Zapatistas On-Line

...P.S...

...The Lacand6n jungle address became the locus of a global news agency whose lead dispatches were written by guerrilla combatants themselves: Jan 1, 1994 We are the inheritors and the true builders of our nation...

...Whether or not the government was responsible, the general panic that erupted when the network was broken shows how essential the laneta connection has become...

...The media images of the initial campaign were created with a clear understanding of what the effect would be...

...Respectfully, From the southeast of Mexico Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN...

...Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos...

...Internet conferences were used to post emergency communiques and circulate information about solidarity actions...

...Who was this man harming...

...The dispossessed, we are millions, and we thereby call upon our brothers and Voz Fronteriza, the n sisters to join this struggle as the Movimiento Estudiar only path, so that we will not die Aztljn (MECHA) at of hunger due to the insatiable ambition of a 70-year dictatorship led by a gang of traitors that represents the most reactionary groups...

...Our path protects those who have nothing...

...The Chiapas computer conferences, and the publications that have emanated from them, have allowed many people to feel closer to a revolutionary process...

...There was a sense of direct connection, of an authentic "interactive" movement, as groups and individuals forwarded messages, excerpted passages, pinned up tear sheets and posted their own comments on-line...

...Until the last hour we will salute the dark side which supported our brilliance...

...His questioning of the authenticity of the Zapatistas brought on a clatter of keyboards defending the EZLN and documenting the connections between the Zapatistas of today and their forebears...

...We are no less for it...

...In several instances after using the tape, individuals would repost the announcement in other conferences, resulting in even wider distribution (for info: amartinez@igc.apc.org) 4. Paul B. Carroll, "Foreign Competition Spurs Mexico to Move Into High-Tech World," Wall Street Journal, July 5, 1994, p. A9...

...English-language versions of articles from La Jornada and El Financiero were posted within a few hours of their appearance...

...While no one can prove that the government deliberately tampered with the Chiapas connections, charges of sabotage seemed credible to many net-surfers...

...Here we are, in the mountains of southeast Mexico...Come for us...Now nothing is safe, much less the hopes for peace...

...Within a few hours after the takeover of San Crist6bal de las Casas by the Zap- atistas on the morning of January 1, computer screens around the world sparked with news of the uprising...

...2. The communiques from the EZLN and Marcos are being compiled by Harry Cleaver of the University of Texas, and will be published as Zapatistai Documents of the New Mexican Revolution (New York: Autonomedia, 1994...

...The country would have bled less than with this infamy which now makes us shudder...

...Perhaps the most effective outcome of Chiapas on-line has been the boosting of psychological morale of Latin American activists, anti-GATT cadre and human rights workers...

...Latin American institutes and Spanish departments in the United States made instant "wall newspapers" of the declaration with tear-sheet printouts...

...Greetings brother Zapatista-moles...

...Over the following weeks, wspaper of the Internet watchers avidly scanned i de Chicanos de ISan Diego...

...Considering the widespread support for the EZLN throughout Mexico, this eloquence was not the sort of thing the government wanted floating around during the negotiations...

...One of the items with the most responses is a discussion of John Womack's position on the Zapatistas...

...3 A survey of the postings shows the hunger for accurate news: requests for information, questions about certain facts, searches for biographical details...

...Voz Fronteriza, the newspaper of the Student Movement of Aztlin Chicanos (MECHA) at the university where I teach, brought out a special Zapatista edition, reproducing the declaration in large type spread over six pages...

...Here we are, where we were bom and where we grew up, where there is a great heart which sustains us, where our dead and our history reside...

...The tape was used by many solidarity groups for community forums on the situation in Mexico...

...Do not allow yourself to be taken in by lies...

...In the last few years there has been an exponential growth of computer communications in the country...

...This message resonated within the nocturnal hacker community, not only because they are "the dark side" of the corporate computer world, but because many could probably see the full moon out their windows as they read the communique...

