"Because, for us, the nightmare with you is ending today. Another could
follow it, or the dawn could finally appear, we do not know, we shall do
everything possible so that it will be the morning which flourishes."
–Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, From the mountains of the Mexican
Southeast.
Mexico, November of 2000.
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"Calling Zapatista rebels freedom fighters and his predecessors tyrants,
the first opposition candidate to become governor of Chiapas was
inaugurated Friday, promising to bring great change to the troubled
state.Pablo Salazar said his first move as governor would be to release
all "prisoners of conscience in the state, including Zapatista
prisoners." His remarks echoed sentiments expressed by President Vicente
Fox, who attended the inauguration. In his first acts as president, Fox
submitted an Indian rights bill to Congress and began a troop pullback
in Chiapas."
–TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico (AP) 12/8/00 7:33 PM
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Electronic Disturbance Theater request the removal of it's splash page
on Rhizome.org, designed and implemented by EDT member Brett Stalbaum,
entitled "An Anchor for Witnessing". We make this request in order to
celebrate the shift in policy by the new Mexican government towards the
Zapatista communities this December 1, 2000, when the new Mexican
government came into power. The splash page is based on a java applet
which mediates an art-conceptual performance strategy that had been
included in previous Virtual Sit-In's performed by EDT using the
FloodNet software developed by EDT. In the custom versions of EDT's
FloodNet electronic protests system, the applet had been used to flood
the error logs of the past President of Mexico's (Zedillo) web servers
with the names of the 45 Tzotzil Mayan women, children and men who were
gunned down (after gathering in a chapel), by PRI supported
paramilitaries in the town of Acteal, December 22nd, 1997. This was done
as a symbolic return of the dead to the machines of those responsible
for the massacre. As a distributed anchor for witnessing this injustice.
The technique was also used to flood the search engine on the same web
site with search queries like "justice" and "egalitarianism", all of
which are search terms that, not surprisingly, yield no relevant
documents on the website of the PRI presidency responsible for the
ethnic cleansing and forced relocation of
the Mayan people of southern Mexico.
The EDT splash page presented on Rhizome.org uses this latter strategy
ironically and in a visually apparent manner, without flooding the
Mexican Presidents website. The green frame on the left contains the
applet, which uses a database of search terms to form a search URL on
the targeted site. (http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/) This URL is called
into the middle (white) frame, actually calling the search results from
the President of Mexico's server into that frame. The results are always
similar to the following: "No documents matching the query: 'Equality
and Peace'." In the right (red) frame, the names of the Acteal dead
scroll upwards as an act of bearing witness. The green, white and red
frames symbolize the Mexican flag, inside of which search queries for
justice can not be found. Since the project depends upon the search
engine on another web site for it's ironic political critique, (meaning
that the behavior of this website
could be changed without notice by Mexican authorities).
EDT realizes that this shift in policy, maybe, yet another trick in a
long line of governmental efforts to destabilize the autonomous
communities in Chiapas with more talks followed by very little action.
But, a small glimmer of light has appeared in the Lacandona dawn and so
for now we will stand down. This does not mean that we will not be
vigilant, like many others, EDT will continue to keep our gaze and
hearts on constant alert and ever watchful of the new Mexican
governments gestures. EDT will be ready to return if the need arises. We
hope that will not be necessary and that a new the morning in Chiapas
will indeed flourish.
EDT would like to thank Rhizome.org and The Thing (bbs.thing.net), as
well as the many other individuals and groups who have supported our
electronic actions and the Zapatistas during these past 3 years.
Zapata Vive!!
http://www.ezln.org
Electronic Disturbance Theater
http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html
P.S. Dear Zaps we will ride our digital horses into Mexico City D.F. with
you on Feb 14, 2001.
A Day of True Hearts!
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