Chiapas Support Committee
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Governing ourselves
Street art in Nochixtlán, Oaxaca, that reads “killers.”
By: Gustavo Esteva
Cornered in their alley, disconcerted and pathetic elected officials look for an exit from their impossible predicament: they cannot ignore/be unaware of, nor recognize their own disgrace, the fact that their “security forces” operated like bands of criminals in Nochixtlán, just like in Ayotzinapa. The worn out formula of the scapegoat no longer functions. The media campaign produces the opposite desired effects. Desperate, they seem ready to jump off the precipice, no matter the cost. And that cost would be immense for everyone.
On Tuesday the 21st, at the funeral of one of the murdered boys in Nochixtlán, the son of a teacher, health minister of the town council of Apazco, we all felt the family’s pain. We were moved even further by the father’s reflection: “Yes, this is the price that we had to pay. But the struggle must continue, the struggle cannot stop here. These are not the first deaths, nor will they be the last. No matter. We are learning things like this in the struggle.”
A couple of days later, at a meeting of campesino producers in La Mixteca, the conversation became more agitated. What had brought them there was put aside. The attack of the teachers felt like their own, but they were no longer mobilizing just in solidarity. They had reached their limit. It was the moment to struggle for themselves, for their own survival, with the conviction that united it would be possible to change a state of unbearable things.
The front lines (of the battle) are multiplying under very different configurations and styles. It’s not the same in La Mixteca as in Monterrey. What remains clear is that the teachers’ struggle articulates generalized discontent that seeks its best form of expression.
Governments, commercial media, impresarios, the so-called “real powers,” continue yelling at the top of their lungs because of the challenge they face. They look for reasons and pretexts that justify the heavy hand, for which they prepare for public opinion. Some common people share their demand to “reestablish order.”
They insist like that from above, that time is running out and it is urgent to return calm to the millions of affected citizens. They sweep the way in which they lost it under the rug. The teachers tried all the possible forms of struggle and administrative procedures before taking the current course. Three days before last year’s elections the government broke off negotiations and refused to return to the table until Nochixtlán obligated it to do so.
Nochixtlán is on the dialogue’s official agenda, where the government pretends to “repair the damage” with mere economic compensation. It can include labor issues like arbitrary stoppage, lowered and withheld wages, and even political prisoners and other abuses. But nothing more, nothing about the heart of the matter. They do not understand people’s reaction. When one of the victims of Nochixtlán tells them that they were at the crime scene “because we believe that we have to throw out this reform,” they need to attribute this behavior to manipulation, to “ideological fabrication,” and even, like in Chiapas, to the meddling of “extremist groups.” They don’t want to appear informed about what is happening.
The authorities are deriving the worst from the lessons of the mobilizations of ten years ago. In creating the 2007 commission that investigated what happened in Oaxaca, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the police forces “physically affected a large number of people in an inhumane and cruel way,” resulting in wounded and tortured individuals and deaths, and it affirmed that “a de-facto suspension of constitutional rights” had been produced. The Court appeared interested in realizing justice. What it did, however, was extend a certificate of impunity to the violators. It seemed that “the use of public force was legitimate”…although late: they should have done what they did earlier. Against its own statute and its own words, the Court ruled that the authorities can and should violate constitutional guarantees.
Today the authorities want to shelter themselves under that umbrella. They let loose all our demons just like that. Before the disaster that is outlined, the source of hope can be in the possibility that people exercise from below the capacity to govern, upon confirming that those above have lost that capacity. The first steps have been taken on that path, as the changes in the strategy of mobilization demonstrate.
We citizens, men and women, standing up at a barricade like those among the leaders of the CNTE, we should make decisions as a government. The teachers of Oaxaca can start implementing their Educational Transformation Program with its sensible system of evaluation and innovative pedagogies. We would begin in that way to disregard the meddling of corrupt bureaucrats of the SEP in the content and form of education.
In any case, it would be suicide to continue trying to get water from a rock, waiting/ hoping for these political classes to do what is needed. It’s our turn. Doing what is necessary in this critical circumstance will serve as practice for us for what is to follow.
Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Monday, July 4, 2016
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2016/07/04/opinion/018a1pol
Translated by Rebecca Gamez
EZLN: Words of SupMoisés in Oventik
Caleb Duarte and Emory Douglas present the Zapatera Negra textile project at CompARTE in Chiapas.
