Fr. Martin
Walsh, OP

La Otra Compaña – The Other Campaign
By Fr. Miguel Bartolomé de Las Casas Rolland, O.P.

This past New Year’s Day, I arrived in Chiapas to visit the Dominican Friars and Sisters working in the highland town of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. I came with two friends, Don and David, who had traveled from Los Angeles for this special occasion. Don was a long-time benefactor who for many years has supported the work of the local human rights center, Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas. His generous contributions over the years have played a key role in keeping the difficult work of the center alive.

 The center’s name comes from the famous Dominican Bishop of the 16th century. Indeed, the story of Bartolomé de Las Casas symbolizes inspiration and continuity of efforts to defend the Indians and many others who find themselves vulnerable. The lawyers, mediators and educators at the center defend the poor against the ongoing problems of structural injustice in Chiapas. The human rights center was originally founded by Don Samuel Ruiz Garcia, who retired in 1999 after 45 years as Bishop of the Diocese. Its first director was the Dominican Friar, Fr. Gonzalo Ituarte Verdusco, who last year was elected Provincial of the Mexican Province of Santiago.

Fr. Gonzalo and I worked together a few years ago when I was pastor of Santo Domingo (Saint Dominic’s), the 16th century church in the heart of the highland colonial town of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Along with three other friars, we served four parishes and worked alongside 200 catechists and 24 deacons from nearly 100 small hamlets and villages. Our house and central church of Santo Domingo were originally designed by the friars that Bishop Las Casas had brought with him from Spain. A little known and under appreciated fact is that the church itself was built by the forced labor of the local Chamula Tsotsil Indians. This local indigenous population was subjugated by the Conquistadors Bernal Diaz and Diego de Mazariegos.

During my recent visit to Santo Domingo, I was surprised but glad to see scaffolding everywhere. The work of renovation all around the church was finally underway after years of delay. The Mexican government sponsors such public works since they technically own all Church properties. Soon the church would shine again, with a bright white luster, visible from miles around as the joya or “jewel” of Chiapas. But in viewing this grand project, I began to ponder the deeper meaning of the Chamula Indians who, poorly paid, were hired to labor so carefully on every detail. Did they realize they were laboring on this renovation in the shadow of their ancestors? Did they cherish the historical fact that the entire colonial city of San Cristóbal was built upon the backbreaking toil of their historical relatives? Is history repeating itself, I wondered? This simultaneous irony and sense of poetic injustice was compelling. I had come with friends to joyfully celebrate New Year’s Day, and yet, as we watched the workers from the bell tower above, I found myself unwittingly going back to years past, the history of many tears.

Later that same day, on the evening of January 1, 2006, my friends and I witnessed more than 10,000 poor, indigenous men and women of all ages walk through the streets of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México. They were Zapatistas, members of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, or EZLN. They had assembled from the jungles and the mountains – Tsotsil, Tseltal, Chol, Mam, and Tojolobal Indians of Chiapas. My friends were elated at the rare sight, and took a few digital pictures. We watched the Zapatistas slowly make their way as a rag-tag pilgrim army. They had come for public protest, defying the government with no other weapons than their cries and shouting voices. New Year’s Day marked the 12th anniversary of their rebellion against the Mexican government. More importantly, it was the beginning of their national campaign to avail Mexican civil society with “other” ideas. It was not unlike another famous gathering for speeches now known the world over, when a black man cried out to his fellow citizens, “I have a dream!” – and thus a civil rights movement broke the bonds of apartheid.

“La otra compaña” (the other campaign) is a grass-roots political effort offering alternative views to the “politics-as-usual.” Today, Mexican people everywhere feel betrayed by the three major political parties that have long manipulated the hopes of the poor and frustrated democratic freedom in Mexico. In this climate, the “other campaign” of the EZLN is not a campaign for power, i.e., for elected office. On the contrary, it is a campaign to expose the truth about the powerful. It is a clear critique of the Mexican state and offers “other information, other culture, other ideas, other actions, other solutions, other hopes and visions” – than what the politicians and political parties usually offer their constituencies.

As I stood on the side of the road at the entrance to the town, “la otra compaña” was suddenly underway. January 2006 was also the commencement of Mexico’s half-year period of Presidential campaigns. For this reason the Zapatistas are boldly beginning their own bid for the hearts and minds of the Mexican public. With a moral message and new way of speaking so radically distinct from the “clashing cymbals” (1 Cor 13:1) of the usual political speeches, the Zapatista rebels of Chiapas launched their hope and vision for a new kind of Mexico.

I felt very humble and somehow privileged to walk alongside these people, observing them and praying with them as they began their “other campaign.” They all wore the customary pasamontañas (ski masks); all you could see of their faces were eyes and mouths. How strange that the Mexican people never bothered to see these faces before, yet now when they are covered, everybody wants to “know who they are.” While walking several miles with them I found myself marveling at the strength and courage of so many poor people on the move. They dared to speak out against decades of misery and half a millennium of oppression. Even after decades of mostly peaceful, non-violent struggle they continue to endure against disproportionate amounts of political repression and socio-economic oppression. But, has it not always been this way for the poor of God’s earth – struggling to exist, to be heard, to have respect and dignity?

“Padre Miguel!” shouted one of the drivers in the lead pick-up truck transporting some of the organizers. From the sidewalk I did not recognize him because of the mask, but drawing closer to the marchers I saw that it was Juan. I remembered the day his wife gave birth on the floor of their very poor home and the baptism some months later. Juanito sells vegetables to the villagers in the hills. “I thought you would come and pray with us at the vigil last night for New Year’s Eve!” We smiled together as I humbly made my excuse for declining one of many invitations to the nearby hamlets and colonias. We clasped each other’s hand as we moved apart and wished health for each other’s family. “Tell your mamá hello, Juanito!” “Claro que si,” he said, then shouted “Zapata Vive!!”

When they finally got to the plaza in front of the Cathedral, next to the City Hall, I listened to the speeches of the rebel commanders who announced proudly that they were sending forth their famous non-Indian spokesperson, Sub-Comandante Marcos. He was to begin the next day traveling throughout southern Mexico, on a motorcycle, touring and speaking on behalf of the EZLN. But even though it is a political campaign, Marcos is not running for President – he is running for the truth. Deliberately, he will cross the campaign trails of those who want to be President, challenging all to hear the truth of the poor.

The goal of the Zapatista rebels is not to win any elections, but rather to elicit a new consciousness, a new constitutive way of thinking, seeing, feeling about the past, present and future of Mexico. Like a foolish jester at the King’s court, this new moral initiative of the Zapatistas aims to speak truth to power in what is a seemingly innocuous, but nonetheless compelling moral manifestation of “people power.” It will be to the credit of the Mexican government if Marcos fails to encounter any military tanks blocking his path to the pueblos.

It was very early on January 1 in 1994 when the mostly Maya Indians of Chiapas rose up in rebellion against the Mexican State and the Federal Army. “Ya Basta!” was the war cry then, “Enough is enough!” remains the cry for justice today. Thirteen days of intense fighting between the Zapatista Army and the Federal troops ended with a contingent truce in 1994, and later with a negotiated process for peace and reconciliation. The agreement for peace is still in limbo. There are no direct talks anymore. Remarkably, the “truce” is still in legal force today, despite well-documented evidence of how the Mexican government has repeatedly failed to honor its promises of peace. The government has only responded with tactics of low-intensity warfare against its own citizens. Sadly, paramilitary groups execute most of the counter-insurgency strategies. The military trains them to bring suffering to thousands of vulnerable people in the name of “peace” and “justice.” Thousands of indigenous remain displaced from their homes in Chiapas because of the violence. The massacre on December 28, 1997 at Acteal is no small reminder of the ongoing danger.

But such killing is hardly new. For decades, the Indians of Chiapas have had to organize defenses against the notorious ranchers and their thugs, known as the “White Guards.” These paramilitary groups, together with Federal troops, terrorize local indigenous populations. Then, as now, the interests of powerful families and organizations cheat people out of their legal holdings, push them off their communal lands, block their right to petition and redress, and often threaten or kill anyone who dare stand in their way. All of this is part of the long-standing heritage of political oppression that dominates this southernmost state. Unfortunately, Chiapas represents the plight of the Nation. The up-coming elections may set back what little progress there is, especially if the former ruling Party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), returns to power after a six-year hiatus.

Chiapas is the richest state in Mexico in terms of natural resources, but a land with the poorest people. Half of the state population (some 1.5 million people) speak an indigenous language and connect their heritage to the fate of the conquered Maya and other peoples. Many folks ask me today “Are things any better now, in Chiapas, after President Fox?” The best I can ever say is that, in spite of millions of dollars of infrastructure investments, like roads and wireless towers, the future has yet to offer much real promise for indigenous peoples. Most of the new roads in the highlands and near the jungle, for example, have been built for military access and rapid deployment, rather than to truly help the farmers, the campesinos. Like moving the furniture around the old house to new positions, or painting only the outside, the government offers nothing substantially new. The New Testament way of speaking warns against this kind of change with the image of wineskins – old patches just will not do; new wine, new wineskins.

So today, the real hope and promise of Chiapas finds its roots in the faith of a suffering and struggling people. Even though I served for five years in Chiapas, I go back as often as I can because the faith and hope of the poor renews my own soul. Like many other pastoral workers, the Dominican Friars and Sisters do not support armed conflict or military solutions. They do however, accompany the people on their historical path, sojourning with them in faith.

Step-by-step, up or down, they help build the Reign of God with the mystery of living stones. It is for this reason that Jesus announced Good News to the poor. Where else will you find soil fertile enough for the seed of the Word to truly grow? But even amidst the contradictions of war, the Incarnate Word manifests itself in human flesh because that is the one place Satan cannot succeed through lies. The body does not lie, as the mind – the political mind – is so often capable of doing, even under the illusion of “good works” or moral righteousness. More than “being good” or “being nice,” the poor bodies of poor people are primarily interested in food, housing, health, relationships, justice, and true liberation.

Like the famous Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas and his efforts to free the conquered Chiapanecan peoples of his time, I was again following in his awesome footsteps. My friend Don and his good friend David were serious businessmen who had left their wives and families to celebrate the New Year walking with the “amolados” – the poor ones. Although my friends were very wealthy men who lived in Los Angeles homes that most Maya could only imagine in dreams, they had come thousands of miles to witness the movement of another kind of wealth, another kind of “investment” – the hope and faith of a people determined to change history, from the bottom up. Mexico can never again make its history without los indígenas! (li ta ixim viniketike); it can never again forget the profound Mexico whose face was, is, and always will be indigenous. As a Dominican Friar, I can only contemplate the strange meaning of it all, the grand truth and the sublime reality that comes from the poor. Surely, this is why Las Casas preached Christ Crucified until the day he died in 1566; and why the Dominicans today continue to preach the same message of good news and hope: the truth that comes from the poor will liberate us all!