María de Jesús Patricio, spokeswoman for the Indigenous Government Council for Mexico.

By: Gilberto López y Rivas

As always, the important comunicado of the National Indigenous Congress and the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (CNI–EZLN), “The time has come,” dated last May 28, went unperceived in the large communications media and particularly among the political class. Immersed in the State elections, as predictable in their fraudulent results as the frustration of those who vote in good faith, confident that “now yes, there could at least be an change,” the media as well as the politicians ignore or make invisible any reference to the resistances e political initiatives of the indigenous peoples. The autism and ego-centrism of the political class goes together with the obedience to the power of the media analysts.

In their document, the CNI–EZLN announces the broad representation of indigenous peoples, communities, nations and tribes present in the constitutive assembly of the Indigenous Government Council: Apache, Amuzgo, Chatino, Chichimeca, Chinanteco, Chol, Chontal de Oaxaca, Chontal de Tabasco, Coca, Cuicateco, Mestizo, Hñähñü, Ñathö, Ñuhhü, Ikoots, Kumiai, Lakota, Mam, Matlazinca, Maya, Mayo, Mazahua, Mazateco, Me`phaa, Mixe, Mixe-Popoluca, Mixteco, Mochó, Nahua or Mexicano, Nayeri, Popoluca, Purépecha, Q´anjob´al, Rarámuri, Tének, Tepehua, Tlahuica, Tohono Odham, Tojolabal, Totonaco, Triqui, Tseltal, Tsotsil, Wixárika, Xi´iuy, Yaqui, Binniza, Zoque, Akimel O´otham and Comkaac.

The document describes in depth the capitalist full-spectrum war against the peoples throughout national territory, and the time of violence, fear, mourning and rage that is experienced, ever since: “the political class has persisted in making the State a corporation that sells the land that belongs to the original peoples, campesinos, city folk; that sells it to people as if they were merchandise that are killed and buried like raw material for the drug cartels, to sell them to the capitalist companies that exploit them until they get sick or die, for selling them in parts for the illegal organ market. The pain of the relatives of the disappeared and their decision to find their loved ones despite the fact that the governments are persistent in not finding them because by looking for them, the rot that governs this country is also appearing. That is the destiny that those above construct for us, bent on the destruction of the social fabric, of what makes us know peoples, nations, tribes, barrios, colonias, even families, it keeps us isolated and alone in our grief, while they consolidate the appropriation of entire territories, in the mountains, the valleys, the coasts and in the cities.”

Contrary to the political class that participates in electoral processes as if they were taking place in a Swiss Canton, the comunicado emphasizes: “the destruction that we have not only denounced, but also faced for 20 years and that evolve in the better part of the country into an open war waged by criminal corporations that act in brazen complicity with all the organs of the bad government, with all the political parties and institutions. All of them configure the power of above and are a cause of repugnance for millions of Mexicans of the countryside and the cities. In the midst of that repugnance they continue telling us to vote, to believe in the power of above, which continues drawing and imposing our destiny. In that direction, we only see a war that grows and on the horizon is death and the destruction of our lands, our families, our life; it is an absolute certainty that it will get worse, much worse, for everyone, for everyone.”

They reiterate that: “only in resistance and rebellion have we found the possible paths whereby we will be able to continue living, and that in them are the keys not only for surviving the war of money against humanity and against our Mother Earth, but also for being reborn together with every seed that we sow, with each dream and with each hope that is materializing in large regions in autonomous forms of security, of communication, of governments appropriate for protection and defense of territories. Therefore, there is no other path possible than the one being walked below, because above is not our path, it is theirs and we disturb them.”

The CNI–EZLN has decided “not to wait for the disaster that the capitalist killers that govern undoubtedly bring us, but rather to go on the offensive and make that hope an Indigenous Government Council for Mexico that bets on life from below and to the anticapitalist left, which will be lay and that answers to the seven principles of govern by obeying as our moral guaranty (…) we seek to snatch the destiny that they have taken away from us and, unfortunately, we seek to dismantle that rotten power that is killing our peoples and Mother Earth and the only cracks that we have encountered and that have been liberating consciences and territories, giving consolation and hope are in resistance and rebellion.”

The CNI–EZLN calls “to organize ourselves in all the corners of the country, para gather necessary elements so that the Indigenous Government Council and our spokesperson is registered as an independent candidate to the presidency of this country and yes, spoiling their party based on our death and making our own based on dignity, organization and the construction of a new country and of a new world.”

They call “to all sectors of society to be attentive to the steps the Indigenous Government Council is agreeing on and defining through our spokesperson to not surrender, not sell out, not to deviate or rest, to go carving the arrow that will carry the offensive of all the indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, organized and non-organized in order to aim it at the real enemy.”

It’s clear that the time has come for constructing power from below and to the left; a power that governs by obeying starting with the seven principles: to serve and not serve yourself, to represent and not supplant, to construct and not destroy, to obey and not order, to propose and not impose, to convince and not conquer, to step down and not up.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Friday, June 16, 2017

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2017/06/16/opinion/018a2pol

Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee