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Migration, the business
Luis Hernández Navarro
In Tres Veces Mojado (Three times a Wetback), Los Tigres del Norte, those essential chroniclers of the migrant feelings and experiences, sing and tell the story and the sacrifices of a Salvadoran in search of the American dream. The song, composed by migrant Enrico Franco Aguilar, says: “Three borders I had to cross/undocumented I walked through three countries / three times I risked my life/and for this they say I’m a wetback [1] three times over…” (https://bit.ly/3oOVAyC).
The piece, practically a hymn for those who exercise their right to flee from Central America, tells of the enormous suffering that must be endured to cross borders without papers. “In Guatemala and Mexico, when I crossed over/twice I was saved from becoming a prisoner/ The same language and color, I reflected/How is it possible that they call me a foreigner,” the corrido [2] goes.
The drama of the Central American migrants, as exemplified in the song, is more serious than that of Mexicans in the United States. Before arriving at their final destination, they must traverse Mexico, suffer extreme hardship, hostility and extortion by the police, and expose themselves to assaults and kidnapping, and— for the women —to rape.
Shamefully, opinions in the country that the migrants damage communities, that they are delinquents and criminals are widespread. They blame Hondurans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans and now, Haitians for the insecurity that is experienced. They treat them in the same way in which many U.S. citizens treat our fellow countrymen that cross the border.
Migrating is a mixed experience. Those who make the decision to go and make their life outside of their national borders leave behind violence, insecurity, poverty, hardship, and oppression, and seek to make their dreams a reality. Poverty is not the only thing that forces one to migrate. The emigrant wants to live. However, frequently, their dreams transform into nightmares. The tragic accident in Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas in which at least 55 migrants died, travelling in an overcrowded trailer at the service of a mafia of human traffickers, is the demonstration of how this flight to a better life sometimes ends in misfortune.
As Alberto Pradilla has narrated, the victims had to pay the smugglers 11 thousand dollars per adult and 4 thousand per minor, in order to be transferred from the border to Houston, Texas.
Matteo Dean, a young researcher of the labor world, tragically deceased, explained the semantic limitations of the term “migrant” and how these language limitations express the ineptitude at handling this hot potato. “Upon writing the word migrant —he warned — most computer text editing programs indicate an error. The spell-check explains that there are the words immigrant or emigrant. The absence of the word ‘migrant’ from the semantic framework is not a coincidence. The limitations of a language? Maybe, or maybe just the limits of a language that still is not capable, and does not want to be capable of explaining, and recognizing, a real phenomenon —that of the migrant.”
Migration is as much a colonial heritage as a product of neoliberalism. Its effect has modified human boundaries. The geography of capital is not a geography with clear lines between the center and the periphery. There is more and more periphery in the center and center in the periphery. A study of the current migratory flow cannot stop at a north-south approach because it is no longer possible to trace precise, absolute boundaries. There is a continuous geographic redefinition. The borders of exploitation are reproduced in the transnational space. Crossing the Mexican territory, citizens of the most diverse nations and regions of the planet seek to arrive surreptitiously to the United States — besides Central Americans, Brazilians, Haitians, Chinese and Korean, also from Congo, Cameroon and Sierra León.
The border is a system of gates that is filled or emptied depending on the necessities of the labor force and the pressures to lower its cost. The key that locks the entry to the land of promise for many, opens it for others. In the United States the working class not only has two sexes, but many nationalities. Available to work more hours for less salary and without social security, undocumented workers make it possible for the great masters of empire to prosper, and the work that others don’t want to do is carried out. The emigrating workers in the metropolis, John Berger affirms, are immortal — they are always interchangeable. They have only one function: to work.
Guatemala is a huge warehouse in which drugs, weapons, pirated items, stolen cars, and human beings are stockpiled, a business for criminal gangs with networks of complicity among Guatemalan and Mexican authorities. They are vertically integrated. Their merchandise enters Mexico through a porous border of 965 kilometers. In the 20 Chiapas municipalities nestled in that territory, they have infrastructure, organization and relationships to move the products to their destination with impunity.
In Mexico, militarized routes and borders force undocumented people into the hands of smugglers and organized crime. According to the National Immigration Institute, this year 225,000 people were detained, 35 thousand in operations targeting trailers. Many more have crossed this way.
Mexico’s southern border is experiencing a humanitarian crisis. It is not the result of some conspiracy. It is the result of having turned the National Guard into a sort of Border Patrol surrogate, internalizing U.S. immigration policy.
[1] Wetback is a derogatory term used to describe undocumented persons living in the United States. The term initially referred to Mexicans who crossed the border by swimming or wading across the Rio Grande.
[2] Corridos are traditional Mexican ballads that usually narrate a story or historical event.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada on Tuesday, December 14, 2021
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/12/14/opinion/019a1pol
English Translation: Schools for Chiapas
Re-Published by the Chiapas Support Committee
CIDE and the Acteal Massacre
By: Luis Hernández Navarro
Repeating it is inevitable. One more anniversary of the Acteal massacre approaches, in which 45 indigenous people from the municipality of Chenalhó, Chiapas, were savagely murdered by paramilitaries. The massacre is a wound that cannot heal. The murderers were released and the intellectual authors were never tried.
Protected by soldiers and authorities, the perpetrators of the slaughter went to great lengths with their victims. Embarking on an action of purification, they proposed eliminating the pukuj (a kind of demon in Tsotsil), and the worms that contaminated the village. To give themselves courage and not fail in their work, they prepared with liquor, drugs, prayer and ceremony. They said, “blood purifies,” and made ready to celebrate the extermination.
That December 22, 1997, some 350 people were praying on the terrace of a coffee field that served as their refuge, next to the local Catholic chapel. It was their third day without a single bite to eat. They believed that fasting and praying served peace. They were mostly elderly, women and children. They were part of Las Abejas (The Bees).
