This article recently appeared in FREEDOM (anarchist fortnightly) FREEDOM carries at least a page in every issue of international news of interest to the anarchist movement around the world. For a free trial edition write to: FREEDOM PRESS IN ANGEL ALLEY 84B WHITECHAPEL HIGH STREET LONDON E1 7QX MEXICO'S ARISTIDE In our FOCUS ON... MEXICO towards the end of last year we told of the attempted assassination of Amado Avendano just prior to the Mexican elections. Below we reproduce an extract from an interview with him which was broadcast by the French anarchist radio station Radio Libertaire on the 1st November 94. We do so in the interests of furthering the flow of information rather than as an endorsement of his politics... I am Amado Avendano, a lawyer by training, journalist by profession and chance politico. I live in a state to the south of Mexico - Chiapas - on the border with Guatemala. 900,000 in digenous people live in the state of Chiapas out of a total population of some 3,000,000. It is an area of high population density because, whilst one of the richest areas of Mexico, it is also the area where the poorest Mexicans live. More than 50% of the countries electricity is produced here. In order to build the three dams in the area 300,000 hectares of top quality land were flooded. Thus the peasants of Chiapas have no lands to cultivate. Chiapas is also an oil producing area and a pipe connects the area directly to the USA. Of the production in Chiapas only the pollution is left behind. The population of Chiapas derive no benefit from all of this and a large section of the population don't speak the language of officialdom - Spanish. Such was the situation on 1st Jan 94 when the Zapatistas emerged in the country. The very simple demands of these people for health, housing, means of communication... immediately drew the support of the wider population. This sympathy was indeed so great - demonstrations, marches - that the Mexican government was forced to suspend military operations. The government declared a unilateral amnesty for all those involved. They gathered together in the cathedral of San Cristobal. Here the archbishop served as an intermediary between the government and the Zapatistas. A number of propositions were put forward which the Zapatistas took back to their supporters in the mountains for consultation . Two months later the Zapatistas rejected the government's propositions. A new delegate was sent out to try and rebuild the dialogue but this proved a non-starter. A month ago the Zapatistas announced that the dialogue was definitively over. Meanwhile the electoral dialogue was taking place. The local people were trying to find a candidate to stand against the official candidate. They chose me. But I couldn't stand as I had not the mandate of any party. The Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) agreed to endorse me. The local people thought that in this instance the government would accept the ballot box decision. When the government saw the popular mobilisation which greeted my candidature I was the victim of an assassination attempt disguised as a road accident. RL: Tell us about the circumstances surrounding this 'accident'? The government organised a meal for all the electoral candidates and were most insistent that I should attend. In the end I accepted the invitation. The was only one road to the venue for the meal and on this road a lorry smashed into the tiny car we were travelling in. Three of my supporters were killed in the crash and I was hospitalised for two months which physically prevented me from participating in the election process. With a sense of solidarity and courage the people continued the campaign. In my absence with videos, posters, cassettes... the campaign continued to develop. Fellow journalists gave me their full support and played an important role in the campaign. On the 21st many people went to vote for me but on the 22nd the government claimed their own candidate had won and that very few had voted for Amado Avendano. Following the electoral farce there was a real mobilisation of the population who did not fully understand the situation. This civil resistance takes the form of large scale occupations of large properties, the blocking off of roads, non payment of taxes and general bills (particularly electricity), and the prevention of bureaucrats gaining access to the region. Successive mobilisations were planned - one in October, two in November and another for December when the new government are due to take office when the people will attempt to stop them taking up their positions. Moreover, the Zapatistas announced that if the government were intent on putting their candidate in office there would be war in Chiapas and elsewhere. Things have been further complicated because the Mexican central government intervenes a lot in Chiapas but is itself split by internal strife. In effect there is a power vacuum in Mexico because since the outgoing presidents team has no mandate nobody obeys it and since the incoming bunch is still not installed a dangerous situation has arisen. Luckily, the Zapatista army has called on civil society to play a role, the role which had been usurped by the institutional parties. This group is organising to take over the decision making process which up until now had been denied to it. Today it is very hard for it to rebuild the country since the government and the party controlled everything. The people lack experience. Currently a democratic national convention is being set up. We hope to set up a veritable assembly to help organise the country. Faced with the people trying to organise themselves the powers that be are hardly queuing up to hand over power and a very real possibility of confrontation is now on the cards. The situation is so serious that I fear the incoming government will have no chance at all of governing the region if only because of the tensions within their own ranks. Currently, I go around the world calling on NGOs, the universities, political parties... to pay attention to what is happening in Mexico and calling on them to be prepared to pressurise the Mexican government in order to avoid the possibility of war. The Mexican state cares greatly about its international reputation whilst ignoring the situation at home. This is why we call for actions to be taken against diplomatic missions... RL: Can you tell us a little more about what civil society is doing with regard to the electoral fraud? In order to denounce the fraud the civil society which has no political party has set up a kind of electoral tribunal - quite unofficial - which has shed light on governmental manipulations. Although all these developments are taking place outside of the legal process there will come a point when the government will be forced to recognise that there was manipulation. At the moment all Mexicans are waiting to see what the outgoing president will say. The outcome is undecided. If the government goes ahead with its decision to install the new regime there will probably be renewed violence. The risk is heightened by the fact that recruitment into the Mexican army has gone on apace with much more military equipment being installed in the Zapatista zone. The army has also taken possession of the free zone of Altamirano and is increasing aerial surveillance of territories where the Zapatistas are. This gives rise to a fear of escalation.....