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Second Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle
Eje'rcito Zapatista de Liberacio'n Nacional
(Zapatista National Liberation Army)
Mexico
Today we say: We will not surrender!
". . . Those who bear swords aren't the only ones who lose blood or
who shine with the fleeting light of military glory. They aren't
the only ones who should have a voice in designating the leaders of
the government of a people who want democracy; this right to choose
belongs to every citizen who has fought in the press or in the
courts. It belongs to every citizen who identifies with the ideals
of the Revolution and who has fought against the despotism that has
ignored our laws. Tyranny isn't eliminated just by fighting on the
battlefield; dictatorships and empires are also overthrown by
launching cries of freedom and terrible threats against those who
are executing the people. . . Historical events have shown us that
the destruction of tyranny and the overthrow of all bad government
are the work of ideas together with the sword. It is therefore an
absurdity, an aberration, an outrageous despotism to deny the
people the right to elect their government. The people's
sovereignty is formed by all those people in society who are
conscience of their rights and who, be they civilians or armed,
love freedom and justice and who work for the good of the country."
- Paulino Marti'nez, Zapatista delegate to the Revolutionary
Sovereignty Convention, Aguascalientes, Mexico, on behalf of
Emiliano Zapata. October 27, 1914.
To the people of Mexico:
To the peoples and governments of the world:
Brothers:
The Eje'rcito Zapatista de Liberacio'n Nacional (EZLN), on a
war footing against the government since January First, 1994,
addresses itself to you in order to make known its opinion:
Brother Mexicans:
In December, 1993, we said, "Enough!" On January First, 1994,
we called on the Legislative and Judicial powers to assume their
constitutional responsibility and to restrain the genocidal
policies that the Federal Executive imposes upon our people. We
base our constitutional right in the application of Article 37 of
the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States:
"National Sovereignty essentially and originally resides in the
people. All political power emanates from the people and its
purpose is to help the people. The people have, at all times, the
inalienable right to alter or modify their form of government."
The government responded to this call with a policy of
extermination and lies. The powers within Mexico ignored our just
demand and permitted a massacre. However, this massacre only lasted
twelve days. Another force, a force superior to any political or
military power imposed its will upon the parties involved in the
conflict. Civil society assumed the duty of preserving our country.
It showed its disapproval of the massacre and it obligated us to
dialogue with the government. We understand that the ascendancy of
the political party that has been in power for so long cannot be
allowed to continue. We understand that this party, a party that
has kept for itself the fruits of every Mexican's labor, cannot be
allowed to continue. We understand that the corruption of the
presidential elections that sustains this party impedes our freedom
and should not be allowed to continue. We understand that the
culture of fraud is the method with which this party imposes and
impedes democracy. We understand that justice only exists for the
corrupt and the powerful. We understand that we must construct a
society in which those who lead do so with the will of the people.
There is no other path.
This is understood by every honest Mexican in civil society.
Only those who have based their success in the theft of the public
trust, those who protect criminals and murderers by prostituting
justice, those who resort to political murder and electoral fraud
in order to impose their will, are opposed to our demands.
These antiquated politicians plan to roll back history and
erase from the national consciousness the cry that was taken up by
the country after January First, 1994: "Enough already!"
We will not permit this. Today we don't call upon those weak
powers within Mexico who refuse to assume their constitutional
duties and who permit themselves to be controlled by the Federal
Executive. If the legislature and the judges have no dignity, then
others who do understand that they must serve the people and not
the individual will step forward. Our call transcends the question
of presidential terms or the upcoming election. Our sovereignty
resides in civil society. Only the people can alter or modify our
form of government. It is to them that we address this Second
Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle.
First: We have respected the international conventions of warfare
while we have carried out our military actions. These conventions
have allowed us to be recognized as a belligerent force by national
and foreign forces. We will continue to respect these conventions.
Second: We order all of our regular and irregular forces, both in
national territory and outside the country, to continue to obey the
unilateral offensive cease-fire. We will continue to respect the
cease-fire in order to permit civil society to organize, in
whatever forms they consider pertinent, toward the goal of
achieving a transition to democracy in our country.
Third: We condemn the threats against civil society brought about
by the militarization of the country, both in terms of personal and
modern repressive equipment, during this time leading up to the
Federal elections. Without a doubt, the Salinas government is
trying to impose its will by fraud. We will not permit this.
