Friday

January first, 1994: the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (ELZN) made itself known to the world by taking over several municipalities in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. That was the day NAFTA began, considered a death knell for small Indian farms unable to compete with lower agricultural production costs in the US and Canada. Reacting to this latest in a long history of fiscal and cultural marginalization suffered by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico (also to seventy years of PRI politics: nepotism, corruption, and graft), the ELZN announced plans to march on México City, ratified an insurgent constitution, and held the capital of Chiapas hostage for twelve days before instigating a ceasefire and fading back into the jungle--all without one fatality. The goal of the Zapatistas was to promote indigenous equality through nonviolence: many in the ELZN carried wooden replica weapons. The presumed leader of this action was a masked man identified only by name and rank: Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos*. Wearing military fatigues festooned with ammo and communications gear, Marcos was only ever seen in public in a black ski mask, his pipe sticking out of the mouth hole. This became the ELZN's de facto uniform. Talks between the government and the ELZN ran for three years before the Zapatistas were finally able to come safely out of hiding. I visited San Cristóbal during this period, witnessing a daily martial display of dueling demonstrations from the military and the Indian population. To raise awareness, the Indians in southern México were selling little wool Zapatista dolls* with wooden rifles, but I was too concerned about PRI customs officials to buy one. This evening Sunshine returned from Durango and presented me with one of these dolls, eleven years after I had given up on ever owning one. [Cavin]