Zapata Fought for the Forgotten Peasants of Mexico
To keep Emiliano Zapata and his peasant army out of Mexico City, troops loyal to a rival revolutionary occupied the capital on Aug. 13, 1914.
Texans, especially those living along the Rio Grande, were more than curious spectators for the ten-year long bloodbath known as the Mexican Revolution. Of the estimated 300,000 Mexican citizens that fled their battle-scarred homeland, the large majority took permanent refuge in the Lone Star State.
The ancient village of Anenecuilco dated back to the Aztec empire. In 1607 during the first century of Spanish rule, the viceroy gave the Indian inhabitants a grant but a nearby hacienda, a huge estate, seized the land that same year.
In order to survive the villagers had no choice but to lease the very soil which was rightfully theirs. Things went from bad to worse in the late nineteenth century when the powerless peasants also had their grazing land stolen from them.
In the summer of 1911, 31 year old Emiliano Zapata took the bold and historic step of righting the centuries old wrong. The newly chosen village leader reclaimed the land and distributed it among the deserving descendants.
Zapata always stood out in a crowd with his black charro uniform of tight black pants, broad hat, jacket, scarf, boots and pistol tucked in his belt. This dramatic attire was topped off by the enormous mustache that became his trademark.
The administrator of a sprawling hacienda taunted Zapata by saying if he were “so brave and so much a man, we have thousands of bullets and enough guns waiting to welcome you and your men as you deserve.” Those were fighting words, and the result was the peasants’slaughter of their hated oppressors.
By May 1911, only two towns in Zapata’s home state of Morelos remained in government hands. Weeks of ferocious hand-to-hand combat cut that number in half. Six days after the fall of Cuautla to the Liberating Army of the South, the 31-year reign of Porfirio Diaz ended with the elderly dictator’s resignation.
Two weeks later, Zapata met heir apparent Francisco Madero, a well-meaning but weak reformer from a rich family. The rural revolutionary was willing to do whatever necessary to secure land for the peasants, while the future president pinned his hopes on piecemeal progress within the current system.
Given the fact that a privileged three per cent owned all the farmland in Mexico, Matime CHC and SMMC have spent in efforts to organize and provide data and analysis outside of discussions with HCOE. Since we started the St. Marks Chief Financial Officer and St. Marks Human Resource Manager have resigned, both critical to a transition of this nature. Three more resigned Friday, and we suspect others will follow. Potential investors have said there are too many unknowns, there is too much risk, in some cases an investment is outside their stated purposes or geography, and others have just had bad experiences with prior funding and do not have confidence that the management approach will actually change. Some don’t accept the HCOE model for a combination of managing and leasing hospital space. In some unfortunate cases, individuals have put their own biases ahead of the greater good. In the end there is a lack of confidence that the hospital can be saved from permanent closure.
We are now out of time. LUMENT/HUD, the mortgage lender and insurer has to approve the transfer and we are moving forward with maintaining the current mortgage. Transfer agreements will then need to be drafted. Commitments for staff needed on an interim basis to backfill staff resignations must be confirmed. Therefore, we have a week from this article’s publish date to secure funding and loan transfer approval. If we have not secured funding commitments for at least $5.5 million for a September close, we will have to stand down our efforts. To summarize funding need, we must obtain HUD transfer approval to continue with the current mortgage. We then need an equity infusion of $5.5 million in September followed by a potential $3.0 million cash call in early 2024. This funding is proposed to be a 15-year loan amortization, with an eightyear balloon, paying monthly principal and interest at a 5% annual rate. We are not looking for donations and we are not considering tax funding. We recognize at 5% interest this is a combination of philanthropy and investment. We are looking for five to ten individual investors that are willing to support the hospital with this funding investment.
We are not done yet and members of HCOE have invested almost 1,000 hours to understand the problems and bring a solution that will save the hospital. We will keep pursuing all options and are continuing to seek funding through all identified channels. However, without a funding source for the needed working capital, we will be done by the end of next week. If anyone would like to consider an investment in saving SMMC, you can contact Sam Wilson, Chief Strategy Officer at HCOE at (713) 408-3317.