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Modern-day Zorro leads Mexican rebels

By ALEXIS RIVERA

(U-WIRE)—MEDFORD, Mass.—In Mexico, in the state of Chiapas, there is a civil war. Thousands of innocent people have been killed and millions more wronged. The Mexican government has continually abused the people of Chiapas, but it has only been in the past five years that anyone has fought against the tyrannical government.

El Subcomandante Marcos, the man who is leading this fight for social justice, is much more than just the latest Central American revolutionary. Subcomandante Marcos, the pipe smoking, masked man whose last public appearance was in 1996, is really Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vicente, the son of a rich Mexican family and a former student at the Sorbonne. He is intelligent, passionate, articulate, and modest (Marcos calls himself Subcomandante and not Comandante because he believes the Chiapans are the real comandantes), and he has fought for autonomy in Chiapas because, as he wrote, "we are the descendants of those who truly built this nation, we are the millions of dispossessed, and we call upon all of our brethren to join our crusade, the only option to avoid dying of starvation!"

To understand fully the civil war that has erupted in Mexico, one must understand the history of not only the state of Chiapas but also that of Mexico. The Mexican Revolution, led by socialist Emilio Zapata in the 1910s, was a defining part of Mexico’s history. Its resolution promised freedom and equality for the people of Mexico, but almost eighty years later these ideals have never even come close to being realized. There is an old joke that there are two things Mexico will never have (clean water and a honest government), but the fact that the latter is so true is what has set off the situation in Chiapas. The state of Chiapas, whose residents make up only three percent of the Mexican population, is an economic dream, producing 55 percent of the country’s electrical power, 25 percent of its cattle, 13 percent of its corn and gas and 5 percent of its timber, in addition to having vast amounts of oil and uranium and a booming coffee industry. After seeing these numbers, it is easy to see why the Mexican government has enforced a strict "policy" of economic exploitation and political authoritarianism in the state.

Subcomandante Marcos, who first visited Chiapas in the early 1980s while doing medical research there, witnessed the everyday cruelties that take place in the state and, on New Years Day, 1994, effectively declared "No more!" His group of Chiapanecos, comprised mostly of indigenous people, took the name Zapatistas (after Mexican Revolution hero Emilio Zapata) and started an uprising on January 1, 1994. The violent attack on Mexican soldiers and government officials would have seemed to drive people against Marcos, but it had the exact opposite effect: more than 83% of Mexico feels the Marcos-led rebellion is justified.

Marcos, however, has called a cease fire in recent years, and his now peaceful ways display a sort of diplomacy and respect that is all too ironic considering it’s been missing from Mexican government. Last December, 45 church-goers (mostly women and children) were ambushed and murdered in a Chiapan pueblo by men who have been linked to the PRI, Mexico’s ruling party. As Marcos commented after the attack, "There’s no word describing war in the Tzotil language, at least any that the Mayan Indians of Chiapas know or use. On the other hand, in Spanish they’ve learned several words for it: guerra, batalla, conflicto."

For some, namely the Mexican government, Marcos is a killer, but for most Mexicans he is like a modern day Zorro, a no-face righter of wrongs. Asked why the members of Marcos’ Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) wear masks, Marcos wrote in a 1994 letter that "the people of Chiapas have always been nothing to them [the Mexican government]. Why should they see us? Why now?" The respect held for Marcos is so high that the line between real life and fiction has been blurred — just as in the case with El Cid. One story has it that the last time Marcos was in public seven rainbows followed him. The truth or just lies? It really doesn’t matter anymore, for Marcos has captured the hearts and minds of the people of Chiapas by showing them that change is possible.