This interview was conducted as research for a Global Exchange investigation on the situation of human rights observation by foreigners in Chiapas.

The beginning of the conversation was not recorded but revolved around Mexican and American civil organizations and their take on NAFTA. There was some focus on labor issues and the concern of American trade unions for the use of cheap labor sources in Mexico.

July, 29 1998

MC:   It is now abandoned, eh. Due to Cardenismo.

A:   Exactly, it had a political position.

MC:   And, yes, a mass movement. This which explains the contradictions between Zapatismo and the PRD, Zapatismo and Cardenas, Zapatismo and the PAN, no?

A:   Meaning that Zapatismo doesn't come as a new movement, but it is a movement with lots of support in Mexico because it has had other, separate positions discussing the theme, even though it was in distinct manners.

MC:   Yes, in my opinion, in retrospect, I think that this movement, this platform for democratization in Mexico, began many years ago, in '68. Then in the electoral struggles in Chiuhuahua and Durango in the 1980s, when the PAN took power, they also mobilized many people. And they affected the political system dominated by the PRI. Then after there was the split within the PRI and the realignment of the left in the PRD, no? Then the democratic current of Cuahutemoc Cardenas, the position that said Cardenas in the FDN (Frente Democratico Nacional) won the 1988 elections. Therefore mass movements have all revolved around the electoral struggle. From 1985-94, no? Zapatismo joined this. Now, Zapatismo, in my personal interpretation, in the beginning came in saying... take back the power, no? But instead of supporting change within the electoral system they suggest change though an armed uprising. And now with the San Andres Accords, much of the Zapatismo position is clarified, what it is, and actually, Zapatismo is abandoning a bit of their initial position.

A:   Their position for armed struggle?

MC:   No. Well, they maintain the armed position. Ever since the first stage of the San Andres Accords the position for democracy, social justice, asking for education, etc. became the call of the indigenous. They are saying that there cannot be democracy, not electoral, not of any type, if the indigenous are not incorporated. They suggest a way to incorporate the indigenous, through the autonomies, through a special regime that guarantees collective rights. But this ideology came in the beginning of 96. In 96 and 98. This is how I see it, no? Zapatismo shook up a lot, because all of this already existed to a degree. And to me, my particular reading, is that there would have been a serious impact on the PRI, with or without Zapatismo. What Zapatismo did was accelerate a process that was already present in Mexico. To accelerate the process and generate a strong counter offensive. Colosio's assignation was, I think, was the result of Zapatismo. It caused a justification for the PRI to again take the hard line and take up arms. Finally, there was a type of coup d'etat. Not an internal coup...not a coup, but, but...

A:   A crack in the PRI.

MC:   Yes, yes, it was like the drop of water that broke the glass, no?

A:   Yes. This, and you have mentioned that Zapatismo accelerated the process of democratization in Mexico, also we have mentioned the international attention that Zapatismo has received. What do you think was the role of the observers, reporters, this...?

MC:   Extremely important.

A:   Really?

MC:   I think that, look. Nobody knows why they stopped the war, or this first stage of the war...

A:   The thirteen days.

MC:   The thirteen days. What I can tell you is that in these first thirteen days, we presented a collective report to the Interamerican Comision Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (Commission of Human Rights),... eh, because the war strategy of the Mexican army in these first thirteen days was, well... brutal! To say, they used every trick and classic method, including extra judicial executions, taking hostages, attacking civil populations. In the end, it was brutal! Brutal! Brutal! Now. Why did they stop? Nobody knows. Civil society says, "We stopped them because of our demonstrations in the Zocalo." Surely, the Dioceses in San Cristobal says, "We stopped them because...", I don't know, "...because relations began with certain sectors, such as Manuel Camancho, etc." But there is another theory that says it was the State Department. That the State Department said to the Mexican Government that this is not going to resolve quickly. This is for sure that... eh. I think that it was evident to the whole world, and in the Government, that it was not going to be resolved by a quick, aggressive action by the Army. The Army was not going to stop it in two weeks, nor in two months, nor in three months. It was going to be a long military campaign, expensive, very bloody, and with the vigilance of the international press, and national and international organizations.

