By: Sandra Gayou

La Jornada Maya

 Caracol of Morelia, Chiapas

“The government chose from the four candidates the one that is more right-wing,” Subcomandante Galeano, of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) pointed out upon considering that the programs that president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador wants to implement, like the plantation with a million hectares of trees, the construction of the Maya Train and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Corridor, will only destroy the territories of the indigenous peoples.

After the meeting of the Networks in Support of the Indigenous Government Council (Concejo Indígena de Gobierno, CIG), in which the creation of an International Network of Resistance and Rebellion was proposed, the insurgent Subcomandante affirmed last August 5 in the Caracol of Morelia that the “fourth transformation” that López Obrador promises is in reality the fourth transformation of the PRI. “They can change the governments,” but the “system of domination is maintained,” and the same thing will happen, he criticized.

In that regard, Galeano alluded to the company that will provide exemplars for the project for one thousand hectares (247,000 acres) of timber and fruit trees, about which, he said, its property owner is Alfonso Romo, who will be head the cabinet during the next government.

He also talked about the wall that Donald Trump proposed, about which he said, is not one on the northern border, but rather on the southern border, the Suchiate River, with the denial of entry of Central Americans to Mexico. “That’s why Trump congratulated Juanito Trump for winning the elections,” he expressed.

At the same time, he condemned the abandonment that the indigenous peoples suffer, by pointing out that they were already sent to the mountains in the past, when they were stripped of their lands. Now it turns out that those mountains possess great wealth and they want them for the nation. “We must defend them to the death, because I fear that the government will defend itself with violence,” he sentenced.

Galeano reported on the proposal of consolidating an International Network of Resistance and Rebellion (Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Internacional). Suppose that the National Indigenous Congress (Congreso Indígena Nacional) will cease to be a movement of exclusively of Native groups, since it seeks to add every group or individual external to this process of government that he classified as “domestication.”

Moreover, this network will also expand to other nations, seeking those in any corner of the world that resist their system of government.

Apart from this principal action, the insurgent subcomandante reported on seven others, among which is the integration of rural men and historic groups that struggle to a network of support for the CIG, the discussion of each one of the committees (comités) formed, so as to coordinate efforts among networks, as well as an international meeting in one of the five Zapatista Caracoles in December.

[1] Apparently, AMLO has proposed planting 1 million hectares of fruit and timber trees in the Mexican southeast over a 6-year period, and up to 200,000 hectares would be in Chiapas. See: https://www.animalpolitico.com/2012/04/amlo-propone-sembrar-1-millon-de-hectareas-de-arboles-en-6-anos/

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

http://www.jornada.com.mx/2018/08/15/politica/006n1pol

Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee