This winter, Coop Coffees’ annual winter harvest-time visit to our producers in Chiapas was timed to coincide with an event that does not happen every year–the ten-year anniversary of the Zapatista uprising. As part of that commemoration, the delegation explored the broader context of Mut Vitz, the Zapatista coop that grows our Bird Mountain coffee. In the course of a week, we met with several non-profits in San Christobal, traveled into the highlands to celebrate New Year’s & the 10th and 20th anniversaries of the Zapatistas at Oventic, and met w/ coffee growers from autonomous communities.

Ten years ago, at midnight as the calendars changed to January 1, 1994, the Zapatistas announced themselves to the world, taking over 6 large towns in the state of Chiapas, including San Christobal de las Casas. Ten years later, the square occupied by the Zapatistas is filled with women hawking blouses, blankets and beautiful embroidery and tourists from all over Mexico & the world. In the northeast corner of the square, the EZLN (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional or Zapatista Army of National Liberation) has a booth selling books, t-shirts, embroidery created by their women’s cooperatives, boots and cigars produced in their operations at Oventic, and even commemorative Marcos lighters. On every corner, children sell dolls, key chains with masked figures carrying little wooden guns.

Meeting with NGOs in San Christobal, we saw another face of the Zapatista struggle, the struggle of Mexico’s indigenous for rights and dignity. Ten years after the uprising, the problems confronting Mexico’s indigenous have not gone away. In San Christobal, we met with four organizations whose missions help rural indigenous populations address the challenges they find in their communities.

The oldest of these organizations, DESMI (Desarollo Economico Social de Los Mexicanos Indigenas or Social and Economic Development for Indigenous Mexicans) was founded in 1969 by bishop Samuel Ruiz to combat the extreme marginalization and poverty of indigenous communities. DESMI now works in 240 communities in the North, Highlands and Central Valleys of Chiapas, supporting the organizing occurring within the communities and providing assistance in navigating the bureaucratic hurdles required to become a legal co-op or obtain organic certification for ones products. The obstacles to getting goods to market are great, even once a community has managed to solidly organize a coop structure: a dearth of roads and the long walk from rural communities makes access to markets difficult. Add to that the fact that most legal and business transactions take place in Spanish. In the communities that I went to, at least a handful of the male board members spoke Spanish, but many farmers, and most women, speak native Mayan languages such as Tzotzil, Tzetzal, Chol, or others, depending on the region. The representative of DESMI who we met with emphasized DESMI’s focus on assisting with the process, helping farmers in isolated communities see the big picture, promoting the principles of "Solidarity Economics" and helping the people of Chiapas to make them their own. In their own words, "An Economy of Solidarity is based on human potential’s liberation, integration of ecology as part of the culture and democracy as a daily practice, leading to the development of a fair society." (For a good summary of these principles, check http://www.zmag.org/.) DESMI works with any community, Zapatista or non-, which desires social change and has assisted coffee, cattle, corn and artisans cooperatives to organize and get their goods to market. When we went to Oventic, we visited with one of the coops that they have assisted, an artisans cooperative called Mujeres por la Dignidad (Women for Dignity). If you know Spanish or trust google’s translating function, check out DESMI’s website: http://www.laneta.org/.

We met with another organization working directly on indigenous training–CIDECI (Centro Indigena de Capitacion Integral or the Center for Indigenous Training), who has a vast campus on the outskirts of San Christobal. Founded in 1989 with 8 training centers throughout Chiapas, they have been forced to scale back their operations until only one center remains due to the political and financial fallout of the ’94 uprising. Young people ages12-28 come from communities all over Mexico to receive 9 months of free training in subjects ranging from organic farming, raising rabbits, baking, driving, cooking, electrical circuitry, radio repair, welding, music, weaving, sewing, typing, basic health instruction, computer skills, and woodworking. Their mission is to teach these skills to young people in their own languages so that they can take them back to their communities, allowing the communities to be self-sufficient with the hope of stanching the flow of people from rural to urban areas. The students come to CIDECI at the behest of their communities and the community based on its needs decides on the subjects that they will study. Once the students arrive, all instruction, room and board is free, yet they claim that they do not have to turn students away. Approximately 110 students were attending classes before the Christmas holiday, 30% of who were women.

