains which some call "the history of those below", and Diego Armando Maradona, who uses the ball to sing and to prove that magic has nothing to do with wires and esoteric formulas.

From up here I see neither Mister Galeano or Mister Maradona. I also cannot see Olivio exercising his vocation of jawbreaker (and "head" breaker says the sea as she tries to hide, pointlessly the, slingshot which Olivio abandons in his fight, after breaking Marcelo’s head open) I see, yes, those millions of Mexicans in the role in which their rulers always wanted to see them, that of spectators.

National history is stopped each time the Mexican soccer team confronts another, the rulers of this country get the breather which reality inevitably denies them. Millions of eyes placed upon French lands allow the Power a brief respite. But the joy was brief, the defeat came and the impasse which the role of spectators allow came to an end.

On this side of the world, the tragicomedy of the national political life also became a spectacle, and the disordered mask which was presented daily in the halls of power in Mexico did not obtain any applause. It has been a long time since the majority of Mexicans stopped participating as spectators to the scandals which the governing class prepare to end the century and the country. Millions of nationals are now victims of mega-crimes and jumbo-frauds.

If the shameless acts of the Mexican political class are a commodity whose exhibition value is measured in "ratings" for the powerful electronic media, for the immense majority of those who live and die badly between the Suchiate and Bravo Rivers, they are no more than the continuation of a State crime which fills almost the totality of the century.

Determined to alert the citizenry about the growth of delinquency and violence, some of the electronic media (those tied to the government) hide something basic: the most bloody and brutal occupy government posts (or are strongly tied to them), and the violence finds in the federal government its principal, executor, its greatest promoter and its apologist par excellence.

In the spectacle of the "great" Mexican politics, the confusion of masks and parliaments impedes knowing with certainty who is the judge and who is the criminal, who is the fraudulent one and who was defrauded.

But each time it is clearer that the Mexico at the end of the XX century has, in its State-Party system its most criminal face. In this Mexico there is a growing State criminality (that which is exercised from the seat of political Power) equaled only by the impunity given by money, the influence and the nearness (or the declared and shameful ownership) by the select circle around whom some still call (not without some discomfort, it is true) "Mister President."

Half of the administration of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon has indelible marks, but the bloodiest is the daily crime of an economic model imposed with the irrefutable arguments of bayonets, jails and cemeteries. Each time, that State crime achieves dismal spark. Aguas Blancas in Guerrero of June of 1995. Acteal in Chiapas of December of 1997. El Charco in Guerrero of June of 1998, Union Progreso and Chavajeval in Chiapas of June of 1998.

This face, the most irrational one which the Mexican State has ever had in its history, hides its horrible image behind a mask. And the sound of blood which it takes each day, is silence behind another silence.

It is evident that the masks hide and the silences silence. But it is also true that the masks reveal and silences speak.

They hide and silence, show and speak masks and silences. These are the signs which help to understand the end of this century in Mexico.

Yes, it is a country of masks and silences. I say this to the sea and she answers me, from behind her ski-mask, with a silent gesture of the most eloquent paradox, while she rolls up and hides the big plans.

But I tell her, and I say that there are masks and then there are masks, silences and then silences.

For example:
II. The masks and the silences from above. "I have heard of your disguises: God has give you a face, and you make another one: you walk in jumps, you waddle, you pronounce badly, you give nicknames to the creatures of God, and you make of your ignorance an excess." "Hamlet," William Shakespeare.

What is the role of the government in a society? What should be its role? These questions are made to the political parties, to the analysts and to society. Many are the responses for one and the other question, but the Mexican government has its own answers, and regardless of the babble of the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse—Zedillo, Labastida, Green, Madrazo, Gurria, Ortiz, Rabasa and Albores (yes, I know I named 8, but 4 of them are horsemen and 4 are beasts, choose accordingly)—the answers are imposed by blood (given by those below) and fire (fired by those above).

Lacking the legitimacy which is obtained only by consent of the governed, these personages of the Mexican tragedy at the end of the century, fill them with a mask made ex profeso, that of the State of Law. In the name of the "State of Law" economic measures are imposed, assassinations carried out, jailings, rapes, destruction, persecution, war is made.

Without rational arguments, without legitimacy, without morality, the government of Mexico takes up its only recourse: violence. But not against organized crime or delinquency (in other words, it does not use it against itself). It is against the poorest, in other words, the immense majority, which continues to grow at the same rate the nation crumbles.

It can appear that the fall has a thundering sound, but in this case, silence covers and presents it, the silence of amnesia.

In order to replace its lack of legitimacy with legality, the Mexican State (and not just the government) should carry out a complicated surgical operation on everything social. In other words, it should surgically remove the history of those who are governed. And it tries to do so replacing real history (in small letters) with Official History (in capital letters). And this Official History is not learned in the books, but created in the mental laboratories of graduate studies in foreign universities. Harvard, Oxford, Yale, and MIT are the modern "fathers of the Nation" of the real Mexican rulers. In this way the Official History is as far from reality as the indexes of economic growth, and in a world which already suffers the financial terror of globalization, these have the constancy of a weathervane in the middle of a storm.

In this way the present is the only history possible for these "children of the chalkboard" (named by Carlos Fuentes) "the guys of the computer" (so-named by whomever), or the "Cartel of Los Pinos" (so-named by their drug trafficking cronies). If the immutability and the heavy and laborious walk are the characteristics of the history of those below, what is ephemeral is the privileged place of Official History, amnesia re-named. The "Today" of the stock market is the historic reference of these technocrats who, thanks to the criminal Carl Salinas de Gortari, can be found in political power in Mexico. This Official History has its mask.

The Mask of "Modernity"? Does it seem attractive? Functional? Aerodynamic? Biodegradable? Cool? Light? It is not any of that, but it is sold and consumed with similar argument. The modernity of the neoliberal rulers in Mexico reveal a dry and empty country. In spite of the publicity efforts and market technology, and in spite of the millions invested in cosmetics and make-up, the mask of Mexican modernity crumbles more each time. And each time it is more difficult to see what it cannot hide: the destruction of the maternal bases of the Mexican State, that is the bases of National Sovereignty.

