Xochitl Leyva Solano (Mexico) is a social anthropologist from the University Autónoma de Yucatán and doctorate from the University of Manchester, UK. He has done field work in the Lacandon Jungle (Chiapas), Kenya (Africa) and in cities like Berlin, London and Barcelona.
writes articles for various magazines and has published books like: Lacandona the edge of water, Geoeconomy and Geopolitics in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Plan Puebla Panama and Governance (en) diversity: indigenous experiences in Latin America. It is also as a member Zapatista activist group People's History of the Other knowledge and coordinator of the Sixth Hour radio program that broadcasts from San Cristobal de las Casas.
Mariátegui. The magazine of ideas Xochitl Leyva-interviewed in Knowledge and Social Movements Meeting held in Lima, on the status of indigenous peoples in Chiapas and the prospects of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) in Mexican politics. Xochitl
We confess that the group's History and Knowledge Other ... the call came through that made them the Zapatista comrades towards the end of 2005 to build the Other Campaign. And in the context of the 2006 elections, the Zapatistas were raised what shall we do? because we are not fighting for the seizure of power, then "they said we have a political duty to insert ourselves in a different way As part of this electoral campaign of 2010.
"then launched a rereading of his struggle was called the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon jungle where they made a call for anti-capitalist struggle and the construction of another policy from below and to the left, criticizing the policy and has become a good, democratic electoral politics is a market for buying and selling of votes.
A total cynicism of the various parties to enter the contest and the only thing many of these parties want to gain power is to take the spoils of money, which means having a formal power, "said Xochitl. It also ensures that the group's History and Knowledge Other is a group of thirteen men and women from different cultural and artistic political paths that are added and says:
"We will work as the axis of both know how to build a different way our history from the people, as the communication of free media. " Xochitl Leyva said that the sixth hour is transmitted through Community Radio program adherents to the Other Campaign, which was convened by the EZLN movement since 2005. "This radio program is on Saturdays from 11:00 to 12:00 noon.
Our blog is http://frecuencialibre991.blogspot.com There you can find the programs transmitted by this citizen and community radio. The Sixth Time is a program of adherents, but the radio works as a collective of independent media where feminists, people working with street children, groups that are in the Other Communication and one of those groups is the group The Other History and Knowledge Other. "
- What is the situation of indigenous peoples in Chiapas before the militarization and criminalization of protest?
- The EZLN is released and declared war on the Mexican government in 1994 but in 1996 signed the first peace accords were a series of economic and political demands. Policies were related to the recognition of autonomy and especially the right of peoples to self determination and there was a demand on the issue of community media in the hands of communities.
thereon is then signed agreements that needed to be the impulse. In 2001 President Vicente Fox's PAN (National Action Party), a rightwing party, which at that time began his term-he wanted to return the signed agreements in 1996 and made an effort to send to Congress to become law. However, no consensus was reached in the various sectors of parliament for approval.But for the Zapatistas autonomy was not constitutional reality but reality, in the sense that the Zapatistas began to walk with more strength-autonomous municipalities that were already forming in 1995 - to form autonomous regions work.
That is, there are governing, have their own health, education and in this context between 1994 and 2010 what has been different stages of the counterinsurgency policy to try to end the Zapatista struggle for autonomy.
Then from 1994 to 2000 there was a policy of demilitarization of the area, from 2000 forward as needed to advance in Congress agreements, the army withdrew to barracks but not counter-insurgency policy, which was through counter-care programs.
And in recent years especially with the current President Felipe Calderon, has been government policy of drug war, but in this war has militarized the country and has been important for them to attack the nodes that are autonomous. Then we
autonomous governments in the Zapatista and other parts of the country who have been openly attacked, not so much in terms of total massacres but as paramilitary groups working in the regions and people attacking both movements as Zapatista communities. In the Zapatista area of \u200b\u200bthe forest there evictions, paramilitary attacks and counterinsurgency policy is added to the government's war against drug trafficking.
With all these communities are crossing into a new state of great violence and alert. By 2012 we think that will happen is that the whole country is going to move much because there is a dispute over who will take the presidency.
Political parties are seeing the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) which administered the state for more than 70 years, is coming back, taking hold, because the left is very disjointed and the right is discredited by the type of government which has exercised federal level and in different states of the municipality. Then
the story unfolds is the PRI, it is thought, by the polls and sees that it is a reality, that the PRI will win again and both left and right in various municipal and district committees are making alliances to join now and prevent the PRI wins.- On behalf of the Zapatistas Is there any possibility of resuming talks with the government?
- No, while not satisfied with the signing of the Agreements of San Andrés: recognition of autonomy, to self-determination, economic and productive capacity of communities. While there is no constitutional recognition, the Zapatistas are in total silence and the only thing coming out now are reported of the Good Government to denounce the violence they are suffering.
