Indigenous leaders and international delegates meet “to resolve and organise against capitalism and all pyramids”
Good for them! The Zapatistas who held me at gunpoint in Chiapas were pretty cool and very good at communicating why they were detaining and inspecting us. Even our tour guide was a Zapatista and took an incredible amount of time to chat with me about origins, goals, ongoing struggles, daily life. It was pretty fucking amazing to get so much insight into what turned out to be an incredibly relatable belief system.
Why did they hold you at gunpoint?
I was on a tour bus. Apparently federal agents will sign up for these tours and try to hide among the tourists. Then they use their access to spy, infiltrate, sabotage, etc. So, they just wanted to make sure that we were legitimate tourists as best they could tell.
Many areas in Chiapas also have exemption from federal laws, which they use to keep their people prosperous and progressive. For example, there was an instance of a man driving drunk and accidentally killing another man. Both men were married and had children. Federal law would have seen the offender either sentenced to death or imprisoned for life, but that’s seen as counterproductive. One family just lost their primary source of income, so how would that help them to make another family lose their primary income? The drunk driver’s sentence then was to work a second job so that he could earn money for two families and send half of his income to the family whose earner he killed. As for ensuring he doesn’t drink and drive again, these are small communities and there would be ample community pressure/force to deter him from consuming any alcohol.
