5,000 Zapatista women march in San Cristobal
Jose Gil Olmos, writer, Elio Hernandez, correspondent, San
Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, March 8
In one of the largest concentrations of indigenous women
that has ever been done in the state, in which nearly 5000
Zapatistas from the jungle, the highlands, and the border
area of Chiapas participated, the demands were for the
demilitarization of the regions occupied by Army troops,
which have been present for more than a year, and the
elimination of the white guards in the state.
After a journey of days and hours from their communities,
the thousands of indigenous women, with ski-masks and
bandannas over their faces, marched through the main streets
of the Royal City, to celebrate International Women's Day,
and to denounce the racism that "the government never has
admitted".
Barefoot or in sandals, in boots or tennis shoes, with their
children wrapped in shawls at their breast to feed them, the
Zapatista indigenous women also protested against the
oblivion created by the government and the society.
"We struggle so that in Mexico there is justice, that our
rights be respected, that we live as human beings and not as
animals, that we be recognized as the peoples that we are
and as citizens", they demanded while gathering in the plaza
in front of the San Cristobal Cathedral, in whose center a
seven meter high (21 foot) wooden cross was raised. Some of
those who came to the former Jovel had never before left
their communities, hidden in the Lacandon jungle or set back
in the mountains of the Highlands. The opportunity to
participate in the march was also an opportunity to get to
know the city, to leave their communities, where no one
knows they exist.
"..Nothing is said about the indigenous as peoples, and even
less about the indigenous women; we do not appear in any law
that the government makes because for it we do not exist",
said of the women who, for the first time, spoke before
thousands of her own people united in one place.
The cold of the city and the light rain that slowly soaked
through were the reception for the indigenous Zapatista
women who conducted the largest march ever of Tojobal,
Tzotzil, Tzeltal, and Chol women, sympathizers and soldiers
of the EZLN.
Some traveled by truck for several hours, others came to the
city early. Silently they put on their ski-masks and walked
through this city, famous for the racism of its inhabitants,
the "authentic coletos", in honor of the Spaniards who
founded the Royal City, who wore their hair tied up, in "a
pony tail".
In a disciplined manner, they gathered in the Main Square of
San Cristobal, and there they listened to the message which
Subcomandante Marcos sent them through a communique: "doubly
humiliated, as women and as workers, the Mexican indigenous
women are also humiliated for the color of their skin,
their language, their culture, their past. A triple
nightmare that forces Zapatista women to take up a weapon
and add her "Enough is Enough!" to those of their male
companeros. A triple nightmare that forces a triple
rebellion".
But in the face of the idea that the struggle for the
dignity of women is against the man, Marcos stated: "we
understand that this struggle is not against men, but is
also for the rights of women. We understand that this
struggle is not against Ladinos nor Mestizos, but is also
for the rights of the indigenous women".
Later, an indigenous woman read a long communique from the
Women for Dignity from the Zapatista Front for National
Liberation. In broken Spanish, she said that the Zapatista
indigenous women rose up with their companeros " because we
were tired of the many injustices that the bad governments
had submitted us to".
We are, they said, the product of 503 years of slavery,
injustice, misery, exploitation, discrimination, and lack of
rights. But now "we have begun our struggle to make
ourselves valued, to make ourselves heard, to fulfill the
demands that have never been met".
The rebel women spoke of the lack of services in their
communities, of the absence of clinics and medicines to
combat curable diseases, from which their children die, of
the scarcity of schools and decent housing, potable water
and electricity, and the lack of resources to make a land
productive which is increasingly sterile.
They stated that they had risen up in arms in order to
"struggle for our independence, so that the wealth of our
country no longer be pillaged by foreign monopolies, so that
our country no longer be run by a select few". Wrapped in
their shawls, "chujs" and sweaters, the Zapatista women
lifted up their bandannas with the demand that "the federal
army leave our communities". Along these lines, in the
communique, they denounced the fact that soldiers, police
and economic bosses have fomented alcoholism and
prostitution in the indigenous communities.
They described the situations created by the military
presence since February of last year: "Our homes are used as
whorehouses, the few classrooms for our children are
occupied by the soldiers; the sports fields are used as
parking space for tanks, helicopters and armed cars of the
bad government".
Before leaving the plaza, which was guarded by dozens of
soldiers and plainclothes police, some of whom were posted
in the balcony of the city hall, the Zapatista indigenous
women demanded to be taken into account in the agrarian
laws, in order to have rights to the land; they demanded new
labor laws to protect them; a national fund to support
economic projects; special laws to punish the constant
violations to which they are subjected; and that all forms
of discrimination be considered crimes.
(Translated by the National Center for Democracy in Mexico)