With "modernity" as the spinal column, they fence with a series of arguments (a mask without doubt) to justify (in the double sense of "making just" and of "giving a reason for existence") the dizzying destruction of everything which allows a country a "national sovereignty" which is more than a rhetorical sources. Sale of the minerals beneath the ground, of the seas and the air space, of the means of communication, of the companies with a social role (education, health, nutrition, housing, security), social politics, effective control of the financial and commercial market, the currency, the language, the government, the armed forces, history, these are some of the bases necessary for a State. Through diverse means, under different masks, but always with the same urgency, these bases of national sovereignty have been debilitated, if not openly destroyed by the neoliberal governments of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his student (who surpassed his teachers) Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon.

Beneath the masks of "industrial conversion" the "accommodation to the modern demands of globalization" the "rationing of public expenditures" the "elimination of subsidies which impede free competition and economic development" the "international struggle against drug trafficking" and the "end of the populist State" the Mexican governments since 1982 until today have carried out a true campaign of extermination against the fundamental pillars of national sovereignty.

Cheapening state enterprises, ceding to the pressure of international markets, abandoning their functions of social service (or mutating them so they can serve to buy votes), freeing prices of basic products and controlling salaries, hooking the future of the national currency to the arbitration of the great financial centers, deploying governmental actions for the publicity campaigns which the sales market of nations demands, assigning to the national armed forces the role of neighborhood policemen in the global village, re-writing (and erasing) national history, thinking in dollars, in many forms the last governments of Mexico have managed to make this country less and less our own.

Count it up. What is left so that the Mexican state can claim sovereignty? Hundreds of state companies have been sold, the pompous "Mexican stock market" is more like a subsidiary of the Asian market (and that in spite of the fact that they sold it with the intention of being a subsidiary of the North American market). The only constant thing in the cost of goods is their continual rise, the Mexican peso lacks idem [weight] in the international exchange market, the Mexican rulers think in English and translate to Spanish only when they are speaking to Mexican citizens (although not always well, as shown recently by Chancellor Green), in the mountains of the nation the Mexican federal Army carries out (under the orders of North American advisors) the same task which General Custer carried out against the Indians in the United States, and the high officials of the Mexican government respond quickly and with certainty to the question "what day is the day of independence?" with a resounding "July 4th." Scandalous? Well, that is why amnesia is useful. Another silence…

Yes, forget what we were, what brought us here. Forget all the past, not only the one of deceptions and pain, but the one of struggles and rebellions. But the peculiarity of this amnesia is that you not only erase the past, you condemn it, you are ashamed of it, you lament it. As is evident, here all attempts to "bring" history to the present is a subversion of "peace and tranquillity", it is something illegal, in sum, something which must be combated. There you have for example, those Indians who "have" Zapata during this time of modern globalization and they make him speak and make history. And (this is a scandal) even on the Internet you can here that terrorist cry of "Zapata lives!" A subversion, no less. We were doing so well with that Zapata in his tomb, in the museum and the book which was never open. As such, they are illegal and subversive, those who "take" Zapata. That so-and-so Zapata is illegal and subversive because he brings nightmares, and ergo, history is illegal and subversive—not only because it questions today, but because it induces the belief (and the struggle) of another possibility. And to hide this silence, a mask is used.

The Mask of Macroeconomics. There you have the speeches of Mister Zedillo, a sample of contagious optimism, where he explains-scolds-advises that the economic-recuperation-is- irreversible-and-the-strength-of-our-indicators-show-our-rule -bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla...

"Oh the macroeconomic achievements!" But, where are they? Are they in the fortunes of the richest men of Mexico and is the place they occupy the "Forbes" list? Are they in the salaries? The prices? Employment? Social security? You search, search and find what, behind the macroeconomic mask, is hidden—an economic model which has been imposed on the country since the beginning of the decade of the eighties, 16 years of a political economy, enough to weigh its successes.

Results? In addition to the loss of National Sovereignty, we have a historic regression of …30 years? If the Mexico of 98 and the Mexico of 68 coincide not only in having an assassin in power with the presidential ribbon crossing his chest, we also coincide on the growth of poverty and the growth of the number of poor, the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, and the deterioration of the social services which, before, assuaged the lives of Mexicans.

*From 1968 to 1977 the proportion of those living in poverty descended rapidly. Between 1977 and 1981 this accelerated. "What had been achieved was the reduction in 18 years of the poverty of more than three fourths of the population to less than half. Nevertheless, after 1981 a brusque change occurred which made poverty increase rapidly." (Boltvinik, Julio. "Economy and well-being. Mexico At the End of the Millenium", in Winds of the South, 12-13, 1998. Mexico; and Hernandez Laos, Enrique. "Economic growth and poverty in Mexico," quoted in Boltvinik, J. Idib.).

Now at the beginning of 1998 we are at the same levels of poverty as in 1968, 30 lost years. In addition we now have less possibilities of making our economic situation better, "…the opportunities for the well-being of Mexicans in 1996, after almost three decades of the neoliberal model, not only have not grown but they are 30% lower than in 1981. This results in the double failure of the model. On the one hand, the inability to make income grow at a more rapid rate than necessity…on the other hand, the growing inability to equally distribute income among the population…in other words, the model was incapable of growth and additionally concentrated income in fewer and fewer hands, diminishing with it the opportunities for well-being of the population." (Boltvinik, J. Ibid).

Sure, these macroeconomic statistics would not be to the liking of Misters Gurria and Ortiz (I doubt they can deny them) but the real fact is that there is another "macroeconomy", the one that belongs to those below, less salary, less and worst education, less and worst housing and services, less and worst health, less and worst nutrition. Yes, behind this mask is a catastrophe.

