subcomedante Marcos in debat met Garzon (1)
viva - 10.12.2002 22:45
I read the letter which you addressed to me, dated this December 3, 200,2 and which was published on the 6th in the Mexican newspaper El Universal. In it, in addition to allowing yourself to insult me with all kinds of labels, you challenged me to a debate at the place and time of my choosing.
Originally published in Spanish by La Jornada
________________________
Translated by irlandesa
La Jornada
Monday, December 9, 2002.
Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico.
December 7, 2002.
To: Señor Fernando Baltasar Garzón Real
Magistrate-Judge of the No. 5 Central Trial Court of the Supreme Court
Calle García Gutiérrez 1 28.004
Madrid, Spain.
Senor Baltasar Garzón:
I read the letter which you addressed to me, dated this December 3, 200,2 and which was published on the 6th in the Mexican newspaper El Universal. In it, in addition to allowing yourself to insult me with all kinds of labels, you challenged me to a debate at the place and time of my choosing.
I am informing you that I accept the challenge and (as mandated by the laws of knight-errantry), given that I am the man challenged, it is up to me to set the conditions of the meeting.
These are the conditions:
FIRST. The debate will be held in the Canary Islands, more specifically on Lanzarote, from April 3 to 10, 2003.
SECOND. Señor Fernando Baltasar Garzón Real shall secure the necessary and sufficient guarantees and safe-conduct, from the Spanish government as well as from the Mexican, so that the knight who has been challenged and six of his gallants can attend the duel and return home safely. The expenses for the trip and accommodations for Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos and his delegation will be borne by the EZLN, which are coyucos, tostadas, beans and pozol. In addition, insofar as spending the night, the knight-errant (or seafaring-knight) will need no roof other than the dignified Canary sky.
THIRD. In the same place as the debate, parallel to but not simultaneously, a meeting will be held between all the political, social and cultural actors in the Basque problem who so desire. The theme of the meeting will be “The Basque Country: Paths.”
FOURTH. Señor Baltasar Garzón Real shall attend that meeting, in order to speak and to listen. He should also make a great effort to convince the Spanish government to contribute, through détente measures, to creating a favorable atmosphere for the event. He should also urge them to send a delegation to the meeting, regardless of their decision making capacity, since they are only being asked to listen and to talk.
FIFTH. The knight Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos shall attend said meeting, but only to listen, because the issue is something which is the responsibility of the sovereignty of the Basque people alone.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos shall, in addition, address the Basque organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (better known by its initials: ETA), asking them for a unilateral truce for 177 days, during which time the ETA shall not carry out any offensive military actions. The ETA truce shall begin on the dawn of December 24, 2002.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos shall, similarly, address Basque political and social organizations, and the Basque people as a whole, inviting them to organize and to carry out the above mentioned meeting.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos shall also address Spanish and Basque civil society, asking them to mobilize for the “An Opportunity For the Word” campaign, whose purpose is to pressure the Spanish government and the ETA to create, throughout the entire Iberian peninsula, suitable conditions for the meeting.
SIXTH. The winner of the debate will be chosen by a panel of judges made up of seven persons, all of them from the Spanish State. Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos yields to Señor Fernando Baltasar Garzón Real the privilege of naming four of the members of the panel of judges and of designating who shall preside over it and, in the case of a draw by way of abstention, of deciding through casting a tie breaking vote, who is the winner in the joust. The other three members of the panel of judges shall be invited by the EZLN.
SEVENTH. If Señor Fernando Baltasar Garzón Real defeats Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos fairly and squarely, he will have the right to unmask him once, in front of whomever he wishes. Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos shall, in addition, publicly apologize and will be subjected to the actions of Spanish justice so that they may torture him (just like they torture the Basques when they are detained) and he may answer to the charges which abound in Señor Garzón Real’s latter dated April 3, 2003.
If, on the other hand, Señor Fernando Baltasar Garzón Real is fairly defeated, he will commit himself to legally advising the EZLN on the charges which – as perhaps the last peaceful zapatista recourse, and in front of international legal bodies – will be presented in order to demand the recognition of indigenous rights and culture, which, in violation of international laws and common sense, have not been recognized by the three branches of the Mexican government.
In addition, he shall – if he is able and if he so desires – represent the EZLN legally in front of those international bodies, ONLY as regards the demand for the legal recognition of our rights and culture.
This is owing to the fact that charges will also be presented for crimes against humanity by Señor Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, responsible for the Acteal killing (perpetrated in the mountains of the Mexican southeast in December of 1997), where 45 indigenous children, women, men and old ones were executed. As will be remembered, Señor Zedillo was recently awarded by Señor José María Aznar, the head of the Spanish government, for his participation in the killings.
Charges will similarly be presented against the heads of state of the Spanish government who, during Señor Zedillo’s administration in Mexico, were his accomplices in that, and other, attacks against the Mexican Indian peoples.
These conditions are not negotiable, and Señor Fernando Baltasar Garzón Real shall respond, in a reasonable time period, as to whether or not he accepts them. The details of the debate, on the other hand, can be agreed to by the teams of seconds of the challenger and the challenged.
Señor Fernando Baltasar Garzón Real: as you can see in the copies of the letters I am attaching, I have already begun the task of carrying out the part that I am responsible for.
From one Spaniard to another – since a quarter Spanish blood runs through my veins – I hope that you understand now and that you will be willing to carry on the debate to which you have challenged me.
You have the opportunity to choose: either putting your knowledge and skills at the service of a just and noble cause (and, incidentally, of demonstrating that international justice does not serve only to endorse wars and hide criminals), or of continuing where you are, receiving strokes from those who are above because they are on top of the blood and pain of those of below.
Vale. Salud, and may all this serve to give the word a chance.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
December of 2002.
PS. Know, Your Honor, that all the insults you lavished on me in your letter left me practically u-n-m-o-v-e-d. What did hurt me, a lot, was the remark about the “ridiculous pipe.” That’s why I’m carving a new one now. You’ll see, it will be all the rage when it shows up on the Gran Vía or La Ramblas. By the way, can you smoke in front of the Cibeles?
ANOTHER PS. That stuff about the “boat adrift” has me worried. You mean that the coasts which are looming now aren’t those of El Hierro island (considered to be the end of the world until the discovery of America), but those of the island of Java? I already said, when we passed along one side of Krakatoa, that, as usual and in honor the “zapatistas,” we had chosen the longest path. Sigh.
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