So there is no possibility if the government does a review of its policy, first to fulfill the San Andrés accords and on the other side of counterinsurgency policy. If there is a change of attitude by the government, the Zapatistas have declared total silence.
- On The Other Campaign Does this continue? Is it going to revive?
- Since the end of 2005 were made in preparation for the Other Campaign and began walking in 2006. It has different sectors such as student, there is an alliance with the peasant movement's National Congress Indigenous cultural art movement, anarcho-punk movement, small groups of the Communist Party.
there is the Other Campaign is a political force, not the majority. It has a really pulls the radical because it builds joint spaces which are really down, the movements of prostitutes, the movements are in different parts of the country without even entering politics, parties in electoral democratic life.
All this Article, the other ... in different regions, there are many internal problems of joint decision-making, but still exists as a political reality in different places with no chance of having another option for politics. The Other Campaign is anti-capitalist bottom left, building another policy from the lowest social levels.
- What is the position of the Zapatistas with respect to the 2012 presidential election? Do you support a candidate of the left?
- will not enter. Always make an argument, a common work, always have a permanent position that is not taking power for us. There are others that are taking power, are real but those options as the work of the Zapatistas is to build real relationships more personal, as low as possible, of horizontality, participation as equal as possible, that is not within the framework of the elections.
So every time there is much to criticize election candidates, the purchase and sale of votes, the whole democracy is reduced to the election and do a job like the Other Campaign. That is driving different control strategies outside the context of elections and party democracy.
For those who will come, can continue with the silence that is a way of saying that they will not go into any game and you can come back out and make a very strong criticism to the Left and candidates from other parties . Always very uncomfortable as the presence of the Zapatistas, because many people want to join the democratic left and partisan than the sum will reach the seizure of power.
But people do not understand that if I had wanted to electoral democracy, we might have Mark as a candidate for the forthcoming presidential elections, but that logic is not how it works. Communities where they are the center of the Zapatistas say that is the forest, before 1994 did not participate in elections.
And after 1994, at a time when there was a convergence with the PRD (Party for Democratic Revolution) of brotherhood but after a break was very strong because the PRD wanted Use the Zapatistas, the Zapatistas would not enter into the logic of the electoral. So when talking about the bottom left to build from the ground, many political parties to see them as potential bases votes and now.
In these elections, the Zapatistas will return to play a role even radical criticism and make people think as far as electoral democracy really is allowing us to better conviviality.
- I have not published communiqués of the EZLN from the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine When will it resume?
- is that silence as a strategy for political struggle is very important to them, and there comes a time when you can no longer talk to the government because they want to use, they want to convince people that there is a dialogue, which is moving forward, then manipulate the relationship. That is why the Zapatistas take the political position of silence, to avoid any possibility of outside the government directed all that is happening to a particular side.
So in this framework will preserve-insurance-total silence. They are talking now the Good Government, which are the political-civic regional government called Caracoles and are based in the autonomous Zapatista municipalities. These boards are saying paramilitaries we are displacing, suppressing, the reclaimed land is we were attacked.
The Clandestine Committee is joining forces for some to say something in 2010, others say they are joining forces in 2012, for others it is a mistake to be quiet, the only thing certain is that if we silence is a strategy of political struggle is how to punish the government in a radical way to avoid giving the game at all.
And for many people it is like giving in, "that stupid because they say nothing", but that's the strategy we have chosen many times over the years of military-political conflict unresolved. Then we will continue to receive communiqués of the Boards and we will not see a statement from spokesman Clandestine Committee or Sub Commander Marcos, until a moment when you break the silence and put a new strategy.
- As they did before the 2006 elections "The Other Campaign will be touring throughout Mexico for 2012?
- I think that there will be a strategy in 2010 to criticize the Bicentennial of Independence and the Centennial of the Mexican Revolution that the Calderon administration is celebrated with pomp, with waste of money, with enormous pride, because there support for a lot of cultural arts groups but there is for the "buddies" who joined the bicentennial and the centennial.
Yes, we will see something is in 2010 and by 2012 I think they will restructure the Other Campaign, born in 2006 and has fulfilled its role of bringing down most of anti-capitalist struggle that the local with the global. This phase, say, already done, but what has not yet been made, there was talk of building a national action plan to level all the organizations we join the Other Campaign.
That was cut short by the violence and displacement of the paramilitaries against the autonomous communities. Then there is a truncated phase of the Other Campaign that is the construction of the national action plan and this may be against regain the elections of 2010.
Now the Other Campaign is very focused on stopping the aggression, denouncing the violence, that is as central a role that requires and generates an organizational work among us, we must organize to denounce all this. And that's the way that politics is working specifically in the Other Campaign.
report and not only now, but is that through this work claims that each community of struggle, forms of association and organizational experiences than those that could occur at a time of peace, not the armed conflict and paramilitary violence.
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