On January 1, 2006, the Zapatistas proposed an initiative to tour all of Mexico in order to articulate broad networks of collaboration and solidarity among localized social movements “from the grassroots and the left”, putting into practice two central points of the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle of June 2005. The tour around different Mexican states was baptized as “The Other Campaign,” a counter-reference to the presidential campaign that was beginning at that time. The objective of The Other Campaign wasn’t, however, to make electoral promises, but rather to listen to different voices of social and popular movements at the margin of the system, whose struggles necessarily leave them outside the framework of political parties and institutions. This first phase meant learning about other ways of struggling against the oppression of the social, economic and political system imposed from above.

On January 1, 2006, the Zapatistas proposed an initiative to tour all of Mexico in order to articulate broad networks of collaboration and solidarity among localized social movements “from the grassroots and the left”, putting into practice two central points of the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle of June 2005. The tour around different Mexican states was baptized as “The Other Campaign,” a counter-reference to the presidential campaign that was beginning at that time. The objective of The Other Campaign wasn’t, however, to make electoral promises, but rather to listen to different voices of social and popular movements at the margin of the system, whose struggles necessarily leave them outside the framework of political parties and institutions. This first phase meant learning about other ways of struggling against the oppression of the social, economic and political system imposed from above.

A second phase of The Other Campaign began on January 1, 2007 with the objective being to brainstorm common strategies for struggles to stop the destruction provoked by neoliberalism in the communities of those “from below.” The campaign, therefore, emerged in defense of land and territories of indigenous pueblos. That focus was determined largely as a response to the neoliberal reforms undertaken by the administration of Salinas de Gortari in 1992. Article 27 of the Constitution, which had originally declared lands and waters as public, therefore protecting small farmers of ejidos, was amended to allow for privatization of lands. For indigenous communities, land transcends its utilitarian value, and given the process of privatization under way, the Zapatistas publicly expressed their vehement opposition to all projects and policies that would entail changes in land usage on territories where indigenous communities live, including cattle ranching, agro-business, and foreign resorts for tourism. The campaign in defense of Land and Territories aims to protect the integrity of the 250,000 hectares recovered by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in 1994 whose beneficiaries have suffered a series of threats of displacements, both legal and illegal, by government-sponsored paramilitary organizations.

In a colloquium in San Cristobal de las Casas, in December 2007, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos – also known as Delegado Zero of the Sixth Commission, which coordinates activities of the Other Campaign – announced the interruption of the Other Campaign, inviting the rest of social and popular movements adherent to the Sixth Declaration to move forward in the process of organizing their respective struggles. This attitude can be interpreted in several ways: it could be understood as one more attempt to reject leadership of a civil, national movement, alternative for social transformation; or it could be seen as a retreat of Zapatistas’ involvement in response to the lack of support in civil society for the new initiative.

In the context of that political atmosphere, we joined the work of the brigades coordinated by the Center for Political Analysis and Social and Economic Research (CAPISE) whose most important mission at present is to respond to a call from the Juntas del Buen Gobierno, the Zapatista centers for good government. In practice, this means detecting and accompanying the military and paramilitary activities that are gaining strength around communities, with the goal of “avoiding another Acteal.” (A major massacre of 45 indigenous people, mainly women and children, was carried out by paramilitary forces occurred in Acteal in 1997.)

We were sent by CAPISE to the Caracol Roberto Barrios, located in the northern region of Chiapas, where threats of displacement and constant harassment of Zapatista communities is ever-present. The Caracol includes seven autonomous municipalities: El Trabajo, La Dignidad, La Paz, Akaba’alna, Vicente Guerrero, Tumbala and Benito Juarez. We met with the authorities of the Junta Nueva Semilla on March 14th, where we were informed about the communities that we would visit and support with our presence and interviews. The two women and three men that were there in that moment representing the major authority of the civil-political structure of Zapatista self-governance decided to send us to five communities – all of them were made up of mainly indigenous Chol: Choles de Tumbala, San Patricio, Nueva Revolución, Nuevo Progreso and Nuevo Tila.

