"South of the Border"

Searching for Commandant Marcos

By Lorna Tychostup

It has become my yearly sojourn. Just around the time when the absence of sun becomes a predatory thing in my life, I plan a winter trip south of the border where the sun is hot, the plane ticket is cheap and the beaches wait patiently for the contents of my mind to spill gently toward them. This annual trek started many years ago after the wintery end of a relationship. Sharpening razor blades suddenly became a hobby as I sat contemplating my purpose, or seeming lack of one here on the planet. Then it came to me louder than E.T.'s phone home signal, "Take me to the beach!!"

Six days later, never having traveled alone before and never having traveled in another country, I was on a plane heading for Costa Rica with some books, drawing pads and pencils stuffed into my backpack, along with some warm weather clothing. The razor blade business faded quickly amid thoughts of basic survival. Traveling alone in a foreign country where you don't know the language can be quite a challenge, and simple phrases like "Donde banos?" can be a life saver.

For the last several years my destination has been the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. My main intent has always been to find a beach as uninhabited as possible, string my hammock, take my clothes off and lie in the sun while melting away. So much for intentions. Sitting still in one place has never been my forte and after 4 or 5 days I am usually ready for some movement. Each year I explore further, leaving the state of Yucatan and traveling La Ruta Maya - the Mayan Route, which National Geographic spoke of back in October of '89, as "an ambitious regional project designed to showcase and preserve their shared cultural, historical, and environmental heritage. In this realm of the ancient Maya one discovers: More cities than in ancient Egypt; remote villages where traditions and crafts have survived for 3,000 yrs.; endangered tropical forests and as many species of birds as the U.S. and Canada combined; the longest barrier reef in the Americas; economic and population pressures that threaten all of the above."

The route is shaped like a figure 8 with the top-half circling the perimeter of the Yucatan peninsula, and the bottom-half circling south into Belize, west through Guatemala and back up into Mexico through the state of Chiapas. My first journey to Chiapas was back in Feb. of 1995. After spending 5 days on the beach in Tulum with a friend and his wife, I picked up and traveled La Ruta Maya into Guatemala to the ruin site of Tikal.

Once in Tikal I found some friends I had met earlier in the trip. We set up camp and went into the ruins to explore, sleeping in the ruins at night (each of us paying the $6 stated in our guidebooks as the required 'bribe' for this privilege) under the light of the full moon, wrapped in blankets bought from Indians, amidst the screeching of howler monkeys and other, unidentifiable sounds. During the day we climbed pyramid after pyramid, absorbing the mystical sensations of the area.

After two days we all decided to go separate ways. The others were traveling further into Guatemala and I needed to start the trek north back into Mexico and to Palenque (another ruin site on La Ruta Maya) before boarding my plane for home. My companions were concerned for my safety. The bus route had a notorious reputation and there was talk of soldiers and revolution. Some Germans who were camping next to us asked me if I wanted to join them. They were heading to Palenque but didn't want to take the normal bus route. They said they wanted to go on an "adventure". I said "sure" and we were on our way.

Traveling by 'collectivo' (mini-van) we spent the night in a river-side posada. Waking early the next morning, we hired a little fishing boat and churned our way up the Rive de la Pasion to the river Usumacinta (the border between Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico) for a nine hour journey through the jungle. We heard reports that the Guatemalan government had called up some 3,000 troops to guard this border river to keep the Indians of the Zapatista revolution from crossing into Guatemala. This news didn't seem too important at the time and there is no mention of it in my journal, until later...

2/16/95 - Journal entry - It is important to notice this is a moment in history. We are in a small frontier town after approx. 9 hours in the boat. There are troops here as there have been at each stop we've made. On one side of the river is Guatemala, the other is Chiapas. So we've seen troops of both countries wherever we go. They leisurely carry fully automatic weapons with large curved cartridges (AK 47's, SK's , etc.). I don't think I've seen the same gun twice. Each gun is different from the next, some are similar but never exactly the same. I asked them if I could take their pictures but they said it is forbidden. One of the German women said it is forbidden to take a picture anywhere in Chiapas. The Germans seem unnerved or surprised at the presence of the soldiers. I am OK with it. I am angry. They are here to kill and control the Indian population. These soldiers are children (17-19 yrs. old), but soldiers always are.

This was my first direct contact with the Zapatista revolution. As we traveled from the frontier town to Palenque, the presence of the military was everywhere - trenches and foxholes, armored vehicles, tanks, truckloads of troops. We spent the night at the youth hostel in Palenque and the next day some of us took a taxi to Aqua Azul, a swimming area near Palenque. On the way I noticed huge, freshly downed trees, 2 1/2 - 3' in diameter. Hardwoods. Rainforest timber. I asked the driver why they had been cut. He replied, "Zapatistas. Guerrillas. They cut down trees to block the road and stop the troops." Such is warfare in Chiapas.