At almost 11 in the morning, they began to hear shots. The bullets of the AK-47 went through the planks of the wall and hit the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe; also, the bodies of many of her believers. The children cried. The worshippers tried to flee and hide. It was a frightening hail of bullets, told one survivor.
At around 6 in the afternoon, the murderers returned to celebrate their feat. That day there was a party. During those hours, police and their bosses remained scarcely 200 meters away, while several government agencies denied that anything had happened. Already in jail, Pedro, a young Tseltal paramilitary, with tears in his eyes for so many dead children, said to his boss Tomás Pérez, “But I did not fail you, sir, I did my job.”
An initial investigation revealed the direct participation of military and ex-military personnel in the crime. Among others, 105 elements intervened: the retired Brigadier General, Julio César Santiago Díaz; Mariano Arias Pérez, a private from the 38th Infantry Battalion; Pablo Hernández Perez, a former soldier that led the massacre, and Sergeant Mariano Pérez Ruiz. The Public Security police protected and delivered uniforms to the paramilitaries. Jacinto Arias Cruz, municipal president of Chenalhó and leader of the PRI, handed out the weapons. Some of the direct participants were jailed. They never turned in their weapons.
After years of the massacre being in political and legal lethargy, interrupted only by the living memory of the victims, the case returned to the national political agenda as of the 2006 presidential elections. An ambitious official operation set in motion the rewriting of the history of the State crimes to exonerate the intellectual authors in the eyes of public opinion.
One day before the 9th anniversary of the massacre, the political association Alternative Citizen 21 and the Center for Economics Research and Teaching (CIDE) reported that they had assumed the defense of 75 Acteal detainees and were calling upon the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) to establish new parameters of action in the case. The Center’s Division of Legal Studies justified its involvement in the case as an example of the abysmal state of the administration of justice.
Curiously, in a country in which the prisons are full of innocent indigenous people, victims of power, the educational institution was involved in the defense of the Acteal paramilitaries who killed members of Las Abejas. The initiative was accompanied by a noisy media campaign, the central role of which was carried out by a professor of CIDE, a defender of the paramilitaries, at that time an electoral ally of Felipe Calderón, and years later a superdelegate of the 4T in Morelos, and author of the exculpatory story of the assassins: Hugo Eric Flores Cervantes.
August 12, 2009, arguing that the murderers did not receive due process, the SCJN decided to release 20, who were plainly identified by the families of the victims, under the claim that the Attorney General of the Republic’s Office fabricated evidence to incriminate the prisoners. On February 2, 2012 it ordered the release of seven more. It never resolved whether the paramilitaries were innocent or guilty, because the court did not impart criminal justice, that is, it never got into the merits of the case, but rather only resolved an injunction on second hearing. At least 4 of the 11 ministers that were part of the (including the current Senator Olga Sánchez Cordero) owe their post to the former president, Ernesto Zedillo, the head-of-state when the massacre took place.
Today there is unrelenting violence in Aldama and Chalchihuítan, with deaths and displaced people, as a consequence of the release of the material assassins of Acteal. The paramilitaries of Chenalhó that over the years have attacked the residents of these municipalities are the same ones that killed the members of Las Abejas de Acteal 24 years ago, or family members of the murderers. Rosa Pérez, former municipal president of Chenalhó, a key figure in the reactivation of the civilian armed groups, is family of those who perpetrated the massacre. Abraham Cruz, until recently the municipal treasurer, is the son of the pastor who blessed the guns of the murderers. (https://bit.ly/2Xle8q7).
At CIDE, there are excellent teachers and brilliant and committed students. But, as the case of Acteal demonstrates, that does not obviate the fact that the center has been used for what it was used for.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada on Tuesday, December 21, 2021
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/12/21/opinion/017a2pol
English translation: Schools for Chiapas
Re-Published by the Chiapas Support Committee
Neoliberal culture shows cracks, but has not been defeated
Latin American progressivism has failed to promote a left, alternative and radiant replacement in that region
García Linera thinks that Colombia has rebelled against the enslavement of the north’s neoliberalism. Photo: Marco Peláez
By: Luis Hernández Navarro / Part 2 of 2
One of the great weaknesses of Latin American progressivism and something that explains its partial defeats is the lack of a popular left, alternative and radiant culture, with new axes for organizing daily life, affirms Álvaro García Linera.
For him, despite the electoral triumphs and progressive ideas in the region, neoliberalism, despite its triumphs, has established a common sense, which goes beyond who the ruler is, he exposes in a talk with La Jornada about progressivism, the left, the right and popular culture. Next, the final part of this interview.
–It would seem that in countries like Chile, [1] El Salvador and Ecuador the right has achieved not only winning elections, but also the imaginary of the middle and popular sectors. How do we explain this phenomenon?
–And not only there…
“Even in progressive experiences, the neoliberal imaginary as mass culture has not been completely dismantled. Evidently, there have been moments of breakdown, of stupor and of cognitive openness in some places, but 40 years of neoliberalism have settled a common sense, which goes beyond who the ruler is, whether the State should protect you. It has settled on other kinds of personal expectations.
“Progressivism is not the overcoming of neoliberal culture. It is a process of struggle against that culture. With ups and downs, it has made progress in other aspects, but in this –and in others– it has not even given battle. There are cases in which it’s not even present as a partial struggle against neoliberal culture. There, neoliberal rule is almost absolute.
“Just that it’s a tired dominance. It’s no longer axiomatic, it presents doubts. In the ‘90s, neoliberalism fulfilled a series of life axioms, which people assumed without question, as if they were something of nature. Today, in progressive experiences, but also in countries like Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, in Europe itself, it’s a discourse that begins to walk lame, to stumble, bump into the stands, it’s clumsy when climbing, when walking down the street. It’s starting to show cracks.
