(The following comments will refer mainly to the interventions by Stefan
Wray and Ricardo Dominguez writing for the Electronic Disturbance Theatre
(ECD Project), Miguel Garcia Ramirez writing for Ame La Paz, Stephen
Miller and Wes Rehberg of SPAN.)

First, it seems to me this can be an extremely useful opportunity.  The
opportunity is for us to hone our skills in discussing and negotiating
differences with the object of minimizing antagonism and maximizing
complementarity in our strategies and tactics. We haven't had to do much
of this; but within the development of any widespread struggle the need
will be recurrent.  We have seen differences in the revolutionary
movement in Chiapas, e.g., between the EZLN and the EPR, among communities
and among organized groups; we have also seen them in the Continental &
Intercontinental Encounters; compared to these conflicts those among
activists in cyberspace have been mild and easy to handle.

For the most part over the last four years, as the struggles of the
Zapatistas and the pro-democracy movement in Mexico have circulated
through cyberspace and established a wide variety of cooperative
interlinkages, there has been pretty wide consensus, or at least peaceful
coexistence, among the people and groups involved as far as strategies and
tactics are concerned.  Looking back I don't see very many conflicts that
caused real problems. I know, for example, that there are those who think
that sending letters or e-mail to Zedillo or Clinton to protest repression
in Chiapas is a waste of time. They don't bother, they prefer to organize
demonstrations, sit-ins, or other forms of direct action. But at the same
time they do not attack those who use the pen and keyboard to protest.
Most people, I would say, have seen these as complementary rather than
conflicting tactics.  Particular actions have been critiqued --e.g., the
takeover of the radio station in DF mentioned by Ame La Paz-- but the
general tactic of direct action has been widespread and generally
accepted, even by those who don't participate.

The ECD tactical experiment, however, has provoked energetic protest and
questioning.  It will not be the last such debate as we continue to
innovate and use our imaginations to find ever new ways to resist
repression and fight for the kinds of worlds we want.  The question is can
we use this opportunity to learn better ways to handle such situations.

I think Stephen Miller's comment on this subject was essentially correct
when he said "If one thing should be learned by all activists from this
incident is the importance of humility in learning to work with a wide
range of peoples with diverse social backgrounds and political
traditions."  If by "humility" we mean being careful, making our
proposals with the object of seeking discussion as if we are all part of a
common movement but are conscious of the need to deal with possible
differences, then I agree completely.  But such an attitude is not enough.
We need to develop the skills to do this, find protocols of intervention
and interaction which don't contradict our intentions.

In as much as many of those active in these struggles come from
backgrounds that valorize rhetoric, confrontation and intellectual
posturing, this is not always easy.  It's something we are going to have
to work on.  In as much as those of us interacting in this struggle have
different native languages and different cultural referents we have an
additional source of possible misunderstanding (as many recognize) that we
have to be careful about. In as much as we often come from quite different
philosophical and political perspectives, we have the added obstacle of
separate jargons and intellectual referents.  All of these things suggest
that a common effort to translate our thoughts, proposals and assessments
into simple vernacular language would be a helpful aid to understanding.
It would have the additional advantage, I suspect, of helping us clarify
our own ideas.

At any rate we clearly have a lot of work, but an opportunity to do it as
well.

Second, the question of unilaterality has been central to the discussion
but it is no simple issue.  Ame La Paz challenged the ECD Project's
undertaking an action without prior discussion with those in Mexico.
Clearly, many actions have been taken against the Mexican government by
people all over the world without consulting with activists in Mexico.
Should the Italian militants in Rome who occupied the Mexican government's
main tourist offices in January 1998 have consulted with those in Mexico?
I heard no such suggestion at that time. Yet, that occupation was a much
more dramatic an act of  "civil disobedience" than the ECD action on April
10, 1998.  In Europe activists are trying to stop the passage of a
Mexico-EU trade agreement to put pressure on Zedillo.  Should they have
consulted?  When are such consultations advisable, under what conditions?
Of what should they consist?  And with whom? These issues need to be part
of the discussion.

Ame La Paz argued that the ECD project organizers should have consulted
with the "Zapatistas and the organizations that have [web] sites in
Mexico."  In as much as the ECD action pushed forward a relatively new
front in the cyberspacial dimension of our struggles (similar actions had
been organized by the Anonymous Digital Coalition) this argument has some
appeal.  What do the Zapatistas (the EZLN) think? I don't know; I would
like to know; I don't think Ame La Paz knows. We should ask.  They could
also have suggested that web-masters more generally should be consulted.
While I have heard of computers being stolen from activist groups in
Mexico, I also know of the police smashing such equipment in Italy (images
have been posted to the web).  Clearly all of us who put up web pages in
the struggle may have an opinion about the political advisability (and
possible vulnerabilities) of such actions.  We now have an opportunity to
take up such a discussion and share ideas.