On March 16th, we arrived at X, which, as we discovered later, is surrounded by large cattle ranches. Twenty-nine families live on 532 hectares of land in the community, which is located in El Trabajo and was founded on September 23, 1999. The community is a base of support for the Zapatistas. Among other infrastructure problems, such as the absence of a clinic, adequate latrines and electricity, the local authority told us of the constant threats of displacement perpetuated by employees of the May 5th Ranch, which is owned by Luis Eduardo Maitre Collada. However, these families live on land that constitutes “land exceeding the legal limit”; the cattle ranchers in the region assert that it’s private property. The most recent action taken to harm the community was to establish April 9th of this year as that date that they would displace the community; if it happens, it won’t be the first time. Beyond the isolation (or better said, the islandization in hostile territory) and of the constant threats and harassment, the men and women of Choles de Tumbalá don’t enjoy the tranquility necessary to develop any kind of productive activity on their lands beyond subsistence because of the atmosphere of fear and tension produced by the risk of losing all the work and money that they would invest.

On the following day, we visited the community of Y, located in La Dignidad, whose twenty-two families who are Zapatista supporters and face aggressions and threats of displacement. These aggressions are carried out by the paramilitary organization euphemistically called “Peace and Justice”, who come from neighboring cities of Ostilucum and Nuevo Hidalgo, in the official municipality of Sabanilla. The grave hostilities suffered by the community include: robbing corn harvests, fabricating crimes of residents, the attempted homicide of one local autonomous authority (which occurred on September 6, 2007), throwing stones at children, aggressions against an animal in the community, and terrifying the population with gunshots fired in the air during several consecutive nights (February 18-22, 2008). As if those external attacks weren’t enough, the community suffers internal divisions, which have existed since at least 2003 and that, according to the local authority, are motivated especially by the counterinsurgency actions of the government and through paternalistic social programs controlled by local political bosses.

The following visits were to W, and Z where we observed a situation of relative tranquility, attributed to some degree by local residents, to the constant presence of the brigades and the support of CAPISE in recent years. However, the current peace doesn’t completely exempt it from an awareness of the potential danger that surrounds them. Nuevo Progreso finds itself “protected” from the attacks of members of the (also deceptively named) Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights (OPDDIC) because of other Zapatista communities that surround it. These surrounding communities are, indeed, sites of constant paramilitary threats to appropriate their lands. The most serious case is that of Bolon Ajaw, a community that belongs to the Caracol Morelia, and that, for being situated in a strategic area for tourist development of the federal government, has suffered serious violence.

Lastly, we were collecting information in A de Vicente Guerrero in the northern part of the Lacandon Jungle. The stunning landscape isn’t enough to hide the terrible latent tension between the residents of A. Since the beginning of 2008, the community has been denouncing the increase in military presence in the region, which patrols the streets asking questions to anyone they find in their way, with the intention of mapping homes and areas under cultivation. The local authorities also denounce several flights of large military planes (such as those on the 21st of February and the 18th of March of this year), which points to a greater likelihood of violent displacement. The territories of the community have been disputed for more than three decades. There are arrest warrants out for four community members that they also fear will be carried out.

As participants in the brigades and international observers traveling through Zapatista communities, we believe that just as important as diffusing the constant threats and violence to which these indigenous populations in resistance are victim is learning from the lessons they offer on autonomy, freedom and self-determination, which they leave as a legacy to humanity.

In spite of the context of repression, including the explicit and implicit acts of violence suffered by the Zapatista support communities, we observed a clear consciousness expressed by these men, women and children. They recognize themselves as subjects of their own history, of The Other History, inserted in a very particular process of construction of an alternative society where human dignity counts as one of the most expensive and most important values. As much as they would be accused by the “bad governments”, as much as they would be violated daily by brothers and sisters that commit themselves to the interest power and capital, they continue firm in their radical decision to be free.