Date: Tue, 16 Jul 96 09:12 PDT To: revs@csf.colorado.edu From: jota@netbistro.com (Jay/Lois Cowsill) Subject: FWD. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:54:50 -0600 From: Stefan Wray To: accion-zapatista@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu Subject: EZLN and ERP THE EZLN AND THE ERP: GOOD AND BAD GUERRILLAS A MESSAGE TO INTERNATIONALISTAS by Stefan Wray July 9, 1996 So now, in the eyes of the Mexican government, in the words of Zedillo, the EZLN in Chiapas are the good guys and the ERP in Guerrero are the bad guys. The EZLN, because they have participated in negotiations, because they have acted in a civil manner, because they have sat around the table in the comfortable meeting rooms with government representatives, because they have agreed to be a political front, because they have agreed to form an alliance with the PRD, because they have in some ways been neutralized (whereas before they pronounced revolutionary programs and now spout social democratic reforms), they are now the good guys and even received words of praise from Zedillo. Recently SEDENA (Secretaria de Defensa) announced that Chiapas is no longer a conflict zone, but an area of instability. But the ERP (like the EZLN when they first emerged) because they brandished weapons in a public display, because they are a new mysterious unknown and unmanageable threat, because they appeared and quickly disappeared, because they are not sitting around comfortable tables attempting to negotiate and create dialog (maybe because they do not have ex communication professors in their ranks), because they are in an area of the country that is not as fashionable as Chiapas, because they do not have demonstrations of solidarity and support in Mexico City, because the international solidarity community doesn't understand them and hasn't said a word, they are the bad guys and Zedillo and the Secretaria de Defensa have sent in thousands and thousands of troops with tanks and helicopters and humvees, not just in to Guerrero, to supposedly find these bad guys, but as well to other coastal states, to other imporverished desparate indigenous communities. And we, us gringos, norteamericanos y europeanos y otras personas del todo el mundo, are going to be with the good guys in a few weeks, to have meetings with the good guerrillas, who Zedillo has praised for their conciliatory nature. We will be in our relatively comfortable accomodations in los "centros de resistencia" y hablando, talking in civil manners with dirigentes from all over the world. Maybe we will be monitored by overhead satelites. But for the most part, we will be left alone by the repressive PRI state and military. But to the north, not far away, while we are in our mesas, while we talk with the good guerrillas, the bad guerrillas will be in hiding, the army will be making constant patrols, checking cars along the highway, going house to house looking for those bad guys. The focal point of conflict is shifting in Mexico. And we, us extranejeros need to recognize and move with it. If we are travelling hundreds and thousands of miles to go to Chiapas, then we need to also go to Guerrero. To do what? I don't exactly know right now. Maybe this can be a point of discussion. To clarify, I am in no way saying that we ought to abandon or ignore the Zapatistas and Chiapas because the EZLN has decided to form a poltical alliance with the PRD and work more above ground. But I do think that we should be critcally supportive and if we think it is a mistake we ought to say so. What I am saying is, just as when the EZLN emerged on January 1, 1994 and international interest was sparked and groups emerged throughout the world, the same interest ought to be there now for the emergence of the ERP. Or at a minimum, there is a need for international condemnation of the massive overkill use of force by the Mexican military. Perhaps many of us will think that the ERP is a fabrication created by the Mexican government to instill confusion and instability. Wasn't this said about the EZLN when they first emerged? Weren't the EZLN a group of aliens, foreigners, a creation of the government? I just spoke with John Ross, author of Roots of Rebellion, who returned from Guerrero on Friday. He has no doubt that the ERP are real. I talked with a friend who works with Mario Saucedo of the PRD, who was a guerrilla in the 1970s and has good knowledge of the situation in Guerrero. He has no doubt that the ERP are real. But, a lawyer who works on the case of the 17 assasinated in Guerrero on June 28, 1995, thinks that yes indeed the ERP are a fabrication. He notes their appearance was near a military base, they had good relatively new weapons, they were given two hours to disappear before the army began to look for them. Real or a fabrication? Shall we let that impede any response we may have to the massive militarization of Guerrero and other coastal states, to the detention, confinement, and torture of leaders of the OCSS and other social organizations not connected to this new mysterious force of bad guerrillas? Maybe it is time for pro-solidarity groups, whose focus has primarily been on the Zapatistas and the situation in Chiapas, to broaden our scope. Mexico as a whole is undergoing a process of militarization and repression. The mechanisms to repress and control and manage incipient or entrenched rebellion are quietly and quickly being put in place. Here is one example. Just last week the Mexican Congress passed new legislation that permits the detainment of individuals for up to 90 days solely on the basis of suspicion of some criminal activity. Human rights groups are worried that even though the law was designed to fight organized crime, that it can and will be applied to political groups as well. Other provisions of this new law include the legalization of government wiretaps, reading mail, and reading email. To end, even though the Mexican government and media are portraying the EZLN as the good guys and the ERP as the bad guys, we shouldn't operate using their frame of reference. We shouldn't fall into that trap. As individuals and groups from around the world who have been concentrating our efforts on Chiapas, now is the time to move our attention to Guerrero. So, when thousands of us come to Chiapas for the Intercontinental Encuentro against Neoliberalism and Humanity from July 27 to August 3, we ought to consider going to Guerrero as well to take a stand against the repressive forces of the PRI and the army. If the ruling PRI party considers this to be meddling in its internal affairs, we'll just remind them that if they want Mexico to be a new colony of the US, then they will have to put up with US dissidents and their friends coming here.. [Stefan Wray, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin and member of a local group there called Accion Zapatista, is in Mexico City for two months, based at the Colegio de Mexico, researching US military assistance to Mexico, specifically concentrating on how the US is sharing its cyberwar technology.] --