A Sacramentan's Report on La Otra Campana en Tijuana

SubMarcos Asks Adherents in Tijuana to Bring the Walls Down!

by Dan Bacher

The Zapatista Commission meeting in Tijuana was great, with Subcomandante Marcos (Delegado zero) taking notes and listening to representatives of the South Cental LA urban farmer coalition, gay Chicanas and Chicanos, Food Not Bombs, the IWW (Patricia Nuno), homeless coalition organizers, student activists from UCLA and CSU Northridge and immigrant rights representatives. The day before focused on maquiladora workers, mostly women, who are exploited by U.S. companies in northern Mexico. The Brown Berets provided security for Marcos, as well as speaking about counter military recruitment and immigration.

After the hearing on Thursday, Marcos gave a summary of what people had talked about and urged people to take down the walls between each other, as well as the wall being proposed along the border. When Marcos speaks, he is very soft spoken and humble, yet very forceful. His words have a distinctive poetic cadence.

"The Wall is is not just along the border," Marcos said. "The walls are put up against Chicanos, against those who speak in Spanglish, against women, gays, children and elders. The wall reproduces itself in each part of each home, in the street and it is not just erected by those above. We build them ourselves."

Before the commission hearing, "El Sub" as the locals call him, spray painted his revolutionary placaso on the walls of the mulitkulti, a movie theatre on Constitution Avenue. There is no roof on it; I guess it burned down. The day before, he got out of the Zapatista bus and pissed on the border fence!

It was a great gathering of folks on both sides of the border working against their repressive governments. The hearing was followed by a huge public meeting on Avenida Constitucion in front of the multikulti. Don Juan, a Mixtec Indian leader from Oaxaca, talked about the rebellion there and then Marcos gave a great speech, slamming imperialism and corporate globalism and talking about his journey throughout Mexico.

After the big rally, there was a press conference, with only independent and left media invited (I love it - no corporate media allowed!) I was only about 7 feet from him. IndyMedia Tijuana, San Diego and Sacramento were all there, along with Al Giordino of Narco News. I was one of the three "adherents" from Sacramento - the other two were Mario Galvan and Nancy Lehman.

Mexico is ready for revolution. You have the Zapatista liberated zones in Chiapas and 12 guerrilla groups operating now throughout Mexico; the Oaxaca rebellion where the teachers, peasants and workers have taken over all of the radio stations, tv stations and government offices; the battle for human rights in Oventic; and the refusal of the people to accept right winger Calderon's stolen election.

After the press conference, there was a concert with groups from both Mexico and the other side of the border; I wasn't able to stay for it. There were big banners and murals on the wall of the former theatre, calling for release of political prisoners and solidarity with the rebellions in Atenco and Oaxaca. However the Zapatista movement many years ago laid down its arms and is now a non violent resistance movement.

The organizers had free food for the delegados: bagels, pan dulce, soup, and yes, soy ceviche. What really made me feel good is that the majority of people there were youth in their late teens and twenties. Some started spontaneously dancing in the street. Young anarchistas were there in large members, along with Marxist group adherents. There was a great poster on the wall of the multikultii that said "We Support Our Troops" in red, white and blue and below it "Rage Against the Machine." In the photo between the slogans was masked Zapatista guerrillas - OUR troops! You get it? That rocked!

Seeing so many youth there gave me hope that we can - and must - change things in both Mexico and here in the Belly of the Bush.

On the next day, Marcos went to Mexicali to speak up for the fishing rights of indigenous people. Fishermen in Mexico, just like here in California, are having their fishing rights stripped through an unholy alliance of corporate "conservation" groups and the federal and state governments. They do it under the guise of creating "marine protected areas" and "bioreserves," rather than tackling the real problems that cause fishery declines - water exports, water pollution, habitat destruction and industrial plunder of fisheries by global corporations. Here's the story from narconews:


Marcos: The Zapatistas Will Defend the Cucapa and Kiliwa Peoples of Baja California

The Kiliwa Had Declared a “Death Pact” After the Government and Gringo “Conservation” Groups Forbade Them from Fishing; Next Fishing Season Will See a Zapatista Camp on Their Lands

By Kristin Bricker

The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Baja California 
October 22, 2006

MEXICALI, BAJA CALIFORNIA: Delegate Zero announced a bold new step in the Other Campaign October 20 in El Mayor, Baja California: a Zapatista camp in the Cucapa and Kiliwa indigenous communities, located just outside of Mexicali, to protect them during the upcoming fishing season and prevent a “death pact” from being fulfilled. He also shed further light on the next phase of the Other Campaign.