Add to this an acronym, FOBAPROA, and you will complete a cocktail of nightmares which in addition to poverty, millions of Mexicans should now carry the weight of the rescue of those other criminals, the bankers, who use the "State of Law" as an alibi and have the government as an accomplice and an always willing pimp.

Offensive, it is true. But.

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(PART II OF ABOVE AND BELOW: MASKS AND SILENCES)
Written by: Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos,
Zapatista Army of National Liberation

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Silence! Nothing can be done, is the fatalism of the globalization which imposes an irrevocable silence and a religious conformity. It should not worry us that this surrender has reached all the way to Havana, but that the destruction of the Nations (which is prepared along with globalization, but can be repaired) is presented to us as something natural, unquestionable and without contradictions.

Certainly neoliberalism has constructed with great financial capital a formidable enemy, capable of declaring wars, bankruptcies, dictatorships, "democracies," lives, and above all, deaths in any corner of the world. Nevertheless, this process of total globalization (economic, political and cultural) does not symbolize an inclusion of the different societies, incorporating their particularities. On the contrary, it implies a true imposition of one and only one, thought: that of financial capital. In this war of conquest all and everyone should submit themselves to the criteria of the market, that which opposes it or is an obstacle will be eliminated. But, additionally, it implies the destruction of humanity as a socio-cultural collective and its reconstruction as a piece of the market. To oppose neoliberalism, to fight it is not only a political and ideological option, it is a question of the survival of humanity. Someone warned that to go against globalization is to go against the law of gravity. Oh well that’s too bad…Down with the law of gravity!

The destruction of Mexico as a Nation should be hidden. So another mask is necessary, the one of Chauvinism. Motivated by the zeal for peace and attempting to stop the extermination of indigenous people which the Mexican government carries out in the lands of Chiapas, hundreds of men and women of Mexico and other parts of the world come to the Mexican Southeast. Nothing more uncomfortable for the criminals than to have witnesses to the laboratory of extermination which has been set up in these Indian lands. From the ineffable Secretary of the Interior comes the double prescription: for the nationals there will be jail, for those who come from other countries there will be deportation (see previous xenophobic campaign in the press, radio and television). Quickly, with explanations which grow ever more stupid, the principal salesman of National Sovereignty had a flash of patriotism and, to the cry of "the good foreigner is the foreigner who is blind and mute!" dedicated himself to persecute, harass, and expel all those born in other lands who add their hearts to the struggle for a peace with justice and dignity. For the hundreds of foreign observers there are lots of blows, violations, threats and insults. For the foreign "investors" there are servile caravans, praise and adulation.

And, as a grotesque decoration to this mask, there is the silence of Treachery. Yes the betrayal of the word given I San Andres. The betrayal to those who believed in the path of dialogue. Treachery to those who fought for peace. Treachery to those who thought it possible that the government would recognize the rights of Indian peoples. Treachery to those who waited for the war to stop in the Mexican southeast. And the treachery, the destruction, the amnesia all need an ideological pillar, a "theory" to give the criminals the reason which history vehemently denies them.

So here comes the Mask of "Intellectual Objectivity". Some public figures wear it who belong to the cultural arena I Mexico and who have entry into the halls of political, economic and religious power. Their first step was to criticize those who criticize the political system.

With the supposed "moral authority" given by contrition, these intellectuals argue against the colleagues who did not follow them in their frenetic race towards surrender. "The procedure for the discredit of the critical reason was led by beautiful intellectual people, made up primarily of ex young philosophers, ex young sociologists and ex opinion leaders who know the paths that led to the table of the Lord according to the ancient teaching of the seated scribe." (Vazquez Montalban, Manuel. "Pamphlet from the Planet of the Apes," Ed. Drakontos, Barcelona, p. 144). At that pace others followed and quickly they shared the table with the great political, religious, financial, cultural chiefs, that is, with the wills which now conduct the bloody vehicle of neoliberalism in Mexico. "The pragmatic power has not only counted on the support of teachers of elegance to rub elbows with the old and the new financial oligarchy, but it has also utilized a chorus of organic intellectuals who have helped and not written one solitary line, one original ideal, at the same time that they supplied it with the indispensable ideology necessary to tear down and with a complete collection of exaggerated eulogies." Ibidem.

At some point, these professionals of apostasy, progressed from being buffoons of the court with professional degrees and/or published works, to becoming "advisors". I exchange for sharing the crumbs of the table of power (and for recommendations which gave them appreciable economic advantages), these ideologues orient and counsel our rulers. Sure, things don’t always turn out the way the advisors and the advised foresee them. This is due not only to the continual vacillation of their political positions and "serious" analysis (example: Jorge Alcocer, of the intellectual cabinet of Salinismo, one day announced he would establish a left party and the next morning he became subsecretary of Justice), also (and above all) because reality is not understood as is but as the Power wishes it was.

There is a long list of failures, but the sole mention of "Chiapas" elicits one which represents all the others. The ex independent intellectuals and now pending advisors, advised a "hard line" and "firmness" in the government policy towards the indigenous rebels of the Mexican southeast. "All the costs have been paid, we have nothing to lose," they said in order to sustain their recommendation to use the military as a definitive solution to the conflict. They counseled, as well, a "new media politics" (name known by the government and its advisors as that which constitutes speeches in public functions, press conferences and sidewalk interviews). This would be consistent with the "politics manifest in actions" (c’est a dire of war) which was being carried out in the indigenous communities of the country. The results: barking, slogans, scoldings, bravados, threats, declarations and counter-declarations ("intergovernmental conflicts" said the PGR referring, not to the assassination of Colosio, but the declarations of Zedillo, Labastida and Rabasa).

The consequences of these acts and words are not only suffered by the indigenous victims of the extermination campaign, but Zedillo stains his hand with dark blood each time, Labastida is ruining his political career for presidency of the republic, and Rabasa has the necessity to prove that there is no idiocy he can say which he cannot surpass with gold stars the next day, and , and the "marshal" Albores already has a seat of privilege among the thiefs and murderers of this century.