...Of particular note is the speed with which information was translated and retransmitted...

...Like us, if we are the dark side of the moon...

...Zapatistas On-Line 1. Mathews spread the word not only for Fidel's rebels, but for the Loyalist cause during the Spanish Civil War when he and Ernest Hemingway posted regular dispatches from the cities and countryside besieged by the Fascists...

...Farewell...

...Both within and outside of Mexico, the Zapatista presence on the Internet has had a powerful effect...

...It is rather because we are willing to be the dark side that it is possible for all to see the moon (and, because in order to see it you have to learn to fly very high...

...Bursting through their TV screens were the new icons of romantic rebellion: the ski-masked Zorro/Zapata guerrilleros...

...Farewell...

...The January actions were a hit with grassroots organizers worldwide who daily wage legal and moral battles for many of the same causes that the EZLN champions...

...Even a high-ranking Jesuit official came on-line to deny any connection to his order...

...Agronomists and anthropologists who specialize in Chiapas and Central American agriculture jumped in to add details and background...

...We promise you that we will shine intensely, so as to outdo the sun, before disappearing forever...

...Whatever the method, Marcos' messages-replete with literary and cultural referencescaptured the imagination of the Mexican population...

...ei ti UC Jornada...

...See the entire article for a discussion of the rapid development of computer communications...

...To the people of Mexico: We the men and women, full and free, are conscious that the war that we have declared is our last resort, but also a just one...JOIN THE INSURGENT FORCES OF THE ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY...

...Brothers, the powerful now usurp the truth and try to deceive us by saying that peace is just a question of a signature...

...As the Wall Street Journal has noted, "poor farmers can track the prices, in Mexico and internationally, for the apples, limes, papayas and mangos they grow...

...The rebels' effective use of e-mail has been a powerful weapon against disinformation...

...The difference with past rebel uprisings is striking...

...And on the computer networks...

...3. An e-mail announcement on January 13 of the completion of a videotape report from Chiapas, A Cry for Freedom and Democracy, by CheChe Martinez, brought over a hundred orders for the tape within a few weeks...

...The timing of the January 1 event was precisely arranged...

...Within hours, it was translated into English (and within the first week, into many other languages...

...The first-hand detailed news of the bombing raids on January 5 was widely published...

...There were hundreds of screens of discussion over whether or not Marcos was a priest...

...The declaration was down-loaded into the files of newspaper and magazine journalists, and was posted on dozens of computer bulletin boards and conferences to be reproduced in hard copy in hundreds of venues...

...Experts in various areas would often tag on addenda to re-posted news...

...From the jungle came a bleak and gloomy reverie which made reference to the full moon: March 24, 1994 Communication to Proceso, La Jornada, El Financiero, El Tiempo, the national and international press...

...This was war news in real time.' What effect the e-mail activity had on actual events is hard to assess at this point...

...Indeed, the EZLN was able to get its side of the story across during a critical moment in the negotiation process when the government prematurely announced a peace agreement: March 15, 1994 Shadows of new rage...

...A vital part of any revolutionary movement is the degree of hope that is mobilized...

...In Marcos' prose, one senses an expertise and familiarity with computer-based text, if not directly with e-mail...

...They have the means to disseminate information through a widely based electronic network...

...the exciting news from the jungle...

...At the very least, it is clear that the direct communiques from the guerrilla leadership served as a block against disinformation...

...For a press corps clutching their modem-connected laptops, Marcos became the first super hero of the net...

...For instance, until the New York Times published Herbert Mathews' Sierra Maestra interview with Fidel in 1957, the revolutionary activity in Cuba was virtually unknown to the rest of the world...

...The communiques are most likely written on disks which are carried down from the jungle camp...

...The Zapatistas have been exemplary in their mobilization of new technologies to disseminate information and to point out the emancipatory potential in the Internet: June 16, 1994 Now is the time for hope to organize itself and to walk forward in the valleys and in the cities...