A:   That with their aggressive actions international attention about the conflict was also going to increase...

MC:   Exactly, and the international vulnerability. And at that time, nobody wanted this. It was the moment when Mexico began the socio-commercial agreement with the US and Canada, with somewhat equal powers. Mexico was seen as a lesser power, with lower foreign investment, but it had plans for investment and had a plan to start, and it wasn't convenient for anyone to have a war in the south east because well... continuing military action for two or three weeks might have resulted in "riot". Riot with inverted commas. Therefore... remember that the Government's story was always that it was a disturbance in four municipalities. Yes, but a disturbance in four municipalities that provoked many deaths, many detentions, that provoked atrocities. Atrocities that were immediately known about. By 10th of February in 1994, the Network, we were there in the name of the Network, was presenting a report to the Comision Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (Interamerican Commission of Human Rights). For the first time. By March the Network had already presented a report to the Human Rights Commission at the UN.

A:   This is the Network...?

MC:   Of "All rights for everyone." Rigoberta Menchu had come on a high level mission. Congress people from the US had come. Human Rights Watch was publishing their report about the deaths in Ocosingo. The two, three large atrocities that the Army had committed were known and recognized internationally throughout the world. And not to mention all the journalists that were in Mexico. There was all the international press.

A:   Therefore, what you are saying is that the decision to stop the open, aggressive actions...

MC:   The hostilities...

A:   the hostilities... by the Government immediately lowered the international attention that was being given to the assault.

MC:   Yes, yes. I think so.

A:   Then there weren't as many reporters...

MC:   It's like this. They started in a negotiation "track", with Manuel Comancho, etc. etc. The negotiation "track" that was then destabilized by Colosio's assassination.

A:   This...therefore. This is another subject. I am going to ask you about the assassination of Colosio. What you are saying is very interesting.

MC:   Pardon, I am going on.

A:   I am very interested in what you have said. I would like to know more about... again, that the assassination of Colosio raised the level of attention, internationally...

MC:   Yes, yes, sure, sure, and this instigated the financial crisis. Because a huge amount of foreign investment left Mexico. Here, a more complicated dynamic began.

A:   I am interested in knowing your opinion on a particular point. The Mexican civil population had been organized for some time, and with NAFTA civil organizations linked the three countries together, and other countries of the third world, and then with the Zapatistas this grew. Therefore the dialogue that has come to destabilize the plans of international commercial relations is not between the politicians, but between civil society. The assassination of Colosio further accelerated this and Mexican issues were discussed not only in civil society, but between investors in the financial sector.

MC:   Yes, let me tell you quickly. Lets see. During the NAFTA negotiation, all the political elites bought the image that the country of Mexico was entering into economic modernization. While yes, it had its political problems and issues of democracy and human rights were serious, through the modernization process, specifically the one that was going to be accelerated by the NAFTA, the predicaments with democracy and human rights would resolve themselves. Furthermore, Salinas had sold them this idea that there were two sectors within the PRI. A modernizing, technocratic sector and a dinosaur sector that was impeding the political development of Mexico. But if he was successful in implanting the modernizing sector within the system, within the PRI, then Mexico would enter a process of evolution. Opening up the economy would naturally impact politics and the system of economic regulation and free market and this, naturally, it would find a political opening. Well, all of it was a series of premises.

But what happened in 94? In 94 what began to happen was the elites began to say, "But what is happening in Mexico? We are not going to transform into a democracy. We are not, it doesn't seem like it. There is an armed rebellion that they have not been able to stop. Well, ok. This armed rebellion is in a process of negotiation with Manual Comancho." Ah! But suddenly the presidential candidate of the PRI was assassinated. The first time since 1928 that a candidate of an official party is assassinated. Therefore, look. What is happening? Well, small problems. After the assassination of Colosio the financial destabilization began, therefore where is the financial stability of Mexico?