Beyond this call for consultation, Ame La Paz also evoked the spectra of
colonial perception, of  "metropolitan" hackers ignoring the needs and
capacities of  "colonial" incompetents.  This evocation was echoed in the
posts of Stephen Miller and Wes Rehberg.  Miller, while criticizing the
ECD Project for ignoring the point, saw in Ame La Paz's remarks a
rejection of  "a kind of paternalism wherein activists from powerful
countries . . . dictate the strategies and issues . . . for those working
in and from the 'colonies.' . . .  [which, he suggests] might be
replicating colonial discourses and 'practices despite our best
intentions'."  Rehberg picked up the same theme suggesting that the "ECD
project ought to be reconsidered from the perspective of the colonial
gaze."

Such interpretations clearly move the debate onto new terrain.  Although
the charges are oblique and none of the above authors directly charge the
ECD project with such a "colonial" mentality, the inference is clear.  Are
such charges warranted?  To what degree?  The absence of consultation
–beyond the ECD project's invitation to critical feedback on their actions
—was general, not just limited to an absence of consultation with
activists in Mexico.  Is a more general failing being misinterpreted as a
much more specific one?  However we read the ECD statements, my guess is
that most activists in the pro-Zapatista networks would agree that
consultation is often warranted and that any behavior homologous to
colonial ones is not. What we have to discuss, once again, is when and
under what circumstances should we discuss prior to acting.  It may be
that those times are few; it may be that we will sometimes often only
recognize the need after the fact.

Third, the issue of possible consequences of any new tactic –including
those of ECD —is obviously very serious.  Ame La Paz suggested two
possible consequences of the ECD Project of disrupting a Mexican
government web site: the Zapatistas might be branded "enemies of freedom
and communication and that they break the law" and the Mexican government
might undertake their own "dirty war" in cyberspace aimed at disrupting
the flow of information and organization that has been so effective in
circulating the struggle.

The idea that the ECD's Project of momentarily blocking a Mexican
government website would provide ammunition for the state's propaganda war
against the Zapatistas seems highly likely.  Of course, virtually every
kind of struggle the Zapatistas, their communities and their supporters
engage in also provide such ammunition.  This is something we can count
on, like the sun coming up in the morning. No matter what we do, they will
try to use it, abuse it and distort it into something in their favor.  As
we have been seeing lately, even the work of human rights observers has
been twisted into evidence of foreign interference in Mexico's internal
affairs.  Like the racists in the Southern United States who attacked
civil rights activists as "outside agitators" so too is the Mexican
government presently try to whip up a xenophobic, jingoistic wave of
anti-foreign sentiment to help it cover up its crimes.

The question is, I think, in any such case, how we evaluate the likely
effectiveness of such an effort.  Could the government make a convincing
case that such an ECD action, involving thousands of people from all over
the world, proved that Zapatistas are "enemies of freedom and
communication"?  Personally, I doubt it. My guess is that such an effort
to represent a momentary protest action of this sort in this way would
appear as ludicrous to most people as it does to us.  The current attacks
on foreign human rights observers continues, from what I can see, to
backfire powerfully on the government.  That they are trying to hide their
crimes is obvious to everyone except those who see no crime in the
government's reign of terror in Chiapas.  This effort to remove what has
been one of the most effective checks on that terror is worsening the
government's image around the world.  I would expect equivalent or worse
failure in a propaganda campaign against a momentary web page disruption
which is clearly framed in terms of protest.

This said, I would not make the same judgement about any sustained hacker
effort to bring down the government's efforts to communicate its views to
the world --–the kind of thing I suspect Ame La Paz had in mind when it
mentioned the idea of a "cybernetic guerrilla.".  A seriously destructive
intervention into government computer networks that widely disrupted its
ability to function would be much more likely to be viewed by many
otherwise sympathetic souls as an act of terrorism.  There is after all, a
whole industry out there (–the net security industry) y—hell bent on
disseminating fear of such disruption and the state could play off such
fear.  The ECD Project has proposed no such destructive intervention, but
there may be those who have such ideas in mind and it might be advisable
to clearly state a consensus against such actions (assuming discussion
reveals such consensus).

The Ame La Paz notion that the Zapatistas would be hurt by any action
which "breaks the law" and their interpretation of the Zapatista position
on this issue, is one I will take up below under the rubric of "civil
disobedience".

The objection that such ECD web protest actions might provoke a
counter-strike, a "dirty war" by the government on the Internet is an
important one.  Indeed a recent report has circulated on the Net that
claims that the government is trying to find ways to sever the Zapatista
link to the Net, to undermine their ability to use the Net to circulate
information about their situation, their views and solidarity with others.
Of this latter I have no doubt.  My guess is that the Mexican government
as well as its backers in the US intelligence agencies are working on this
issue, have been and will be.  As Ame La Paz says, quite rightly, the
Zapatistas (all of us, in a large sense) have been winning the Internet
war.  Indeed we have had the initiative all this time and continue to have
it –as I have argued in several articles.  Certainly they want and need to
find countermeasures.

