>TO THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PRESS
>February 14, 1997
>
>Ladies and Gentlemen:
>
>Health and hellos (believe me that amongst so many airplanes, helicopters
and tanks, one and the other is necessary).  Here goes a letter attached to
mark the betrayal of a year ago (in harmony with the cacophony) and the
betrayal of two years ago.  In spite of one and the other we are still here.
You don't seem to be faring too well.  Here the only games are the head
games (because of the rocks from Beto's slingshot) and there are no
potential candidates who fall ill.  I'd like to take the opportunity to
salute the people of Ecuador.  Too bad someone doesn't teach those who
govern Mexico to sing.  Then maybe...
>
>Vale.  Health and remember that the flag celebrated this 24th belongs to us
as well.
>
>>From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
>Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
>Mexico, February 1997
>
>P.S.  WHICH ASKS (SPECIFICALLY IN REGARDS TO THE HYSTERICAL LITTLE SCREAMS
OF THE YO-YO IN THE STATE OF HIDALGO) - That about "not validating the
political interests of false redeemers" is a ...self-criticism?  That about
the "fragmentation of the Mexican nation"...does it refer to the orders
obeyed at Los Pinos which are issued from Dublin?   That about "we cannot
accept that demagogic positions be nurtured under the guise of the
indigenous cause and illegitimate aspirations for power"...does it mean that
the PRI will modify its electoral strategy?  And, last of all, were the red
bandannas awarded to the "vote carriers" (well, that way we may save...)
(Remember Salinas and the "vote carriers" inaugurating the hospital at
Guadalupe Tepeyac).
>
>P.S. WHICH ACTUALIZES A STORY WHICH IS 174 YEARS OLD.  "Once there was a
parrot which knew no other word except "victory."  Yes sir, days came and
went, and in one of them when our poor parrot was sitting carelessly on its
perch, a hawk put its eye on it and carried it away through the airs of God.
Looking at the sad green between its claws, it began to complain, but it
could not say any other word except the one it knew by memory.  Each peck
the hawk took out of it would elicit a yell of "victory"; another peck,
another "victory"; and in this way it was ripped apart as it said "victory"
all the while (The Victory of the Parrot.  The Mexican Thinker.  Jose
Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi, October 11, 1823).
>
>Today, "victory" is substituted by "democracy", "independence" or justice.
The role of the parrot can be played by any bureaucrat of your preference.  
>
>P.S.  FOR LOCAL ACCOMPLICES.  Speaking of anniversaries and lies, Mister
Ruiz Ferro marks two years since he usurped the Chiapanecan government.  In
exchange for not being sent to Almoloya (the prison), Ferro dictates
editorials and news bulletins while the military govern.  In Ecuador, the
hypocrites and pretenders are expelled, in Chiapas they are appointed
interim governors.
>
>P.S.  Which says what should be said.  It rained a lot.  The sea of rain
rocked the tiredness which love had given it and on the little cassette
player, Mercedes Sosa unthreaded that song which said "My thanks to life
which has given me so much..." It was dawn and the airplane had already
growled death over the dark mountains of the Mexican southeast.  I was
remembering Neftali Reyes, the self-named "Pablo Neruda" in that poem which
says "may the hour arrive at its time in that pure instant, and may the
people fill the empty streets with their fresh and firm dimension.  Here is
my tenderness until then.  You are familiar with it.  I have no other
banner".  The clock of the war marked "February 14th 1997. 10 years earlier
in 1987 it rained the same.  There was no sea of rain, nor tape recorder,
nor airplane, only the dawn circled our guerrilla camp.  Old Man Antonio
came to chat.  He arrived with the afternoon and a sack of tostadas.  There
was no one else in the kitchen of the camp besides he and I.  The pipe and
the rolled cigarette competed with the smoke which came out of the folds of
the fire.  We could not speak however, except by yelling. It seemed silent,
but the rain shredded every corner of the night and there was not a sane
part anywhere.  The noise of rain hung on the roof of trees the mountain
used to cloak itself, and another noisy rain was on the ground.  Double was
the noise of the rain below, and the one filtered by the trees above, and
the one which already made the ground moan.  In the middle, there was
another sound, the one from the plastic sheets we used as cover which spoke
the rain of February in the jungle.  Noise above, below, in the middle.