They are not the only ones who pay the consequences. The intellectuals who "are not on one side or the other" also pay. With their military campaign and media campaign, the government has only managed to narrow the already narrow hall of intermediary positions. So the "neutrals" are trapped in a false dilemma: to support the government or support the rebels.

The favors of the gunsights chip in so that the despair and clamor to end the "chiapanization" of national life abounds.

Chiapas is a problem of public opinion: since the word of war and violent actions are the only things on the side of the government and an abysmal silence the only thing on the side of the rebels, the intellectuals of "neutrality" are uncomfortable because if they applaud the speech and practice of the government they are on the side of crime and irrationality, and if they criticize it they are on the side of the masked ones, who, in addition to being rebels, are indigenous.

Their desperation is understandable, the war which the government carries out in Chiapas and Guerrero spatters everywhere and threatens to stain pens and beauteous analyses.

But there are those who are not mute before the dilemma and embrace with religious and fervent devotion the task of ceding "reason" to the crime of the State carried out in indigenous Mexico.

Nevertheless it is honey on leaves, the errors happen at a dizzying rate and they provoke discomfort in the officious advisors. The discomfort of these intellectuals in terms of the government clumsiness hides the dissatisfaction about the advise which has been ignored. The intellectuals of indigenous annihilation "in the name of the State" are uncomfortable because it is taking so long for the government to "finally end" the rock in the shoe.

Fortunately, they are ever less and more isolated, these intellectuals of criminal objectivity (as is the advised). There are pages and microphones on political analysts, journalists and artists who refuse the trinkets imposed by the government and continue to dissect the national problems (and they take positions in view of them) seeking solutions which include, are peaceful and rational.

Since reason, history, legitimacy and the Nation has been lost, little is left to the Mexican political system. It think there is only one mask left which can save it and take it live (although not sane and complete) to the other edge of this century: The Mask of War.

Yes the war in

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(PART III ABOVE AND BELOW: Masks and Silences)
III-1998: The Mexican Federal Army:
Between Angels and Huertas.
by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

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(Audio to be used by any news media at the service of the Supreme One. The film should be taken from the attacks on the communities of Chavajeval and Union Progreso, in the autonomous municipality of San Juan de la Libertad, Rebel Chiapas, June 10 1998).

See the federal soldiers: so young, so strong, so well-fed, so well-equipped, so well-trained, tan tan. See how they fight heroically from behind their tanks, their light artillery, their helicopters and bombing planes. See how with courage and decision they fire and confront the enemy! What commitment! What great heroism! What daring! What disdain for danger! What commitment to the defense of national sovereignty! Aren’t they something? Don’t you feel like humming the National Anthem with that part that says "Mexicans, to the cry of war…?"

This is patriotism. It doesn’t matter that on the other side, on the "enemy" side there are only machetes, rocks, sticks, hands, fingernails, teeth. It doesn’t matter that on the "enemy" side there are indigenous Mexicans, the first to populate these lands, the first to resist the war of conquest, the first to give birth to the Nation fighting with Miguel Hidalgo, Jose Maria Morelos, Vicente Guerrero, the one who fought the gringos in 1847, the ones who fought at the side of Juarez against the Frenc invasion, the ones who gave meat and blood and clamors for justice in the revolution of Villa and Zapata, the ones who refuse to be liquidated by a neoliberal model which makes a war of extermination through all means and in all forms.

It doesn’t matter, see the brave federal soldiers fight.

Don’t look at the rapes, the beatings, the executions, the extermination of men, women, children and elderly. Don’t look at the exodus of tens of thousands of refugees.

Don’t look. Don’t listen.

Hear Comandante Zedillo, the chief of these soldiers ordered to save Mexico…from the other Mexicans, from them all.

See and listen to what we tell you to see and listen.

This is nationalism! This is patriotist! This is the State of Law! This is the Federal Army! The armed guarantee of the defense of National Sovereignty!

So strong it doesn’t matter that they confront the weak! So brave it doesn’t matter that they fight the unarmed! So daring it doesn’t matter they confront the defenseless!

Don’t see or hear their commander in chief lower his head, embarrassed, before his North American equal.

Don’t listen or hear the dull and grotesque "translation service" with which the Chancellor wishes to hide the cowardice of Zedillo’s government in front of the open jaws of the empire of the bars and dark stripes.

Don’t look at its army, the federal one, give military honors to the supreme chief of the army, the North American one.

Don’t look at the Mexican officials give accounts and continue the order of their U.S. "advisors." Don’t look or see the silence of those indigenous Mexicans who fight for democracy, liberty and justice.

Don’t look or see that anachronistic "For everyone everything, nothing for us." Who thinks of such absurdities during these times of "everyone for himself"?

Don’t look or see reality.

These indigenous ("Zapatistas", they call themselves) are the principal enemy, they are sell-outs; they want to turn over national sovereignty to dark foreign interests; to rebel against economic injustice; to demand that he who rules; rule by obeying; to demand democracy for everyone; to ask for a place in the Nation; to struggle for justice, to want housing, land employment, bread, health, education; to defend the independence of Mexico; to seek a better world, a new one.

What am I saying? Don’t listen! Don’t see! Applaud!

There are our brave soldiers killing our dark enemy (the color of their skin gives them away)!

Yell "Long live Mexico"! Again! "Long live Mexico!"

Look and listen to the war report that these selfless soldiers give to their chief, Commander Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, who is given exclusive use of this channel:

War Report #1998/6. To: Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon. Supreme Commander
From: Operative Command of the Federal Army
Theater of Operations: the Mexican Southeast.
Military Campaign: "The State of Law via Action."
Date: December 22 of 1997 to June 10th of 1998.
Number of government troops: 60,000
(Note: this does not include the number of special
troops, those the opposition calls "paramilitaries")

Military skills of the forces of the supreme government: War tanks, Hummer vehicles, surveillance plans, combat and bombing planes, helicopters, mortars, light artillery, machine guns, automatic weapons, electronic survival equipment.

Number of troops of the transgressors of the law: 300
(including the masked clown who commands them).

