Radio Insurgente

It's dark – the kind of profound darkness that a lack of electricity ensures in a mountainous jungle region.

A dull pulse carries through the night of the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas like an old woman's heartbeat. It's 4 a.m., and one can hear what has been a regular soundtrack at this hour for hundreds of years: a steady pounding as creased and callused brown hands massage dough for the day's tortillas.

And for the past year, Chiapas has greeted 4 a.m. with another soundtrack.

Fade in crackle, which quickly disappears, replaced by a clear and youthful female voice: "Muy Buenos Dias."/"A very good morning."

The voice is that of an insurgent fighter with the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), perhaps one of the world's quietest and most powerful rebel armies. The world knows them as the Zapatistas. "Estás escuchando Radio Insurgente, la voz de los sin voz."/"You are listening to Radio Insurgente, the Voice of the Voiceless."

The voice is being relayed to nearby Zapatista autonomous communities from a makeshift and very clandestine radio studio. The Zapatistas have built egg carton-lined studios, erected transmitters and trained themselves to operate a radio station. Hundreds of years of media voicelessness ended in August 2003 with daily, 16-hour broadcasts. "...voz oficial del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional."/ "...official voice of the Zapatista National Liberation Army."

She is the official voice of the EZLN on the Zapatista radio network. The intimacy and immediacy of this uncensored mass communication is something that the indigenous rebel army has never before had. "Son las cuatro de la madrugada."/"It's four in the morning."

Zapatista time. Daybreak. Fade in Zapatista national anthem.

The EZLN has said that access to and control of the media are vital for its community's survival. And while successive Mexican governments have surrounded Zapatista communities with armies and allowed soldiers and paramilitaries to unleash terror on indigenous peoples, the Zapatistas have worked quietly to build the capacity to speak directly to their people. So quietly in fact, that when the Zapatista broadcasts first hit the airwaves, playing popular music and reading saludos from listeners, even government loyalists unwittingly tuned in.

"Radio Insurgente is a radio station that is completely independent from the bad Mexican government," explains the network's Web site, radioinsurgente.org. This past Nov. 17, the day the EZLN celebrated its 21st anniversary, the station launched an Internet audio version of the clandestine network. From recordings of local indigenous musicians and story-tellers to political speeches by EZLN leaders, the Internet audio archive serves as a history of Mexico's indigenous people. "... transmitiendo desde algun lugar de las montanas del sureste Mexicano."/ "... transmitting from someplace in the southeastern Mexican mountains."

Stories circulate about the Zapatistas' masked leader, Subcommandante Marcos, sitting in a mud hut in the jungle writing communiqués on his newly upgraded Dell lap-top. Indeed the Zapatistas have taken full advantage of new technologies.

Mexico's indigenous insurgents have kept close to the ground, expanding their FM community radio reach to between two and four radio stations and teaching radio skills to young women insurgents. Zapatista division of labor assigns men the technical roles and women the programming, on-air and reporting roles. "Las reporteras de radio insurgente estuvieron en el lugar de los hechos. Asi que podemos transmitirles un resumen de lo que grabaron ..."/ "Radio Insurgente reporters were on the spot and we bring you this summary of what we recorded ..."

Radio Insurgente reports breaking news from Zapatista and indigenous communities, blending political education with on-the-ground reporting. Take the April 10 incident this year in the community of Zinacantan, when community leaders went to see municipal authorities to demand access to potable water for their communities and were attacked en route by thugs from the Party of the Democratic Revolution. Reporters from Radio Insurgente were on the spot. They transmitted interviews with witnesses and those who were attacked about both the incident and their opinions about the revolutionary peasant leader Emiliano Zapata, whose death 85 years ago was being commemorated in Zinacantan when the attack occurred. That program is now archived on the new web site.