On Jan. 1, 1994, the primarily indigenous Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), wearing the black ski-masks which have since become their trademark, staged an armed uprising in the southeastern state of Chiapas. Seizing control of the colonial city San Cristobal de las Casas and 5 surrounding towns in the Chiapas highlands, they demanded democracy, liberty, and justice for all Mexicans, declaring, "We have nothing to lose, absolutely nothing, no decent roof over our heads, no land, no work, poor health, no food, no education, no right to freely and democratically choose our leaders, no independence from foreign interests, and no justice for ourselves or our children. But we say enough is enough! We are the descendants of those who truly built this nation, we are the millions of dispossessed, and we call upon our brethren to join our crusade, the only option to dying of starvation!"

This army was composed almost exclusively of young men, women and even children from indigenous Mayan groups of the Chiapan highlands. Their main goal, in contrast to other revolutions was and still is, not the overthrow of the present Mexican government, but "development of a vast movement by civil society that creates profound structural changes."

Historical roots of the conflict in Chiapas began in the pre-Spanish conquest era when Pacific lowland areas were the breadbasket of the indigenous civilizations. With the arrival of the Spanish, the indigenous population, over a period of 500 yrs., was slowly pushed off their land to make room for plantations owned by Ladinos (people of mixed Spanish and Indian descent), and "forced to farm the thin, rocky soils found on the steep slopes of the highlands." In the last 40 years. the highlands have no longer been able to support the growing Indian population and the poorest began to migrate east, toward the Lacandon jungle area, clearing tracts of rainforest using the slash and burn method, exposing the red clay soil which loses its fertility within one to three crop cycles.

Under pressure from environmentalists, the Mexican government passed laws prohibiting rainforest destruction. Every tree that is cut costs a campesino a jail term, and a fine that is 10 times the minimum wage. These same trees are cut and dynamited by Pemex (Mexico's national oil company) which has 8 petroleum deposits under exploration in the Lacandon forest, and pumps 92,000 barrels of petroleum and 517,000,000,000 cubic ft. of gas each day out of Chiapas. And that is not all that is pumped out of Chiapas, one of the two poorest states in Mexico. Coffee, beef, precious woods, conifers, and tropical trees (In 1988 wood exports brought a revenue 23,900,000,000 pesos, 6,000% more than in 1980.),honey, corn, and electricity (55% of Mexican national hydroelectric energy comes from Chiapas, where only 1/3 of the homes have electricity).

Subcommander Marcos, the pipe smoking, masked spokesman for the EZLN, said in 1992, "Everyone is dreaming in this country. Now it is time to wake up..." I went looking for him last year, this masked man who speaks prolifically for the indigenous rebels from deep in the Chiapan highlands. I had questions to ask him, poet to poet. Marcos is unmistakably a poet, and I wanted to ask him how poetry can fuel a revolution. (Just look at Nicaragua, where everyone considers themselves poets and poetry fueled the Sandinstas.) I wanted to ask him about poets being visionaries, and the young man who once told me if I didn't read my poetry in public then I wasn't a true poet. This man said true poets didn't stay at home and write for themselves, but took it out into the street, no matter what the risk. I wanted to ask Marcos about this...

But that was before I woke up. Woke up to the stories of women subcommanders leading their troops into battle on Jan 1, 1994. The battle in the town of Ocosinco. When the fighting stopped after 10 days, 1,000 people lay dead in the streets. Bodies which weren't dragged into homes at night and buried in backyards were taken away by government trucks the next day and dumped in mass graves or burned at the local incinerator... Woke up to the story of the campesino family murdered by a government backed paramilitary squad. An entire family, their heads taken from them and placed on plates in front of them, as they were seated around their table, their own hands holding their heads in place. Except for the littlest one whose tiny hands kept slipping off and were finally nailed in place...Woke up to the story of the two Jesuit priests and two campesinos who were taken prisoner by the Mexican government and tortured those first three days of my arrival in the Chiapan highlands this past March. Finally released after the Catholic church screamed into the ear of the government the fact that these men had been 100 miles away from the scene of the crime they had been accused of...

And I waited for 10 days to be taken to him, to talk to him and these women who fight alongside the men, fighting a deeply ingrained tradition which tells them who to marry, and how many children to have. But it was too dangerous, I was told. The level of violence had increased. Suddenly it wasn't about adventure any more. It wasn't about poetry any more either, or maybe it was, all the more so. It was about the voice, and the need to use it. To communicate. To tell the stories of a small group of people fighting for survival in a country known for Margaritas and hot beaches which resembles in some way my own country - indigenous peoples pushed onto worthless pieces of land only to be found rich in natural resources, banding together and fighting to protect their right to simply live. Fighting, while tourists of all countries roam the land, dreaming of finding magic and Indians. Well, I found both, but now that I've woken up, I find myself searching for Marcos.++