Military skills of the rebel forces: muskets, .22 rifles, sticks, machetes, rocks, hands, fingernails, teeth, words and (according to the discovery of our intelligent intelligence services) silences.

Completed actions:
and Acteal, Chenalho, Chiapas: 45 casualties to the enemy (men, women and children included) carried out by our special troops in tactical actions called "undercover" and Various indigenous communities, Chiapas: An undetermined number of weapons decommissioned (which we had planted), subversive books like "the gospel according to the masked clown".

* Navil, Tenejapa, Chiapas: Two sacks of beans (which prove that the transgressors prepare germ warfare) and use weapons we have planted.

* Chavajeval, El Bosque ("San Juan de la Libertad" for the transgressors of the law), Chiapas: 3 casualties to the enemy produced by our brave and daring light artillery fire, mortars and land and aerial machine guns

*Union Progreso, El Bosque, Chiapas: 5 enemies executed for the crime of having rebelled against sacrosant institutions.

* Amparo Aguatinta and Taniperla, in the so-called autonomous municipalities of "Tierra y Libertad" and "Ricardo Flores Magin", Chiapas: 2 houses of wood burned, a mural destroyed, dozens of detained (alive, unfortunately).

* The State of Chiapas in general: an undetermined number of dead, wounded and imprisoned as a result of actions called "undercover" and the strict application of the law.

Results: the thunderous triumph of the state of law which you dignify and represent. My dearest sir: the national weapons have been covered with glory.

Signature.
PS. Si se puede!
PPS. We must point out the selfless labor and abundant intelligence of the field marshal Robert Albores Guillen, under whose orders we have the honor to serve the Republic.
PS to the PS. --from marshal Albores: Grrr, Guau, Guau, Arfff, Grrr.

RESPONSE:
To: The operative command of the federal Army
From: Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon
Congratulations. The federal Army will not leave Chiapas. Continue onward in the achievement of legality and the implantation of the state of law. All I can say is, Forward Men, be hard on them! "Everything with violence, nothing with politics."
--EZPL.

Signature
PS: A great hug (and some croquettes) for my loyal friend and servant, field marshall Albores
PPS. Never before have so few (myself and those who support me) owe so much to so many (federal Army).
PS to the PS. Is that how it goes?

Listen and learn these brave soldiers, applaud their brilliant chief.

Do not listen and hear the other soldiers, the one who fight the fires and help the residents through natural disasters. Do not listen and hear the soldiers who fight against national and international drug traffic. Don not listen or hear the soldiers dead in combat against the fire of organized crime which symbolizes destruction, hunger and misery for hundreds of thousands of people.

Do not listen and hear the soldiers who fell, yes those who fell in the line of duty.

For these soldiers there is no applause, not a word, not a salute.

For these soldiers there is only silence, the silence of amnesia.

Do not listen or hear the soldiers who fight fires in different states of the country.

Hear and see (and applaud!) the soldiers who set fires and love the fire in the South and Mexican Southeast.

See and hear the soldiers who are Huertas. Don’t see and hear the soldiers who are Angeles.

Do not see, do not hear. Take your mask and your silence. Do not see or hear.

Do not choose: General Felipe Angeles. Official for the federal Army during the Mexican Revolution, he joined the rebel forces and put his ingenuity and knowledge at the service of the cause of the oppressed. He fought under the orders of Francisco Villa in the Northern Division. His comrades in the government army back then called him a traitor to the nation.

History remembers him as a military patriot.

General Victoriano Huerta. Official of the federal Army in times of the Mexican Revolution, he placed himself under the orders of the ambassador of the United States of North America and executed then president Francisco I. Madero. He headed the counterrevolution and organized massacres of indigenous and the destruction of villages in his military campaign against a transgressor of the law called "Emiliano Zapata." His comrades in arms back then in the governmental army promoted him and praised him as a patriot.

History remembers him as a traitor to the Nation.

1998, the Mexican Federal Army: so close to the Huertas and so far from the Angeles.

---

(PART IV.ABOVE AND BELOW: Masks and Silences)
The mask of war, with it comes the silence of death.
And with death comes...
by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

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The masks and the silences for those below
"The night will pass,
the waters may spit,
the sparrows may be executed,
they can burn the verses.
They can cut the throat of the sweet lily,
They can rip the song and toss it in a well.
But this night will pass"
-- Manuel Scorza

The neoliberal model demands, in order to sustain itself and grow, the perpetuation of a crime made up of millions of small and big crimes, and the State is in charge of taking its cost from the victims below.

In order that this complicated and useless artifice which serves as background for the death of the political system function, it is necessary to distribute great quantities of masks and silences for those below. Anonymity, despair, rancor, apathy, impotence, resignation, skepticism, individualism and cynicism are offered in handfuls so they can bee consumed by millions of Mexicans who live badly in this country. With the appearance of free consumption, the silences and the masks that come from above come to those below are very costly. The losses are stratospheric, but they are not measured in monetary terms but human terms.

The masks of anonymity and individualism offered by the frenetic globalization tries to impose on the men and women of Mexico hide not the singularity of each being, but the concrete nightmare of the terrible lives of those below. The daily injustice which the system operates against Mexicans dilutes its impact precisely in the magna multiplication of its small crimes: a firing here, a rape over there, an unjust imprisonment over there, a robbery over here, a political disappearance there, a fraud here, hunger and misery enclosed between four walls of any here or there. Anonymous victims individualized by the system, millions of Mexicans lose (in the neoliberal alchemy which converts its exploitation into a multiple secret), the opportunity to rebel against a nightmare which individualizes them due to terror because it is anonymous in the aggression it perpetuates.

And the masks are accompanied by masks, apathy and cynicism want to multiply among those below. They try to make brothers of "nothing matters" with "I care about myself, so what?" and power carries out one of its principal objectives in this way.: the imposition of immobility and the impediment of fraternity.

Then the silences come. The silence of rage against everything or nothing, which is carried out on those closest in. The silence of impotence, of feeling very small before a machine which is insatiable, inaccessible and yet omnipresent. The silence of desperation of seeing and knowing oneself to be alone, without a single suspicion that things could be better tomorrow. The silence of resignation which assumes the inevitability of injustice and the role of victim will the victimizer erases his face into the face of the boss, the police, the man, the mestizo, the thief, the neighbor, the-other-always-the-other. And the silence of the rage explodes at any moment, a silence which accumulates and grows in absurd situations, unexpected ones, incomprehensible ones: man against women, the gang against any intruder, the worker against worker, the indigenous against indigenous, the one against the other, the rage against the rage.

New forms of struggle go making their own masks and forging their own silence. Little by little they grow and multiply. The mask of the dignity of resistance, the "I won’t allow it," the "I don’t surrender," the "I’ll go on fighting," the "I won’t give in," the "Orale!" behind the same mask of anonymity, indigenous, workers, farmers, housewives, squatters, union members, students, teachers, base Christian communities, retired, handicapped, chauffeurs, merchants, militants of political and social organizations, women, youth, children and elderly, all who discover one another each day, who resist with that like-nothing-man- woman-and-OK-well-gotta-fight-back-gotta-struggle-and-organ ize-and-turn- everything-around-and-make-it-new-it’s-not-true-there-are-a-few -of-us-it’s-not-true- we-are-weak-it’s-not-true-that-this-and-that-now-no-now -NO-NOW NO MORE!

And with the resistance rises and walks a terrible silence: the silence which accuses and reveals.

V. The seven victims of the new governmental strategy for Chiapas

The military campaign of Comandante Zedillo has been brilliant. This belligerent undertaking has been accompanied by Mister Labastida as his chief of High Command, mister Rabasa as…as….What does Mr. Rabasa do anyway?, and then there’s lady Rosario Green in the (not-so) simultaneous (nor accurate) translation service, and Mister? Albores Guillen as field Marshall.

In addition to filling the jails of Chiapas (emptied previously because of the recruitment of paramilitaries) with indigenous Zapatistas and members of civil society, in addition to promoting the use of indigenous huts for the target practice of the Federal Army, in addition to carrying out summary executions which are comparable to those carried out by military dictatorships all over the world (a benefit of globalization?), in addition to tying the name of "Mexico" to the bloody names of "Acteal," "Chavajeval" and "Union Progreso", in addition to bringing terror, misery and lies to the Indian lands of Mexico, comandante Zedillo and his team carry seven medals for other victims.

Yes, there are seven victims of their war: peace, dialogue as a means for resolving conflict, the indigenous, national and international civil society, national sovereignty, transition to democracy, the Commission on Concordance and Pacification, and the National Commission of Mediation.

By continuing his personal combat against the rebel Zapatistas, Zedillo not only took an achievable peace as a prisoner of war, but also attacked the peace of the future.

Dialogue as a means of solution for the conflicts is one of the most important casualties in the war of the Mexican Southeast. By failing to fulfill the agreements he signed, Zedillo pulverized any confidence in his government. Without confidence, it is impossible to make agreement. And if you cannot make agreements, why should you negotiate?

The indigenous have thus become one of the principal quota of "victory" of Zedillo in Chiapas: no other regime has been responsible, directly or indirectly, for so many deaths, prisoners, torture, expulsions, displacement and disappearances of indigenous Chiapanecos as is the present one.

The government belligerence takes another victim in national and international civil society as it ignores the calls for dialogue and peace.

Another victim is the transition to democracy which is stalled by a political system committed to a blood bath in order to preserve its privileges.

National sovereignty remains a nostalgic memory. In its place there are foreign military advisors, foreign weaponry, foreign combat tactics, foreign food rations, foreign combat equipment. In the war in Chiapas the only thing which is national is the blood which flows.

Two victims deserve special mention: one drags itself moribund, the other is definitively dead.

The first is the Commission for Concordance and Pacification, made up of federal legislators from the political parties with representation from the Congress of the Union. Cocopa has been mocked, ridiculed, used, dismissed, humiliated and forgotten by the government. In his perverse and mortal game, Ernesto Zedillo pretended to be willing to accept the role of the legislators in securing, quickly and efficiently, peace in the Mexican Southeast. Upon retracting his acceptance of the initiative of the indigenous law formulated by the Cocopa, the government left the legislators in an absurd position and snatched from them all moral authority necessary to introduce themselves to the Zapatista leadership.

Afterwards Zedillo dedicated himself to beating the "cocopos" who did not sign onto his war plans (that is, almost all of them), later to ignore the Commission for a long period of time during which the massive assassination of indigenous carried out in Acteal in December of 1997 was planned and executed.

In sum, the government has treated the Cocopa with mockery, sabotages, blows, and trickery.

The EZLN will not do the same.

Simultaneous to the sabotages against the Cocopa, in the Ministry of Justice they busied themselves with the assassination and jailing of more indigenous, and carrying out a total war against the National Commission of Mediation (Conai) and especially against its president, Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia. Finally, declarations and counter-declarations. Labastida retracts what Rabasa says, Zedillo corrects them both. Rabasa elaborates what Zedillo says, Labastida scolds Rabasa, and in sum, there is a confusion of masks and roles which would be funny were it not hiding a brutal and out-of-balance war.

After suffering an intense and long campaign of attacks and slanders, the National Commission for Mediation (acknowledged by the two parties, the EZLn and the federal government as the mechanism of mediation in the peace dialogue) was dissolved.

Take note of this names: Don Samuel Ruiz Garcia, Doña Concepcion Calvillo [widow] of Nava, Doctor Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, Doctor Raymundo Sanchez Barraza, Poet Juan Bañuelos, Poet Oscar Oliva (these six on the presiding body), and Pedro Nava, Salvador Reyes, Gonzalo Ituarte and Miguel Alvarez as secretaries. The 10 made up the National Commission of Mediation, one of the principal targets to destroy according to the governmental strategy of war.

Their crimes? Without pardon: the struggle for a peace with justice and dignity, the representation of national civil society as mediator in the conflict, the firm belief in a dialogue as a solution for the dispute, refusal to give in to the orders of the government, the maintenance of autonomy and independence in respect to both parts, the thought that peace in Mexico should necessarily go through a transition to democracy, a commitment to the Indians in their peaceful struggles, and (the worst of all crimes), becoming an obstacle to war.

For months these people were the victims of attacks of all kinds, including attempts against their lives, goods and liberty. For months they suffered the pressure of all the apparatus of the Mexican State; the federal, state and municipal governments; the Army, police and paramilitaries; the two television monopolies and the local press; the businessmen; local and federal deputies, senators of the Republic, judges and public ministers; leaders of political parties, the high hierarchy of the evangelical and Catholic churches. Millions and millions of pesos spent on campaigns of defamation against them.

All the political, economic, ecclesiastical and military power against these 10 people and particularly against Don Samuel Ruiz Garcia, the bishop of the Diocese of San Cristobal.

On June 7 of 1998, the seventh victim fell before the advance of the war machinery of Zedillo. Don Samuel Ruiz Garcia resigned from the CONAI and it dissolved itself.

With the disappearance of the Conai ended a fierce resistance against authoritarianism, crime and intolerance, but the search for peace did not end for them.

The machine did not stop with the resignation of the president of the Conai. Mister Ernesto Zedillo was not satisfied to know that Bishop Ruiz Garcia was out of the mediation of the conflict. No, he wanted him gone, erased, dead. With rancor he nurtured the opportunity to remove him completely from his sight. If the attempt failed once, there would be other opportunities. After all, if they could assassinate a cardinal (Posadas Ocampo) and remain unpunished, they could take care of the unpleasant Bishop and go on without problems. And this is not one of those bad jokes with which Zedillo tortures his cabinet. The rancor has become in this man a true style of governance. In terms of personal vengeance "he knows how to do it best."

Once and again, in each of the conjugal visits which he made to the soon-to-be-ex-interim-governor-Albores Guillen, Mister Zedillo attacks with fury and cowardice he who had peace and justice as banners and spared no effort or pain to fulfill with honesty his labor, which is, at the end of the day, the same one for any human being who respects himself: that and the struggle for justice, respect and dignity.

It is no little thing that the country owes to these 10 people. Even though one stage has ended in the Mexican southeast, national history reserves a place at the side of the best. Much time later, when Zedillo is forgotten or in jail because of his innumerable crimes, the names of these people will continue to hold a special place in the heart of the Mexicans of below, particularly the indigenous.

Even outside of this stage of the struggle, the "conais" have made it clear they will continue to struggle in different ways and different places for the same thing; for justice for indigenous Mexicans, for a transition to democracy and for peace.

Nevertheless, the seven victims of the war of the government have been multiplied in other combatants who resist. They remind you of stories of yesterday today, like that one that speaks of...

VI. Old Man Antonio against Maoist night watch

Important notice, in other words, urgent advisory or whatever: The Section on Tales of the Little Sea Horse arbitrarily interrupts this v-e-e-e-ry serious political analysis, and without more, leaves us as nauseous as seasickness leaves the sea. As medicine, the Sea Horse prescribes a story (what other thin could he do!).

Old Man Antonio says that when he was young his father don Antonio taught him to kill a lion without a firearm. Old Man Antonio says that when he was young Antonio and his father Old Man Antonio he told him a story which now he whispers into my ear so that the sea can know it from my own lips. Old Man Antonio tells it to me thus, but I call it... "The story of the lion and the mirror."

"The lion first rips apart his victim, then he drinks the blood eating the heart and leaving the rest for the buzzards. Nothing can counteract the strength of the lion. There is no animal which can confront it nor man who can run from it. The lion can be defeated only by a force equally as brutal, bloody and powerful."

Then Old Man Antonio of the then young Antonio, rolled his cigarette, and pretending he was watching the trunks which lit up like a fire star, looked sideways at young Antonio. He didn’t wait long because young Antonio asked:

-And what is that great force which can defeat the lion?

Old Man Antonio of back then gave young Antonio of back then a mirror.

-Me?- asked young Antonio of back then looking at the round little mirror.

Old Man Antonio of back then smiled in a good way (so said young Antonio of back then) and took the mirror from him.

-No, not you- he answered.

"When I showed you the mirror I meant to say that the strength which can defeat the lion is the same strength of the lion. Only the lion himself can defeat the lion."

-Ah!- said young Antonio of back then who had to say something.

Old Man Antonio of back then understood that young Antonio of back then had understood nothing and went on with his story.

"When we understood that only the lion can defeat the lion we began to think about what to do so that the lion would fight with himself. The elder of the elders of the community say that you have to know the lion and name a young man to know him.

-You?- interrupted the then young Antonio.

The Old Man Antonio of back then was still in his silence, and after re-arranging the pieces of wood in the fire, he continued:

"They raised the young man to the height of a ceiba tree and at its foot they left a lamb tied up. They left. The young man was to observe everything the lion did with the lamb, wait until he left and return to the community to tell what he had seen. So he did this, the lion came and killed and tore the lamb apart, then he drank the blood eating the heart and left when the buzzards circled waiting their turn."

"The young man went to the community and told what he saw, the elder of the elders thought a moment and said: "May the death given by the killer be its own death," and they gave the young man a mirror, and ornamental nails.

"Tomorrow is the night of justice, said the old ones and they returned to their thoughts.

"The young man did not understand. He went to his hut and stayed awhile watching the game. There was his father and he asked him what was wrong; the young man told him everything. The father of the young man remained silent next to him, and after a while, spoke. The young man smiled as he listened to his father.

