Sunday April 10, 1994 marked the 75th anniversary of the
assassination of the Mexican revolutionary hero, Emiliano Zapata.
75 years ago Zapata fought for land and liberty for all Mexicans.
Today, his legacy lives on in the actions of the Zapatista National
Liberation Army who rose up in demand of the same on January 1 of
this year. Demonstrations and marches commemorating Zapata's
assassination took place throughout Mexico. Significantly, the
various acts commemorating his death took the name "Days for
National Liberation, Zapata Lives." In Mexico City some 50,000
people marched from the Monument to Young Heroes to the city's
central plaza where a mass meeting was held. A communique from the
EZLN written especially for the occasion was read aloud in the
zocalo. The complete text follows:
Communique from the Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee
of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, Mexico.
April 10, 1994.
To the Mexican people:
To the governments and people of the world:
To the national and international press:
Brothers:
The Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee directs itself
to you to say the following:
Today, April 10, 1994 is the 75th anniversary of the assassination
of General Emiliano Zapata. Venustiano Carranza's betrayal tried
to drown out his cry for Land and Liberty! Today the usurper
Salinas de Gortari, who named himself "President of the Mexican
Republic," lies to the Mexican people saying that his reforms to
article 27 of the constitution reflect the true spirit of General
Zapata. The supreme government lies! Zapata will not die for
decreed arrogance. The right to land for those who work it can
never be given up and the war cry "Land and Liberty" lives on
without rest in Mexican lands. Under the cloak of neoliberalism
which casts shadows on our soils, peasants who struggle for their
agrarian rights are imprisoned and murdered. Salinas' reforms to
article 27 of the Magna Carta represent a betrayal to the
fatherland and, as the person responsible for this crime, he who
usurped the federal Executive Power in Mexico should be tried.
Brothers, today marks the 100th day of our voice's new awakening.
Through the mouths of faceless men and women's guns spoke the voice
of landless peasants, farm laborers, small land-owners and Mexican
indigenous people. The voice of those who have nothing and deserve
everything had to follow the path of its smallest men, the most
humble, the most persecuted, the most forgotten. In the voice of
true men spoke the voice of all Mexicans robbed of their land,
dignity and history. Everything was seeming lost in the long night
of our people. The land produced nothing but pain and death. But
ten years ago, a few good souls planted in our sad land the hope
that the true men would come back to life. The seed of their words
found a good place to grow in the mountains of Mexico. Its silence
was cultivated. It was night, its footsteps to awake later.
In the dawn of our "Enough!" the land bore the fruit of this seed.
Rage was born in the place of pain, dignity in the place of
humiliation, in the place of laments they harvested arms.
Thousands of men and women dug up, from the same soil that once
only gave them poverty, a young fire that filled their hands. They
covered their faces, erased their past, left behind their names and
their lands and began to walk in the footsteps of war. None of us,
men and women who walk at night, will have tomorrow. There will
now never be peace for our anguish. Our bones and blood will no
longer have rest.
What are these men and women marching for? Who drinks their blood?
For whom is the light of their words? 100 days. 10 years. Who
will join hands with these men and women, who cannot be with you
today, to take the flag which their blood has ripped from the hands
of the powerful. Who will add their footsteps to their dignified
march? Who with them, us, speaks? Who shouts out with us? Who
does not abandon us? Who fights with us? Who listens to our dead?
Not the usurper whose arrogance serves in the National Palace. Not
he who sells us. Not he who murders us. Not he who robs us. Not
he who humiliates us.
But you brothers, yes. For you, our blood. For the night of all
our timid light. For your life, our death. Our war for your
peace. For your hearing, our words. Your pain, brothers, will
seek alleviation in our struggle. For you everything brothers, for
us nothing.
Brothers, in front of you, in this palace where deceit reigns,
lives he who denies us everything and whom no good people asked to
be there. The powerful se$or who everyday snatches life away from
us. That he leave, brothers! Let his voice not command us.
Nothing good comes out from behind his doors. In his face there
are lies and in his words lives deceit. That he leave, brothers.
This is the cry that comes from the mountains, this is what our
blood speaks, this is what our dead ask for. That he leave. Tell
him that brothers: That he leave!
Let no one else reach the palace that you have in front of you if
it is not for the mandate of all, let he who sits in that chair
govern obeying, that he who speaks from that balcony have truth in
his words, let he who calls himself our leader do so obediently.
Tell them this, brothers, this is what we want.
We cannot be with you today brothers, our mission continues from
the night in the mountains, our face is still muzzled, our word is
far away. Take it for a moment Mexican brothers! Permit us your
voice for a moment and allow our word to be spoken from your
mouths. At this very same moment in the mountains of southeastern
Mexico, thousands of faceless men and women, without names or a
past, renew in their breasts the first cry of the new year. Our
heart is happy because Emiliano Zapata returned, in your footsteps,
to Mexico's central plaza. We, the small and forgotten, lift up
the image of Zapata in the other heart of the fatherland: that of
the mountains of southeastern Mexico.
Here's to you Mexican brothers! Let our cry be yours!
Long live Emiliano Zapata!
Death to the supreme government!
Liberty!
Justice!
Democracy!
Respectfully,
>From the mountains of southeastern Mexico.
Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee-General Command of
the Zapatista National Liberation Army.
Ref: Chiapas-L