WORDS OF THE GENERAL COMMAND OF THE EZLN, IN THE VOICE OF SUBCOMANDANTE INSURGENTE MOISÉS, AT THE OPENING OF THE ZAPATISTA’S PARTICIPATION IN CompARTE, CARACOL OF OVENTIK, CHIAPAS, MEXICO, MORNING OF JULY 29, 2016.
In the name of the compañeras and compañeros bases of support of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, I want to tell you how we feel about the things that they do to us as original peoples of Mexico. I think it is the same all across the world.
We want to tell you, explain to you once again, how much suffering this rotten capitalist system has caused us.
Don’t feel bad, compañeras and compañeros from the national and international Sixth, brothers and sisters of the world, about everything that I am about to tell you because it isn’t about you. It’s about what the capitalist system does to us, and the conditions that it forces on us, especially those of us who are NATIVE PEOPLES in this country called Mexico.
I am going to talk about how we, the Zapatista men and women feel about what they did to our indigenous brothers and sisters from the town of San Juan Chamula, on June 23 of this year.
What happened there pains us as Zapatistas.
I mean what really happened there, not what the paid media (those who sell out for a few pennies) say happened there.
We know perfectly that the paid media says that in Chamula the municipal president from the Verde Ecologista (PVEM, Green Ecologist Party of Mexico) was killed. Because this is the party of the overseer Velasco, [i] the paid media are there, crying and lamenting what happened, but they say nothing of the rest of the dead. They say nothing of those who later died in their homes or of those whose dead or dying bodies were taken away by their families. For the government and the press those deaths don’t matter. There were actually dozens of dead, not just five corrupt officials.
Everyone in Chamula and in all of the indigenous communities of the Altos of Chiapas knows what really happened. They know that it was the guards of the corrupt municipal president (of the Verde party) who initiated the shootout and who killed and injured many of the people who were in the plaza. It wasn’t until later that another armed group arrived to finish off these (Verde) officials. Yes, finish them off, because they had already been killed with clubs and machetes.
The government and its journalist employees want to present what happened as just a small problem. They talk about the municipal president as a “poor thing.” They claim that he was simply trying to respond to the people’s complaints but that those “savage” Chamulans, as the press calls them, had to go and kill him.
All of this is a lie. Every single thing that they have said in the paid media is a lie. It is a lie that was bought for a few pennies, and the paid media would rather interview “experts,” as they call them, than go and actually investigate what happened.
We are not going to report what happened in detail. We will leave this task to those who were the real victims that day and who have been the victims for a long time now. They will know perfectly well how and when to explain things.
But what we will tell you is that what followed pains us to no end: how the paid media began to report a bunch of nonsense and lies about indigenous peoples. Even those media who claim to be very progressive did the same thing. It pains us how they made a corrupt politician into a hero. It pains us that they lied to everyone, becoming accomplices to the crime. And it pains us how they knelt before Velasco so he could climb on their backs and present himself as some great savior. It’s on them [the media] that they sell out for mere pennies.
It does not matter to us that the people of Chamula are not Zapatistas. They are our brothers. Those people who killed each other in the community of San Juan Chamula are indigenous peoples, Native peoples, part of our Native race. It brings us no satisfaction to see indigenous people killing one another, even if they support the political party system. It gives us no pleasure to see indigenous people presented as “savages” by those who are the true savages—the criminal government, their political party supporters, and their obedient paid press.
What matters to us is who planned this, who wanted things to happen this way.
We suffer an immense and seemingly incurable pain from all those things that those above have done to us.
We understand clearly that no one else can cure this pain. Only we can do so that, and to do so we will have to work and work very hard.
All of the bad things that happen in our communities, towns, barrios, and neighborhoods HAPPEN BECAUSE OF THE POLITICAL PARTIES, RELIGIONS, AND DRUG TRAFFICKERS THAT MEDDLE THERE.
They use us indigenous people for anything and everything that those above want.
They want to turn us into servants of those above by having us work as mayors, councilmen, and state and federal representatives. Why do they want us to do this? So that we will learn to make money without working, so that we will learn to be corrupt while we disguise ourselves as servants of the people.
I don’t know what they see us as, because even garbage is good for fertilizer. In our case they don’t even see us as garbage. We are nothing but shit to those above.
They treat us like shits, and because they’ve already made use of that shit they have to throw it out, however they feel like.
I cannot even say that they treat us like animals or pets because they at least treat their pets like living things.
They look at us indigenous peoples of the world and say “backward,” “uncivilized,” “nuisances,” “primitives,” “revolting,” and countless other absurdities that they have said about us and done to us.
