this follows on the chiapas journal I made last year during the caravan I participated in then. if you haven't read it, it might explain some things that I am skipping over in this second journal.
here's the first journal:
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/278
more info on the pastors for peace:
http://www.pastorsforpeace.org
4 dec 2003
san cristobal de las casas
chiapas, mexico
well....here I am in chiapas again. it's amazing how at home I feel here...in the midst of the insanity of the past year, which I've mostly spent bicycling with the bike circus across the country, then getting hit by a car and recovering.....I must have forgotten just how good it smells here, how good it feels to be around people who are simply _living_, without pretense or affectation, without participating in a capitalist system of exploitation, but living off the land, growing and harvesting, surviving and thriving, bursting with life and love in one of the most beautiful areas in the world. driving through the mountains of chiapas today, I felt like I was driving through a dream.......fog hanging low on the mountainside, rolling across the hills, green trees and coffee plants side by side peeking through the mist as smoke fires burned in the distance and children carrying firewood smiled and waved as we passed.
i joined up with the pastors for peace in miami, in the midst of an insane week of protesting against the free trade area of the americas, which was being negotiated behind closed doors, with a huge metal fence and thousands of militarized police 'protecting' the negotiators. i can't even begin to describe the whirlwind of activity that surrounded this meeting, the tens of thousands of protesters, the national and international movement against this form of corporate globalization and colonialism, the brutality of the police in miami......here's a couple links if you want to find out more:
my version...
http://www.ftaaimc.org/en/2003/12/2600.shtml
and check out the indymedia site I was helping with while I was down there. It contains a lot of different accounts and pictures:
http://www.ftaaimc.org
more on the ftaa:
http://www.stopftaa.org
http://www.globalexchange.org
http://www.foodfirst.org
so after our escape from the storm of miami (unscathed! which is more than I can say for many of my friends...), we headed to mcallen texas to sort out the boxes of aid....we stayed at a convent outside of town that was surrounded by an orchard of organic oranges and grapefruits -- pretty idyllic scene for sorting aid -- and went through the boxes that had been donated to the people of chiapas, honduras and nicaragua. it made me a little sad and disheartened to note that the vehicles were not full, but were half empty......we could have brought a lot more aid than we did. and a lot of the boxes we went through contained crap -- I mean, the stuff that people in the US see fit to donate to the so-called 'third world' is pretty horrendous -- cheap, broken, old, unusable stuff -- discarded items from their own over-consumptive lives. if the people donating this stuff could just come down to the communities receiving it, and see that it IS important that the bike that they send is not rusty and missing parts, that the computer they send is actually WORKING and not an obsolete model that won't serve anyone well, that the first aid not be expired, the tools not be broken.......the aid could be of a much higher quality than it is right now. it's a matter of getting the network of donaters to care deeply about the communities that are to be the recipients, so they don't think of it as 'charity', but think of it more as something they would give their own brother or sister as a gift. but more on this issue later....now on to our voyage!
crossing the border was easy this time.....especially compared to last year's nightmare. well, maybe it was last year's ordeal that made it easier for us to cross this year. when they heard we were the pastors for peace, they rushed us right through. well, that's not totally true. that was after a couple of days of negotiations, during which the customs agents demanded a list of all the serial numbers of computers we were donating, and a written document from mexico city authorizing our entry. but when that document arrived, it was pretty easy for us to cross.
which is not to say that there wasn't harassment -- but it came mainly from the mexican military, not immigration and customs. we were stopped five times along the way down through mexico, at military checkpoints, and detained at each one, asked the same questions, then released. at one point we were followed by a gold jeep (which had previously been identified as being from the national security agency of the mexican government), but it didn't follow us the whole way. the country has definitely not lessened its militarization since january, when we were last here, but it seems that the week we were travelling down they were mainly focused elsewhere.....perhaps in mexico city, where over a million mexican workers were gathered to protest against privatization. many had travelled from the far reaches of the country to be at the march, which took place on the 27th of november. just one example of the thousands of acts of resistance taking place throughout the hemisphere against this corporate-managed trade regime that is currently gaining so much power.
i look around at the society i live in, a society built on capitalism and the rule of might-makes-right, where families argue over money and people go shopping to fill the void they feel by the loss of their identity to the ever-growing machinery of 'progress', and I KNOW that there is something really twisted in the lives people are leading there. there's something morbid about the march toward death that people are blindly pursuing, without a thought to future generations or this planet. everyone plays their small part, and no one considers him or herself culpable for the destruction that is wrought upon the earth by this 'progress'. people put their blinders on, and go to work, do their job, buy their things, and think that this is all there is to living. then perhaps they have a child or two and remember the joy that was childhood. their lives become devoted to their children, and they are easily manipulable because they don't want their children to suffer. in this way people become pawns in a game of global capitalism -- and who are the players in this game? people like zbignew brzyzinski, national security advisor under reagan, henry kissinger, advisor to five presidents and manipulator of world affairs, ed meese, donald rumsfield, john ashcroft. these are men who think they have the answers. and with those answers, they provide advice to presidencies and militaries that then intervene in conflicts the world over, killing millions of innocent people, causing untold suffering and hunger, and feeling justified in the policies they present by arguing that these deaths are necessary to maintain so-called 'progress' and US economic domination over the world.