“In countries where progressivism has triumphed, those cracks have been taken advantage of to try to promote, also with stumbles, a new culture, still partial, of medium breath. But I feel that, sooner than later, that new culture is also going to emerge in other places.”
–Where would it be emerging?
–Colombia has been what was Chile in the ‘90s. In the 21st century it has become a country in which, with Walt Disney franchises, the promotion of its artists, the overwhelming North American military presence and the imaginary that they are the continuation of Miami in Latin America, the United States would consolidate a model.
“It’s about a model in which a neoliberalism of the South, subordinated, a vassal of the North’s neoliberalism functions successfully. In which US representatives meet with Colombian businessmen and politicians. In which Colombian universities are open to the North Americans. In which its popular culture is being recognized by Hollywood.
“But look: there has been a gigantic mobilization of repudiation against all that. Certainly, it has not been able to transfer it into the politics. And that is an experience of how collective action must have a strategy for being able to radiate a political event. But, even there, in what is the new Chile of the 2020s, there has been a tremor, a cracking. I trust that this will continue in the rest of the countries on the continent.
–In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Latin American left had a formidable cultural potency. Its musical, literary and graphic production were exceptional. Where is progressivism’s cultural work?
–That left culture has fed the political force, the cadres and the knowledge of the reality of progressivisms. The left of the ‘60s has not given rise to progressivism, but has nourished it and has given it an internal temperament. A species of internal tensors, small but very solid.
“I give the example of Bolivia. The emergence of the indigenous-campesino has nothing to do with the left of the ‘60s. Nothing. What’s more, to the left of the ‘60s indigenous-campesinos were second-class actors, the petty bourgeoisie that was going to see how the workers made revolution. The campesino emergence is born from other sectors, from other experiences.
“At the time of the great collective insurrections, this Left, marginalized by neoliberalism, with an urban presence, powerful in the ‘60s, ‘70s, re-emerges in the ‘80s and ‘90s. And then it’s called by progressivism, as part of its cadres, in the ambit of the compressed moments of the previous ideological battles that surrender to electoral victories.
“I am convinced that, ideas are always won, although it may only be partially, before winning electorally. And, there, the old left, the old cadres helped in a compressed moment. They knew how to understand that it was time, they didn’t wait. Some did and they stayed in their cubicle, hoping that socialism or communism would come. But another part joined in. They understood that there was the popular. And those cadres helped to think and enrich, both the effort and the political discussion.
“But the new progressivism has not had either the time or the lucid gaze to expand this leftist culture. It has done it very slowly or in some cases has not done it at all.
“I don’t know if Bolivia is too extreme an example. The paradox has been that in the 1960s and ‘70s there was a left-wing middle-class culture. But the Indians made the revolution in the 2000s, not the middle class. The middle class joined in. That speaks of the radicality of the process, of an indigenous and popular emergence, either plebeian, or from below.
“It’s like another world, in which the taco vendor becomes a minister, and then returns to selling tacos. He isn’t the type that becomes rich and lives in Pedregal in a mansion because of being a social leader.”
–Has a new left culture emerged?
–One of the errors of progressivism, in which I place Bolivia, is not having had enough time to produce a new left culture with this indigenous imprint. No longer the old one.
It cannot be the previous one coming from that radicalized middle-class gaze. Because now, there is the commoner in the street. But, even so, we have not had the time and the ability to create a culture.
“That’s why I said that neoliberal culture has not been defeated. We have opened cracks. It has indentations. It has slits. But it has not been replaced by a new cultural framework.
“When are you going to be able to dismantle the neoliberal cultural framework? When you have a popular culture of the left, alternative and radiant, with new axes for organizing daily life.
“That is one of the great weaknesses of progressivism and something that explains its partial defeats. Because, if it had been achieved, you would have had a long-term cycle, of three or four decades at least. But there has been a wave of 15 years, and, now, another rebirth. I’m not sure that it will have a life of another 15 or 20 years. No.
“The great debate about the new cultural structures for organizing daily life is not yet on your side. You still don’t have a left culture on the continent, a popular, radical culture, with triumphant left narratives.”
[1] Chile held the second round in its presidential election process last Sunday, December 19, 2021. The winner was the 35-year old candidate of the left, Gabriel Boric, a former leader of student protests against the right-wing government.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Sunday, December 12, 2021
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/12/12/politica/008e1pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
In the US, not in Spain, the central command of the Latin American right
Save exceptions, Latin American armies are ones of caste, García Linera indicates. Photo:‘La Jornada’
By: Luis Hernández Navarro/Part 1 of 2
The conservative command of the Latin American right is in the United States, not in Spain. Vox [1] is small and clumsy. In exchange, Washington promotes a series of basic values: market, individuality, institutionalism against social convulsions and wealth as life’s objective, affirms Álvaro García Linera.
The Vice President of the Pluri-National State of Bolivia between 2006 and 2019 is one of the most prominent intellectuals of the contemporaneous left. His extensive and suggestive intellectual production is the fruit of a political commitment that landed him in prison for seven years and a solid political formation.
On his return to Mexico, the country where he studied mathematics at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) and where he was isolated as a result of the coup against him and President Evo Morales, he spoke with La Jornada about the difficult relationship between progressivism on the continent and the middle classes, the project of the right in the area and the excessive confidence that the governments of national-popular inspiration have had towards their armies.
–Of what does progressivism in Latin America consist?
–Progressivism has a wide spectrum, but it shares common things. The first thing is that there are new political forces that burst onto the political scene, in criticism of the old traditional political system, which had been bolted to State structures for 40 years, and in other countries for 50 or 70 years.