For centuries and centuries we have resisted all of this.
We are flesh, blood, and bone, just like them.
But we, indigenous men and women, are not hurting ANYONE.
They have wanted to destroy and disappear us, but they will never succeed.
They have divided us with religion, miseducation in the schools, and the political party system. They have imposed on us another culture, a bad politics, and a harmful ideology.
Compañeras and compañeros from the national and international Sixth, brothers and sisters of the world:
We say to you clearly: we are not the shit of those above to be treated like this. We are humans of blood, bone, and flesh just like they are. We are not the same color as they are, but we are living beings.
We do not want to be bad like they are, those who use other humans.
Yet today what they are trying to show is that it is we indigenous that are bad, that we kill one another as happened in San Juan Chamula.
The ones who wanted this to happen are the political parties above, from the ruling PRI and the PVEM and all of the political parties.
That is what happens with the other political parties too, including those who say they are on the left. They use us as their shock troops, but these parties are the ones who are backwards and evil, and yet we are always the ones who end up paying the price.
I am not saying that we original peoples are all good; we have our own problems but we can resolve them ourselves. What happened in Chamula was the fault of the political parties and the leaders of those parties.
The media doesn’t mention this because they don’t get paid to tell the truth. On the contrary, they make more money by hiding information.
The journalists who work for the newspapers have to do what their bosses tell them if they want to get paid. They have already lost their dignity, and the same goes for the religious leaders who are well aware that they are deceiving us. They too have lost their dignity.
Who taught them to be corrupt, to steal and crook? Those above did.
The municipal president from San Juan Chamula who died was from the Verde party and he didn’t want to pay what he owed to the indigenous peoples, his own people. They had already said to him many times before to hand over the money already! But he didn’t open his ears and listen to them. Where did this municipal president learn to act this way? He learned it in the service of the bad government.
For decades and decades and hundreds of years they have deceived, mistreated, and used us, which is why no one pays attention to us indigenous peoples.
The teachings of above are bad, horrible. Those indigenous who have let themselves be used by those above and become mayors, councilmen, like the councilwoman from Las Margaritas (Florinda from the PAN) in La Realidad, and the ex-federal representative of the CIOAC (Antonio Hernández Cruz), both Tojolabales. They have learned to ignore the communities and not take them into account. They are the ones who planned the murder of our compañero Galeano, a teacher of the Zapatista Little School. We have not forgotten.
The bad things that they want to teach us could fill volumes. For example, I’m indigenous, a small landholder with ten hectares. But I begin to call myself a rancher. Yet an ejido commoner who has the right to 20 hectares…they are not considered a rancher even though they have 20 hectares. But those 20 hectares aren’t worth anything; what’s considered worthwhile is to be a property owner. So now those people that now consider themselves ranchers believe that they are no longer indigenous. And that’s not even counting those who have become mayors or councilmen, because they now consider themselves middle class. They even begin to say that they don’t know how to speak their indigenous language.
Why is it that we indigenous peoples have to pay with our lives just so that others can have money to eat?
All of the paid media compete over the price at which they will sell their photos of the dead in San Juan Chamula. But they don’t report who is responsible for the deaths, and all levels of government pay whatever is necessary so that the names of those actually responsible—they themselves—don’t come out in print.
The press only prints what the bad governments say. Why didn’t the reporters and photographers show the rest of the dead? Why didn’t they show those who were killed by the municipal president’s guards, his opponents? The media doesn’t care about that because it doesn’t make them any money, and because the people who died there were Indians, and it doesn’t even matter that those Indians belonged to political parties. They were all just Indians. Isn’t this racism from the same people who supposedly speak out against racism.
Those who supposedly “work” for the paid media have already received their pay for selling and situating lies, despite the gravity of the situation, even for them. They do not print the truth because the truth doesn’t make them any money. Shame on them, they are the masterminds of falsehood.
They arrive late to the scene of the crime just so that they can take pictures of the dead, but not to investigate the causes of decades of injustice.
They do arrive on time when their paymasters, that is the bad government, want to show the press what supposedly happened. The bad government gives them an opportunity to snap a picture and tells them that everything is under control in that place where the good president and his guards were killed by “Indian savages.” They print everything that the bad government says on this topic.
Within minutes they release this misinformation only to delete it just as quickly. They want people to see it but then forget it quickly. They do this so that people don’t demand to know who is really responsible for what has happened to the indigenous peoples of this country. This is the function of the paid media.