A:   What had happened within political positions?

MC:   You know who explains this very well is Andres Oppenheimer, in a book "Mexico Al Borde de Caos", "Mexico Bordering on Chaos". He explains this very well. Well, then what is happening? The elites began to say, "They told us that this is another country. It is not the country we thought it was." And all of this came to a head when Zedillo entered power and in March detained Raul Salinas de Gortari. The reality of the Salinas regime came clear. All the corruption and all the deals and narcotrafficing, and the assassinations... and suddenly the big modernizing leader that had sold the idea to the elites and politicians of the world that Mexico was a wonder... Suddenly, "What's happening? Where is it? What we are seeing is chaos and destruction." Therefore I think that the government entered, at the end of 94, in a kind of permanent "damage control". I think that this continues.

A:   What you are saying is interesting because then the government was left trying to control the results, the damage that the system was causing Also it is interesting to see that they were talking of a counterinsurgency plan as published in Proceso. And this is some evidence of what you are saying, that they are trying to...?

MC:   To contain while stabilizing the stock market....Part of the strategy of "damage control," this is my personal interpretation, let's see, was to agree that the elections had to be cleaner. Even though there had been international elections observers. This happened for some years, having international observers, it was practically against national sovereignty, in the same way that today the observation of human rights opposes national integrity. Therefore the amount of ways that they tried to avoid this was impressive. But, in the end, they had to accept that electoral competency is an act. So the federal electoral process was more or less fair. But this has served the regime, this has served Zedillo and his public exterior. If you listen to his speeches to the Mexican government and internationally, they say, "Mexico has a competitive electoral system. We have a problem in Chiapas but it is a problem with a few backward Indians. A crazy, tiresome leader that believes that he savior of the Indians named Sebastian Guillen. But we are now going to resolve this."

At the end of 1994 everything had come under "damage control." The brutal financial crisis that began in December 1994. In this case the "damage control" was to ask the US for 20 billion dollars and the IMF for the other, and to pay this debt. They returned the 20 billion but we don't know all the details , this was done contracting more debt. So, the "damage control" became the Fobaproa. Now the people pay it. But the people don't want to pay it. I think that there is no strategy on the part of the government that proposes to resolve things, that's the strategy of permanent "damage control." This is what I see, because they are exploding.

Nor is the problem in Chiapas a little problem. The problem of the armed struggle has extended to other parts of the country. Nor are the problems of the Indians a small problem. It is a large structural problem, and Mexico isn't going to become a democracy without resolving this problem, nor is the financial problem resolved, nor is anything resolved. Nor the problem of democracy. Remember that Zedillo began his regime saying, "rule of law". We have resolved the democracy. We now have competent elections. We have resolved the economy. We have a healthy, modern and growing democracy."

Now this impact is gone. Yes there is a sector that sees the economy growing. You can say that I am seeing the glass half empty and half full. It depends on your interests. Zedillo continues saying that there is only a problem with the rule of law. So he proposed some reforms to the judicial power. At the beginning of his term he modified the Supreme Court of Justice according to the orders of AID, among other things. Because AID covers all of Latin America. Therefore, "I'm going to tinker a bit with the judicial power and I am going introduce a council". Sure in the process the country was left with out a Supreme Court and nothing happened. Therefore, "Here I have a problem of public security. I'm going to militarize the public security. I am going to make changes to the legislation." All of this with pressure from the US, as well. Well, the following result is that there is not democracy, nor economic stability, nor financial stability, nor either the rule of law. All of this is crumbling. But the "damage control" continues. The only thing, for me, that this poor man wants, this man who has destroyed the country, is to finish his term, more or less. "If it has to be contained, it will be contained by the military."

A:   The politics around the militarization, then, is part of "damage control"?

MC:   For me, yes.

A:   Do you see the deportations and expulsions of foreigners fitting within your perspective of this "damage control"? This is part of the strategy?