“The second thing is a vindication of the popular, of its presence, of its rights. It seeks a modification of the composition of the distribution of the national economic surplus between capital and labor, in favor of the popular and labor sectors. And a recuperation of the role of the State as manager, administrator or amplifier of the commons and collective rights. That is what’s common about progressivism.
“Starting with that you have, from more moderate views that meet this minimum common denominator and stay there, to more radicalized progressivisms, which propose the productive role of the State, through nationalizations of certain strategic sectors of the economy. And mobilization, as a way of managing administration of the State.
“These three elements: the consistent presence of the State, social democratization in the management of what’s public and modification of the class composition of State leadership, would be the most radicalized progressivism.”
–Is it a project different from that of social democracy, that of the old revolutionary nationalism, that of communism and that of national liberation?
–There are no sharp ruptures. In some cases, it’s the continuation of the national-popular of the ‘50s. Middle-class elites committed to the popular are the ones who make certain decisions, as happened in the 1940s, ‘50s and part of the ‘60s in Latin America. But in other cases, no. In other cases, it’s a substantial rupture.
“The presence of Indians governing, in the case of Bolivia, broke with any continuity with revolutionary nationalism or with the national-popular of the 1950s. Although there is continuity in terms of a role of the State, it is a modification in the class composition. It’s the serf becoming the master. There you have a 180 degree turn in the composition of the State.”
The same interests
–Does the Latin Americana right have a project?
–It always has a project: fundamentally, protecting its interests. The question is whether it has an expansive, seductive, universalist project, as it came to have in the 1980s, when neoliberalism on a world level was presented as the answer to the crisis of the welfare state in countries of the north. And it was presented as the necessary conclusion to the collapse of the experiences with real socialism.
“Not today. Today is: let’s return to privatizing, to deregulating work, to opening markets and concentrating wealth in the rich who are going to spill it on the poor. But, doing it in a war, in a crusade against those who oppose it: communists, indigenous rebels, migrants (depending on what country you are in), the populism of the rulers, the empowered unions.
“Now, the discourse has lost its universality. It no longer seduces you, but rather seeks to impose on you. Its content is the same: defending the rich through that recipe book with four axes, but now based on a holy war against the infidels of this political-economic creed. It’s a discourse that comes to impose, no longer to convince.”
–Is the organizing center of the Latin American right the face of José María Aznar or of Vox, in Madrid?
–No. Vox is still small and clumsy. Its colonial mentality doesn’t allow it to understand the Latin American reality, beyond nonsense such as demonstrating civilization to Latin Americans. Today, only pure racists from the continental political life receive that story. They are grateful, every time they have lunch and cross themselves, having a foreign surname and a lighter skin color than the rest of their compatriots.
“The conservative command is still in the United States. It is very powerful. It does it through USAID, the State Department and the institutions that promote human rights and support entrepreneurship. The strength of this discourse remains there. Not in its extreme version, because North Americans are the Empire of the last 100 years. They are more intelligent that the extinct and cadaverous Empire that the Spanish oligarchy represents.
“The North Americans have more skill. They promote a series of basic values: market, individualism, institutionalism against social convulsions, wealth as a life objective. There is the main strength, the command of the continent’s conservative sectors. And it’s a local creation of each country, how all those elements are wrapped in more democratic or more authoritarian discourses.
“The authoritarianism and racialized speech of the Latin American right emerge more as an instinctive reaction to a series of risks they see with the emergence of populisms and progressivisms. What Vox is doling is attempting –on that neoconservative, authoritarian and racialized right– to put together a kind of Iberian-American coordination, an international-continental kind. But it’s very clumsy. There, the North Americans give it lessons on how to get to know local realities in order to have a greater impact.”
Gramsci’s Transformism
–How do you explain the romance and divorce between the middle classes and progressivism in Latin America?
–Predictable, but not obligatory. Gramsci called this transformism, in one of his viewpoints. How sectors of the middle or upper class, not as a class, but as radicalized groups, in certain moments of political crisis can feel attracted by the emergence and novelty of the popular. But with time, –says Gramsci–, the call of class is given. You go back and forth from where you started. It’s predictable, but should not be something mandatory.
“You have to see how progressivism didn’t do enough to delay transformism, so that the vicious circle of going and returning to their place of origin is not completed. Each country has its own path to transformism.
“The middle classes are becoming politicized, they organize, debate, discuss. But it’s not a politicization of the left, like what took place in the 1970s. We have a politicization of the middle classes with a conservative logic, which makes it even more difficult for you to reverse it.
“Progressivism is having a problem with the middle sectors. Also, in the coming decades the United States is going to have racialized fundamentalist sectors as active political subjects.”
–What relationship has been established between the Army and the progressive governments?
–An excessive confidence. In progressivism we have believed that respecting institutions, promoting the presence of the popular, was sufficient. But, save exceptions, the Latin American armies are caste armies. Some more than others, the commanders have been commanders of caste. And if they are not of a real, visually verifiable caste, they are of an imaginary caste.
“In order to have the loyalty of the armed forces to the processes of democratization of wealth and of the rights that progressivism carries forward, it’s not enough to promote a participation of the popular in the mechanisms for selection of promotion in the commanders, nor is a respect for it as an institution enough.
“In progressivism we have not made a substantial reform of the military doctrine inherited from the cold war years, in which the enemy of the institution is the internal enemy, camouflaged, but the internal enemy. We have not finished eradicating that doctrine in our minds. This is one of the pending tasks and one of the risks of any radical progressive project on the continent.”
[1] Vox is a far-right political party in Spain.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Saturday, December 11, 2021
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Thank You
Zapatista Sixth Commission
Coordinating Team for the Journey for Life: Europe Chapter
December 14, 2021
To the organizations, movements, groups, collectives, original peoples and individuals from the different geographies of the land today known as “Slumil K´ajxemk´op”.[1]
From the Zapatista Extemporaneous [La Extemporánea][2] delegation:
Compañeras, compañeroas, compañeros:
Hermanoas, sisters, and brothers:
We send you warm greetings from the mountains of southeastern Mexico and can report that all of the compañeras and compañeros from the airborne delegation who visited you all in each of your geographies during the months of September, October, November, and December of 2021 have returned to their respective towns and positions.