Damn it! We all know that the rich aren’t rich because they work from dawn to dusk. They don’t have to sweat and stink of sweat. They don’t have to worry about being mutilated in accidents with machinery. Their bodies aren’t covered in sweat. They don’t end up deaf because they are subjected to unbearable noise for 8 to 12 hours a day. They don’t get sick from fatigue; they don’t get stressed because they don’t have money for medicine, for food, for their rent, or for the education of their children. They don’t lack anything, thanks to us, the workers in the country and the city.
Without exploiting us, they would not be rich.
This world they have forced on us has come apart.
What is our pay in this capitalist world? Poverty, exploitation, mistreatment, and injustice.
Today they treat us all the same whether we are workers from the country and the city.
Their foremen, the municipal presidents, mistreat us; their butlers, the governors, mistreat us; and their overseers, the federal government, mistreat us. All of them are acting on the orders of their boss: neoliberal capitalism.
We have suffered so much from all of the things that they have done to us, the indigenous peoples from across the whole country, and what they have done to the compañeras and compañeros of the National Indigenous Congress.
But if we defend ourselves, then ah yes, we are “backward-thinking” “savages.”
If we steal a little bag of potato chips, we go to jail. But if the government of Juan Sabines Gutiérrez steals 40 billion pesos, no one goes to jail. They walk away scot-free so that they can continue to steal.
What a bunch of shit! What horror! How racist! There isn’t a single mainstream newspaper in Mexico that would publish this.
There is only injustice for us, the exploited peoples. There was NEVER justice for our great-grandparents; there was no justice before 1968; there was no justice for the slaughter of ’68; there was no justice for the slaughter of women in the city of Juarez, or for the slaughter of the children in the ABC Daycare. There has been no justice for Acteal. There has been no justice for the 43 disappeared students from Ayotzinapa, nor has there been any justice for the many other injustices.
People of Mexico: we must all organize and struggle as we indigenous peoples are organized with our new system of government.
But it isn’t up to us to say how you must organize. Yes, we want to share all of our experiences, but we don’t know what the particularities of life are like for the workers, for the teachers, or for other people. But we all know that we want Justice, Freedom, and Democracy, and in this goal is our commonality.
What this system imposes on us is an impossible situation. For example: if I am part of an original people and a federal representative and my congressional seat is next to federal deputy Diego Fernandez de Ceballos, the large landowner and land lord, and I begin to discuss the agrarian law, proposing the equal division of the land, that no one should have more land than anyone else, how would it be possible for me to come to an agreement with him, me an indigenous person, and him, a large landowner?
This system doesn’t work, it is rotten, it cannot be fixed. It will fall piece by piece and people will die as a result. We better figure out how to get out of there.
We had better organize ourselves to build a new house, that is, a new society.
No one is going to struggle for us. Just like for us Zapatistas, no one came here and struggled for us. In other words, we had to give our lives because we want more than just our lives.
So, teachers, organize and struggle until the end. Public health workers of Mexico, organize yourselves because the storm is already coming for you. The same goes for every sector of workers: the storm is coming for us.
People of Mexico and poor people of the world: organize yourselves.
Thank you.
From the mountains of Southeastern Mexico.
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés. Oventik, Chiapas, Mexico.
July 29, 2016
EZLN confirms and extends its participation in CompArte
CompArte banner at Cideci in San Cristóbal.
Zapatista National Liberation Army
Mexico
July 26, 2016
To the participants and attendees of CompArte:
To the National and International Sixth:
Compañeros, compañeras, compañeroas:
Although we could not replace the money that had been allocated for food and transportation for our artistic community, as Zapatistas we sought a way not only to reciprocate the efforts of the artists who responded to our invitation to CompArte, but also to make them feel the respect and admiration their artistic work inspires in us.
We would like to inform you of the decision that we have come to:
We will present, though in different calendars and geographies, some of the artistic work that we Zapatistas prepared for you. The presentations will take place according to the following schedule:
Caracol of Oventik: July 29, 2016, from 10:00 national time to 19:00 national time. Participation by Zapatista artists of the Tzotzil, Zoque, and Tzeltal native peoples from Los Altos in Chiapas.
CIDECI, San Cristóbal de Las Casas: July 30, 2016. A Zapatista delegation will attend CompArte as listener-viewers.
Caracol of La Realidad: August 3, 2016, from 09:00 on August 3 through the early morning hours of August 4. Participation by Zapatista artists of the Tojolabal, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Mame native peoples as well as mestizos from the Selva Fronteriza zone.
