A group of women run up the main road of the Zapatista Caracol de Oventic, which is sunk in the mist of the Altos de Chiapas. They bring some plastic ponchos to protect themselves from the drizzle and some backpacks where they keep their balaclavas. They climb in the folds that await them on the road and soon, just before the sun rises, the caravan of Zapatista vehicles heads to San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
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Yesterday thousands of Zapatistas marched in San Cristóbal de Las Casas and in five other Chiapas municipal capitals – Yajalón, Palenque, Ocosingo, Las Margaritas and Altamirano – in repudiation of “all the capitalist wars currently underway in various corners of the planet”: from the conflict against the Mapuche people to the wars in Palestine, Syria, Kurdistan and Ukraine. “And so many libertarian processes that are attacked, persecuted, killed, silenced, distorted,” the EZLN writes in its latest statement.
The Zapatistas marched in various municipalities of Chiapas in protest of armed conflicts around the world.
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When the Zapatista caravan arrives on the outskirts of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, the hoods appear in the folds: the support bases put on their balaclavas and fix their paliacate around their necks. They are ready to march and demonstrate once again their political and organizational strength. They will be arranged in rows behind their blankets and a cart with periphon.
“People of Mexico and the world, we Zapatista women say that your pain is our pain,” a female voice will say to the microphone. “We call on us as women to organize our peoples to mobilize each one in their geography and their calendar, to stop the unjust war, because the most affected are us because we are women and because we are mothers.”
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For almost 8 years the Zapatista bases did not march in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. It was October 2014 when solidarity with the relatives of the 43 of Ayotzinapa summoned some 20,000 hooded people to demonstrate with blankets that said “their pain is our pain”, “their anger is ours”.
In the following years the EZLN organized festivals of arts and sciences, film, dance and seminars to analyze the national and international political situation. Zapatismo took advantage of the 2018 electoral campaign to present an indigenous candidate – María de Jesús Patricio Martínez –, with the intention of positioning in the public debate issues related to the defense of land and territory.
Then the pandemic arrived, the EZLN issued a red alert and the Caracoles closed. During their months of forty-year-old, the Zapatistas developed their most ambitious initiative: a journey of some 140 support bases throughout Europe to meet and meet local struggles. They did it discreetly: they did not look for the spotlight when they left Chiapas, nor during their European tour.
In accordance with this internationalist spirit, yesterday the EZLN returned to peacefully take to the streets of all Chiapas. Their banners spoke of distant conflicts, but the looks behind the balaclavas know the pain of war. The Zapatista community of Nuevo San Gregorio, for example, lives surrounded by a group called “of the 40 invaders,” which took 152 hectares of land from the Zapatista families, leaving them only about 3. The autonomous community of Moisés and Gandhi also lives under constant attacks, in its case by the armed group Organización Regional de Cafeticultores de Ocosingo (ORCAO), which shoots at Zapatista houses, has set fire to the autonomous facilities and has kidnapped three bases of support of the EZLN, two of them members of the Junta de Buen Gobierno de Patria Nueva.
The EZLN once again peacefully took to the streets of all of Chiapas.
Photo: Orsetta Bellani
“Chiapas on the brink of a civil war” is the title of a statement that the EZLN issued in September 2021, following the kidnapping of his two comrades. In fact, there are conflicts in many municipalities of the State that had been brewing for years, were neglected by the authorities and finally broke out. In some cases these are not direct attacks on the Zapatista population, as they affect them as well as partisans.
In Oxchuc, the armed group María Tulukes has controlled the municipal seat since mid-December, when elections over customs and customs ended in clashes between groups of residents. In Chenalhó, armed groups operate and attack the population of Chalchihuitán and Aldama, causing deaths, injuries and thousands of displaced people. In Pantelhó, in July 2021 the The population rebelled against the caciquil family that opened the door to the entrance of criminal organizations, responsible for some 200 deaths, and formed something unprecedented in Chiapas: a self-defense group. A few months later, following his example, three other self-defense groups publicly presented themselves in a state where, less than a year ago, there were none.
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The Zapatista march runs smoothly through the streets of the historic center of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Tourists watch dumbfounded, San Cristobalenses come out of the shops and go silent.
“What’s wrong?” a woman with a baby asks in amazement.
“It’s because of Ukraine,” replies a man who records the parade with his cell phone.
“Stop the war. Neither Putin nor Zelensky,” says one of the banners of the EZLN, which once again does not take sides with any state and stands in solidarity with the peoples in resistance of both countries.
Without taking sides with any state, the EZLN stood in solidarity with the peoples of Russia and Ukraine.
Photo: Orsetta Bellani
A helicopter flies over the city, while the thirds compas – the communicators of the EZLN – run from one side of the march to the other recording every moment with their recorders and cameras. A Zapatista hands out flyers to people walking on one of the tourist walkways.
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When the march enters the colonial city’s zócalo – the same square that the EZLN took up arms in 1994 and on many more occasions occupied peacefully – the applause of the Zapatista sympathizers begins. “Welcome,” some shout. “Thank you,” others say. A northern tourist sneaks in between them and stands at the front of the march, next to two hooded women carrying a flag with a red star. Pose happily for the photo.
The Zapatista march continues in the city of contradictions. There are more than 6,000 marchers in San Cristóbal de Las Casas and thousands more demonstrated in other Municipal Capitals of Chiapas. “We are millions of brothers and sisters in the world who suffer the same unjust war of capitalism, that’s why: Let’s organize!” is the invitation of the EZLN.
Zapatista caravan in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
Photo: Orsetta Bellani
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