There was no corner for the word.  That is why I was surprised when I
clearly heard the voice of Old Man Antonio who, without losing the rolled
cigarette from his lips, began to tell a story...
>THE STORY OF THE NOISE AND THE SILENCE
>"Once there was a moment in time, when time did not measure itself. In that
time, the greatest gods, the ones who birthed the world, were walking as
gods do, dancing of course.  There was much noise at that time, from every
direction came voices and yells.  There was much noise, and none could be
understood.  And it was that the noise there was,  was not for understanding
anything, but for NOT understanding anything.  At first, the first gods
believed that the noise was music and dance and quickly they chose a partner
and began to dance like that" and Old Man Antonio stood up and tried a dance
step which consisted of standing on one foot and then the other. "But it
seems as though the noise was not music or dance it was only noise, and so
one could not be dancing and be happy.  Then the great gods stopped to
listen attentively because they wanted to know what it was the noise was
saying, but they couldn't because it was only noise. And since one cannot
dance to noise, the first gods, the ones who birthed the world could no
longer walk because they could only do so by dancing so they were saddened
by having to stop because the first gods were fervent walkers , the first
ones. And one of the gods tried to walk or to dance himself with the noise
but could not because the step would be lost and on the path one would run
into the other, trip and fall with rocks and trees and hurt themselves." Old
Man Antonio stopped to re-light the cigarette the rain and the noise had
extinguished. After the fire, the smoke came, after the smoke came the word.  
>       "Then the gods searched for silence in order to re-orient themselves, but
they could not find it anywhere, they did not know where it had gone. And
the gods became desperate because they could not find the silence which held
the path and so in an assembly of gods they came to an agreement which was
very difficult because of all the noise.  They finally agreed that each
should seek a silence in order to find themselves and they began to look to
the sides and could find nothing above and there was nothing below and since
there was no other place to find the silence, they looked inside themselves
and there they sought silence and found it there and found one another and
found their path once again, those great gods who birthed the world, the
first ones.
>       Old Man Antonio was silent, the rain was silent as well.  The silence was
short. Quickly the crickets came to tear apart the past pieces of that night
of ten years ago.
>       The mountain had dawned when Old Man Antonio said good bye with a "I
arrived". And I stayed smoking the little pieces of silence which the dawn
had forgotten on the mountains of the Mexican southeast.
>       Vale once again. Health and may the noise lead you to find the silence
once again, may the silence help you to find the path, and may the path help
us to find one another...
>       The Sup sneezing because of the "demagogic positions and illegitimate
aspirations for political power" being played out on a wet ceiba tree.
>
>ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION
>MEXICO
>February 14, 1997
>To National and International Civil Society;
>
>"I scatter flowers of war, I of the smiling face with which I greet the
war. I am a quetzal bird and I arrive flying among the difficult steps which
come with the war.  I am a precious dappled horse of red collar, I arrive
flying; I come to be converted into a flower, I arrive in the bloody rabbit".
>NAHUATL POEM
>Brothers and sisters;
>       The month of February 1997 marks a year since the signature of the first
agreements between the EZLN and the Supreme Government, and 2 years after
the treason by the federal government against the EZLN and the indigenous
Zapatista communities. 730 days after the lack of honor and the inability of
the government to keep its word, the Power once again applies a military
solution. 375 days after the signature, the first agreements of the Dialogue
at San Andres go unfulfilled.  12 months after the lie of the Powerful and
24 months after the government betrayal, the EZLN says its word:
>Two years ago the federal government through Misters Esteban Moctezuma
Barragan set up a murderous ambush against the leadership of the EZLN.