MC:   Yes, look. What is happening is a desperate, absurd and dirty strategy. Zedillo has always played the two sides. While he sees if he can negotiate with the Zapatistas, he has maintained military presence and harassment of the Zapatistas. Well, after 95 and 96, he decided that he was not going to negotiate any more with the Zapatistas. Then he discovered that he could negotiate his electoral reform without the Zapatistas, that he could do it directly with the parties. Always with short term politics in mind, never with long term politics. He figured, "Now I don't have to negotiate a political reform. Now I'll negotiate it with these (parties)." Yes, by doing nothing more that to negotiate it, they did not resolve anything, because they do not have control of the Congress. There is no consensus within Congress to resolve the problems of the Indians. He chose the military option, but "I cannot tell the world that I'm going to conduct a war with paramilitaries like in Columbia." The paramilitary strategy is to get rid of the confrontation directly between the army and the communities although they have not achieved this. Then by irritating existing divisions within the communities, more paramilitary groups grow. But this, too, has been a mistake, as there have not been too many violent paramilitary actions.

Obviously, the paramilitaries have added to the adversary politics because they can say, "There are a great many people who do not agree with Zapatismo. They are defending themselves from the abuses caused by the Zapatistas". But it is not a political move that has brought nothing. Again there is adversary politics. I think that right now it is absolutely caught and trapped.

A:   Don't you think that the worst that can be happening is evidence of failure of this adversary?

MC:   Sure. Now, I think that a government... Go figure. One of the conclusions that I have reached is that a weak government cannot negotiate peace.

A:   It is not in its benefit?

MC:   I don't think it has been possible in any part of the world for a weak government to negotiate for peace. It seems, what a paradox?! It has to be a strong and legitimate government to negotiate peace. You can see that in Guatemala. The guerrillas carried the Guatemalan government practically to the brink of war, but the government never really managed to break off the stalemate. It was only when legitimacy was achieved by Arzu, through elections, that is the strong government, said, "OK. I now feel ready to sign peace with the guerrillas". In Northern Ireland, the same. In El Salvador, under the democratic Christian government, neither them nor the guerillas were negotiating, but when Arena won in legitimate elections, they were then able to negotiate.

What I am seeing here is that the government can not negotiate it. It doesn't have the what to do it with. It doesn't have the sufficient force to negotiate peace. It doesn't have the force nor the legitimacy. Therefore what is happening is an adversary strategy, and the more it does, the more it complicates the peace process. One of the desperate methods is the expulsion of international observers, of foreign observers. That has come to be a task of the army, because when you take up an adversarial strategy, who is going to supply the conflict... well the army.

I don't know if you have seen the statement by Cervantes from yesterday or the day before yesterday where Labastida said, "Sebastian Guillen can stay in the jungle one, two, three, four, five years", but the army said, "No, no." It was not sensible to say this. The army is going to get worn out.

A:   It takes a lot of expenses to maintain this type of operation.

MC:   Sure, the army should be happy to have this much money. But, also I know that it generates strong internal tensions within the army. There is discontent in the middle ranks. I didn't say it, but a North American military analyst Donald Shult in, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place: National Security Issues for Mexico and the United States". It just came out. It's a good analysis of all of this.

Therefore, so the situation is... Let's see, you ask the army carry out your strategy. The army pays the bills. You give money to the army, but the army is losing legitimacy and institutional integration. And besides, you are asking the army not only to contain the guerrillas, but also the narcotrafficking, so you are putting the army in a difficult place. The army is going to ask you for some favors. "Listen, don't criticize me. Listen, don't watch me. Don't say that I am an assassin". Therefore, well, what do we do... I think. All of this is absolutely subjective and personal. This is how I see it.

A:   And do you think that the international observers are here, in Chiapas, by Mexican invitation, in the interests of the citizens, or by foreign bodies?

