Fw: Fox Playing Chicken in Chiapas from ZNET

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg@tin.it>]

 Onward to Mexico City
 By Justin Podur

 To call it waffling would be an understatement. But whatever you call it,
 Mexico's President Vicente Fox has been changing his position on the
 Zapatistas at least every fifteen minutes. Maybe even every five minutes.

 He campaigned on a platform of bringing peace to Chiapas. One of his first
 acts as president was to table a law on indigenous rights in the Congress.
 He proceeded to endorse the freeing of 18 of the over-a-hundred Zapatista
 political prisoners and close 3 of the 7 military bases the Zapatistas had
 asked be closed. All of this looked like he was serious about dialogue and
 peace.

 But the 3 signals the Zapatistas wanted were minimal signals for dialogue:
 these were 7 bases (of over 200 in the state, the closure of the rest of
 which the Zapatistas are willing to negotiate over) freedom for all the
 Zapatista political prisoners, and the enactment of the Cocopa law on
 indigenous rights and culture. Other things are negotiable. These things
 aren't.

 So why does Fox close 3 bases and say he's waiting for the Zapatistas to
 give him something, then close another one a day after, and then nothing?
 Why does he allow some prisoners freedom and then announce firmly that
there
 will be no more? Why does he allow people in his administration to threaten
 that the Zapatistas can be arrested if they go to Mexico City or leave
 Chiapas [which they are doing tomorrow, February 25, to arrive in Mexico
 City to dialogue with the Congress on March 11]? To say they won't talk to
 the Zapatistas if they wear masks? To say that the Cocopa law is too
radical
 a change-- because it allows for communally held lands, something won in
the
 Mexican Revolution almost a century ago and only struck down after NAFTA?

 His latest swing in the anti-Zapatista direction was forbidding the
 International Committee of the Red Cross to accompany the Zapatista
 delegation to Mexico City. Since the Red Cross was there to ensure the
 safety of the delegation, Fox's refusal could be seen as granting license
to
 paramilitaries and others who have threatened the comandantes in the past.
 It could, in other words, be interpreted as a threat.

 That isn't the only swing that's occurred either. A number of Zapatista
 communities, including Polho and Ricardo Flores Magon, have been reporting
 steady military and paramilitary activities-- troop movements, patrols,
 threats.

 I shouldn't blame the President of Mexico, though. It's got to be hard to
be
 the President of a country which, to quote a Mexican saying, is so far from
 heaven and so close to the United States. If he's anything like other world
 leaders, he has to be wondering how to please the US. Publicly beating up
on
 indigenous people doesn't attract investors (who prefer that beatings be
 done out of sight whenever possible). But neither would rolling back all
 those hard-won investor rights to Chiapas'-- and Mexico's-- wealth. And
 somehow, the Zapatistas have managed to make it impossible for the Mexican
 government and its US patrons to beat up on them quietly. Which leaves
 President Fox in a bind.

 How much peace can he deliver without annoying the right wingers and
 hardliners in his own party or the Congress? How much can he antagonize the
 Zapatistas, fail to meet their demands, deny justice to indigenous people,
 without alienating a Mexican public to whom he promised peace and
democratic
 politics? How many of the Zapatista demands will he have to meet, and at
 what cost to his elite friends in the US who make fortunes from Mexico and
 don't want to see those fortunes lost just so indigenous people can live
 with dignity?

 The answer to these questions is: it depends. Fox is no flake. If he's
 waffling, changing sides and positions constantly, it's because he's
probing
 to see what he can get away with. He's made a lot of promises to a lot of
 people and he can't deliver to everyone. Who he does deliver to depends on
 who pushes the hardest. Dissidents know that the right and the US
 corporations and government can push pretty hard. The Zapatistas have shown
 that dissidents can push pretty hard too. If you'd like to join the push,
 there's a standing invitation.

 The Zapatista caravan of the comandancia leaves San Cristobal de las Casas,
 Chiapas, tomorrow (February 25). It will meet with indigenous organizations
 all over Mexico, and go to Mexico City on March 11 where it will stay until
 the Zapatistas have had a dialogue with the Congress about the law on
 indigenous rights and culture. Znet's Chiapas site
 http://www.zmag.org/chiapas1/index.htm and Narconews
 http://www.narconews.com/zapatistacaravan.html publish information in
 English on the situation in Chiapas. If you read Spanish, the official site
 for the caravan is http://www.ezlnaldf.org/ .