The Cucapa and Kiliwa indigenous communities are facing extinction. Of the Cucapas, less then 300 remain; of the Kiliwas, 54. While the government does not concern itself with preserving their culture, traditions, and very existence, it is very concerned about the fish they rely on for their very survival. 

The federal government, with the support of “conservation” organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International (who are notorious for protecting endangered species by kicking endangered peoples out of their land), turned the waters they’ve fished for generations into the Biosphere Reserve of the Upper Gulf of California on June 10, 1993, because it was “in the public interest,” according to the official website of the government’s National Commission of Protected Natural Areas. The website also notes that 77 percent of the people who live in and around the reserve rely on fishing for their livelihoods, so it is unclear which public interest the fishing ban in the protected area serves. 

The problem isn’t that the Cucapas and the Kiliwas don’t want to preserve the endangered fish and dolphins. They point out that it is in their best interest to protect the species they rely upon for their livelihood, and they want very much to be custodians of the river and its fish, as they have been for generations. Hilda Hurtado Valenzuela, the secretary of the Cucapa fishing cooperative, maintains that the Cucapas and Kiliwas are not responsible for the over-fishing, though they bear the brunt of its consequences. She says that they never intentionally fished the endangered species, though if they happened to catch some they used them for their own consumption – they never sold them. Now, she says, they don’t even do that, because if they get caught taking a protected fish from the river they will go to jail, or worse. 

To protect the endangered fish, armed federal soldiers constantly patrol the reserve and accost the fishermen who come to fish. Hilda Hurtado Valenzuela recounted to Subcomandante Marcos how soldiers detained her pregnant daughter, who was trying to fish, by pointing their guns at her belly. Furthermore, the community has approximately thirty outstanding warrants for illegal fishing, including one for seven kilograms of fish.  

Cross-Border Solidarity 

In protest against the forceful dispossession of their lands and the destruction of their culture, the Kiliwas took a death pact. The women have agreed to stop having children, and the Kiliwas will die with this generation. Marcos, however, intends to use the power of the Other Campaign to convince them that they are not alone, and that it is not worth it to die from a death pact when they can die fighting. 
When community members finished explaining their struggle and their death pact to the Sixth Commission, Delegate Zero requested an intermission and private meeting with community authorities. When they returned to the public forum, Marcos publicly disclosed the results of the meeting. 

He proposed to the Cucapa and Kiliwa authorities, in the name of the Zapatista communities, that a Zapatista camp be created during the 2007 fishing season, beginning at the end of February and ending in mid-May. 

In announcing the call for a Zapatista camp, Delegate Zero said, “We have decided to send an urgent message to the Mexicans and Chicanos north of the Rio Grande to come here in order to maximize the number of people here, create a safe space, and protect the Cucapa and Kiliwa community during the fishing season.” He later elaborated that these activists will form a peace camp in the community and brigades that will accompany the fishermen and fisherwomen to the river. The Mexicali adherents to the Other Campaign will meet next week to begin to organize the action. Marcos promised, “The only thing that will keep us from coming here is a formal request from the Kiliwa and Cucapa authorities.” 

This request isn’t likely to come. In reaction to Delegate Zero’s proposal for a Zapatista camp, Hilda Hurtado Valenzuela, a Cucapa authority herself, said, “We’re very happy to have someone come here and give us a hand because we’ve already petitioned the government, gone through mediation – all the legal routes.” Their requests and negotiations with the government have not produced any positive results. 

The proposed Zapatista camp in El Mayor could very well change the route of the next phase of the Other Campaign, when two comandantes go to each zone to live there and organize. Marcos revealed that the proposal to adherents for the next phase will include the following: that they will organize the tour in December, release the First Declaration of the Other Campaign in January, and begin the next phase of the Other Campaign in February with the Kiliwa in the Mexican northeast – not in the southwest, as had originally been planned. 
 
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