Caracol of La Garrucha: August 6, 2016, from 09:00 on August 6 through the early morning hours of August 7. Participation by Zapatista artists of the Tzeltal and Tzotzil native peoples from the Selva Tzeltal zone.
Caracol of Morelia: August 9, 2016. Celebration of the 13th anniversary of the birth of the Zapatista caracoles and the Juntas de Buen Gobierno, from 09:00 on August 9 through the early morning hours of August 10. Participation by Zapatista artists of the Tojolabal and Tzeltal native peoples from the Tsots Choj zone.
Caracol of Roberto Barrios: August 12, 2016, from 09:00 on August 12 to the early morning hours of August 13, 2016. Participation by Zapatista artists from the Chol and Tzeltal native peoples from the Northern zone of Chiapas.
In order to attend you will need your CompArte registration name tag from CIDECI and to have registered at the table set up for that purpose in CIDECI as of the afternoon of July 27, 2016. Note: bear in mind that here…well, everywhere, it is storm season.
We know that the great majority of you will not be able to attend all of the presentations now that the calendar and geography have been expanded. Or perhaps you will, that is up to you. In any case, whether you are there or not, we will present with you in mind.
THE PAID MEDIA WILL NOT BE ALLOWED ACCESS (even if they pretend that they also work for the unpaid media).
The compa media—that is the free, autonomous, alternative, or whatever-you-call-it media—will be welcome, even by the Tercios Compas, because here we do have trade solidarity.
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As Zapatistas, on this day we reiterate our support for the demand for truth and justice for Ayotzinapa and all of the disappeared that is tirelessly maintained by the mothers, fathers, families, and compañer@s of the missing. To all of them, those who are missing and those who search for them, we offer our greatest embrace. Your pain is our pain and our dignified rage.
From the mountains of Southeastern Mexico,
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés. Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano.
Mexico, July 2016.
Originally Published in Spanish by Enlace Zapatista
Massacre in San Juan Chamula
WITNESS: “IT WAS A MASSACRE!”
Removing the bodies from the plaza in San Juan Chamula.
Protest, violence and death
They report some 20 injured by gunshots, as well as with machetes; they used guns
By: Hermann Bellinghausen
San Juan Chamula, Chiapas [1]
“It was a massacre,” says a young witness to the shooting that occurred here yesterday at 8 o’clock in the morning in the central plaza of this traditional and famous Tzotzil locality.
An act of demand from various communities, something common here, turned into a lethal shootout that cost the life of Mayor Domingo López González and the council member Narciso Lunes Hernández, as well as an undetermined number of dead and wounded, although those residents present agree that around 20 could be dead, the majority from bullets, but also machetes.
It’s difficult to know the precise number, but the testimonies agree that the first shots came from the city hall.
“People met in the communities from 6 in the morning, to come to demand the programs that the municipio promised. Everyone came, men and women. No one knew what was going to happen,” the witness. “At 8 in the morning President Domingo (of the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico) came out on the balcony of city hall.”
“After listening to the dissidents he asserted forcefully that he would deliver those resources later, and he asked the people to withdraw. Then he entered the building. The people did not disperse, and then rockets and ‘bombs’ (of gunpowder) came out from inside the building, and the first gunshots.” Various subjects, some masked, who arrived with the PRIístas, had taken up positions below the municipal palace. They were carrying rifles and started to shoot at the building. This group has previously appeared with their faces covered in their protests in Tuxtla Gutiérrez.
It was then that the mayor attempted to leave through the back, but the masked men went after him and they immediately shot him. “They came for that, they were prepared.
“He also had to have others in the streets above, because some came out running and others went behind shooting,” adds the young man, who requests anonymity, but speaks with total fluency and in good Castilla. Three other men surround us that just listen. The first shots came out of the municipal presidency, according to this version, which two other indigenous men present in the plaza confirmed later, who surrounded a man standing up with a bullet wound, who with a hand on his abdomen observed the police on the plaza past 11 o’clock in the morning, almost three and a half hours after the events.
“How long did the shots last? No more than 10 minutes. All the people started to run to the edge of the plaza. Women? Many came, but they stayed at the edge. Yes, there were injured; I don’t know if there were any dead,” the witness explains to La Jornada. Apparently there were other shots afterwards.