As of 9:34 PM Zapatista time (8:34 PM Mexico time) on December 14, or 3:34 AM on December 15 Slumil K´ajxemk´op time, everyone had arrived at their respective villages, towns, and positions.
Each of us returned in one piece and in good health. We are all moved and touched by the days and nights that you allowed us to share with you, and we return with a life-long wound in our hearts which we will not allow to close.
It is now time for us to review our notes to inform our towns and communities of all that we learned and received from you: your histories, your struggles, your resistance, your indomitable existence, and above all, the embrace of humanity we felt from each of your hearts.
Everything we brought you came from our people. Everything we received from you is for our communities.
For all this–for your hospitality, your fellowship, your word, your listening, your gaze, your food and drink, your lodging, your company, your history and for the collective embrace from the heart that you are–we say:
Kiitos
Danke schön
Hvala ti
Благодаря ти
Gràcies
Děkuju
Grazie
Hvala vam
Tak skal du have
Ďakujem
Aitäh
Eskerrik asko
Merci
Diolch
Grazas
Σας ευχαριστώ
Köszönöm
Thanks
Go raibh maith agat
Paldies
Ačiū
Ви благодарам
Takk skal du ha
Dziękuję Ci
Obrigada
Mulțumesc
Спасибо
Хвала вам
Tack
Teşekkürler
Thank you,
SLUMIL K´AJXEMK´OP!
We will be in communication with you again soon, because the fight for life is not over. We still have so much to learn from and share with you.
See you soon, compas.
From the mountains of southeastern Mexico,
In the name of the Zapatista Extemporaneous [La Extemporánea]
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés Coordinator Mexico, December 2021
Notes:
[1] See the EZLN’s renaming of Europe: https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2021/04/20/421st-squadron/
[2] See the EZLN’s August 17, 2021 communique for an explanation of the use of “La Extemporánea” [The Extemporaneous]: https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2021/08/17/only-500-years-later/
En español: https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2021/12/15/gracias/
The military industrial complex
Above: Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, inspects work on the Maya Train with military personnel.
By: Raúl Romero
On January 17, 1961 upon concluding his term as president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a speech about which much has been written since that time. On that occasion, the outgoing president reported on the power that the military-industrial complex had acquired: In government councils we must guard against the acquisition of undue influences, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. Circumstances do and will exist that will make it possible for powers to emerge in undue places, with disastrous effects.
By the military industrial complex, Eisenhower referred to the link between the military system, the armaments industry and the government, a complex that involved the work of more than 3.5 million people, as well as a multi-million budget that represented more than the net income of all US companies in those years. The military-industrial complex, built with the argument of national defense and world peace, began taking shape after the Second World War.
The influence of this powerful alliance between industries, militaries and rulers, Eisenhower signaled, was total: economic, spiritual and “palpable in every city, in every state congress, in every department of the federal government.” In addition, the military-industrial complex also involved the reproduction of capital, development of military technology and the U.S. imperialist expansion.
Although the alliances between industry, rulers and militaries date back a long time and have different approaches, according to the conditions and characteristics of each country, the military-industrial complex classification helped to understand some of the dynamics of militarism and militarization, and also facilitated the understanding of the consolidation and expansion of the power elite in the U.S.
Five years before Eisenhower’s speech, Charles Wright Mills analyzed in his book, The Power Elite (1956) the changes in the U.S. elite and concluded that for its time, it was composed primarily of an alliance between warlords, top corporate bosses, and the political directorate. The warlords, explains Mills, got ahead by filling political vacancies, gained and were given more and more power to make decisions of the most serious consequences, or to influence them. Mills also warned about the role of publicity and technology in the complex, the reason for which some specialists prefer to use the term military-industrial-media and technology complex.
More than half a century has passed since the warnings issued by Mills and Eisenhower. Their prognosis came true: the military-corporate complex is in force today and with a decisive weight in the internal and external politics of the United States. It matters not whether the government is controlled by Democrats or Republicans, the military elite remain in power, making many from decisions or even making up wars to guarantee the reproduction of capital. But their survival has also implied their adaptation. The weapons and the enemies have changed, and that’s why today the military industrial complex builds technologies of surveillance, control and destruction while manufacturing a narrative of new threats, such as terrorism, organized crime and migrants.
Today in Mexico the Army wins more and more influence in every sphere, be it the political, economic and even the ideological, it’s worth recuperating the reflections with respect to the category of the military-business complex to try to understand the phenomenon.
First of all, we must look at the renewed alliance between government, military and industrialists in 2006 and then reoriented in 2018 toward the extractive sector, of infrastructure and energy, whether it be in the construction of the Santa Lucía airport, of the Maya Train (Tren Maya) [1] or of the Interoceanic Corridor, to mention two of them. Furthermore, defining these projects and works as national security reveals the importance of this alliance in the country’s current project. It is also necessary to observe if this alliance does or does not have to do with the interests of the U.S. military industrial complex, or if it has its own interests.
On the ideological plane, it’s necessary to pay attention to measures ranging from the return of obligatory service and the military passbook, to the broad publicity strategy that places the Army as a repository of patriotic values and the defense of the nation.
Likewise, two possible scenarios should be noted, both of which are counterproductive for society: the possibility that this alliance is merely the germ of a new elite, or the possibility that the old elite reclaims the State apparatus, a scenario in which an Army with that power would mean an even greater threat to the progressive, democratic and revolutionary forces.
When the military are predominant members of the power elite, Mills reflected, what they seek is expansion. Hopefully we still have time to shut them down.