The campus was beautiful–everything was handmade on site in the workshops from tables with reliefs of Mayan figures on the legs to the colored concrete counters in the kitchen areas and stools with motifs related to the subject of instruction in each classroom. All the food consumed in the dining halls when the students are in residence is grown and prepared on site. The self-sufficiency of the campus mirrors that of rural life where all these skills are necessary–a community in which no one is skilled in woodworking must find the means to purchase tables and benches; if a community has access to electricity, they cannot make use of it unless someone understands wiring and the basics of electricity. Resourcefulness, utility and beauty were equally valued–objects were all well-crafted to last a long time and plants grew in all the classrooms in planters made of surprisingly lovely sawn-off light bulbs and soda bottles.

Traditionally, Chiapas has not been "an expelling state," in the words of CIEPAC’s Miguel Pickard. Yet now Chiapans are joining the flood of emigrants from other areas heading north to the urban areas of Mexico and the U.S. Each community observes this phenomenon and attributes it to the drop in corn or coffee prices, alcoholism, etc., yet each sees these things as isolated occurrences. CIEPAC’s (Centro de Investigaciones Economicas y Politicas de Accion Comuntaria or Center of Economic and Political Investigation) mission is to put all these factors into perspective as part of a whole: the Neoliberal economic system. Since 1998, they have been doing research on economic issues. Not a conventional think-tank, their aim is to provide analysis to grassroots organizations and communities in forms that are useful and accessible to them. They create pamphlets, audiocassettes on globalization presented in soap opera form, and weekly email bulletins, all available in Spanish, Tzotzil, and Tzetzal. For more on their excellent work, check out their website, www.ciepac.org, where many of their articles are also available in English.

The close connections between the desires of multi-national corporations hungry for natural resources and the military’s activities were graphically illustrated by the maps blanketing the walls where we met with CAPISE’s Ernesto Ledesma Arronte. Large scale maps of the state of Chiapas document the results of CAPISE’s extensive surveys tracking the militarization of Chiapas. Ernesto and other human rights observers travel throughout Chiapas interviewing people in communities, about the whereabouts of military and paramilitary troops and the impact of their activities on their lives. The maps (see photo) are riddled with red dots and stickers of tanks, each representing a military base with more than 100 Mexican soldiers. Military and paramilitary activity is concentrated around autonomous zones near Oventic & Los Altos, and near what Conservation International has designated as "hot spots" for bioprospecting. For more on CAPISE, check out their website, www.capise.org.

Driving up the winding mountainous road out of San Christobal towards Oventic, we witnessed this overt military presence: outside the small village of San Andres Larrainzar, where negotiations took place for the failed San Andres Accords, three soldiers sit under three turquoise crosses cleaning their huge guns. We pass military police outposts every few miles it seems, small shacks wrapped in black plastic. The most ominous of all are the huge military encampments closer to the community of Acteal–a large, grey camp blasted out of the mountains, ringed by concertina wire. Soldiers watch, guns on their knees, as we pass. Perched on a lookout on the other side of the road, one watches the truck of gringos pass with binoculars, another appears to be videotaping goings on on the road. Yet those in our party who have been here before remark on the reduced military presence–we do not have to pass through a single military checkpoint on the way up the mountain.

It was a gray day when we arrived at Oventic, all 15 of us piling out of the VW bus that had hauled us two hours from San Christobal. Woozy from the exhaust leak, we leaned against the barn gate that bars the steep paved road that runs down the middle of the "caracole" of the highland area. The "caracoles" are centers of civil administration inaugurated in August of 2003, replacing the former "Aguascalientes," centers of indigenous resistance. These "Caracoles" are the centers of Zapatista civil authority and are described in the announcement of their formation:

Along the sloping main street of the "caracole" is a clinic, auditorium, shops and offices for various commercial cooperatives–the first building on the right is the shop for Mujeres por la Dignidad (one of the coops that DESMI helped organize) and men are mixing cement further down the road for what will become the administrative office for Mut Vitz. Further down the hill are school and dormitory buildings where students attend both primary and secondary school.

