Republican News · Thursday 1 August 2002

The Rebellion of San Salvador Atenco

One, two, many Chiapases

BY RAMOR RYAN

Last 2 October, when the Mexican government announced the expropriation of 5,000 hectares of farmland around San Salvador Atenco, 20 miles outside Mexico City, they presumed everyone was on board for their big airport plans. Addressing the campesinos who were about to lose their land, President Vincente Fox gushed how they had, in effect, "won the lottery"...

But the lottery was not what Jose Espinosa won. A farmer and activist from Atenco, he died in the hospital on Wednesday 24 July from injuries received at the hands of the Federal Police at an anti-airport demonstration.

The $2 billion airport project is a key element, alongside the Plan Puebla-Panama, of Fox's plan to modernise the country and to make the economy more competitive within the Nafta and proposed FTAA trade zones.

The issue of the officially decreed expropriation of the land was not considered to be a hurdle -- the campesinos were offered just seven pesos per square metre, (just pennies per square foot) and were promised employment at the airport as "janitors or security guards".

"Even if they offered us millions for our land we would not accept it," said one Atenco campesino. A month after the announcement, thousands of them descended on the capital, many on horseback, masked like Zapatistas and wielding machetes. Fierce clashes with the police ensued.

Under the government decree, 4,375 families would be forced to abandon their land. This is ejido (communal) land held by Indigenous Nahau communities since the Mexican revolution of 1910.

"The land is priceless," said a 70-year-old ejidatario (communal landowner) with a small plot and ten children. "And besides, I will not sell it. The land is our sustenance. Here we live day to day."

"We've said it before, and we'll say it again," declared a third generation ejidatario. " We will defend our land with our lives. They are killing our people, our families."

In their almost-daily demonstrations, the campesinos marched behind a banner proclaiming: "We represent rebel dignity." Rebel dignity, the phase oft-quoted by the Zapatistas. The Chiapas insurrectionaries have been quiet of late, reeling under the pressure of insidious counter-insurgency strategies set to divide their support base.

The government may have been able to temporarily curtail the Zapatistas, but other points of resistance continually sprout up. Like the massive and ongoing campaign in the southern coastal towns that refuse to pay increased electricity rates. Or the year-long student upheaval in the national university two years ago. Or before that, the uprising in the town of Tepotzlan near Mexico City, in a land conflict similar to Atenco, contested militantly by the locals, and won.

d so in the Atenco conflict, the shadow of the Zapatistas is looming over the Fox administration. Indeed, Zapatista inspiration is everywhere present in the Atenco rebellion - not only in the slogans, the masks, the strategies of struggle, but also in the forms of organisation. Police and government officials were ejected from the region. The residents began to govern themselves autonomously through Popular Assemblies (similar to the Community Assemblies in Argentina). In a gesture of homage, they declared themselves an 'Autonomous Municipality in Rebellion' on 31 December 2001, marking the eighth anniversary of the Zapatista Uprising.

Events took a dramatic turn on 11 July, when 100 campesinos went to demonstrate in a nearby town where the state governor was preparing a speech. The federal Police ambushed the delegation, seriously injuring several and hauling eleven off to the state jail, including two supposed 'leaders'. In response, the campesinos in Atenco rose up, fought pitch battles armed with Molotov cocktails and machetes, burnt police vehicles and took 19 government officials and police hostage in exchange for the prisoners. A siege developed as 3,000 police and soldiers surrounded the town.

For three days, the standoff continued, riveting the nation. Solidarity came in the form of the formation of a 'Peace Cordon' with volunteers from a wide range of local civil society organisations, campesino groups, trade unions, human rights activists and students. Other communities in the region blockaded roads in wildcat actions.

On 15 July, the government made a tactical retreat and Fox offered the rebels a better financial deal.

David Pajaro, spokesperson for the Atenco delegation, spelt out their total rejection: "Not for 7 pesos a square metre, nor for 700 pesos..."

The Rebellion of San Salvador Atenco has the prospect of kickstarting an even greater wave of anti-globalisation protest across the nation. As one masked rebel at the barricades said, "What is happening in Atenco is like the effect of one, two, many Chiapases."