The municipal building, painted completely green, is barely separated by a narrow passage from the municipal building of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI, its initials in Spanish). “Ruddy of heart,” proclaims a big sign on its facade. On the side, the presidency shows numerous bullet impacts and broken windows. High-powered weapons were used, according to what a ministerial agent said later, when the police finally arrived. They found cartridges from a 45-caliber pistol, an AK-47 and an R-15. An orifice is distinguished on a screen that a police agent of mature age considered as a shot from inside.
The photo shows the 2 municipal buildings, one green, one red), as well as the plaza, now taken over by police.
A town in shock
The body of an older man lies over an abundant puddle of blood on the line of the small area of a soccer field traced at the western side of the plaza. His loneliness is absolute; no one is nearby. An elderly woman remains seated on the stairs at the side of the plaza, like unrelated to everything, silent. Another cadaver continues in sight on the street that goes to the market. According to the testimonies, the mayor and his councilman would have fallen behind the municipal presidency when they were attempting to flee. A number of unknown individuals died in the plaza, because their family members or companions removed them before 10 o’clock in the morning. According to two Chamulans from the municipal capital, two Nissan “Estaquitas” (trucks) entered the plaza after the confrontation, some indigenous men picked up the dead and injured, and then they went away.
After the shootout, the masked men that would have killed Domingo López and his collaborator carried the bodies to the front of the city hall, and with gestures and shouts they pointed to them and were calling to the people that were approaching. At least one was re-killed there. “He was already dead, you can come now,” they said. “But the people had not come to fight. They were not informed,” the witness says. By then, the hundreds of indigenous that were protesting had fled and only residents of the municipal capital remained, unrelated to the tragedy, but too impressed to classify them as voyeurs. The town is in a state of shock, the streets deserted, except for small groups of men.
Erase that photo
“Erase that photo,” a state police agent with a helmet demands, pointing his tear gas rifle at this reporter when he sees him taking a picture of the man stretched out on the ground. A dozen police vehicles just entered the plaza and jump out onto the ground clutching their weapons, extremely nervous. “Erase it,” he insists. Upon being questioned as to why, another agent farther away aims his rifle for a few seconds, and the first agent, maybe reconsidering, points to the scarce number of indigenous that observe from the periphery of the extensive central plaza: “If you don’t, they people will hit you.” “Then why do you aim at me?”
In fact, the only time that some indigenous attempted to question the reporters was when a state functionary headed to a group of his acquaintances and indicated: “remove the journalists;” the indigenous were limited to impeding us from approaching the presidency, the PRI and the market.
Vehicles from the municipal police of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, the state police and investigative agents arrived sounding their sirens towards 11:30 in the morning and they cordoned off the front part of the plaza with anti-riot equipment and regulation weapons. The nervousness of the agents and functionaries is the most alarming of all. They immediately proceed to collect cartridges and other evidence, and only later will they use latex gloves and bags. More than investigating, they are cleaning up the plaza.
From early on, the social networks were flooded with a lot of photographs of the dead functionaries. One of every two Chamulans must have a cell phone. “A lot of photographers were there,” relates the witness quoted above.
Nevertheless, the first press images are from the air and from when the patrols were already at the place. All the images that circulated in the networks and some media were from local residents and are late scenes.
Towards noon, a pick up truck goes into the plaza. Two women are in the box. One, an older woman, cries inconsolably. Two men get out of the cabin, pick up the cadaver and hastily throw it into the vehicle’s box, facedown. In order that the doors close, they bend the knees up, only his feet and the soles of his huaraches are seen once they close the back door of the box. The second woman aboard the cabin and the pick up gets out. Various police surround the scene without daring to intervene. The woman looks briefly at the feet of the cadaver, turns the face and cries desperately. Nearby, a white truck picks up another body.
Soon, only police agents and patrol cars were in the proximity of the buildings of the PRI and of the municipal council. Not one business is open in the entire town. The people are sheltered in their homes. Some families remain on the flat roofs of the houses near the plaza.
At the border between San Cristóbal and Chamula, in the middle of the road a little sign warned in the morning: “Don’t go to Chamula. There’s a problem.” To say the least!
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Translator’s Note:
[1] San Juan Chamula is close to the tourist mecca of San Cristóbal. Chamula is the home of “traditional” religious practices, at least that’s what they tell tourists. Day trips for tourists to Chamula are very popular and the municipio (municipality, or county) makes a lot of money from these tourists trips. Chamula is also home to some of the thugs that attacked, evicted and destroyed the encampment and occupation of the “people’s movement” in San Cristóbal. In its Open Letter to the Governor of Chiapas, the EZLN warned the Governor of the danger of stirring up the rivalries in Chamula!