[1] See also, “Militarizing the Maya Train”: https://chiapas-support.org/2021/04/01/militarizing-the-maya-train/
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada on Sunday, December 12, 2021
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/12/12/opinion/014a1pol
Translated by Schools for Chiapas and Re-Published by the Chiapas Support Committee
Ominous silence of the Mexican Government in the face of attacks on Zapatistas
New attacks against Nuevo San Gregorio Autonomous Zapatista Community
Violence towards the Zapatista autonomous communities has been constant and has escalated as part of the “La Extemporánea” delegation concludes its Tour for Life in Europe.
The Good Government Junta “New Dawn in Resistance and Rebellion for Life and Humanity” of Caracol No. 10 Blossoming the Rebel Seed) in the Patria Nueva Zone, has denounced new aggressions, harassment, and acts of surveillance that from the end of November to December 6 of this year the “Group of 40” has carried out against the Zapatista community of Nuevo San Gregorio, belonging to Lucio Cabañas autonomous municipality, official municipality of Huixtán, Chiapas.
Yesterday the Group of 40 raided the community to work the lands where support bases of the Zapatista National Liberation Army plant and cultivate their food, in addition to grazing cattle. They have pointed out that:
“These invaders set about creating a 50-meter-long trench for the water well that is the source of support and sustenance for the cattle collective of our Zapatista compañeros and compañeras, in order to cause the watering place for their animals to dry up… they are making an attempt on the lives of the animals that have been a sustenance in the struggle of our compañeras and compañeros for years with resistance and rebellion. The water well also feeds the fish collective, a 2×3-meter pond. The two collectives are now at high risk of collapse. It’s worth mentioning that the collectives’ areas are great sources of support and sustenance in our struggle for life. Not to do any harm, but these invaders continue to harass us and invade our territories.”
The dispossession, harassment, threats and surveillance of the Nuevo San Gregorio community began at the end of 2019. Today, the inhabitants have been left without being able to harvest the corn they had planted. The Group of 40 have cut timber and fruit trees on the land recuperated in 1994. Of the 155 hectares, only 10 hectares are in the hands of the community, undermining the development of their political and food autonomy, and their right to collective territorial property.
The Good Government Junta has denounced this series of violent acts, including the illegal and arbitrary detention of autonomous authorities. Therefore, we urge the Mexican State, which has had full knowledge of the facts since March 2020, to implement actions to put an end to the violence that is often sustained by community, municipal and state authorities, with full respect for the land and territory belonging to the EZLN within the framework of the San Andres Accords, the Law of Harmony and Pacification, ILO Convention 169, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Declaration of the American States.
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Originally Published in Spanish by the CDH Frayba on December 7, 2021
English interpretation by Schools for Chiapas and Re-Published by the Chiapas Support Committee
The Chinese Dragon and Latin America
The Chinese locomotive advances nonstop. Already the main driver of the global economy. And according to a report of McKinsey Global Institute, it has surpassed the United States as the richest nation on the planet (https://mck.co/2ZdpRxc).
By: Luis Hernández Navarro
The consulting firm’s report analyzes the national balance sheets of 10 countries, which hold more that 60 percent of the global income. It documents how the net wealth in the world passed from 156 billion dollars in 2000 to 514 billion dollars in 2020. It concludes: the Asian giant generated 50 percent of the growth of its net wealth in the last 20 years.
Despite the pandemic, China is the only major economy that did not suffer a recession in 2020. In fact, it grew 2.3 percent. According to the experts, between 2021 and 2025 it will reach an average annual growth of 5.7 percent. Right on track, last year it overtook Washington as the primary trading partner of the European Union (EU.) According to the World Economic Forum, it is poised to be the primary trading partner for Latin America and the Caribbean in less than 15 years.
The great eastern dragon is key to Latin America’s economy; it’s a voracious consumer of foods, minerals, metals, and fuels produced in the region. The trade exchanges, financial aid and investments of the country have been central in enabling the area, beyond the political leanings of its governments, to face the challenges of growth.
According to Alicia Bárcena, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal), the cooperation between China and Latin America and the Caribbean offers an opportunity to reduce the global asymmetries and support an inclusive transformational economic recovery that promotes sustainable development (https://bit.ly/3oST3m1).
Although the Asiatic giant has restricted its lending in the hemisphere (https://bbc.in/3cy9rCu), it is increasing rapidly in other sectors: trade, direct investment, development cooperation, and even cultural activities. In the context of the pandemic, research and development agreements have been intensified, more than anything in the pharmaceutical realm. Their focus (without abandoning other sectors) is on advancing logistics, services, telecommunications and transportation. Nothing indicates that this trend is going to disappear.
The Asian nation is Latin America’s second most important trading partner, ahead of the European Union. Now it represents 15% of trade in the region. Simultaneously, it is third as a source of investment in the economies of the region. Between 2015 and 2020, private and parastatal companies invested some 7 billion 850 million dollars in the hemisphere. Countries like Chile have had since 2006 a free trade agreement with the homeland of Mao Tse-Tung. And Peru became the favorite destination for investment from Chinese companies on the continent.
According to the Center for China-Mexico Studies (Chechimex), the colossus of the east has 138 infrastructure projects in Latin America, with approximately 94 billion dollars in investments that has generated 600,000 direct jobs (https://bit.ly/3kT1L2g).
The growing Chinese presence in an area of traditional U.S. influence is meeting with growing concern in Washington. The empire has sought to contain and administer the impact of the eastern power and circumscribe it to the economic sphere. At the same time Peking has been cautious and has made clear that its intention is to expand its economic frontiers.
It has to do with businesses, investments, and loans not conditioned to acceptance of the dogma of development, ideological considerations, or strictly political criteria. They always speak of cooperation and mutual aid.