Midway down the hill, stands a bright building with the words "Junta de Buen Gobierno" (Committee of Good Government") in black letters across the front. It might not be an overstatement to say that here is where the most revolutionary part of the Zapatista movement is taking place. Since the beginning of the Mexican state, crimes, property disputes, etc., have been reported to the various ministries. Now, with the establishment of these "committees," such issues are being reported and resolved within indigenous culture, language and traditions. And these tribunals are no longer restricted only to Zapatistas. When speaking to Ernesto of CAPISE, he told us that in his interviews, he has observed that more and more non-Zapatistas, and even PRI-istas, are coming to this Zapatista institution to resolve their problems. In one instance, he met with two families, one Zapatista, one PRI, who had a land dispute. They took it to their local Zapatista "junta"–and they ruled in favor of the PRI-ista family. It is this nugget of true justice that represents the greatest challenge to Mexico’s federal government and its corrupt justice system rife with bribes and discrimination, the "bad" in opposition to which the junta calls itself "good."

We had the honor of meeting with 7 representatives of the "junta de buen gobierno," five men and 2 women. Much of the conversation was logistical negotiations as the coffee buyers came to understand the new processes coming out of the reorganization of the Zapatista authority structure in August. Instead of arranging for visits and correspondence directly, all outside requests and correspondence must be directed to the committee who will then pass on the information to the board of Mut Vitz, or whoever the relevant party may be, a process which will be streamlined once Mut Vitz's office is relocated to Oventic. After these logistical arrangements, two of the representatives, a man and a woman, each stood up and spoke to us, a moving speech that I could barely capture and attempt to record:

One of the main reasons for the inauguration of the "caracoles" that was stressed many times in our meetings with the "Junta de Buen Gobierno" was to further the struggle for health care, education, and economic development that makes a sort of refrain for this speech. Under the previous more loosely organized administration, inequities were developing between communities and coops with better access to markets and those without, those with ties to international solidarity movements and those without. These disparities were readily apparent a few days later when we returned to Oventic to meet with representatives from Mut Vitz and another Zapatista coffee co-op, Yachil Xojoval Chulchan, that is not yet as well-established as Mut Vitz and has yet to complete the transitional period for organic certification. A representative of the "Junta de Buen Gobierno" addressed us as follows:

It was clear that there were many steps in the road between Mut Vitz and Yachil–this year, Mut Vitz will produce 15 containers of Fair Trade, Organic coffee, all to be sold at Fair Trade prices while Yachil said that they will have 28 containers of coffee, none of it certified organic, for which they are still waiting on confirmation from potential buyers (last year they were able to sell one container, to Italy). How exactly the "Junta de Buen Gobierno" will use the consolidation of communication and authority to reduce these inequities seems to be still in development.

Yet even with all the work remaining, the Zapatistas have come a long way since the first activists arrived in the Lacandon jungle 20 years ago and in the 10 years since their ski-masked faces emerged on the square of San Christobal and on the stage of the world. For those reasons and so many more little ones, New Year’s Eve was a lively celebration and, as former Zapatista communiqués have joked, even the rain is tempted to join their parties. The festivities began with children of the primary and secondary schools performing dances they had learned; the "health promoters band" sang ballads urging people to eat well and not to sleep without a roof. There were poems and songs in Spanish and Tzotzil performed by women, men and children from the communities. A folk band from Oaxaca got up and played a rousing dance number, then slowed and announced that they were going to sing a song about the massacre at Acteal. The opening chords were somber, minor chords, in some strange mode, first gently picked from a guitar, then strummed, then a violin picked up and just as a voice took up the melody, a thick fog blew in across the assembly, hushing everything but one sad voice. There were skits throughout the evening too, several small spoken in Tzotzil, and one grand centerpiece enacted by three giant caricatures: Uncle Sam, Vicente Fox, and "the Mountain Skeleton Woman." Uncle Sam was a 10" tall figure, a man on stilts in a huge red, white, and blue suit, his head a massive mask with menacingly clown-like features. Fox was a small character, jumping about on puppet strings from Uncle Sam’s fingers, suited up like the classic villain of a melodrama all in black and white with a tuxedo and a mask with an enormous handlebar mustache. Brilliant satire unfolded before us as the "Mountain Skeleton Woman" hurled the Zapatista case against puppet and puppeteer and, all in rhyming verse, they defended themselves with bureaucratic syllogisms and plenty of puns on Fox’s "cola" (tail) and former employer, Coca-Cola.