Fourth: We propose to all independent political parties that are
suffering from intimidation and repression of political rights -
the same intimidation and repression that our people have suffered
for the last 65 years - that they declare themselves in favor of a
government of transition toward democracy.
Fifth: We reject the manipulation and the attempts to separate our
just demands from the demands of the Mexican people. We are
Mexicans, and we will not put aside our demands nor our arms until
we have democracy, freedom and justice for all.
Sixth: We reiterate our disposition towards finding a political
solution to the transition to democracy in Mexico. We call upon
civil society to re-take the protagonist's role that it first took
up in order to stop the military phase of the war. We call upon
civil society to organize itself in order to direct the peaceful
efforts towards democracy, freedom and justice. Democratic change
is the only alternative to war.
Seventh: We call on all honest sectors of civil society to attend
a National Dialogue for Democracy, Freedom and Justice.
For this reason we say:
Brothers:
After the start of the war in January, 1994, the organized cry
of the Mexican people stopped the fighting and called for a
dialogue between the contending forces. The Federal government
responded to the just demands of the EZLN with a series of offers
that didn't touch on the essential problem: the lack of justice,
freedom and democracy in Mexican territory.
The offers with which to the Federal government responded to
the demands of the EZLN are limited by the system of the political
party in power. This system has made possible the continuation of
certain sectors in the Mexican countryside that have superseded the
power of the constitution and whose roots have maintained the party
in power. It is this system of complicity that has made possible
the existence and belligerence of the caciques, the omnipotent
power of the ranchers and businessmen and the spread of drug-
trafficking. Just the fact that the government offered us the so-
called Proposals for a Dignified Peace in Chiapas provoked
tremendous agitation and an open defiance by these sectors. The
single-party political system is trying to maneuver within this
reduced horizon. It can't alienate these sectors without attacking
itself, yet it can't leave things as they are without having to
face the anger of the peasants and indigenous peoples. In other
words, to go through with the proposals would necessarily mean the
death of the state party system. By suicide or execution, the death
of the current Mexican political system is a necessary
precondition, although not sufficient, for the transition to
democracy in our country. There will be no real solutions in
Chiapas until the situation in Mexico as a whole is resolved.
The EZLN understands that the problem of poverty in Mexico
isn't due just to a lack of resources. Our fundamental
understanding and position is that whatever efforts that are made
will only postpone the problem if these efforts aren't made within
the context of new local, regional and national political
relationships - relationships marked by democracy, freedom and
justice. The problem of power is not a question of who rules, but
of who exercises power. If it is exercised by a majority of the
people, the political parties will be obligated to put their
proposals forward to the people instead of merely relating among
themselves.
Looking at the problem of power within the context of
democracy, freedom and justice will create a new political culture
within the parties. A new type of political leader will be born
and, without a doubt, new types of political parties will be born
as well.
We aren't proposing a new world, but something preceding a new
world: an antechamber looking into the new Mexico. In this sense,
this revolution will not end in a new class, a faction of a class
or group in power. It will end in an free and democratic space for
political struggle. This free and democratic space will be born on
the fetid cadaver of the state party system and the tradition of
fixed presidential succession. A new political relationship will be
born, a relationship based not in the confrontation of political
organizations among themselves, but in the confrontation of their
political proposals with different social classes. Political
leadership will depend on the support of these social classes, and
not in the mere exercise of power. In this new political
relationship, different political proposals (socialism, capitalism,
social democracy, liberalism, christian democracy etc.) will have
to convince a majority of the nation that their proposal is the
best for the country. The groups in power will be watched by the
people in such a way that they will be obligated to give a regular
accounting of themselves and the people will be able to decide
whether they remain in power or not. The plebiscite is a regulated
form of confrontation between the nation, political parties and
power and it merits a place in the highest law of the country.
Current Mexican law is too constricting for these new
political relationships between the governed and those who govern.
A National Democratic Convention is needed from which a provisional
or transitional government can emerge, be it by the resignation of
the Federal Executive or by an electoral route.
This National Democratic Convention and transitional
government should lead to the creation of a new constitution, and
in the context of this new constitution, new elections should be
held. The pain that this process will bring to the country will be
less than the damage that would be caused by a civil war. The
prophecy of the southeast is valid for the entire country. We can
learn from what has already occurred so that there is less pain
during the birth of the new Mexico.