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Sunday, July 24, 2016
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2016/07/24/politica/002n1pol
Re-published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
EZLN: Open letter on the San Cristóbal attacks
OPEN LETTER ON THE AGGRESSIONS AGAINST THE PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT IN SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, CHIAPAS
ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY, MEXICO
July 21, 2016
To the current governor and the other overseers of the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas:
Ladies (ha) and Gentlemen (double ha):
We do not send greetings.
Before it occurs to you to try (as the PGR[i] is already attempting in Nochixtlán) to blame the cowardly aggression against the people’s resistance encampment in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas on ISIS, we would like to provide you, at no charge, the information we have collected on the subject.
The following is the testimony of an indigenous partidista[ii] (PRI) brother from San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico:
“At 9am (on July 20, 2016) the Verde party followers were called to the governor’s palace. They went and were told to do again what they had done the other day.”
(NOTE: he is referring to the incident in which a group of indigenous people affiliated with the Partido Verde Ecologista (Green Ecology Party) put on ski masks and went to create chaos at the [teachers’] blockade between San Cristóbal and Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of Chiapas. When they were detained by the CNTE’s [teachers’ union] security, they first said they were Zapatistas (they weren’t, aren’t, and never will be), and later admitted they were partidistas.
But this time they were supposed to dialogue so that the people at the blockade would let the trucks from Chamula that do business in Tuxtla go through. The municipal president (who belongs to the Verde Ecologista Party) sent police patrols and local ambulances. The municipal president of San Cristóbal sent some more police. The governing officials in Tuxtla sent a bunch more. See, they [the people from Chamula] had made a deal with the police—they already had a plan. So they went in there like they were going to dialogue but one group went into the blockade’s encampment and started destroying things, stealing or burning everything they found. Then they started shooting—the Verdes are indeed armed—but shooting like a bunch of drunks and druggies. The police were acting like their security detail, their backup. We don’t agree with what the Verdes did. Now the tourists are scared to come to the municipal center (of San Juan Chamula) and this screws everybody over because it really hurts our businesses. It’s not the blockade but rather the fucking Verdes that are fucking us over. Now we’re going to go protest in Tuxtla and demand they remove that asshole of a president. And if they won’t listen to us, well then we’ll see what we have to do.”
With regard to that clumsy attempt to dress paramilitaries in ski masks and say they were Zapatistas, it was a total failure (in addition to being a tired old trick that has been tried before by Croquetas Albores).[iii] Questioned on whether they thought it had been Zapatistas who destroyed the blockade and committed these outrageous acts, here are the comments of two townspeople, without any known political affiliation:
A street vendor, approximately 60 years old:
“No! The people who destroyed all that stuff yesterday are people paid by the government, we all know that. They aren’t the ones that support the teachers. The teachers’ struggle is valid; the other option would be that we’d have to pay for education ourselves. And where do they get money to pay the teachers anyway? From the people. What we need is for the majority of other states to join the struggle, there are four that are already in but we don’t know how long the others will take.”
A Chamula indigenous person, a street vendor:
“Naaahhh, those weren’t Zapatistas. Zapatistas don’t act like that. Plus the Zapatistas support the teachers and those people yesterday were trying to pass themselves off as Zapatistas by putting on ski masks, but they aren’t; they don’t act like Zapatistas at all.”
“So who were those people yesterday?”
“Those are other people, they get paid for that.”
“What do you think of the teachers’ struggle?”
“That we should all support them.”
_*_
We are sure that you don’t know this (either that or the stupidities that you commit are because you are in fact stupid), but the so-called “teachers’ conflict” arose because of the stupid arrogance of that mediocre police wannabe who still works out of the Department of Public Education (SEP by its Spanish acronym. Oh you’re welcome, no thanks needed). After the teachers’ mobilizations and the government’s response in the form of threats, firings, beatings, imprisonment, and death, the teachers in resistance managed to get the federal government to sit down to dialogue. This is in fact a federal issue. It is up to the federal government and the teachers in resistance to dialogue and come to an agreement or not.
You sympathize with the hardheadedness of that mediocre policeman. We Zapatistas sympathize with the teachers’ demands and we respect them. This applies not only to the CNTE, but to the entire people’s movement that has arisen around their demands. As Zapatistas, we have made our sympathy public by supporting them in word and deed, with the small amount of food that we could put together from our own tables.