but every empire must fall, and perhaps it is time for these arrogant assholes who run this country to come to terms with what they've done. and to what they've BEEN doing from the moment they 'grew up' and left their childhood bliss behind. and to what their ancestors have done for hundreds of years in the US, and over a thousand years in Europe, by destroying indigenous, earth-based cultures for the sake of installing a hierarchical, top-down, patriarchal christian capitalist regime. it's time to show the world that there IS another way, that we do not have to accept THEIR terms on OUR lives, we do not have to be indebted or enslaved, we do not even have to collect profit on every transaction in our lives. no, life can be about so much more.....we just have to let it.
it's been so empowering to visit the autonomous communities here in chiapas. people who, when asked what they hope the US or mexican government will do for them, respond, 'We have no hope for the government, any government. We have seen for the past 500 years what governments do to indigenous people, and we don't expect them to change anytime soon. We don't need their bad governments. We can take care of ourselves and our own community's needs.' People who refuse to be indebted to the capitalist bosses, who are taking back their dignity, their land, their livelihood. people who are standing up and saying 'Ya Basta!' (enough already!), who have been pushed around one too many times, and will not be pushed any more.
today we went to visit Polho, a refugee camp of 5,300 people from within Chiapas (the total number of 8,000 refugees includes those who are not refugees, but are affected by the problem). it was really powerful to hear the words of the consejo (council), as they told us what happened just yesterday. four farmers from a village just five kilometers away from the refugee camp where we were meeting were shot at by paramilitaries while they were harvesting their coffee beans. they managed to escape unscathed, but later went back to the spot and found the shells from .223 automatic rifles that the paramilitaries had used to shoot at them. the community leaders which we met with were trying to get the word out about this attack, which could easily have meant the deaths of four men -- in this case, they were lucky enough to be able to escape without being killed. but this is the meaning of low-intensity warfare -- a constant state of fear, a few killings now and then, but none that will make the national or international news, attacks on civilians that leave everyone afraid to go to their fields.
even though the reality of the situation on the ground is that the people of polho are hungry and homeless, that they have very little land to farm, and are afraid to go out to farm it because they will be shot at -- in spite of all this, the international red cross, which has been providing a nominal amount of food aid to the refugees up to this point, will be pulling out of the camp at the end of this month. the red cross has stated publicly that there is no longer any problem with paramilitaries in this area, in spite of the evidence and the reality all around them that shows the exact opposite. so the small amount of food aid provided to the people of polho each month will disappear....and who knows where they will find food after this happens. but the members of the consejo were adamant when they told us, 'we accept the aid that the red cross gives us, freely and willingly. but if they are going to lie about our reality, and leave us with nothing, that is their choice. we are not going to beg. we will survive. we're survivors. no matter what, we will continue to stand tall. we will not lose our dignity, that we have fought so hard to take back.'
as I listen to these and other zapatistas we have met with the last few days, I hear in their voices a determination that is so sure, so solid and so complete, that I know they will achieve their goals -- or die trying. and their goals are so simple -- to live on their land, to maintain their autonomy, to provide free education and health care for their people -- to be LEFT ALONE by the mexican government, american companies, and anyone else who wants to mess with them, or who wants to steal the resources on their land. they just want to live their traditional lives and be left alone.
and they have so many worthwhile projects going on: a clinic that they hope will be a hospital one day, if they can train the doctors and get the equipment they need, with eight micro-clinics in other parts of the region, a boot-making workshop, a brick-making workshop, a window-making workshop, schools in every community, community centers, women's artisan collectives, two coffee-growing collectives -- so many projects, each of them lacking the tools and equipment they need, but trying nonetheless to keep themselves going.
