ricardo dominguez on Thu, 2 Sep 1999 20:34:09 +0200 (CEST)


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<nettime> Netwar Against the EZLN


 Originally published in La Jornada, 8/29/99
--------------------------------------
translated by Leslie Lopez
by Lourdes Galaz

Netwar Against the EZLN

*What will you have, Mr. President, beer or Sidral? 

*US Advisement in Chiapas

*Netwar against the zapatistas related to low-intensity conflicts

During the electoral campaign, candidate Ernesto Zedillo visited a
market-place in Mexico City.  It was hot out, and before eating, one of
the locals offered him a nice cold beer.  Zedillo accepted appreciatively,
but asked him to, "Put it in a glass for me, so that it looks like Sidral
(an apple soda)."  It was at that moment--recalls my friend the
anarchist--that Zedillo's profile and his personal style of governing to
come was made clear.  Even last night, at a gathering among friends, a
general said: "Zedillo needs to define whether it's beer or Sidral," as
far as military strategy in Chiapas goes.  In some political and academic
circles, people say that for some time now, there must have been some
definition on the part of the government about confronting the problem of
zapatista guerrilla in Chiapas.  Moreover, the new military offensive has
got to be inscribed in a Zedillista strategy conducted with US advisement,
and is no doubt framed by the new perspective that US National Defense
Research Institute analysts call "The Advent of Netwar." 

And although they say that news from Chiapas doesn't sell newspapers
anymore or open the nightly news on private television and radio stations,
people are concerned about the issue--above all about what Mr. President
will be having: beer or Sidral?  Five years ago, in his inaugural speech,
Zedillo spoke about the fact that under his administration there would be
a new opening up of negotiations--following the failure of the Salinista
strategy--"which will bring us a just, dignified and definitive
peace...there will be no violence on the part of the government, nor, I
trust, on the part of those who have dissented."  Two and a half months
later, Zedillo personally appeared on television, live and direct, to
report on the mobilization of the Army and the federal Attorney General
against the EZLN, led by Rafael Sebastian Guillen (no relation to Roberto
Albores), el Sup Marcos--now solidly identified by military intelligence
agencies!  From then on, no one knows what Mr. President is drinking; beer
or Sidral?  There has been no explicit definition of the Chiapas policy,
even though Zedillo has gone to that southern state a dozen--or
more--times.  Whether the San Andres Larrainzar Accords will be accepted;
or actually not, after all.  Whether it will be dialogue, or there is a
massacre in Acteal.  Whether mediation by the Conai is acceptable, or the
Conai is accused of being both a party in the dispute and a judge.  That
the Cocopa should be created, that it is not functional...and then whether
it should be re-established because there is a new escalation against the
zapatistas and there are no official groups to deal with the negotiation. 
Whether the Minister of Government should be removed and whether his
substitute does or doesn't come with a pre-set line attached...  Whether
there are millions in resources with which to address Chiapan misery, the
cause and reason for the guerrilla...Whether it's all about Sedeso and the
poor.  Whether it's the Semarnap and its reforestation of Montes Azules.
Whether the road to Amandor Hernandez is a federal project, or an act of
the state government.  Whether generals are asking if the beer should be
drunk from a glass so it looks like Sidral... 

The now-famous road, whose construction has officially been susbended by
Ministry of Government officials, had previously been cancelled by
zapatista support bases, even before the hundred soldiers in parachutes
arrived.  The thing is, the community taken by the Army is a six- hour
walk from San Quintin, a town which you can get to with a two-hour drive
from La Realidad.  Amador Hernandez is located at the entrace to the
mountain range of the Montes Azules biosphere, where more than 5,000
soldiers arrived "for a reforestation project."  According to experts in
military matters, the Army must have detachments in the EZLN zone of
influence amounting to more than 16,000 soldiers in 13 camps, the majority
set up during the last two months.  Just yesterday, legislators from the
Cocopa, led by Senator Carlos Payan, flew to the Ocosingo and La
Trinitaria communities of Amador Hernandez and San Jose la Esperanza
(where zapatistas and soldiers clashed, and the top commander, Cervantes
Aguirre, the Secretary of Defense's brother, ended up injured).  They went
to observe the situation up close, a project complicated by the fact that
"there is no political will" to re-establish dialogue between the
government--which is presumably administering the conflict--and the
EZLN--which will not return to the table with someone who didn't fulfill
the first agreements. 

While all this is going on, at the suggestion of some anthropologists and
historians who went to La Realidad for an Encounter for the Defense of
Cultural Patrimony (August 12-14), it is worthwhile to bring to bear some
of the conclusions from the document, "The Advent of Netwar" (1996),
prepared for the US Secretary of Defense Office by analysts John Arquilla
and David Ronfeldt of the National Defense Research Institute in Santa
Monica, California.  These analysts say that the zapatista movement--which
rose up in arms on January first, 1994--has ushered in an epistemological
rupture and a new model which helps us not only to understand the new
movements and social actors of the 90's, but "to build new concepts
necessary to develop perspectives on military organization, doctrine,
strategies and technologies."  According to the analysts and military
strategists, zapatismo--"born out of the EZLN"--which has been joined by
different sectors of Mexican and international society, could be
considered a new paradigm, characterizing other social conflicts in the
new world order, now that the Cold War is over.  They say we need a new
term to focus our attention on the fact that conflicts and crimes based on
network structures are on the rise.  In this perspective, the term "social
netwar" applied to the EZLN is related to the low-intensity conflicts at
the extreme end of the social spectrum. 

In 1998, the same researchers prepared another document, "The Zapatista
Social Netwar," in which they warn that netwar "will probably be the most
prevalent and challenging form of conflict in the emergent information
age,"  leading them to recommend a "careful and sustained" study of the
phenomenon.  The netwar strategy is focused on analyzing and containing,
isolating, de-structuring and immobilizing--and even annihilating--social
networks, like those pertaining to narcotraffic, to terrorists, and other
delinquent groups.  According to "The Zapatista Social Netwar," strategy
ought to focus not just on the EZLN, but on all organizations, fronts and
individuals who form part of the broad zapatista support network (in which
leadership is diluted).  Thus, the analysts recommend, all kinds of
actions and tactics should be imposed, from classic counterinsurgency
methods (harrassment, threats, psychological actions, kidnapings,
paramilitary group attacks, individual executions, etcetera) to
disinformation campaigns, espionage, the creation of NGO's financed by the
government as a counterpoint to the independent ones (linked to the
network), among others.  If this is the US Secretary of Defense Office's
interest in the netwar of the third millenium, one understands why
high-ranking Mexican military officers want to know, at the very least,
what Mr. President will be having: beer in a glass so it looks like
Sidral? 



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