The music picked up again and everyone started to dance–the indigenous men and women looking straight ahead and doing the slow shuffle two-step, even as the mud threatened to pull off their puddle boots and plastic "jellies." Fashionable women from the D.F. salsa danced with their husbands, visitors and solidarity folk from every continent flailed their arms and got down, and anarchist punk kids from the D.F. jumped up and down, their heavy boots pounding another beat on the cement basketball court. From time to time, a chain of dancers would form out of the mass and we would be off, snaking around the shuffling crowd. I had a small child tugging on the seat of my pants as I clutched the shoulders of a tall man, bent almost double to put his hands on the shoulders of the little girl in front of him. It was a funny, diverse crowd, all laughing, amused by one another, happy to be celebrating, happy to be moving fast enough to fight off the permeating chill of the thick damp fog.

Just before midnight, the festivities gave way to waiting music; the ceremony begun as masked elders in short white tunics and beribboned hats packed the stage. A woman began to speak as a troop of flagsmen marched in, bearing a Mexican flag and a black flag with the red EZLN star on it. A battery of a hundred flashed went off, dazzling across the thick mist as a vast press corps descended. This was the moment everyone had been waiting for and rumors had been flying thick for days–what would happen on midnight 10 years later? Who would speak? Voices hissed, Marcos, Marcos? Maybe a march–down the long highway, all day January 1^st, all the way down to San Christobal, maybe not stopping… maybe…maybe. Yet none of these things happed. Instead, as firecrackers lift and boom, a masked figure reads from a piece of paper: "…only in a rebel existence…can we continue constructing our autonomy as indigenous people…We have been able to advance our struggle in different tasks. During 2003 we made important gains…We ask that the companeros and companeras in each region and municipality, simply continue working…" (For the complete text of this speech, go to Chiapas Indymedia.org (a good source for continuing news on the Zapatista struggle, many thanks to them for the quotations that I use above.)

Reading their coverage on my return, the international press seemed disappointed at the prosaic nature of this speech–none of the flowery rhetoric for which the Zapatistas are famous, no statements to ring throughout the world, as so many have described the ’94 uprising. Instead, as press from all over converged on a little point in the mountains, eager to find a statement to etch the Zapatistas in history, they were disappointed to find between 800-2000 people doing their own dances in gloppy mud and thick fog. Yet I would say that the "statement" was going all around that convergence–simply continue working. Autonomous, dignified existence for the indigenous of Mexico cannot be bought like lighters in the square of San Christobal, nor lobbied out of the Mexican government. Whether or not the world finds it a suitably charming picture, they will simply "continue working" at coffee farming, better education, sanitation, agronomy–the prose pieces of resistance. Dance music kept playing until 5:30AM New Year’s morning. When it resumed again at 7, I got up, unable to sleep through an early morning mariachi serenade. Very few other gringos were awake as I walked up the hill in a glorious bright clear day. As I passed up, the men who had been mixing cement for the Mut Vitz office were sitting on the pile of sand, drinking their morning coffee. Half an hour later when I passed again, they were back at work heaving gravel building an office that will mean better communication, better opportunities for the coffee growers of Mut Vitz. As we were reminded many times, the struggle goes on and on and on.

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