The Zapatista communities have not only given political and moral accompaniment to the struggles for the disappeared in the country but, true to their custom, have launched national initiatives to build alternatives for justice.
Think of that person who finds herself alone, searching for her loved one with no other strength than that of her womb and her heart, and, in addition, must endure the mockery and scorn of others, others who tell her “she deserved it,” “she was on the wrong track”, “you complain because you are part of the mafia of power,” “it’s your fault because you did not educate her well.”
Will you not discover, in this way, the same thing that we Zapatista peoples have discovered? Namely: that sorrows are not added, but multiplied when they meet.
Sup Galeano, Communiqué 25.07.2021
And where were the Zapatistas when the Ayotzinapa students disappeared? This and other unjustified complaints proliferated with great intensity during what was supposed to be the government of change in Mexico (2018-2024), with Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) at its head. During his term in office, a disinformation campaign against the Zapatista communities was orchestrated, in the mass media and with greater depth in social networks, to delegitimize their struggle and point them out as “traitors” to the fourth transformation of the country. This campaign was not fortuitous: it was the Zapatista communities, through their spokesman the insurgent subcomandante Moisés and sup Galeano, who after the announcement of AMLO’s electoral triumph, pointed out that nothing was going to change, that the storm was going to intensify, and Mexico would continue digging even deeper the great clandestine grave it had become since the beginning of the new millennium.
But where were the Zapatista indigenous communities? Throughout their 30 years of public life, they have accompanied several of the existing struggles and those that arose in the last decade of the 20th century in Mexico; from the students of the UNAM strike in 1999 to the Atenco community members in 2001; from the Citizens’ Movement for Justice June 5th in 2009, to the Oaxacan teachers of the CNTE in rebellion in 2016; and mainly, in a continuum, the different struggles on behalf of the victims of violence and for the disappeared. This accompaniment has been particularly evident since the government of Felipe Calderón and has been maintained to the present day; it is enough to review the Zapatista communiqués during that government, especially those of 2011 in support of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity. And since 2014, they have made their own the rage of the families of Ayotzinapa and the search collectives, as reiterated in the recent communiqués of the end of 2023 and August 2024, praising the role of the Madres Buscadoras (Searching Mothers) in the country.
The crisis of missing persons in Mexico has a long history, but it was during the government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) that the problem worsened and the humanitarian crisis that the country is currently experiencing began. In May 2011, when the worst of the Mexican government’s false “War on Drugs” was at its worst, the Zapatistas took to the streets at the call of the National March for Peace. In this mobilization, among other things, they exclaimed that they felt “summoned by the relatives of the dead, wounded, mutilated, disappeared, kidnapped and imprisoned without guilt or crime. They did not come out to talk about their pain or to point out paths, but to create kinship, to support those who fight for life. They mentioned that the sisterhood of these struggles came from the same root as the indigenous resistance, in the search for a dignified life with freedom, justice and peace.
“We know well that naming the dead is a way of not abandoning them, of not abandoning ourselves,” wrote the insurgent Subcomandante Marcos, still spokesman for the EZLN, in a letter to Javier Sicilia.
In this context, they recalled the passing of “a father who is a poet,” Javier Sicilia, moral leader of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity. Sicilia, whose son was forcibly disappeared and later murdered, was the visible face of a movement that shook the foundations of a country that turned its back on violence, and was able to push for the creation of a General Victims Law (2013) that, although born lame, created a precedent in the fight against violence and for the disappeared in Mexico. A month earlier, the insurgent Subcomandante Marcos, still spokesman for the EZLN, sent a missive to Sicilia confirming that the Zapatista communities would join his call, marching in silence in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, on May 7, 2011, and registering the support of the rebel communities for the struggle for justice and peace; “we,” he concluded, “know well that naming the dead is a way of not abandoning them, of not abandoning ourselves.” This letter was accompanied by a communiqué from the CCRI-EZLN summoning the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), and the adherents of the national and international Sexta, to join the National March and dislocated acts of support.
Administration after administration, the situation of missing persons has worsened alarmingly in Mexico. In 2012, after two six-year terms in opposition, the PRI, the party of the perfect dictatorship of more than 70 years, returned to power. Under Enrique Peña Nieto, one of the most unpopular presidents in recent history, the humanitarian crisis deepened and exploded on September 26, 2014, with the forced disappearance of 43 students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa. The streets of the country overflowed demanding the return alive of the 43, and a strong wave of international solidarity prevented the government, even if it tried, from hiding the tragedy. Ayotzinapa showed public opinion, national and international, what had been covered up by the State: Mexico was a great clandestine grave. The Zapatista communities, from the first moment, supported the families and comrades of the Ayotzinapa students. At the beginning of October they issued a communiqué calling for support for the Ayotzinapa community, announcing their own mobilization of support with a slogan that has gone down in history: “They are not alone. Their pain is our pain. Their rage is also our rage.”