The EZLN has its idea of what system and proposal are best for
the country. The political maturity of the EZLN as a representative
of a sector of the nation is shown by the fact that it doesn't want
to impose its proposal upon the country. The EZLN demands what is
shown by their example: the political maturity of Mexico and the
right for all to decide, freely and democratically, the course that
Mexico must take. Not only will a better and more just Mexico
emerge from this historic synthesis, but a new Mexican as well.
This is why we are gambling our lives: so that the Mexicans of the
future can inherit a country in which it isn't shameful to live. .
.
The EZLN, in a democratic exercise without precedent within an
armed organization, consulted its component bases about whether or
not to sign the peace accords presented by the Federal government.
The indigenous bases of the EZLN, seeing that the central demands
of democracy, freedom and justice have yet to be resolved, decided
against signing the government's proposal.
Under siege and under pressure from different sectors that
threatened us with extermination if the peace accords weren't
signed, we Zapatistas reaffirmed our commitment to achieve a peace
with justice and dignity. In our struggle, the dignified struggle
of our ancestors has found a home. The cry of dignity of the
insurgent Vicente Guererro, "Live for the country or die for
freedom," once again sounds from our throats. We cannot accept an
undignified peace.
Our path sprang out of the impossibility of struggling
peacefully for our elemental rights as human beings. The most
valuable of these rights is the right to decide, freely and
democratically, what form the government will take. Now, the
possibility of a peaceful change to democracy and freedom confronts
a new test: the electoral process that will take place this August,
1994. There are those who are betting on the outcome of the
elections and the post-election period. There are those who are
predicting apathy and disillusionment. They hope to profit from the
blood of those who fall in the struggle, both violent and peaceful,
in the cities and in the countryside. They found their political
project in the conflict they hope will come after the elections.
They hope that the political demobilization will once again open
the door to war. They say that they will save the country.
Others hope that the armed conflict will restart before the
elections so that they can take advantage of the chaotic situation
to perpetuate themselves in power. Just as they did before when
they usurped popular will with electoral fraud, these people hope
to take advantage of a pre-electoral civil war in order to prolong
the agony of a dictatorship that has already lasted decades. There
are others, sterile nay-sayers, who reason that war is inevitable
and who are waiting to watch their enemy's cadaver float by. . . or
their friend's cadaver. The sectarians suppose, erroneously, that
just the firing of a gun will bring about the dawn that our people
have waited for since night fell upon Mexican soil with the death
of Villa and Zapata.
Every one of these people who steal hope suppose that behind
our weapons are ambition and an agenda that will guide us to the
future. They are wrong. Behind our weapons is another weapon:
reason. Hope gives life to both of our weapons. We won't let them
steal our hope.
The hope that came with the trigger came about at the
beginning of the year. It is precisely now that the hope that comes
with political mobilizations takes up the protagonist's role that
belong to it by right and reason. The flag is now in the hands of
those who have names and faces, good and honest people who have the
same goal that we yearn for. Our greetings to these men and women.
You have our greetings and our hope that you can carry the flag to
where it should be. We will be standing there waiting for you with
dignity. If the flag should fall, we will be there to pick it up
again. . .
Now is the time for hope to organize itself and to walk
forward in the valleys and in the cities, as it did before in the
mountains of the southeast. Fight with your weapons; don't worry
about ours. We know how to resist to the last. We know how to wait.
. . And we know what to do if the doors through which dignity walk
close once again.
This is why we address our brothers in different non-
governmental organizations, in peasant and indigenous
organizations, workers in the cities and in the countryside,
teachers and students, housewives and squatters, artists and
intellectuals, members of independent political parties, Mexicans.
We call you all to a national dialogue with the theme of
democracy, freedom and justice. For this reason, we put forward the
following invitation to a National Democratic Convention:
We, the Eje'rcito Zapatista de Liberacio'n Nacional, fighting
to achieve the democracy, freedom and justice that our country
deserves and considering that:
One: The supreme government has usurped the legality that we
inherited from the heros of the Mexican Revolution.
Two: The constitution that exists doesn't reflect the popular will
of the Mexican people.
Three: The resignation of Federal Executive usurper isn't enough
and that a new law is necessary for the new country that will be
born from the struggles of all honest Mexicans.
Four: Every form of struggle is necessary in order to achieve the
transition to democracy in Mexico.
