Translator’s introduction:
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, "I told you so": After a number of people on "the left" denounced the EZLN as sectarian for refusing to back the presidential candidacy of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his supposedly "left" Partido Revolucionario Democratico (PRD), many of these critics claimed that the EZLN was playing into the game of the right... some went as far as claiming that Marcos was in cahoots with the right wing. Marcos now calls these critics to task for the PRD's latest display of total lack of principle: the PRD has decided to support Rosa Payan for the governorship of Yucatan. Such support would not seem so strange were it not for the fact that Mrs. Payan is a member of the extreme right wing group known as "El Yunque" (it is thought this group has gone as far as creating armed paramilitary factions throughout Mexico).
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Zapatista Army for National Liberation
Mexico

February 6, 2007

To whom it may concern:

We send a communiqué about felonies, new frauds (now disguised as “combating delinquency”), and not-so-secret plans.

We are fine (I know already that you don’t care, it’s just to be bothersome), here preparing for the second phase. They say that various delegates will go out and that they are only awaiting confirmation from the Cucapá indigenous people in order to announce the reinitiation. A (non)trust-worthy source, whose identity cannot be revealed (but who carries extraordinary resemblance to a beetle), leaked that it would be in March.

What? They are dismayed because what is happening in the Yucatán is only an instance of a long trajectory? I hate to say I told you so but I told you so.

Now go ahead and write saying that AMLO’s movement and the Other should coincide (ha!), while they go about recruiting the remains of “El Yunque’s” shipwreck, displaced by the Calderon traditionalists. Or better yet why not a cartoon saying that we, in the Other campaign, are providing opportunity to the right by playing their game, or maybe another applauding the “yunquista” neoconverts….to the “democratic revolution?”

Or a why not come out with a DVD with the title, “Who is Mrs. Payan?” and distribute millions of copies (I mean, to see if that way they can convince anyone)? Or a stage painted yellow, black... and blue?” Or a “national dialogue” with that Rosa as the guest of honor (come on, if they already receive “fraternal” messages from “Napito,” everything is fair game right?)? Or an extensive essay to explain why the lopezobradorista CND (National Democratic Convention) should get closer to the orphaned “El Yunque” (of which what they say is true, it has no mother)? Or a denunciatory indignation, emitted from the Southern Cone, reproaching the sectarianism of the Other Campaign? Or why not some editorials emphasizing the “historic” and “foundational” character of our resemblances to the most pious right?

Or how about a biographical sketch of the flamboyant cabinet of the “legitimate government”? For example, in international relations, Gustavo Iruegas, one of the architects of the Acteal Massacre, apologist for the (failed, of course) strategy of “you have to strike at the EZLN up to get them to dialogue,” one of the “I don’t see you and I don’t hear you” of the governmental delegation at the Democracy Table in San Andrés, the very same one that said that the PRI would never leave power and that the Zapatistas should start getting used to that fact (4 years later they lost the elections, and that time there was no fraud), the same one who went from Zedillismo to the wings of Jorgito Castaneda (hey, speaking of which, where is that guy? What?! Waiting for a nomination from the PRD?..See! What was I just telling you), and the now outstanding “defender” of the democratic struggle.

And then another one on the military in its efforts to combat the drug trade (and the consecuent militarization of civilian life). Wasn’t this one of the electoral promises made by AMLO? (see La Jornada January 30, 2006) And now they’re complaining that Calderon “copied” their “populist” proposals?

Is a program leftist if it is adopted by the right without a glitch? It seems as if this would require an impossible geometry (hmm, sounds familiar, very familiar)

Regardless, don’t get all worked up because come 2011 this will all be forgotten. Once again they will edit history (the “cut and paste” method a la Collingwood) and once again say that AMLO (or Ebrard, because when you’re in the big leagues there are no loyalties… just ask Cuauhtemoc) is the alternative “from the left” and whoever critiques him belongs to the right… until, that is, that person is candidate for the PRD (or whatever the name of the new party might be); they will once again become enticed by those candies wrapped up in polls and they will also again become fascinated by the possibility of a government job, exclaiming, “it is urgent that we hold back the right, everything else will come later.” They will once again eat you for lunch, and they will once again climb the stage to “guide the masses”; you will once again see how everything is shut down. Then they will return to their hangover and forgetfulness (“the thing is, buddy, we have to get ready for 2018).

Did I say 2011? Hmm….I think by then….well, that’s an OTHER thing.

O.K., Health and, I forgot who said this but, what’s missing is missing.

From the Mountains of Mexico’s Southeast

SupMarcos

(the one and only)

P.S. Today there is no postscript (but I have a really great cartoon, don’t you want to see it?)

There is a postscript afterall. – So you can see that we’re not resentful, we send you a few tips for future deslindes [like “a breaking with” or a disassociation]

a) deslinde disguised as a book: “My time with Yunquismo,” “Goodbye Peje” [Peje is AMLO’s nickname as well as a kind of fish. This would be like saying, “Goodbye fishface”]
b) deslinde disguised as press statements:
- “At my age I can’t be in this poor imitation of “prolonged popular right-icization”
- “He (now referring to AMLO) gave the order to run me out of the meeting”
c) The re-editing of slogans according to each case:
- That of self-criticism: “It is an error to be with Obrador.”
- That of cynicism: It is and honor to be in error.”
- That of resentment: It is such hardship to be with Obrador.”
- That of one who doesn’t know where to place onself: “It’s a horror to be with Obrador”

What? You didn’t like it? Let me think about it and I’ll send you an-Other later (hmm... Is there mail service in Almoloya?)

The Sup Reloaded and Improved (arrrrrrrrrrrrrrroz con leche!)