Photo: Elizabeth Ruiz
As in 2011, the rebel communities mobilized for the disappeared with a silent march in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, with which they joined, together with the CNI, on October 22, illuminating “with their small light” the pathways of their territories, and launching a joint declaration. In complete humility, the communities pledged to remember Ayotzinapa: “although small, our light will be a way of embracing those who are missing today and those whose absence hurts.” The following month, on November 15, the Zapatistas received the caravan of relatives of the disappeared and students of Ayotzinapa in the Caracol of Oventic, and Zapatista Comandantes like Tacho and Javier, along with Subcomandante Moisés, shared their words of solidarity with them. At the end of 2014, when the Mexican government was using the entire state apparatus to discredit Ayotzinapa and close the case, and when some began to distance themselves from this dignified struggle, the Zapatista communities reaffirmed their support: “We have nothing to teach them, us. We have everything to learn from them. That is why now, when their voice is being blocked, silenced, forgotten or twisted, we send them our word to embrace them.” In the 5th National Assembly for Water, Life and Territory, convened by the CNI on August 17 and 18, 2024, relatives of the 43 disappeared normalistas participated as special guests. The support continues.
The Zapatista communities have not only given political and moral accompaniment to the struggles for the disappeared in the country but, true to their custom, have launched national initiatives to build alternatives for justice, peace and democracy. In July 2021, in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic and on the eve of the Journey for Life – Europe Chapter, the Zapatistas responded to the so-called justice proceedings of the López Obrador government against the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Mexican State in the 20th century.
In response to the Popular Consultation of August 1 of that year, which sought to prosecute certain former Mexican presidents, the rebellious indigenous communities proposed a process of reparation and real, profound justice: the creation of a Truth Commission ‘from below’. This process would not be guided by them but by the victims. In the words of the Zapatista spokesman: “Those up there, in the ‘opposition’ parties, who resist the consultation, not only fear what will come of it; they are also terrified that the victims will recover their demands from the ruthless and perverse use that the ultra-right makes of their pain (…) We have to join in, not by looking upwards, but by looking at the victims. It is necessary to turn the consultation into an “extemporaneous” consultation. This in order to start, independent of those at the top, a mobilization for a Commission for Truth and Justice for the Victims, or whatever it is called. Because there can be no life without truth and justice.”
A few days later, the Zapatistas delved into the relevance of participating in this consultation, based on the customs and traditions of the peoples; they pointed out the possible risks and pitfalls of the consultation -which they would describe in detail in a later communiqué-, but also the urgency of going further and promoting a process based on the victims, accompanied by different social movements. It is in this communiqué that they invite us to listen to a new social agent, a product of the humanitarian crisis recently experienced in Mexico: the madres buscadoras. The collectives of searching mothers, or trackers, or whatever they call themselves in the extensive geography of the territory, have recovered the dignity of a country in which oblivion and disdain are the government’s answers to their demands for the safe return and justice for their relatives.
In the current context in which the supposed government of change has turned its back on the search collectives, the Zapatistas have insisted on listening to and accompanying the Madres Buscadoras with respect, empathy and mutual support. In November 2023, they again invited us to turn our gaze towards them in a postscript; they pointed out to us that they have been there, for a long time, and we have not been able to listen to them: “There is no one to help or support them. They are alone in the sense that they have only themselves.” The communities’ diagnosis of the (crude) reality has indicated to them that “the monstrosity of a system has created another occupation: that of ‘seeker’”. This postscript ends with the Zapatistas offering apologies for the impossibility of a meeting they had planned with them but which, due to the electoral context, would have to be postponed.
Recently, in the August 2024 communiqué, Insurgent Captain Marcos angrily reiterated the dignified and valuable work of the Madres Buscadoras, their profession being “the most terrible and marvelous thing that this geography has given birth to in recent years,” as they are unearthing the dignity that has disappeared in Mexico. Once again, he launches the invitation: “ Seek out the seekers. It occurs to me, I don’t know, that maybe they are also looking for another tomorrow. And that, friends and enemies, is to fight for life.”
Original text by Everardo Pérez of YRetiemble published in El Salto on September 7th, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.