AUT: more on reeve-deneuve

["Geoffrey J McDonald" <geosophia@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

	Even if we assume the best about the community assemblies in Chiapas, what
is the relationship between these and the phony "peace talks" that have
taken place between the EZLN leadership and the Mexican state? The state
dictates the terms, and the discussions have produced nothing for the
people at the base. Since the commencement of the talks, there have been no
actions, sabotage, or armed attacks to apply pressure on the government. On
the other hand, there has been this courting of  bourgeois outsiders, many
of them pacifists (which isn't to say they haven't done any good). How do
these factors influence the democratic assemblies?
	I'm also curious about the relationship between the EZLN and the FAC-MLN
which was promoted by Marcos (4th declaration from the jungle?) as a means
of building a national, civil society-based organization but has dissolved
into mutual hatred. The FAC-MLN is strong in the Sierra Madre and towns in
the Grijalva valley like Corranza which in 1994-95 was engaged in deadly
struggle with the military after some campesinos called the Pancho Villa
Campesino Union took over some coffee field. The FAC-MLN is evidently a
front for the EPR, the guerrillas in Guerrero and Oaxaca which Monty
dismissed because they are said to be infiltrated -- a first in guerrilla
movements! -- or a state creation -- strange for a group which has killed
federales, raised money for its fancy guns by kidnapping businessmen (the
biggest ransom ever paid in Mexico), and is made up of former comrades of
Lucio Cabanas. The EPR seems to have no political platform, so perhaps the
EZLN is right to distance themselves from the FAC-MLN (there might be some
influence here from the outsider pacifists). However, many members of the
FAC-MLN are not EPR members, such as Teachers Union Local 22 in Oaxaca
(which I'm told is the last bastion of the Maoist Progressive Labor Party
-- remember them?). About two hundred FAC-MLN members are in prison as EPR
members, though most of them are teachers, bus drivers and other public
servants.
	Maybe we could look more closely at how the EZLN relates to these other
movements in the region and the practical effects of the non-Mexican
solidarity movements on what's happening there. The Zapatista solidarity
groups I've encountered in California are, frankly, a nest of vipers.
Probably the Europeans are playing a more positive role, given that Mexico
and the EU are engaged in working out some kind of free trade agreement.

	
Geoff
	


 .


     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---