...Surprisingly, even small-scale agriculture is becoming computerized...

...For those that no one sees...

...The graffiti painted on the buildings in San Crist6bal (sometimes in English for CNN cameras) and the smoldering remains of the municipal records were images designed to give maximum media effect with a minimum of war...

...How can there be peace if the causes of the war continue to cry out due to our perpetual misery...

...And so it is that few are willing to suffer so that others will not suffer and to die so that others may live...

...Since the first week in January, over a dozen official EZLN communiquess" have been sent out...

...Indeed, the Zapatistas' facility with e-mail was only one facet of their savvy use of the media...

...Subcomandante Marcos...

...The breakdown was suspicious if only because it occurred at the height of the negotiations with the government, just when the Zapatistas were releasing their eloquently stated demands...

...Many have speculated that the government tried to close down the rebels' computer link...

...he Zapatistas, of course, are not the only Mexicans on the information superhighway...

...For a short period of time, laneta-the Mexican source for Internet-was down, and worried communicators flooded several conferences with accusations of government censorship...

...Who are they punishing with this crime...

...To the State Council of Indigenous People and Peasants: To the Mexican People: To the people and governments of the world: To the national and international press: The federal government, usurper of popular will, has reverted to lying about what happened during the dialogue in San Crist6bal de las Casas, Chiapas...

...2 The uses of the net to present the stance of the Zapatistas during the negotiations forced even Televisa, the government-controlled television network, to report the official demands of the guerrillas...

...We have shown thanks for your patient and obscure work...

...The black night of infamy comes again...

...The bourgeoisie of Mexico were celebrating the new year and the beginning of NAFTA, when they were rudely awakened from their dreams of an easy transition...

...This was war news in real time...

...However momentary the triumph of the small and barely armed group of peasants who confronted the transnational marketing infrastructure in January, they have brought a measure of hope that has been in woefully short supply during the past few years...

...Connect...

...From the academic community came speculation about possible conspiracies...

...Although much of this activity has been concentrated in the maquila/industrial sector, most recently spurred on by NAFTA, there is substantial use of e-mail in Mexican universities...

...The direct communiques were-and still are-a hedge against increased government repression...

...Interior light which shone through us so as to shed light on this small piece of history...It is the dark side of the moon that makes possible the bright side of the moon...

...By January 3, the subcomandante himself was on-line...

...Who gains from his blood?...Let them come...

...The end of our cycle is near...

...Although many journalists have trooped to the mountains to get interviews, the rebels do not need to wait for the Western press to come to them...

...In the United States, the "lanic gopher" at the University of Texas (lanic.utexas.edu) provides a chronological history of the modem traffic on Chiapas...

...4 Predictably, the Mexican government is scrambling to get their counter-insurgency efforts on-line...

...There is a great deal of speculation about exactly how these messages have been transmitted...

...The connection was restored by circuitously re-routing the information, proving to many that it is not so easy to censor the Internet...

...As a major biographer of Emiliano Zapata, Womack's position obviously carries a great deal of academic weight...

...Word has it that Marcos has a laptop...

...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30REPORT ON CULTURE Dialogue on the Internet was particularly heavy in the days after the assassination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio...

...The lyric prose of the Zapatistas' first declaration was reproduced nationally in the Mexican daily La Deedee Halleck teaches in the Department of Communication at the University of California at San Diego...

...The arrogance which resides in the governors' palaces and the home of the wealthy businessmen and landowners continues to shout war and death for our race...

...The evil government says that there are "agreements" when there was only dialogue...

...This almost certainly intensified the solidarity campaign and helped to bring people out for the massive demonstrations in Mexico City, and for the smaller, but significant showings in rallies throughout the world...

...E-mailers reacted with comments and speculation...

...If they are trying to justify a military action against us and against our cause, why did they not kill one of us...

...Sirs: Them...why did they have to do this...