The question is how much propaganda mileage could they get out of the kind
of action proposed by the ECD Project?  Would they use the argument "they
are doing so we can too?"  I doubt it, because it would legitimize such
actions and level the playing field.  Would they pass a law to make it
illegal and then use electronic means to track down and prosecute those
who undertake such actions? Possibly.  This is what is currently done
against hackers in the US.  Would such efforts be effective? Maybe.
Anonymous mailers might make it hard for them, but counterattacks  might
work and the tactic might have to be abandoned. But then again it might
not and the tactic might be successful and provide good propaganda for our
side instead of theirs –one more example of world wide rejection of the
Mexican government's repressive policies.  It may be that the only way to
answer these questions is to try.

I think Ame La Paz is absolutely right that our computer/technical
expertise should deal with issues of defense, given the likelihood of
government countermeasures which I assume to be forthcoming no matter what
new tactics we develop.  Several times over the last four years defensive
measures have been discussed. Many web masters keep backup copies of their
web pages (off line) just in case someone hacks in and destroys them.  The
same is done with list archives, for the same reason.  Obviously there are
many other measures that might be taken and everyone should know about
them.

Ame La Paz's suggestion that those with the skills should study and track
the spooks and discover how they spy on our activities (other than through
obvious means like subscribing to a list) is also attractive, although I
don't know if we have the skills available to do such work effectively.
The recent revelations of the PRI's spying activities in Mexico certainly
helped deligitimize it even further in the eyes of many people.  Further
revelations would obviously be useful.

Fourth, the Electronic Disturbance Theatre proposal for "ping"
disruption/protest of a Mexican government web site is framed in terms of
"electronic civil disobedience"  --a concept put forward in a book by that
title written by the Critical Arts Ensemble and published by Autonomedia
in Brooklyn in 1996.  Wes Rehberg asks, but doesn't answer, whether the
proposed action actually falls under the rubric of  "civil disobedience",
whether cyberspace is a part of  "civil society" and what laws are
transgressed.  These are all interesting questions.  Both the book
mentioned and Stefan Wray's writings have answered the first question by
sketching the history of civil disobedience and arguing that what is being
proposed is an extension of tactics characteristic of earlier forms of
civil disobedience into cyberspace.  They don't really address the issue
of civil society and the ECD web pages tend to steer people clear of
overtly illegal activities. In a recent interview with the New York Times
they argued that their proposal does not necessarily involve illegal
activity, but it might. An ex Justice department official said that such
"ping" attacks are probably illegal.

It seems to me that civil disobedience in cyberspace is not so far out of
line with Zapatista practice, or with past protests elsewhere, as Ame La
Paz paints it. They treat it as anathema because it involves "breaking
the law". Yet, the Zapatistas have done far more than that. Their initial
seizure of towns and pitched battles with government forces not only
"broke the law" but involved killing people (and being killed). Since the
cease fire in early 1994 they have eschewed such violent methods and have
fought primarily on the political battlefield. But the methods used by the
EZLN and their communities have gone beyond "legality" time and time
again. So have protests.  Most obviously the seizure of lands, the take
overs of governments and the creation of new autonomous governments have
all been "illegal" by the standards of existing law. Protests in Mexico
City that have painted graffiti over business signs (quite humorously)
have probably been illegal. And so on.

Such "illegal" actions, have of course, been challenges to the law itself.
The Zapatista struggle demands changes in the law --law created by others
for the repression and exploitation of the indigenous, campesinos and
workers. A great many of their actions involve civil disobedience in the
most general sense of the term. Their methods are not necessarily those of
the Civil Rights Movement in the US in the 1960s --although sometimes they
resemble them-- nor are they precisely like those of Gandhi's mass
movement against Indian colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s, but they very
much have involved disobedience to civil laws they find repressive.

Ame La Paz says that the Zapatistas don't want their supporters to use
methods that break the law. I have not seen any such injunction, even
implied, but perhaps I have missed a communique along the way.  I would
certainly agree on the need to discuss tactics with the Zapatistas, after
all the proposed actions are to provide them --and other fighters for
democracy and justice and indigenous autonomy in Mexico-- with support. I
have already stated that I think ECD should be discussed among all of us
who fight on the cyberfront, so to speak. But I fail to see, so far, that
the breaking of the law in cyberspace is much different from the breaking
of the law outside of cyberspace, or that such actions are, a priori,
counterproductive. They may be. It depends. But we should clearly
differentiate the reasons why we fear a particular tactic might be
counterproductive in concrete cases (as Ame La Paz did in the other
arguments mentioned above) and not just argue from first principles that
all civil disobedience is wrong.`

To conclude:
Let us proceed with this discussion collectively and under the assumption
that we are all trying to achieve the same ends --an end to repression and
exploitation and violence in Chiapas and elsewhere in Mexico and increased
opportunities for communities to realize their dreams through real
democracy in a variety of self-determined ways.  As we struggle we are
trying to find new ways of doing politics  -the public negotiation of
differences-- that minimize antagonisms and increase complementarity in
strategy and tactics. Consensus may not always be possible --or even
desirable-- but we can certainly seek forms of discussion and debate that
will give us the most productive outcomes.  Inflammatory rhetoric,
cutting sarcasm and nasty innuendo will not help. Patience, real efforts
to understand what others mean and to make ones self clear can.

Harry
 

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Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 478-8427
               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave@eco.utexas.edu
Cleaver homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
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