which brings me back to the question of the aid we brought. we took a lot out, and what we were left with to give the people in the autonomous communities were boxes of bikes, crutches, glasses, medical books, gauze, syringes, lab flasks and tubes, iv stands, paper, and a bunch of desks for the school. and then the 5 tons of corn and beans that we bought from a local collective here with money collected from people in the US, that we distributed to two communities that will use them to feed the people for a week or two. so it really wasn't very much -- a tiny drop in the bucket, considering the great need. but being here, and seeing that need, I always feel inspired to do more -- to go back to the states and really buckle down and write a bunch of letters to pharmaceutical companies asking for penicillin and antibiotics, to local fire departments and hospitals asking for used ambulances, x-ray machines, medical equipment, beds......to churches all over the country getting them to join the network the pastors for peace already have, and to really take seriously the directive of the church to give ten percent of their income in alms. now if a thousand churches in the US actually DID that, and gave their money to the campaign for corn, we could feed the people in the refugee camp for a year. that would give those people the opportunity to concentrate on building their community -- their school, clinic, workshops, collectives, without the constant worry about food. now THAT would be useful aid.....not the shit we brought. I mean, not that the bikes won't be used, and the school desks, the paper and the iv stands.....it's just that it's so little, and doesn't even begin to fill the need that exists.
anyway, in case you are inspired to begin collecting aid and money for next year's caravan (probably december), here's a short list I started....(by the end of the trip, I'll have a more complete list of needs, and a corresponding description of the project it is needed for....we got a list from the clinic of their needs, I'll include that later):
solar panels with generators
ambulances
x-ray machines
blood testing equipment
dental equipment
novocaine
medical books (in spanish)
--first aid
--nutrition
--various specialties -- physiology, pediatrics, surgery
antibiotics
medicine for diarrhea (many children die from it here)
pickup trucks
computers (pentium or above)
leather-working tools
guitars, musical instruments (not broken)
audio equipment: mixers, microphones, stereos, antennas, transmitters
flashlights (rechargeable batteries and battery chargers?)
jack-knives
portable fm radios
This is just a beginning, of course. The main idea is that we should concentrate on getting stuff that they can't find down here, because it costs US to bring it down here in trucks, and if we're going to bring a bunch of boxes of paper it would really make more sense for us to get money in the US and buy the paper down here -- it would probably be cheaper. anyway, you know what I mean. if you want to get donations, concentrate on the big stuff. you'd be surprised -- sometimes it just hapens that a local fire department is getting new equipment, and don't have a place for their former ambulance. well, it never hurts to ask.
And then there are the cooperatives: coffee, weaving, boots, hammocks, dolls -- they are looking for places to sell their products in the US....people to help with distribution, fair trade stores, or mail order. there's so much we can do from the US to help this struggle. if you have any ideas, let me know, and I can forward the information on the cooperatives. again, all it takes is asking -- going to the local fair trade store and connecting with their buyer, then connecting them up with the cooperatives.
the mut vitz coffee collective is a good place to start, they've been around for several years, and have a distribution network set up in the states already:
http://www.thehumanbean.com
they need people to get their local coffee shops to order from the mut vitz cooperative, instead of buying cheap plantation coffee that exploits the workers and desertifies the land.
something about coffee and the region we visited today -- after the acteal massacre in 1997, when 45 people were killed by paramilitaries while praying in a church, many of them women and children, paramilitary members and supporters were seen just DAYS after the massacre, harvesting the coffee of the people who had been killed or who had fled during the massacre. So the coffee may have been what the paramilitaries were after. or maybe it was just an added benefit -- after massacring 45 people, they got to steal their coffee crop too. it's sick....just totally sick.
and remember that many of these people who commit the atrocities are trained in the US -- at the US Army School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, GA or other similar military training schools......when will this madness ever end?
http://www.soaw.org
well, it's up to us, people in the US, to do something about the monster that is flailing out of control, whose mouth and stomach are in our own country. we need to stop this beast from destroying this world. that is why I want to support this struggle.......these humble people, the poorest of the poor, are standing up to the giant that is corporate capitalism and resisting with all their being it's encroachment onto their land and culture. and in a lot of ways....they are winning. their movement is growing, changing, developing, and though the militarization of this region is INTENSE (just today, we saw more than 20 army vehicles and three military bases near the autonomous communities), they have managed to hold onto their autonomy and create the schools and clinics they desire for their communities WITHOUT government assistance and in fact, with a whole lot of government repression and intimidation. they've done it despite the intimidation, despite the fact that they are called illegal (even though they've lived here longer than anyone), despite the murders of their people by government-trained paramilitary groups. they've held on and resisted, and have built numerous clinics and schools over the last ten years (since jan. 1, 1994, the date of their rebellion -- the day NAFTA went into effect). they don't need to win military battles or even fight to know that they are winning. the new signs that have recently gone up in different communities say it best: "You are now entering zapatista autonomous territory in rebellion. here the people give the orders, and the government obeys." after 500 years of racist oppression of indian people, that statement alone is a victory. now...onward to the next step. and then the next. as one zapatista companero told us: "The path presents itself, and we continue along it." |
BUSQUEDA / SEARCH