by Rosa Rojas, December 1994

(Translated by Maria Trillo, Todd Prane and Elizabeth Bright)

At the same time as the drums of war are sounding again in Chiapas and throughout the country, the time has come to finish this [article] concerning the condition and presence of women in the conflict which broke out at the beginning of this year (1994), with the uprising of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacio'n Nacional--EZLN).

An ocean of words has been published in newspapers, magazines and books on the subject of the conflict in Chiapas. In this ocean the few words which pertain to 50% of the population have been lost in the same way that the Indigenous communities continue to be invisible or, as is now the case, visible only when they have a rifle in their hand. If the information about women in the context of the war in Chiapas is limited, with all that has been collected and which here seems substantial, reflections on this subject have dripped slowly out and have had practically no effect on the worldwide appearance of the country [Mexico].

One of the fundamental requirements to build peace, a just society, or a better life for all, is the right to information. This means not only the right to be informed, but also the right to be the subject of that information--and to inform in one's own voice. For me, as a journalist, this aspect alone justifies a collection like this: a collection--which in no way pretends to be exhaustive--of the minuscule but fundamental part of that which has been reported and reflected upon on the subject of Chiapas by 50% of the population.

Nevertheless, the answer to the question posed by the title of this artice: "What is the role of women in the context of war?" goes beyond the desire and the right to inform. We have produced a book about the situation of women in the war in Chiapas because we believe there is a direct connection between the invisibility of women and the unjust conditions which led to the outbreak of war, and continued within the war itself.

The declaration of war pronounced by EZLN only cast light on the authoritarian order which ruled in Chiapas in every social, political, economic, even symbolic aspect; and which many seemed to not want to see. However, the path of armed conflict does not seem to have opened new possibilities for new meaning in life, for the lives of everyone. This is doubtless related to the reasoning which--even though it starts with different desires--ends up imposing senseless violence and domination.

In many fundamental ways, the meaning of politics--be it through its extension, war, or not--imposes a transcendence which spills over to individuals: their desires, voices and dreams. That utopia which includes a profound change that could touch everything and restore the "dignity' put forth in the voices of the EZLN, or even in the voices of the Indigenous leaders who in the heat of peaceful, daily battles for survival and justice, have grown conscious of the fact that women have rights, that utopia continues to hold the idea we need to wait for better times to make these rights viable. The patriarchal law of primary and secondary issues leaves fields of existence absolutely invisible. The "whole" that they want to touch continues to be, at a glance, full of absences. No correlation at all is made between the conditions of injustice which are denounced and the living conditions for women.

It is not enough to add "gender" demands to the great discursive lines which have been proclaimed for centuries, just as the EZLN does, when in justice they demand: "work, land, housing, democracy, justice and peace." The Women's Revolutionary Law does not guarantee the subversion of the patriarchal order which rules in communities in Zapatista territory, in Chiapas and in the rest of the country. It will not be anything more than a partial declaration of good intentions, while women continue to be second-class citizens impeded by male authoritarianism--an authority which women also help to reproduce--from being owners of their own bodies, with free and voluntary motherhood. As long as their desires for a good life continue to be secondary issues to be resolved some time in the future, as long as women are not materially, politically, socially and symbolically the real owners of their lives, as long as their voice is not a vertebral element of the daily construction of society, the patriarchal order will endure.

The enormous vacuum which exists in the tasks of the "autonomous Indigenous regions" can be found in the adjudication of land for women. This is a fundamental right which continues to be denied even though women have actively participated in the "recuperation" of tens of thousands of acres of farms in the zones outside of the control of the EZLN.

The rejection of the creation of a commission of women in the Independent State Council of Indigenous and Campesino Organizations (CEOIC) because it was not considered to be a "priority".

The lack of attention which defenders of human rights and social activists have given the protest of the rape of three young Tzeltales by elements of the Mexican Armed Forces in one of their barracks.

No other meaning can be given to the fact that in the list of demands presented by the EZLN during the dialogue with the Commissioner for Peace, Manuel Camacho Solís, at San Cristobal de Las Casas, only proposed one point , mainly economic in character, and omitted all of the aspects which were more advanced in the Women's Revolutionary Law.

When the EZLN or the Indigenous, peasant or social organizations that continue to struggle for peaceful means deprioritize, postpone, or refuse to hear and take into account the voices of Indigenous women, they become the same as the economic and political powers. When they fail to listen to the voice, in the first person, of the Indigenous women who denounce the violence to which they are subjected in their own homes and communities, in the design of daily life of the communities, or the actions which they carry out in hopes of making real the fantasies of a just and democratic society; when their clamor for the right to choose their own partners, to not be sold, to not be raped by male family members, or for the right to have instruments and skills which will allow them to write literature or poetry, they are the same as the economic and political powers. They are the same as the "auténticos coletos"--the ruling classes in San Cristobal, who, with the representatives of the different clergy that work in Chiapas and in the rest of the country, act as if this were not the basis for the most profound violence and power with which the patriarchal order forms people and guides the way in which they relate to one another.

Other aspects documented in this collection also reflect the situation of women in the climate of generalized violence that is found in Chiapas, and has only gotten worse in this past year of war.

Since Jan. 12 (1994), after the cease fire, we have only been missing direct conflict between the two armies that have been in a precarious truce; but the war in Chiapas is not made up of only these two armies. There are also other forces, like the white guards of the ranchers, heavily armed; the Indigenous authorities who, with an impunity derived from their collaborating with the powers-that-be, violently expel their peers with the justification that they hold a different religious belief; the groups and organizations that fight for the land (many small landholders whose patrimony is affected by this chaos). Chiapas is marked and permeated by the logic of the Conflict.

I have tried for years to document in my journalistic work what constitutes a kind of "invisible and terrible normality" of that state. Since mid-January (1994) there have been no "classic" military battles, but the war has continued. War: that conflict that uses violence as a logical argument to annihilate the enemy, not with the goal of collectively building justice for everyone, but rather to vanquish the enemy, to make him capitulate, to acquire power over him. In that climate, the vulnerability of women in general and of Indigenous women in particular has increased. Of that, little is said, few want to see it.

We have tried to document these and other issues in this book by this effort of compilation. This compilation surely suffers from many gaps, but it can aid in the reevaluation of the tragedy of the war in Chiapas from another perspective. From that perspective it can help us understand, in our minds and hearts, that something much more profound than good or bad intentions, more profound than bad or good actions, provokes injustice and the impossibility of a good life for all men and women. With many contributors, from many places we will be able to build the kind of peace which we want and need to live. TO LIVE. I hope that this book will be useful to that end.