To Proceso, El Financiero, La Jornada,Tiempo
To the National and International Press
Here is a message demonstrating that man is the only animal that risks falling into the same trap twice. Indeed, it would be good if you would send a copy of the much-mentioned law to the federal troops.1 They don’t seem to have been informed, because they keep advancing. If we keep withdrawing we’re going to run into a sign saying: “Welcome to the Ecuador-Peru border.” It’s not that we wouldn’t enjoy the trip to South America, but being in the middle of three fires like that must not be very pleasant.2
We are well. Here in the jungle one can appreciate, in all its rawness, the transformation of man into monkey (anthropologists, abstain).
Vale. Salud, and one of those crystals that lets you see the present and the future.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast
Insurgente Subcomandante Marcos
P.S. that asks just out of curiosity: What is the name of the general of the Federal Army who, before retreating from the ejido Prado, ordered the destruction of everything useful in the houses of the indigenous people and the burning of several huts?3 In Prado they earn, on average, 200 new pesos a month per family; how much does the general earn for such a “brilliant” military action? Will they promote him in rank for “meritorious service”? Did the general know that one of the houses he ordered destroyed was Toñita’s house? Will this general tell his children and grandchildren about this “shining entry” in his record of service? What is the name of the officer who, days after having invaded and destroyed houses in the ejido Champa San Agustín, came back with candy and had himself photographed as he gave it to the children?
What is the name of the officer, who, emulating the protagonist of Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel Pantaleón y las visitadoras, brought dozens of prostitutes to “attend” to the garrison that occupies Guadalupe Tepeyac?4 How much do the prostitutes charge? How much does the general in charge of such a “risky” military operation earn? How much commission does the Mexican “Pantaleón” get?
Are the prostitutes the same for the officers and the troops? Does this “service” exist in all the garrisons of the campaign “in defense of the national sovereignty”?
If the Mexican Federal Army exists to guarantee national sovereignty, shouldn’t they have accompanied Ortiz to Washington, instead of persecuting Mexican indigenous dignity in Chiapas?6
P.S. that armor-plates its heart again to tell what follows. . . . The 8th of March, the inhabitants of Prado finish coming down from the mountains.
Toñita’s family was part of the last contingent. When they come to what was left of their little house, each Prado family’s scene is repeated in Toñita’s family: the men, impotent and enraged, look over the little that is left standing; the women cry and tear their hair, praying and repeating: “Oh my God, oh my God,” while they pick up the torn clothes, the few broken pieces of furniture, the food, spilled and contaminated with excrement, the broken images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, their crucifixes trashed alongside “fast food” wrappers from the U.S. Army. This scene is now almost a ceremony among the inhabitants of Prado.
They have repeated it 108 times in the last few days, once for each family. 108 times the impotence, the rage, the tears, the cries, the “Oh my God, oh my God . . .”
However, this time there is something different. There is a tiny little woman who doesn’t cry. Toñita didn’t say anything, she didn’t cry, she didn’t yell. She walked over the rubbish and went directly to a corner of the house, as if looking for something. There, in a forgotten corner, was a little teacup, broken, thrown away like a worn-out hope. That little cup was a gift someone had sent her so that someday Toñita-Alice could drink tea with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. But this time it isn’t a hare that Toñita finds in March. It is her house, destroyed on the orders of the one who claims to defend sovereignty and legality.
Toñita doesn’t cry, she doesn’t shout, she doesn’t say anything. She picks up the pieces of the little teacup and the little saucer that served as its base. Toñita leaves, walks again through the torn and dirty clothes on the ground, through the corn and beans strewn about the destruction, she passes by her mother, her aunts, and her sisters who weep, and cry out, and repeat “Oh my God, oh my God.”
Outside, near a guava tree, Toñita sits down on the ground and, with mud and a little saliva, starts to stick the pieces of the teacup together again. Toñita doesn’t cry, but there is a cold and hard glimmer in her eyes.
Brutally, as has been the case for indigenous women for the last 500 years, Toñita is no longer a girl and becomes a woman. It is the 8th of March of 1995, International Women’s Day, and Toñita is five years old, going on six. The cold and piercing glimmer in her eyes rescues, from the broken little teacup, sparkles that wound. Anyone would say that it is the sun that sharpens the rancor that betrayal has sown in these lands. . . . As if mending a broken heart, Toñita reconstructs, with mud and saliva, her broken little teacup. Someone, far off, forgets for the moment that he is a man. The salty drops that fall from his face don’t manage to rust his leaden heart. . . .
