Ernesto Ledesma
Global Exchange Chiapas

The development of the dialogue between Mexican civil society, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and the Commission for Peace and Reconciliation (COCOPA) brought substantial advances, about which we can make the following conclusions:

First of all, the urgent necessity to set up a mediating body became evident.

Secondly, the logistics for the National Referendum about the Legislative Proposal on Indigenous Rights and Culture written by the COCOPA were further developed. The EZLN has named 5,000 delegates that will travel throughout the country, 2,500 of them will be women, 2,500 will be men - two delegates for each of the 2,500 municipalities in Mexico. With regard to this effort, some primary points are worth emphasizing:

1. The Mexican government has attempted to reduce the conflict with the EZLN to the state level, specifically to 4 municipalities. The fact that the Zapatistas will send delegates throughout the country breaks the political, military and social enclosure imposed by the federal government.

2. On this same point, the EZLN proposes the participation of all the Mexican citizens that live in other countries around the world, breaking not only with isolation at the state level but at the national level as well.

3. The National Referendum has released the COCOPA's Legislative Proposal on Indigenous Rights and Culture from the bind in which it has been held for two years.

4. The fact that more than 3,000 people from 28 of Mexico's 32 states covered their own costs to attend the dialogue with the EZLN is a clear indication that the Zapatistas still have the ability to mobilize.

EZLN - COCOPA DIALOGUE

The Commission for Peace and Reconciliation (COCOPA) currently plays a fundamental role in the delicate thread that sustains the peace process in Mexico. Suspension of the dialogue is not the same as a breakdown in the dialogue. If at some point the COCOPA were dissolved, the Law for Dialogue would come to an end (the legislation passed in March 1995 which recognized the EZLN's right to bear arms and other conditions that facilitated the beginning of the peace process). The absence of the Law for Dialogue would in turn provoke a rupture and the renewal of all-out "high-intensity" warfare between the Mexican Army and the EZLN.

After overcoming some setbacks, which made the vacuum of a mediating body evident, the Dialogue between the Zapatista delegation and the COCOPA was successful in various aspects:

1. The Zapatista delegation invited the COCOPA to contribute to the National Referendum on constitutional reforms that it is organizing with civil society.

2. The COCOPA stressed the necessity to maintain a permanent relationship, as a direct link between the EZLN and the Congress of the Union, as well as the creation of a working agenda that moves towards achieving peace.

3. Both delegations affirmed that they will respond publicly after analysis and consultation regarding the respective proposals.

A few hours before the second meeting between the COCOPA and the EZLN on the 22nd, the Federal Government pressured the legislative commission, forcing them to deliver two sealed envelopes to the Zapatista delegation. The EZLN stated that it did not recognize the COCOPA as a mediating body and therefore was not in a position to receive them. The next day, a representative of the federal government attempted unsuccessfully to deliver the envelopes directly to the EZLN delegation.

The government strategy became evident on the following day when it declared publicly that "the refusal of the Zapatista delegation to receive government proposals demonstrates the inflexibility of the EZLN and their overwhelming rejection of the dialogue." If, however, the Zapatista delegates had accepted the government envelopes through the COCOPA, they could have pre-empted the possibility of establishing a mediating body.

On the 23rd of this month (the day that the government attempted to deliver the sealed envelopes to the EZLN) the Zapatista delegates returned to their places of origin. On the same day in Majomut, in the municipality of Chenalho (autonomous municipality of Polhó), the Mexican Army detained 20 indigenous men and injured two women and one man, violating the pre-encuentro agreement to maintain troops in their barracks during the Zapatista delegation's stay in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in addition to violating the human rights of the indigenous people involved.

San Cristóbal de las Casas, November 27 1998

* National Referendum - in Spanish la Consulta Nacional or simply la Consulta