MC:   I think that there is something else going on here. I think we are living in a human rights crisis at the end of this era. I don't like to say the millennium, because it sounds really pretentious, but yes, at the end of this era. With the end of the cold war the world entered into an economic and political reconstruction that has been very hard, very cruel, very marginalized and has created many internal conflicts. This has become obvious in situations such as Yugoslavia, the ex Socialist Republics, and Africa, where there is genocide and different ethnic groups, like in Algeria. Therefore, in the international community and the international civil society there is an enormous preoccupation for the escalating level of violence, and concern for Chiapas is included in this.

Now, added to this, there is a charismatic leader of the Indians in Chiapas, he knows and controls the mediums of communication, that has impacted... well, he has an accepted legitimacy in Mexico. Even to those who don't like Marcos very much, they accept "the Indians are right". The strong racist history is well known here. Now, if you add this as a minority cause and an indigenous cause, it is a cause that the entire world resonates to. With globalization and this growing international civic concern, it becomes obvious and normal to see observers coming.

Now, the observers that have been deported almost always have been people that were very close to the Zapatistas. This is to say that they were invited by the Zapatistas or were very close to the armed groups. So far they (immigration) haven't gone for the more impartial observers. What I want to say to you is that what is central to Mexico, or the conflict within Mexico is a decline of the political system, which is clear to international forces and also to strong global forces. It is in the center of all of this.

A:   That is to say that also the attraction of foreign observers to Chiapas has to do much with how similar the Zapatista movement is to other things that are occurring in the world...

MC:   ... that happen in the world. And it was relatively safe to come to Chiapas. I mean compared to Bosnia or Algeria. Here it is more or less a form of tourism, the government is also interested in encouraging tourism., It was relatively safe.

A:   And now Mexico is becoming an example of reasons for the preoccupation for human rights?

MC:   I think so, I think so.

A:   The role that Mexico is playing is important, no!?

MC:   Poor Mexico! Or how great for Mexico! But also, now if we take the incompetent government and their desperate reactions, you see the reactions of adversity. Really! The "damage control" as before, but now they are desperate.

A:   Therefore, do you see an important empathy or sympathy within the Mexican civil groups and within the civil groups that exist in countries that Mexico has commercial relations?

MC:   I think so, yes. Sure.

A:   Then do you consider that the foreigners are here by Mexican invitation?

MC:   I think so. Sure.

A:   At any time has the organization that you work with issued a formal invitation to foreign observers?

MC:   Sure. We have invited Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch to come. Now, we have invited the Comision Internacional de Juristas (International Commission of Jurists). What happens is that we move on a different path. We are more specialized. Not so much involved in solidarity. What is happening is, the solidarity movements..., the wars in Central America were finished but they had a solidarity structure. It was there, and then suddenly there wasn't much to do, and now they has been reactivated. I think that for the first time solidarity and human rights are joining. This is something that did not happen much earlier.

A:   So what do you think of the accusation that observers in Mexico is intervention?

MC:   Again, it is evidence of desperate "damage control", and one evidence of the army's taking the hard line.

A:   You don't see that the accusation has a base in the Mexican law?

MC:   Well, I don't know it you have seen what I have seen, the testimonies and the amparos and all. The application of Article 33 has been completely wrong and discretional and has been applied for really small infractions.

A:   In reference to the report I am now writing, I make reference to three particular points: one is, the correct application of Article 33, the violation of Article 16, that guarantees the legality to foreigners, and that even with the application of Article 33, they were not given proper justice prior to being charged.

MC:   With the application of Article 33, they violated Article 16 by violating individual guarantees. There has been arbitrary detention, incommunicado, there has been torture, in some cases,...

A:   Of the foreigners?

MC:   Of the foreigners...

...

A:   So the aggression against the foreigners is not only bureaucratic and political manipulation but a...?

MC:   A violation of fundamental rights. In the case of Olga Claveria, she has a medical examination certificate of the injuries, from Madrid, of the assaults that she received during her detention and during the time that they kept her incommunicado here in San Cristobal de las Casas. In her testimony she tells how they, most likely members of public security, entered and hit them throughout their detention. Throughout these testimonies, and I can give them to you, it is very interesting to see that when they were detained, from the beginning, they did not know what was going to happen. And after when they received orders from Mexico City... they detained them and asked for their papers... "We are going to revise your papers, you foreigners, we are going to revise your papers". Well everyone had their visas in order, they had an FM III. The two cases that I know. So, "we are going to revise your papers". So they detained them. And about 24 hours later, when the order came from Mexico City, they were deported. You have to suppose that it still wasn't clear what they wanted to do with them. You have to suppose. At the best yes.

