Early and Extensive Interview with Subcomandante Marcos
Interview with Subcomandante Marcos (Zapatista National Liberation Army),
somewhere in la Selva Lacandona (the Lacandon Jungle), May , 1994. Interviewers*: Much has been written and said about the Zapatistas, but little concrete is known about your ideology. There are many who are trying to claim your struggle as their own. The Maoists say that you are Maoists; the Trotskyites say that you are Trotskyites and the list goes on . . . Marcos: The anarchists say that we are anarchists . . . Interviewers: No, we have never been able to say for sure [laughter]. We need proof. However, you have insisted that you are Zapatistas. Even now we remember the words of an EZLN Major who affirmed: We are not Marxists, nor are we guerillas. We are Zapatistas and we are an army. Anti- authoritarianism is felt in each of your words and actions, in the manner in which you are organized, in the structure of the Clandestine Committees, in the collective participation (within the EZLN). In Mexico, the only precedents for your actions and attitudes go back precisely to those whose names you constantly evoke: Zapata and Mago'n. Has Magonismo permeated your ideology? Marcos: This is a question? Interviewers: [laughter]. No, a presentation. Marcos: I thought it was a speech. Interviewers: No, no, a presentation. Marcos: Well then, I'm going to explain. The EZLN was born having as points of reference the political-military organizations of the guerilla movements in Latin America during the sixties and seventies: That is to say, political-military structures with the central aim of overthrowing a regime and the taking of power by the people in general. When the first group of the EZLN arrived here, to the jungles of Chiapas, it was a very small group with this political-military structure that I am talking about. It began to adapt itself to the surroundings, to try to survive - that is to say, to permeate the territory, to make it survivable. But, above all, it began to forge in the combatant, in that initial group of combatants, the physical and ideological strength needed for the guerilla process. I mean by this that the mountains served as a school for cadres, inflexible and constant day and night. But things were taking shape. In this period there weren't