Communities Confronting Globalization Tour

I have had no time to write.. but here it is, the last day of the Communities Confronting Globalization tour with Manuel Mendez Guzman a member of the Red de Defensores Comunitarios in Chiapas and we are both exhausted with all the traveling and telling, re-telling and translating of his story- but it's been a tremendous experience.

It started poorly, with a month of struggle trying to get him his damn visa (which needed to be filled out on-line, in English- kind of difficult for non-english speakers who live in very rural areas, no? who would've thought the U.S. govt. would make it hard or expensive for folks to get a visa... gosh, what a surprise). Then flights getting cancelled due to weather, delays and Manuel lost in the airport for two days. ("We were so worried about you", I told him, "we couldn't find you, you were lost." "I wasn't lost. I knew exactly where I was." true that!) but he got here and it has been, yet again, a HUGE education for me.

There's so much to recount- Manuel's first snow, first blizzard, first Coldest-day-of-the-year-in-Vermont, my piss poor 4th grade Science explainations to his snow questions, the various states, groups, events we participated in, endless hours of driving, of talking, of political discussion and discovery...

But the highlights: We spoke at about 15 or so different places in New England, including some state schools, private colleges, peace and justice groups, immigrant rights groups, a middle school a radio show interview, a podcast and an appearance on Portland, Maine community cable acess t.v . It was interesting to see folks' levels of understanding about the Zapatista uprising, politics in Mexico, connections with la lucha and free trade agreements. Lots of different points of view shared with us too. The most frequently asked question was "How can we help?" which opened a good coversation about doing anti-capitalist, pro human rights grassroots work right here in the U.S. The immigrant rights group had a lot of strategizing questions to ask as just the other day there was a raid of about 500 workers at a plant in New Bedford and there is a lot of urgent action to be taken there.

Manuel's talk was full of information. He spoke mostly about the campaign that the Red (Network of Community Human Rights Defenders) had been mounting. In addition to being local community legal advocates for the indigneous companeros and companeras who have been victims of human rights violations (usually inflicted on them by military and paramilitaries), they are fighting against the privitazation of water and electricity in the indigenous communities, and all over the country of Mexico. They do some amazing work, of the 29 compane@s in the Red each is in charge of the legal defense of between 125-250 communities! None of them are titled lawyers but they've all learned how to defend cases. Manuel told us of one of his successes in getting 11 paramilitaries detained after they displaced communities in Tierra y Libertad and Emiliano Zapata. Two of those detained were leaders who named 350 other paramilitaries, indicated where firearms were stashed and told authorities that they had been trained by members of the federal army and had been given arms and support by the Chiapas governor.

There was also a lot of discussion about who deals with what kind of offense. He pointed out that when there is a need for legal defense among members in the Zapatista autonomous communities, the juntas of good government are called upon. But when the violation includes military or paramilitary groups the state and federal goverments are called upon to mete out punishment. Manuel also mentioned that part of the water and energy rights campaigned included demanding the state and federal governments recognize the rights the indigenous communities have to these resources, while at the same time the Zapatista communities are creating ways to have autonomous water and energy sources. The Red de Defensores needs to be neutral, says Manuel, because they have to show their face to the state and federal judicial authorities and have legitimacy with them in order to prosecute cases. At the same time, many of the defensores come from autonomous Zapatista communities. It's an interesting struggle and we've had lots of conversations about strategy.

Some of the immigrant rights groups we met with, like Centro Presente in Cambridge and members from English in Action in Providence, RI were interested in creating immigrant rights networks that could do some kind of fighting outside the law, find some other way to support the communities they are a part of. Manuel made lots of references to the Mexican Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and that the Red often looks to such documents as support for their cases. I realized that I hold no faith in such documents and was surprised in his dedication to demanding that his goverment recognize the rights that they contain.

We also made contacts with the sizable anti-war communities in Maine. There is some encouraging mobilization there, although the struggle seems to be largely people who are over 50. One woman told me she thought that was because people of her generation remembered Vietnam and Iraq feels similar. She also pointed out that she thought young people weren't as involved because there was no draft, so they didn't feel the urgency to struggle. We also heard from some folks that they felt like there were no active social movments in the U.S. That folks were complacent. I was glad, for once, to be able to share stories of folks here in the U.S. who are struggling for autonomy and that there was a lot of awarness and active mobilization. The theme of globalizing forces and unity came up again and again....

I have more to share, to be sure, more analysis and reflection- and to mention tecschange in Boston who repair computers and will send anyone going to communities in need with a computer if you can go pick it up from them... more later.

On with the tour.