THE EZLN CONVOKES A GATHERING  IN DEFENSE OF WOMEN

By; Elio Henríquez

San Cristóbal De Las Casas, Chiapas

The Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) convoked the second International Gathering of Women who Struggle, to be held December 26 to 29 in the Caracol located in the ejido Morelia, autonomous municipality of November 17.

In a communiqué signed by the Zapatista women coordinators of the gathering, it said that only one theme will be addressed: Violence against women, in two parts: “One of denunciation and the other about what we’re going to do to stop that massacre that they are doing to us.”

It added: “the killing and disappearance of women continues, of all ages and of all social conditions. They murder and disappear us because we are women.”

It remarked: “The truth is not only that they are raping, murdering and disappearing us; that’s so, but the truth also is that we are not going to stay as if nothing is happening, well behaved and obedient. They attack us so much that it even seems like it’s a business of the system. If there are more women murdered or disappeared or raped, then there are more profits. Maybe that’s why this war against women doesn’t stop.”

Therefore, it added, “it would also be necessary to analyze if, at the same time that the number of women raped in the world goes up, the profits of the big capitalists also go up. So many beaten, so many disappeared, so many murdered, equal to so many millions of dollars or euros.”

The coordinators of the gathering recalled that: “some years ago, before our uprising and the start of the war against oblivion, here on the fincas (estates) a chicken was worth more than the life of an indigenous person. You don’t think so? Well yes, that’s what the finqueros (estate owners) said. Now they are saying worse things about women, because they whimper and are scandalized by a glass and a spot that tells the truth.”

They warned that: “nobody is going to obtain peace, freedom, or justice for us,” rather “we have to struggle. That’s why the invitation is not only to denounce, but also to say what is done or what was done or what can be done to stop those crimes.”

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Friday, September 20, 2019

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/09/20/politica/014n1pol

Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee