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Only
the resonating echo of rain pattering down on the cobblestone streets
of Chiapas' colonial cities sounded as tourists from around the globe
awaiting the end of the world in the center of the Mayan Civilization
were surprised by the silent marches of more than 40,000 masked Mayan
Zapatistas who descended on their apocalyptic misinterpretations of the
Mayan 13 Ba´ktun.
A
faint sound of a baby's cry would occasionally emerge from a bundle
beneath a plastic tarp on the back of a masked Zapatista in the endless
lines of Mayan rebels who quietly held formation in the rain. They
marched four file booted and bare-footed into the same cities they
surprised on a cold new year's eve night 19 years ago, shouting their
first YA BASTA!
Yesterday's
weapon, differing from the 1994 armed indigenous uprising, was the
Zapatista silence, their moral authority, the echo of a unified and
deafening silence that shouted YA BASTA! once again. A silence that in
their massive presence in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Ocosingo,
Altamirano, Las Margaritas and Palenque shouted without a word that the a
new Mayan era has begun and the Zapatistas are present. A silence that
was meant to remind Mexico's recently inaugurated President Enrique
Peña Nieto and his PRI party that the root causes of the Zapatista
struggle are as prevalent today as they were 19 years ago: lack of
health care, education, housing, land, food, indigenous rights, women's
rights, gay rights, dignity, and justice. A silence that reminded the
returning PRI that there is a Mexico profundo, a Mexico jodido, a Mexico con hambre, and a Mexico dispuesto a luchar and in struggle. The Zapatistas and the EZLN need not say a word today, their actions and silence said enough. Aqui estamos!
As
early as 4 a.m. the Mayan indigenous, Tzeltales, Tzotziles,
Tojolobales, Choles, Zoques, and Mames began their mobilizations from
their five cultural centers of resistance, known as Caracoles, emerging
from the Lacandon jungle, the Chiapas Canyon lands, and the rain soaked
highlands. They quietly moved along the mountainous, fog-bearing roads
towards the same cities (plus Palenque) that they descended upon when
these ill-equipped ragtag rebels launched their armed uprising on
January 1st 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement went
in to effect.
Yesterday's
marches by the Zapatista National Liberation Army comprised of
Mexico's Mayan indigenous peoples was the first mobilization since
their May 7, 2011 march demanding an end to the widespread violence and
impunity in Mexico. That march echoed Poet Javier Sicilia's movement
for justice demanding the end to PANista President Felipe Calderon's
US-backed War on Drugs that has claimed up to 80,000 lives over the
last six years. Calderon, who departs Mexico leaving a bloodstained
country, will follow his predecessor Ernesto Zedillo's footsteps to a
safe haven in US academia, entering Harvard and moving to Cambridge, a
town ironically that has one of the world´s lowest per capita murder
rates, contrary to a Mexico ranking in the world's top 10 country's
with major violent death tolls. Today's Zapatista march, explains award
winning Mexican Journalist Jose Gil Olmos, marks a symbolic moment
being December 21st on the Gregorian calendar and 13 Ba´ktun, or the
end of the 144,000 day Mayan long calendar, silently saying that this
is beginning of a new calendar, a new era and the Zapatistas are
present:
"The mere presence of the Zapatistas here today just as the new
government of Enrique Peña Nieto is getting started and the return of
the PRI is a message in and of itself that the EZLN exists and is here,
that the EZLN is a social and political force and they are reminding
the PRI that things are not good, That the voice of the voiceless and
the faceless are saying listen up! There is a forgotten Mexico here, a
Mexico that is starving and disparate and the march, a silent march is
an emblematic message in and of itself."
There
were no visible Zapatista Commanders in the marches, no words spoken,
no chants could be heard, nor banners seen. Only two flags accompanied
the thousands of Mayan rebels, a Zapatista five pointed red star on
black and the Mexican flag. The same scenario could be seen in each of
the five cities that the Zapatistas descended upon despite the unusual
rains for the beginning of the Chiapas dry season. The Zapatistas
arrived, marched on the city centers, built make-shift stages on top of
cars and marched thousands of Zapatistas four by four, fists in the
air, over the stages in front of their flags. Then, as quickly and
quietly as they arrived, the Zapatistas disappeared into the fog and
rain that camouflaged their arrival.
Late
in the day a one-page communiqué signed by Zapatista rebel leader
Sub-Comandante Marcos, El Sup, began to go viral on the internet. The
communiqué simply read the following:
Did You Hear?
That is the sound of your world falling apart.
It is the sound of our resurgence.
The day that was the day, was night.
And night will be the day that will be the day.
Democracy!
Liberty!
Justice!
Tim
Russo is a long time media activist, photographer and journalist.
Russo has covered Mexico and Latin America for over twenty years. He
is on the Board of Directors of Free Speech Radio News www.fsrn.org,
regularly contributes to KGNU in Boulder, Colorado and is active with
the Red Mesoamericana de Radios Comunitarias, Indígenas y Garifunas.
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