It is a very positive and almost euphoric feeling for me as anactivist to see the World Trade Organization get its face slappedwith an event like the Seattle protest.
Is there a breakdown of why the activists feel this way? No.
On Jan. 1, 1994 Sub-Commandante Marcos, spokesman of the ZapatistaNational Liberation Army in Chiapas, made a statement that could notbe ignored.
Marcos said NAFTA is our death warrant! Why did he say this? Is heworking for the Russians? Doesn’t he understand the theory ofcomparative advantage?
Maybe he’s just mentally ill? What do you think, business majors?
Much of what’s got the Zapatistas up in arms begins with land.Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution guaranteed something calledEjidos. These were small plots of land distributed to poor farmersand it was part of what Emilano Zapata fought for, and why they’recalled Zapatatistas.
Salinas de Gotari, former President of Mexico and bilateralpartner to former U.S President George Bush, revoked Article 27 toset the stage for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Big companies from the United States and elsewhere needed land forcash export crops or some other operations. Ejidos were abolished andpoor farmers moved, or were forcibly removed (just like the Indianremoval of the1890s).
Those doing the removal were referred to as Guardas Blacas (WhiteGuards). It’s like imminent domain in the United States only a littlemore blatant, and aggressive.
Machine produced corn being imported to Mexico’s interior from themidwest of the United States undersells those same Mayan farmers whoproduce by hand and who are losing their lands.
Chevron and other multi-national oil conglomerates drill for oil,destroying the forest and jungle where the Mayans live. Lumbercompanies also destroy the forest leaving less trees for Mayans tochop for firewood, or makes them have to walk and carry the wood overmore distance because of deforestation. People in Southeastern Mexicolive on dirt floors when furniture companies from the United Statesare making profits off of Chiapas trees.
What do they do? Some join the Zapatista Army or support it asnon-combantants. Some go to the cities, or north to Tijuana.
The same NAFTA agenda that controls the politics of their ruralfarms controls the wages of the cities. Maquiladoras factories willhire a few women, but these women never see the profits of themaqiladora plants, just a paltry $18 a week.
Next they might cross the border to die under the border czar’sruler. Some make it to the Imperial Valley and pick our strawberries.One way or the other big business wins.
What did The San Diego Union-Tribune tell us when all this firstcame out in 1994? They published Marcos’ statement on the front pagelike the rest of the Associated Press, and published more on theZapatistas for a few months.
Exactly one year later they published a story with Juan Vargas ofthe City Council having a picnic commerating NAFTA, followed by aphoto of Clinton and Zedillo celebrating its “success.”
But there is nothing about the Zapatistas. As of today, there isnothing on the Zapatista’s role in the recent tumult in Seattle.
There’s only unspecified references of human rights. If free tradeis a bilateral issue why not discuss it in a bilateral way, give abreakdown of the economics and political machinations of it, andmention the names of the organizations fighting it in Mexico?
Organizations such as the Zapatistas have been raising an uproarfor years now. Why isn’t their side of this story being looked atnow?
This column is the opinion of the columnist and not The DailyAztec.