Pretending to be interested in the dialogue the bad government deceived the
EZLN, and national and international public opinion.  While they spoke of a
political solution to the conflict, the supreme government first prepared
and then executed a treacherous strike intended to behead the indigenous
Zapatista rebellion.  Thousands of soldiers attacked the indigenous
communities then.  In this way the government fulfilled its promise to seek
via dialogue and negotiation, the resolution for the just war of the Zapatistas.
>        A year ago, the federal government through Misters Bernal and Del Valle,
set a legal trap for the Zapatistas and the indigenous peoples of the
nation. Pretending the will to comply with the agreements which were signed
at the time, the bad government sought to deceive the EZLN and national and
international public opinion, As it signed the first peace agreements the
Supreme government first prepared and then executed the non-compliance with
the San Andres accords.  As the non-compliance fell into place, thousands of
soldiers continued to encircle, harass and persecute the indigenous
communities.  This is how the government kept its word.
>       Today 730 days after the bold treachery and 365 days after the pretentious
lie, Mister Zedillo Ponce De Leon reiterates his deceit and inability to
keep his word.  In the mouth of he who is said to govern, the Power publicly
denies its commitments.
>       In the hands of Mexican soldiers, and with foreign military aid it seeks
once again the death of the leadership of the Zapatista rebellion. By land
and air, the federal troops seek to finish the unfinished since February of
1995: assassination.
>       Today the federal government trips over itself in its zeal to renege on
the agreements and deny what it committed to a year ago. Blind, the bad
government attacks not just the indigenous rebels, but those who advise the
peace, and those who, like the COCOPA and CONAI, mediate and intervene in
order to avoid the war.  The indigenous legal initiative elaborated by the
Commission of Concordance and Pacification, the organism of federal
legislative power has been attacked once and again by the federal executive.
Now it accuses the federal legislators of being "false redeemers" and the
legal initiative of attempting to "fragment the Mexican nation".  The
Supreme Government wishes to forget that it was its own negotiators, not the
legislators of the Cocopa who signed the first agreements about "indigenous
rights and culture".  There is nothing in those agreements which  attempts
the "fragmentation of the Mexican nation".
>       In refusing to comply with what it had already accepted as agreements on
indigenous matters, the government refuses to recognize the rights and
culture of the original inhabitants of these lands.  Shielding itself with
useless legal technicalities, the federal government tries to hide what is
essential: it is unwilling to fulfill its word, it does not recognize the
authentic demands of indigenous Mexicans, it does not want to resolve the
Zapatista war through dialogue and negotiation.
>       Behind the false accusations of the fragmentation of the nation, of
purportedly granting special status to the Indians which will marginalize
them, are the real reasons why the government will not comply; the
agreements will not be fulfilled, they will be used to win time and to
attempt once again a military strike against an authentic rebel movement,
with national demands and the support of indigenous Mexico.
>       There is no interest in solving the national indigenous question, there is
no disposition to use the dialogue as a tool of government, there is no
intention of peace. "Lying in order to gain time for striking" is the
strategy of Zedillo's government.  Not just to confront the EZLN but Mexican
society as well.
>       It is clear to the EZLN that the federal government wants war as its
solution, and that national and international civil society wants peace with
justice and dignity as a route and destination.
>       We Zapatistas are prepared today and as always for the war or for peace.
We will wait here.
>>From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
>By the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command of
the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
>Mexico, February of 1997
>
>P.S. Greetings to the mobilization of support in Europe.  There Mister
Zedillo wants to provoke another uprising like the one provoked by Salinas
with the North American Free Trade Agreement, except now through a European
version.  But it seems like the lack of democracy and the violations to
human rights are not attractive merchandise for the Europeans.  "The
fulfillment of the word.  Never again a world without us" is said to be the
name of the solidarity campaign in support of some indigenous people who
pretend, and thereby dare, to live... 
>
>