"The other day, when the afternoon turned golden and the gray of the night fell over the tops of the trees, the young man left the community and went to the foot of the ceiba taking the lamb. When he arrived at the foot of the big tree, he killed the lamb and took its heart. Then he broke the mirror into many pieces and glued it on the heart with the same blood, then he opened the heart and placed the nails inside. He put the heart back into the chest of the lamb and made a scaffold to hold it up, as though it were alive. The young man climbed high into the ceiba and waited. Up above, while the night fell from the trees to the ground, he remembered the words of his father: ‘the same death used by the killer will kill him.’

"Now the night was all the time below when the lion came. He got close to the animal, and in one jump, attacked the lamb and ripped it apart. As he chewed on the heart, the lion feared that the blood was dry, but the pieces of mirror hurt its tongue and made it bleed. So the lion thought the blood from his mouth was the blood of the heart of the lamb, and excited, he bit the entire heart. The ornamental nails made him bleed more, but the lion believed that the blood in his mouth was the blood of the lamb. Chewing and chewing, the lion injured himself more and more and bled more as he chewed more.

"So the lion remained until he bled to death.

"The young man returned with the claws of the lion as a necklace and he showed it to the elder of the elders of the community.

"They smiled and said: "It is not the claws which you must save as a trophy of victory, it is the mirror."

That is how Old Man Antonio says the lion died.

But, in addition to the mirror, Old Man Antonio always carries his old musket.

"That’s in case the lion doesn’t know the story," he says smiling at me and winking his eye. On this side, the sea adds: "In case of the lion or Orive [advisor to Ministry of Justice]."

And speaking of ex-Maoists and ex-radicals of the ex-left, today flaming advisors of the criminals of the right (who at first began talking like parrots, and now in order to hide, imitate the ostrich) Old Man Antonio has his own version of that revolutionary and the masses and the simile about the fish in water, and the counterinsurgency strategy of "taking the water from the fish" which the stupid governmental advisors recommend today:

The Fish in Water, Says Old Man Antonio that once the elder of the elders of the community told him a story. The story says that once there was a very beautiful fish which lived in the river. The lion saw the fish and he wanted to eat it. The lion went to the river but he saw he could not swim in the river and attack the fish. So the lion asked the monkey for assistance and the monkey said: "Its very simple, the fish cannot live without water. They only thing you have to do is drink the water of the river and in this way the fish will be immobilized and then you can attack and eat it." The lion was satisfied with the advice and gave it a position in his kingdom.

The lion went to the edge of the river and began to drink the liquid.

He died when he burst open with the water.

The monkey was unemployed.

Tan tan.

New important advisory, but not so urgent notice: the interruption of the sea horse has finished, but not the giddy nausea. Maybe its persistence is due to what is seen and spoken in.

VII. The seventh mask and the seventh silence

"It is clear that in the arena of political action, he who wins is the one who puts the candle where the air blows; never the one who hopes the air will blow where he puts the candle." Juan de Mairena
--Antonio Machado

1998. Mexico. While the supreme government heads towards the war and tries desperately to summon winds from above, beastly growls and sorceries to push the heavy veil of the boat of death, these indigenous Mexicans, who added the name of Emiliano Zapata to their history, in silence prepare the justice and the dignity which will come in spite of his death (or maybe because of it.) In silence, the indigenous look towards the skies and the ground to guess which winds from below run through the fields of Mexico and the world, through the dusty streets of little towns and villages, through the disorderly order of the squatter’s tenements, through the headquarters of honest unions, through the offices of committed political parties, through the theaters-movies-auditoriums-show halls-art galleries, through laboratories and centers of scientific investigation, through cubicles, university lecture halls, through meetings and assemblies of political and social organizations, through the churches of the poor, through the international committees of solidarity, through the national and foreign NGO’s, through the freeways, highways, farm roads, paths, navigating on the rivers, on the lakes and seas of this country drenched in humidity, and awakening from this world, late to be sure, but awakening none the less.

In silence the indigenous see and see themselves.

In silence they feel where the wind blows of the world below.

In silence the indigenous know.

In silence they finish this new and absurd Noah’s ark, knowing that the air blows for democracy, liberty and justice, they plant the double candle of hope high, as the motor and light of this ship, the ship of forever, the ship of life.

With art and science they construct the ark and choose thousands as the boat grow.

The rest await at port for whatever comes.

If the war and destruction comes, they will resist as they have learned to do in the hard school of the centuries, that is with dignity.

If democracy, liberty, and justice comes, they will know how to distribute it as they have known how to do it throughout history.

Mexico, midway through 1998

After a long silence these indigenous speak of a ship and they summon everyone to climb aboard.

After so much silence, these indigenous speak of a boat, a Noah’s ark, a floating tower of Babel, an irreverent and absurd challenge.

And if there is doubt as to who guides and conducts it, the figurehead on the bow wears a ski mask! Yes a ski-mask, the mask that reveals, the silence which speaks. A "For everyone everything, nothing for us" wears the flag of the red star with five points over a black background which shines on the masthead. In golden letters, on the bow, starboard, and stern "Votan Zapata" names the origin and destination of this ship, so powerfully fragile, so strenuously quiet, so visibly hidden.

"All aboard!" the yell-order-invitation is heard in the voice of the captain. The only ticket necessary is honesty. Several thousand rowers wait, ready to leave? No, something is missing…

With that strange and repeated tendency to complicate the lives they have, these men and women of masks and silences construct a ship in the middle of the mountain!

"So now what?" I ask.

As to be expected, silence is the response. From behind the masks there is a smile when they give me a message and a bottle.

I pretend to do what I always do in these cases: I put the message inside the bottle, I close it well with a peace of gum with that the sea gives me, I stand firmly on the edge of a ceiba and will all my strength I throw out the bottle with the message. A little strand of cloud picks it up and navigating, takes it to I-don’t -know-where. There goes the bottle. Whoever finds it can, break it, break the silence and find some answers and many questions. They could also read the V. Declaration of the Lacandon jungle.

Well, that is all.

Vale. Health to you and be ready. Get your umbrellas, raincoats and lifesavers? Who will deny now that the word can summon humidity?

*From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
In the name of the 300 Mexico, July of 1998
Translated by: Cecilia Rodriguez.