A:   Since the foreigners had their human rights violated it is most likely that it was more convenient for the government to deport them rather than leave them in the country.

MC:   Sure, sure. It's like that. They did so much damage to them that...

A:   But now it is not just the violation of human rights, now the violation of personal rights.

MC:   Now, but at the same time, to deport you, well then there are many credible activists who are outside of the country. Because it is not just look what is happening to the indigenous, look at what has also happened to me.

A:   You mean the deportations and expulsions are giving more credibility to the foreigners?

MC:   Sure, sure. Look at the most well know case of Taniperlas, the operation was illegal from beginning to end. I don't know if you have read the recommendation of the Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos (National Commission of Human Rights) about Taniperlas...

A:   I know that it says that it cannot be classified as an act of political intervention, this is what I have been told.

MC:   Find it and read it. It is interesting, interesting. The CNDH itself says that all this operation did not have a legal foundation. Everything that was done did not have legal foundation, and for this it is asking that the people being detained in this case be freed.

A:   Are you talking specifically about the case of Luis Mendez, can he be classified as a national observer?

MC:   Yes.

A:   And this, and in comparison with the international observers. Do you think that since they were deported, you believe that international observers are more protected than Mexican observers?

A:   Well, at the least they aren't going to put them in jail.

D:   Do you think that there is less chance that they would be killed?

MC:   Yes, yes.

D:   Then they can play an important role?

A:   But still be deported.

MC:   But still deported. Sure, sure.

A:   Until now I had the impression that the presence of foreign observers in the communities, if they had Zapatista tendencies, were independent, or religious, gave them (the communities) a certain protection against violence, but after this conversation, do you think this is so?

MC:   I don't know, I think I don't know. I think that the government has very brutally demonstrated that this protection is very fragile. Now that the invitation to the observers has come into question, it is like a test of their strength. The protection that is given to the observers, well, its very fragile. I can destroy of them in well two minutes, and frankly, well, nothing happens. All of a sudden they are outside of the country and nothing happens. The governments protests a little, but they have not caused a great scandal.

But probably what is going to happen is bit by bit they are going to effect more and more of the international community, and large scale political pressure for expulsing observers will be high. Soon but not yet. Not yet because the European countries also want to sign a commercial agreement with Mexico. But for certain by deporting people from there (Europe), there are is a large community of activists there, who are going to maintain pressure. Again like a test of their strength, "To see how much they will withstand. To see how much the Church will tolerate the help of observers. To see how much Enlace Civil will tolerate the help of the observers".

This is accompanied by other actions. For example death threats have again been directed towards the people who work in solidarity with Zapatista communities.

A:   Then does the deportation and expulsion of foreigners become an attack on observer organizations and people who are working for the respect of human rights here in Mexico?

MC:   Sure sure. It's the final purpose. Look at the way the press is handled, and the issues that the pueblo of Mexico believes or does not believe. Look at what sectors of public opinion they saturate with the story that these international observers come to attack the national sovereignty. Look to what extent the old formula of Mexican nationalism has an effect on the population and the public opinion.

A:   What is your opinion of the resolution that was entered into by the American Congress?

MC:   My opinion is... well, I have to study it more still. But I think that they have to be very cautious about what they put in front of the Congress of the United States. I think that... this is what I always say to groups, I said to Global Exchange now, I think that there has to be more work in the intergovernmental forums as well. Because I think that, obviously, the pressure the United States Congress puts on Mexico has to be weighed very carefully. It has impact, it has effect, it can cause things to happen, but at the same time it gives the Mexican government weapons to drive the nationalist banner. As you saw, the appearance of Madeline Albright had a double... Madeline Albright's statements had a double effect. On one side, I think that it supported things a little, a little, not a lot, because they just expelled Peter Brown. But on the other side, the parties took on a nationalist current. Even the PRD agreed to go against the statements of Madeline Albright, because it revived the history of interventionism, etc, etc.