Considering these things, we call for a sovereign and
revolutionary National Democratic Convention from which will come
a transition government and a new national law, a new constitution
that will guarantee the legal fulfillment of the people's will.
This sovereign revolutionary convention will be national in
that it all states of the federation will be represented. It will
be plural in the sense that all patriotic sectors will be
represented. It will be democratic in the way in which it will make
decisions by national consultations.
The convention will be presided over, freely and voluntarily
by civilians, prestigious public figures, regardless of their
political affiliation, race, religion, sex or age.
The convention will be launched by local, state and regional
committee in every ejido, settlement, school and factory. These
committees of the convention will be in charge of collecting the
people's proposals for the new constitution and the demands to be
completed by the new government that comes out of the convention.
The convention should demand free and democratic elections and
should fight for the people's will to be respected.
The Eje'rcito Zapatista de Liberacio'n Nacional will recognize
the National Democratic Convention as the authentic representative
of the interests of the Mexican people in their transition to
democracy.
The Eje'rcito Zapatista de Liberacio'n Nacional is now to be
found throughout national territory and is in a position to offer
itself to the Mexican people as an army to guarantee that the
people's will is carried out.
For the first meeting of the National Democratic Convention,
the EZLN offers as a meeting-place a Zapatista settlement with all
of the resources to be found there.
The date and place of the first session of the National
Democratic Convention will be announced when it is opportune to do
so.
Brother Mexicans:
Our struggle continues. The Zapatista flag still waves in the
southeastern mountains of Mexico and today we say: We will not
surrender!
Facing the mountains we speak to our dead so that their words
will guide us along the path that we must walk.
The drums sound, and in the voices from the land we hear our
pain and our history.
"Everthing for everyone," say our dead. "While this is not
true, there will be nothing for us."
Find in your hearts the voices of those for whom we fight.
Invite them to walk the dignified path of those who have no faces.
Call them to resist. Let no one receive anything from those who
rule. Ask them to reject the handouts from the powerful. Let all
the good people in this land organize with dignity. Let them resist
and not sell-out.
Don't surrender! Resist! Resist with dignity in the lands of
the true men and women! Let the mountains shelter the pain of the
people of this land. Don't surrender! Resist! Don't sell-out!
Resist!
Our dead spoke these words from their hearts. We have seen
that the words of our dead are good, that there is truth in what
they say and dignity in their counsel. For this reason we call on
our brother Mexicans to resist with us. We call on the indigenous
peasants to resist with us. We call on the workers, squatters,
housewives, students, teachers, intellectuals, writers, on all
those with dignity to resist with us. The government doesn't want
democracy in our land. We will accept nothing that comes from the
rotting heart of the government, not a single coin nor a single
dose of medication, not a single stone nor a single grain of food.
We will not accept the handouts that the government offers in
exchange for our dignity.
We will not take anything from the supreme government.
Although they increase our pain and sorrow, although death may
accompany us, although we may see others selling themselves to the
hand that oppresses them, although everthing may hurt and sorrow
may cry out from the rocks, we will not accept anything. We will
resist. We will not take anything from the government. We will
resist until those who are power exercise their power while obeying
the people's will.
Brothers:
Don't sell-out. Resist with us. Don't surrender. Resist with
us. Repeat along with us, "We will not surrender! We will resist!"
Let these words be heard not only in the mountains of the southeast
of Mexico, but in the north and on the peninsulas. Let it be heard
on both coasts. Let it be heard in the center of the country. Let
it cry out in the valleys and in the mountains. Let it sound in the
cities and in the countryside. Unite your voices, brothers. Cry out
with us: "We will not surrender! We will resist!"
Let dignity break the siege and lift off us the filthy hands
with which the government is trying to strangle us. We are all
under siege. They will not let democracy, freedom and justice enter
Mexican territory. Brothers, we are all under siege. We will not
surrender! We will resist! We have dignity! We will not sell-out!
What good are the riches of the powerful if they aren't able
to buy the most valuable thing in these lands? If the dignity of
the Mexican people has no price, then what good is the power of the
powerful?
Dignity will not surrender!
Dignity will resist!
Democracy!
Freedom!
Justice!
>From the mountains of southeastern Mexico
Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee - General Command of
the Eje'rcito Zapatista de Liberacio'n Nacional
Mexico
June, 1994