Title: Road to Realidad 1, Subcommandante Marcos /
Authors: Pierce, Steffen,
Year: 1996
Subjects: Tacho,; Marcos,; Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Mexico); Indians of Mexico; Paramilitary forces Mexico Chiapas (State); Villages Mexico Chiapas (State); Indians of Mexico Mexico Chiapas (State) Social conditions; Revolutionaries Mexico Chiapas (State); Protest movements Mexico.; Poor families Mexico Chiapas (State); National liberation movements Mexico Chiapas.; Political violence; Civil rights Mexico; Peasant uprisings Mexico.; Neoliberalism United States.; Emigration and immigration Economic aspects; Social change Mexico.; Irregular warfare.; Civil rights movements Mexico.; Chiapas (Mexico) Politics and government.; United States Emigration and immigration.; Mexico Chiapas (State) Revolutionaries Interviews.; Chiapas (Mexico) History; Chiapas Highlands (Mexico); Mexico Rural conditions.
Abstract: In a July 1996 interview with a student activist from Mexico City, the student describes participating in the Ricardo Pozas caravan transporting medical supplies to the Moreillas Ejido in February of 1994. The caravan was surrounded in Altomarano, Chiapas by members of the Guardia Blanca paramilitary organization and held at gunpoint while Mexican army units looked on from across the street. The Guardia Blanca accused the students of being gringos and foreign agitators and threatened to hang them from a tree in the central plaza. After four hours of threats and verbal abuse, they were released and the trucks were able to continue to Moreillas Ejido. Following this interview, there is footage of a masked Subcommandante Marcos carrying a machine gun and discussing immigration to the U.S.: "We reject the idea that a human being can be declared illegal. We Latinos, Latinas and Chicanos refuse to be absorbed into this global neoliberal project, the same project that has forced thousands to immigrate north to the US in the first place. We reject the KKK, we reject the idea that a man, a woman, a child can be killed simply for going north to make a living in the most powerful nation on earth. We believe that all people have rights on both sides of the border and that these democratic rights should be respected simply because we are human. Millions of women, millions of children, millions of homosexuals give their blood every day to feed the industrial machine. In this endless neoliberal war, individual countries are converted into foot soldiers governed by the corporate elite. Every town, every man, every child is forced to take part in this never ending corporate neoliberal war to extract blood and profit. Those who conform are sold, but in every part of the world there are those who refuse to conform." Subcommandante Marcos