In an interview with La Jornada, the former president of Bolivia Evo Morales explained the relationship this way: China supports development without blackmailing us, and without imposing conditions on us. The United States supports, but in exchange for privatization of natural resources and basic services, in addition to imposing the fight against drug trafficking. China, on the other hand, gives you credit without placing any conditions on you. This is the profound difference. The same with Russia and other countries. In my experience, we are fighting with an empire, but not with other powers. We are well balanced. (https://bit.ly/3DHg3ub)
In a brief videotaped message broadcast at the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States last September, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, offered help to the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to contribute to their prompt recovery from the pandemic and to advance their socioeconomic development. The relations, he indicated, have entered into a new era characterized by equality, mutual benefit, innovation, openness and well-being for the peoples. His country, he said, is inclined to work in a coordinated fashion to create opportunities in the region and construct a shared future. According to Enrique Dussel Peter, one of the most knowledgeable on the relation between China and Latin America, the video message is no small detail.
The strength of China’s presence in the region means, plain and simple, that there is no viable process of Latin American integration without it. The dragon of the orient has arrived in the region to stay.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/11/23/opinion/025a2pol
English Translation by Schools for Chiapas
Re-Published in English by the Chiapas Support Committee
The Tseltal communities that resist the National Guard
Nacional Guard barracks constructed on indígenous territory in Chilón municipality, without prior consultation of the communities.
Text and photos: Orsetta Bellani in Pie de Página
The Chilón Community Government is opposed to the megaprojects and the presence of National Guard barracks, which has now been constructed by order of Sedena, [1] thus violating the right of the peoples to territory and putting the communities’ right to security at risk.
CHIAPAS
César Hernández Feliciano took his pozol seated in front of a small store at the Temó Crossroads, Chiapas, when he perceived that the tension was going to explode. The director of the Chilón Municipal Police used his knife to cut the banner of the Bachajón ejido members who, on October 15, 2020, were demonstrating against the installation of a National Guard barracks in their territory, and the struggle was beginning.
Cesar kept the pozol in his morral (shoulder bag) while he watched the rain of stones that the police threw at the protesters, and tried to take cover in the little store. He didn’t make it in time: a baton hit him and a group of police dragged him, kicked him and put him into the gondola of a patrol car. Then they transferred him to another, where the campesino and catechist, a militant of the Movement in Defense of Life and Territory (Modevite, its Spanish acronym), met José Luis Gutiérrez Hernández, another ejido member who had been arrested.
He had a deep head wound. They took them to the Center for Social Reinsertion for those Sentenced (CERSS, its initials in Spanish) in Ocosingo and charged them with rioting. Soon the torture began again.
“You are the leader of the Modevite,” the police shouted while they were beating him with a baton, behind the bars of his cell.
“There are no leaders in Modevite,” he answered to the blows.
“You are lying, asshole,” and another blow came.
César and José Luis were two days without eating or having any contact with the outside. On the third day, with their hands and feet in chains, they put them in a white [Nissan] Urvan.
“Now we’re going to take you to hell,” the police threatened them. “It’s good, you’ll go after us,” answered César.
They spent more than five hours with their heads covered and bowed, their hands clasped at the neck. “It seemed like a forced disappearance, but I wasn’t afraid because I had faith in God,” says César Hernández.
It was arriving at the CERSS “El Amate” that the sadness began to appear. Nightmares haunted his nights and the marks on his body didn’t stop reminding him of the blows. It was difficult for him to walk and in order to stand up he had to scale the wall with his hands. To this day, César cannot carry much firewood because his abdomen burns.
Consequences of militarization
Chilón residents know the consequences of militarization. In 1995, after the EZLN Uprising, Sedena constructed a barracks in this area of the Lacandón Jungle populated by indigenous Tseltals, which was closed in 2007 due to opposition from the population.
“When I’m sitting here, everything that happened to me comes to mind and I start to cry,” says César. Not even here, in the courtyard of his home in San Martín Cruztón community, where he and his wife planted purple and orange flowers, does he find peace.
We’re talking about a Tseltal self-government body promoted by Modevite, which just this November 20 celebrated its fourth anniversary. It was elected through uses and customs, works in a parallel way to the partisan municipal government and asks for a consultation so that its right to govern its territory is recognized exclusively.
The Chilón Community Government is opposed to the megaprojects and the presence of the National Guard barracks, which have already been built by order of Sedena –instead of a civilian government body, as the Constitution provides- in spite of the fact that there was no prior, free and informed consultation. Those who approved its installation were only the municipal commissioner and the municipal president, who handed the territory over to the National Guard with a loan contract -in other words without making any payment- for 30 years renewable for another 30 years.
“The rates of violence and insecurity in Chilón do not justify the imposition of a military barracks and presence in this territory,” César Contreras of the Prodh Center affirms in a press conference, which together with the Frayba Human Rights Center assumed the legal defense legal of César Hernández and José Luis Gutiérrez, and the legal accompaniment of the Tseltal communities. “The question is: what then are the objectives of the installation of these barracks? Who or what projects are you taking care of?”
According to the Chilón Community Government, the megaprojects in play are several. “The San Sebastián Bachajón ejido commissioner goes around saying in the assemblies that the Coca Cola company will come to exploit a water hole to produce soft drinks,” says councilor Pascuala Vázquez Aguilar.
Chilón would also be crossed by the Highway of the Cultures, [2] infrastructure that is part of a megaproject that revives an ambition the Fonatur [3] has had since 2000 to build a superhighway between the tourist cities of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and Palenque, in order to transform Chiapas into a “new Cancun.”
