
The following book review will appear in the April 1995 Industrial
Worker:

Rebellion from the Roots: Indian Uprising in Chiapas, by John
Ross. Common Courage Press, 1994, $14.95.  "When. on the
international level," the mysterious Subcomandante Marcos tells
us, "everyone was saying 'no' to armed struggle, the indigenous
farmers of Chiapas were saying "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.'" But that
assent to armed struggle was not lightly given, as author John
Ross, an old Mexico hand, assures us. While the Zapatistas may
have burst on the American media scene like the proverbial thunder
clap when they seized San Cristobal de las Casas on New Year's
Day, 1994, this first Third World uprising since the end of the
Cold War had been in the planning stage for over a year, agreed
upon in village after village. Indeed, serious trouble had been
brewing in Chiapas for nearly a decade. Amnesty International,
dismayed by a state penal code that officially sanctions the use
of torture to obtain confessions, had issued its first bulletins
on human rights abuses there in 1985, and the situation was not
improving.  But the secret of the rebellion had been well kept. An
old friend of mine and a long-time resident in the area knew
nothing of the gathering storm.  In a broader sense, of course,
the trouble in Chiapas dates back to the Spanish conquest, which
saw the Indians deprived of their land and reduced to peonage, a
condition the Mexican revolution against Spain did little to
improve. Throughout the 19th century, periodic Indian uprisings
took place as the natives, driven beyond endurance by the casual
cruelty of their overlords, took up arms. These revolts were put
down with even greater cruelty, but the grievances that gave rise
to them were never properly addressed until the revolution of
1910, when Emiliano Zapata, himself a Nahua Indian, demanded the
return of communal lands taken from the Indians, first by t he
Spaniards and later by Mexico's own ruling elite. He fought one
central government after another for nine years, until he was
treacherously slain at Chinameca in 1919. But the land issue did
not go away.  At the heart of this conflict lie two mutually
exclusive concepts of land and its ownership. To the cattle
ranchers and the agribusinessmen who control most of the useful
land, land is a thing P a commodity like any other, to be owned,
bought, sold and exploited by whoever can pay for it. Having at
some time paid somebody something for the land, these
latifundistas recognize no other claims and view any complaints as
a demand for the expropriation of their lawfully acquired goods.
But to the Indians land is community property, not owned or even
ownable by any one person, and it cannot be bought or sold P only
properly used. Any individual attempting to buy or sell this
community property is a dangerous fool, and anyone who asserts he
has acquired this land for himself is a criminal.  Article 27 of
the Mexican Constitution of 1917, as Ross relates, made an attempt
to redress this balance, recognize inalienable community property,
and provide for some redistribution of obviously stolen lands. The
opposition of the great landowners was formidable and there were
frequent land takeovers by the exasperated Indians, sometimes
ending in bloody clashes with the police and military. But
progress, slow everywhere, was nearly invisible in Chiapas, where
the Indians were driven farther and farther into the Lacandon
jungle in a land that produces one half of Mexico's electricity
but has electric light in only one third of its homes. The 1989
collapse of the coffee market replaced grinding poverty with
abject misery. In 1992, Mexican President Salinas and his ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) pushed through a change in
Article 27 which provided for up to 40 years imprisonment for
anyone illegally occupying private land. 1994 was to bring NAFTA
and a flood of cheap American corn into Chiapas, spelling the end
for the small farmers and making their lands ripe for takeover by
the vast landed estates. The Indians of Chiapas decided they'd had
"Enough already!" or, as they inscribed on their banners, "ABasta
ya!" In describing the background and aftermath of the fighting a
year ago, Ross provides an invaluable guide through a veritable
alphabet soup of governmental and non-governmental agencies,
foreign and domestic, that became involved in Chiapas either in
conducting the war or trying to broker a peace. He does a fine job
of introducing the reader to a cast of characters ranging from the
Roman Catholic "red" Bishop Ruiz, still officially thought to be
the brains behind the uprising (as if the Indians were too stupid
to plan the rebellion themselves), to General Absalon Castellano
Dominguez, one of the more odious latifundistas, and on through
the masked Subcomandante Marcos against a political backdrop
resembling more than or Ancient Rome than a modern republic. To
his credit, Ross resists speculating at length on the identity of
the subcomandante but is quick to note the foolishness of the
government and the media in attempting to learn who is behind the
ski mask and manufacturing a modern myth in the process, making
the bandanna and the ski mask national symbols of dissent.  If
there is any point at which Ross's narrative wanders, it is in the
chapter devoted tot he assassination of the PRI's Presidential
Candidate, Luis Colosio, in March of 1994. While the story is
fascinating, and Ross's investigative work is as good as could be
done in a country where freedom of the press is far from secure,
he is not able to connect the murder to the Chiapas situation by
any but the thinnest speculative threads.  When he returns to the
jungle of Chiapas, however, Ross is obviously at home with his
subject and the concerns of those beyond its borders. He points
out that the Zapatistas are basically reformist in that they do
not seek to overthrow the government and take state power. Their
revolution is not modeled on Lenin's nor Mao's nor Ho Chi Minh's.
but on that of Zapata who sought not power but agricultural reform
and justice. "For everyone, everything," their motto proclaims,
"for us, nothing." Women, Ross informs us, make up about a third
of the guerrilla forces and many of the Zapatista senior officers,
and are treated with absolute equality. Among these young
warriors, romance is widespread, but contraception is virtually
mandatory since no one can be "indisposed" when there is fighting
to be done. Even the environment is to be spared in the Zapatista
program. Water pollution is to cease and deforested lands are to
be replanted.  As this review is being written, the Mexican
government has opted once more for a military "solution" to what
is essentially a political problem. Mexican President Ernesto
Zedillo is now "standing tall," apparently having decided that the
latest collapse of the peso has made it financially impossible to
fulfill the commitments made to the rebels at the Cathedral
Conference in San Cristobal last year. The Zapatistas are once
again "transgressors" under the spell of the "red" bishop and
"outside agitators" from Guatemala and other mysterious lands
beyond the border. Now only punishment awaits them if they do not
give up their arms, surrender their leaders and throw themselves
on the mercy of the government.  This posturing has played very
well with Mexico's rulers and with capitalist circles in the
United States, although those who still dream of democracy and
peace in that country have been less favorably impressed. But
President Zedillo would do well to read Ross's book before he
commits an army that has not fought a serious opponent in 75 years
and is made up largely of Indians to a protracted Vietnam-style
conflict with fairly well armed and very well-led fellow Indians
who have an excellent grasp of modern media and are fighting on
their own jungle turf for a cause they deeply believe in and are
ready to die for.  The Mexican military has already barred the
press from the are and begun issuing triumphal bulletins. But the
real situation remains obscure at best, and the war, like the
insurgencies in Guatemala and El Salvador, could go on for years,
if not decades.  There will undoubtedly be more news from Chiapas,
as casualties on both sides mount, and hapless civilians are slain
by the score. Rebellion from the Roots is ideal background for
understanding the reports coming from this desperate land.  John
Gorman

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