I think that the groups in the United States have to start to focus their strategy a little more. It's fine to appear in front of Congress, but it needs to be recognized that this is a Congress that doesn't accept the legitimacy of the United Nations, nor the Comision Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (Interamerican Commission of Human Rights), that they are appearing before the Congress ruled by Jesse Helms and international relations. Therefore, well, be careful here, because you could be put in the same situation as Cuba. With pressure against Cuba. I think that the groups in the United States have to concentrate a little more on their strategy and not just to go to Congress.

A:   Because in effect their presence would not help but in fact create the complete opposite?

MC:   Exactly. Well, I think that it is something that we have to discuss more deeply. And the organizations with whom we have relations in the United States put us in a complicated position. They have begun to attack us saying that we are agents of the government of the United States. This revives the fantasy of interventionism of the United States.

A:   They accuse you of this because of the discussion that is now in Congress?

MC:   They do not accuse us for this, but because in our situation we receive funds from the NED, National Endowment for Democracy, these are funds from the Congress of the United States. NED doesn't have a very good history in Central America, in Nicaragua, well this was Regan's NED, now we are talking about another NED. But they use the NED against us. Care has to be taken. The groups in the United States have to pay attention to the Mexican nationalist "backlash" and create a strategy that is more...

D:   But they pay attention to the military aid.

MC:   This is very important.

D:   This is a domestic matter of the United States.

MC:   This yes is very good. I think that this line of strategy has to be followed. This yes.

D:   For example, a committee from Congress is coming to revise the uses of military aid, and this is a type of pressure.

MC:   Yes, this is fantastic.

D:   But, about the focus on demilitarization in the zone in Chiapas, did it go farther than it should have?

MC:   I don't know. I don't know. I think that... well yes. Really, it is a matter of national sovereignty. Although everyone wants demilitarization. It is not a United States war, this is not El Salvador.

A:   I was commenting with --- that it could be considered ironic that foreign organizations in Mexico go to Congress to try to help Mexico by invoking foreign intervention, which is precisely what they are trying to get rid of.

MC:   Exactly.

D:   And what about the democratic and human rights clause with the agreement with the European Union? Isn't this intervention?

MC:   No, no, because it is within an international agreement and it is going to refer to international standards. Furthermore, with Europe... it's a clause with the European Union, not with France, its multilateral. Look, Mexico always has functioned well in multilateral forums. This has been its strategy. In the past it has participated in multilateral forums to counteract the presence of the United States. The problem with the United States is that it has a history of brutal intervention against the nation of Mexico. And the Unites States is very "heavy handed" in its political affairs. I consider it the power of the world and its actions are hard and affecting. The democratic clause it very different because it is within an international agreement, and its reciprocal. Theoretically, Mexicans can participate in human rights observation in Europe. It is different than an unilateral action by the United States Congress, and furthermore, a lot of the Congress people don't know where Mexico is. You and I know this. And this is the same Congress that passes anti immigration laws, like the clause against undocumented workers. So you find the terrain very dangerous. You enter the danger of Mexico "bashing".

A:   What do you think the role of the foreign NGOs here in Mexico, in Chiapas should be?

MC:   I don't know well enough what the NGOs are doing here in Mexico. I think that there has to be a distinction between those NGOs that work directly with the Zapatistas and those who work in all sectors. But for me, I think that the future... I have to think it through a little more, first should try to be more impartial in the sense that they also to show that the Zapatistas also commit abuses, to invoke the international humanitarian right. Not to confuse the Zapatista cause with the human rights, because I think they intersect but they are different. Two, assist much more in international agreements, towards international humanitarianism, like human rights. And work with their governments, evidently, but also work more in the international consciousness. It should be this.