1Getting New Bearings in the Labyrinth: The Transformation of the Mexican State and the Real Chiapas1

Everywhere the exercise of public power is being challenged by rising claims of privatization, not only of property and service provision but also of means of violence. In many areas, armies are attempting to expand their economic and political influence, while paramilitary formations, private armies and security forces proliferate. Not infrequently, such groups enter into connections with “mafias, ” able to employ extralegal force in operations that can range from supplying the drug trade to clearing people off land to make it available for alternative uses. All such violence-prone situations favor the emergence of armed entrepreneurs who attract followers and build group solidarity through quasi-military styles of cohesion, preparedness and discipline. For such groups, the National Socialist syndrome continues to furnish a ready prototype of ideas and modes of action, to be copied wholesale or varied according to circumstance. (Wolf, 1999: 273) Some members of your cabinet and associates say that the EZLN has to understand that the country has changed, that the Zapatistas have no option by to accept that, surrender, take off their ski masks and make their application for credit to set up a shop, buy a tele and pay for a compact car on installments. They’re wrong …The defeat of the PRI was a necessary condition for the country to change but not a sufficient one. (Letter from subcomandante Marcos to President Vicente Fox, 2nd December, 2000