Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 07:15:14 -0700 (MST)
Subject: SUB-COMMANDER MARCOS' INTERVIEW IN "BRECHA" (URUGUAY) 10 (fwd)



*PART 3* (by Samuel Bixen and Carlos Fazio; trans. ML)
"Brecha"__The guerrilla then is the base of support of a communal indigenous
movement?

S. Marcos__That's how it had been planned, but the actual outcome is no.  
The result has been that the EZLN guerrilla is like the "ejido"'s head 
authority:  it is useful as long as the community feels it is useful.  
The moment we cease being useful they are going to dismiss us.
  
Brecha"__The question related to the base of support was meant in the old 
sense of cadre, a more prepared militant...

S. Marcos__Yes, that was the plan.  We could try to build a political 
party starting from the EZLN, that would do the work of the indigenous 
communities.  We can't.  We can't because it is another culture, another 
way of practicing politics.  They are not politically illiterate.  They 
have another way of conducting politics.  And what those in power want to 
do now is to teach them political literacy, that is to say, to corrupt 
them within the current political system.

"Brecha"__And how does this fit into the kind of verticality a military 
structure must have?

S. Marcos__Surrendering (to the communities), which is what we did in 1990.
The scheme is in the sense that in a military organization which is growing 
and goes through a consensus, any member may question an order with the 
criterium of the communal assembly.
Yes.  It's accepted.  I need the ethnic groups permission.  That is why I 
need the command. That is not to say that I am willing to obey the 
Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee.  I need it.  Otherwise I 
cannot give orders to an Idigenous guerrilla force.

"Brecha"--And once you give the orders, do they obey them?

S. Marcos_-Yes, because on top of it all it is publically known who gave 
them.  I say:"We are going to wage war."  And they can answer me:  "You 
are crazy.  No way."  "No, it's that it was an order from over there."  I 
cannot command militarily.  That is what noone understands.
Marcos does not need the Clandestine Committee as a justification, 
because that is undeniable.  In order to make political decisions and to 
be able to exert the military command, Marcos needs the authority that 
prevails over the communities.  He needs the communities permission to 
give the order of war, in order to give the order of withdrawal.  If I 
don't have that permission, I do not exist as a military commander.  
Without that permission from the Indigenous military leaders of the 
communities, the EZLN des not exist.  This goes so far, that the EZLN's 
existence itself depends on this.  The moment the communities say:  
"You go", the way they can tell the "ejido"'s head authority to go, I 
have to go.  Or I risk being left alone.

"Brecha"__And what happens if Marcos disappears?

S. Marcos__Within the structure of the EZLN there is a scale of command.  
There is one who follows me.  The brothers know who follows.  In general 
I keep The Clandestine Committee and those who follow me in the scale of 
command  informed of everything I do, or am doing, because I make so many 
stupid mistakes!  That is to say, the brothers have the direction of the 
organization.  They know where we are and which way to procede.

"Brecha"__In other words, if Marcos disappears nothing ceases to work.

S. Marcos__Theoretically, no.

"Brecha"__And that translator's role?

S. Marcos__That one wasn't planned.  It is the media's fault, since they 
wanted to come in but did not know how.  They were faced with a 
resistance movement in which the color of the skin has an ideological 
meaning of oppression, exploitation, lies.  How were they to know a 
movement made up of dark skin!  In other words what entered the body of 
the guerrilla was the structure of the ethnic groups and it breakes with 
all the criteria of previous armed organizations.
We can say on paper what we want.  But reality is always more intelligent.

"Brecha"_-That would explain the fact that you are always changing; that 
there isn't a corporeal strategic plan.  It explains the process that 
takes off at the Aguascalientes Convention, with the laying out of the 
National Liberation Movement, the visits of Cuauhte'moc Ca'rdenas to the 
jungle; the plebiscite, the option in favor of "civil society", and the 
laying out of forging a pole with those without a political party  a 
broad front ("frente amplio.")  Does the EZLN have a policy of alliances?

S. Marcos__We are thinking at two levels.  That of an ample or broad 
front with political organizations, and that of the new political 
organization.  When we say that in the discussion of the national 
dialogue there is a theme called "creation of a new political force based 
in the EZLN", it is when we ask:  "Do we become a political force?."  
Yes.  Well, that new political force we want to build it without the 
political parties, and we will enter a relationship with the political 
parties in the Broad Opposition Front ("Frente Amplio Opositor") or in 
the Broad Opposition Movement ("Movimiento Amplio Opositor".)  Imagine:  
"MAO" (the pun is not obvious in English, n.t).

Now that political force we want to build is not meant to have access to 
positions of popular ellection.  It is not a force against the existing 
political parties.  It is meant as a force the government and the parties 
should take into account.  In the worst of cases that they take it into 
account; in the best of cases that they obey it.
But no matter how, there is the problem of the political organizations 
which lay out the problem of power.  The meeting place of these people, 
as long as they are an anti-system of the State party and 
anti-neoliberal, would be the Opposition Broad Front ("Frente Amplio 
Opositor".)  There would be two levels.  That is what the PRD does not 
understand, or some of its leaders, like Porfirio Mu~oz Ledo and Pablo 
Go'mez.  They produce very good analysis.  But one must take the cover 
off the binoculars; otherwise one cannot see.  If you don't take off the 
cover, binoculars turn into mirrors.
I know that the logical question is:  well, but how is it going to be 
possible to build a political force that isn't a political party?  I 
don't have the slightest idea.  What we are offering the people is:  We 
are going to come to an agreement.
We make politics with bullets.  To make ourselves heard.  No longer to 
take over power.  If we hadn't shot any bullets, forget it...

(Translator's note.  This afternoon, after classes I'll post the last part 
"Uruguayans in the Lacandon Jungle" and "The 'gringos' presence."   It will 
be part 4 of 4 not 6 as I had anticipated.  ML.)




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