The highway project was frozen in 2008 because of opposition from the communities, but the current administration decided to extend it some 300 km to the coastal city of Pijijiapan. The superhighway would permit tourists to travel easily from [Pacific Ocean] beaches in western Chiapas to the archaeological sites and swimming holes and spas in the Lacandón Jungle, and would serve as a link between the Trans-Isthmus Corridor and the Maya Train. Along this highway there would be seven National Guard barracks: in Tonalá, Arriaga, Cintalapa, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chilón and two in Palenque, a city where they also plan to build one of the Maya Train stations.
The authors of the document “Militarization of the Mexican Southeast” from the Latin American Observatory of Geopolitics express a strong concern about the growth of military power during this six-year term, including the National Guard, 76% of which is composed of members of the armed forces. “When this administration ends in three years, the military will already have occupied entire regions of the country,” warns Ana Esther Ceceña, a researcher at the UNAM and a co-author of the document. “I don’t know who will be able to dismantle that power, or return it to its previous levels, which were not small either.”
According to the Prodh Center, 10 National Guard barracks have already been built in Chiapas -without consultation- and they plan to build 21 of the 300 barracks that in a few years we will have in national territory.
“The Chilón barracks is the only one in Chiapas that is not yet inaugurated. We think that our restraining order (amparo) is stopping it from starting to function,” says Victorico Gálvez Pérez of the Frayba Human Rights Center. Jointly with the Prodh Center, in November 2020 the Frayba filed a lawsuit, which is still not resolved, against the presence of barracks in Tseltal territory and against the deployment of military activities in general. The judicial authorities made no progress in investigating the torture that César and José Luis suffered, and the Public Ministry even affirmed that the injuries were self-inflicted.
The two indigenous Tseltals are firm in their struggle and in their demand that the legal process against them cease immediately. César Hernández celebrates the change of precautionary measures that he obtained a year ago, but traveling every two weeks to Ocosingo to sign-in at the Control Court is very expensive for him and the prohibition on leaving his municipality makes him feel encaged. The days pass slowly between work in the milpa and his house.
“When I’m sitting here, everything that happened to me comes to mind and I start to cry,” says César. Not even here, in the courtyard of his house in San Martín Cruztón community, where he and his wife planted purple and orange flowers, does he find peace.
Notes
[1] Sedena is the Spanish acronym for the Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional, Mexico’s National Defense Ministry
[2] Highway of the Cultures is the new name of what was previously called the San Cristóbal-Palenque Superhighway.
[3] Fonatur is the Spanish acronym used for Mexico’s National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism.
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Originally Published in Spanish by Pie de Página
Sunday, November 28, 2021
https://piedepagina.mx/las-comunidades-tseltales-que-resisten-a-la-guardia-nacional/
Re-published in Spanish by:
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
In Chiapas, paramilitaries expel Tseltals for refusing to buy weapons
Differences over the use of 20 million pesos that they won in the presidential plane raffle derived into the expulsion of 28 Tseltal families from the community of Nacimiento, [1] in Ocosingo Municipality, who allegedly refused to buy firearms.
Photo: Displaced families from the Nacimiento ejido protest in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
By: Elio Henríquez
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
According to what one of the representatives of those affected denounced, community leaders belonging to the Regional Organization of Ocosingo Coffee Growers (ORCAO, its initials in Spanish) expelled around 250 people last October 18, causing their displacement. The representative requested anonymity. He said that among those displaced are Jacinto Sántiz López, who served as treasurer of the community and Armando Gómez Sántiz, who served as president of the vigilance council.
He explained that by community agreement, Jacinto withdrew six million pesos last year to build a dome and a temple, but the leaders of the opposing group, known as Los Petules, headed by Pedro López Sántiz and his brother Marcos López Sántiz, who is the community’s rural agent, “wanted to force us to buy weapons.”
He pointed out that the 20 million pesos from the raffle were won by the José María Morelos y Pavón kindergarten, located in said community, and deposited in the bank account, whose card Jacinto managed in his capacity as treasurer.
He denounced that after the 28 families were expelled at gunpoint, “38 heads of household of the aggressor group remained. They obliged us to buy weapons, but as we didn’t want to, they expelled us.
“We are not in agreement because we are campesinos. They displaced us on October 18 for not agreeing to buy weapons with the paramilitaries; they kicked us out.” He assured that of the six million pesos: “Los Petules apportioned $1,800,000 pesos for the purchase of weapons; they forced us to give them that amount.”
The representative explained that they left all their belongings, including 250 head of cattle of the 28 families. “We are the sons of ejido owners and now we are suffering and struggling to see where we can get something to eat. We don’t have any kind of attention from the government.”
He affirmed that the leaders of Los Petules forced Jacinto Sántiz to hand over the card, because of which the 14 million pesos that had not been withdrawn from the bank remained.
The indigenous man emphasized that they were still in Nacimiento “when they bought the weapons. They said that each one of the 66 families acquired one, but we didn’t accept them, only 38 members of the paramilitary gang did.”
He said that: “they are high-caliber weapons, like those that the Army uses. They have contacts because they are part of the ORCAO and they know where to buy them. They use them to attack the inhabitants of El Carrizal (near Nacimiento), belonging to the National Front of Struggle for Socialism (FNLS, its initials in Spanish). And they also continue attacking the Zapatistas” in the Moisés Gandhi autonomous zone, located in the area.
He recalled that even before they won the prize “there were already differences between the two groups because we’re not in agreement with what they do.” He pointed out that the 28 displaced families are sheltered “in a safe place (in Ocosingo) because they are looking for us and we can no longer leave the municipal seat.”
He stated that: “if we had not won that raffle, they would not have displaced us because the conflict would have been avoided. We had the bad luck to win that money.”
[1] The Nacimiento ejido is located a few miles south of the Cuxuljá Crossroads, where ORCAO paramilitaries burned and robbed Zapatista coffee warehouses and burned a Zapatista diner in 2020.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Thursday, November 25, 2021
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/11/25/estados/032n1est
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 