Do you think this movement, now taken up by so many people, is going to be defeated by evicting a few encampments, even when you disguise it as “citizen rage?” You’ve already seen that doesn’t work. Just like what happened with our brothers, the originary peoples in Oaxaca—if you destroy their camps they’ll build them back up. Time and time again. The thing is that here below there is no fatigue. Your bosses calculated that the teachers’ resistance movement would deflate over summer vacation. Now you’ve seen that you were wrong (hmmm, that’s more than three failures in one evaluation. If we applied the “education reform” in this case you would already have been fired and would be looking for work in the Iberdrola alongside the psychopath.)[iv]
The movement has been able to generate and concretize the sympathies of the people, while you all only generate dislike and repudiation.
As we were already saying as of two months ago, the movement already encompasses various social sectors and, of course, their specific demands. For example, you’re not around to hear it but people are demanding Cancino be removed from office (the supposed municipal president of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, a city in Chiapas, Mexico, in case you didn’t know) and Narciso be put in jail (the paramilitary boss of the ALMETRACH.)[v] This and the other things they are demanding can be summarized in one word: good government. How long will it take you to realize that you are just in the way, parasites that infect the entire society, above and below?
The thing is that you all are so sure of yourselves that you send your attack dogs to steal the few belongings of these people who are PEACEFULLY protesting. Well, we Zapatistas will again begin to collect the food and basic necessities you stole from them and supply them once again. And we will do so over and over again.
Instead of making ridiculous declarations (like denying having a role in that cowardly attack on the people’s encampment in San Cristóbal), you could contribute to the easing of tensions necessary for this dialogue and negotiation to take place as determined by both parties (which are, we might remind you, the Federal Government and the National Coordination of Education Workers). It would be a good idea to tie up your attack dogs (Marco Antonio, Domingo, and Narciso). Just whistle and shake a wad of bills at them and you’ll see how they come running.
And some unsolicited advice: don’t play with fire in Chamula. The unrest and division you are inciting in that town with your stupidities could provoke an internal conflict of such terror and destruction that you wouldn’t be able to quash it with social network bots or paid “news” articles or the little money that Manuel Joffrey Velasco Baratheon-Lannister has left in the state treasury.
So be calm. Be patient and show some respect. We hope the federal government will dialogue and negotiate with seriousness and commitment, not only because the teachers’ demands are just, but because this might be one of the last times there is someone with whom to dialogue and negotiate. The process of decomposition you have encouraged is so advanced that soon you won’t even know who to slander. Plus there won’t be anyone on the other side of the table. Understood?
So, do your thing. That is, go back to Photoshop, to the celebrity news, the flashy parties, the spectacle, the gossip magazines, to the frivolity of those who lack intelligence. Govern? Oh come now, not even the paid media believe you do that.
It’s better that you step aside and learn, because this is Chiapas, and the Chiapas population is a lot to take for such a lame government.
_*_
To whom it may concern:
As Zapatistas it is our conviction—and we act in accordance—that the movement’s decisions, strategies, and tactics should be respected. This applies to the entire political spectrum. It is not acting in good faith to hitch oneself onto a movement and try to steer it in a direction outside of its internal logic. And that goes for attempts to slow it down or speed it up. If you can’t accept that, then at least say clearly that you want to use this movement for your own ends. If you say so directly, perhaps the movement will follow you, perhaps not. But it is healthier to tell the movement what you are seeking. How do you expect to lead if you don’t respect the people?
We Zapatistas are not going to tell our current teachers (those from the CNTE and also from the towns, barrios, and neighborhoods that support them) what to do and what not to do. This should be crystal clear to all noble people in struggle: ANY ACTION TAKEN BY THE ZAPATISTAS IN RELATION TO THE CURRENT POPULAR MOVEMENT (or those that later emerge) WILL BE PUBLICLY MADE KNOWN AHEAD OF TIME, always respecting the movement’s times and ways. The National Coordination of Education Workers as well as the originary peoples’ movements, neighborhoods, and barrios that support the teachers should understand that whatever decisions they make—whether about their path, their destiny, their steps, or their company—they will have our respect and our salute.
This thing of dressing up like Zapatistas and yelling slogans that involve others is fine as a bit of entertainment and a line on your resumé, but it is nevertheless false and dishonest. We did not rise up to hand out stolen junk food, but rather for democracy, freedom, and justice for all. If you think breaking windows and stealing food that isn’t even nourishing is more revolutionary and of more help to the movement, well, let the movement decide. But clarify that you are not Zapatistas. We don’t care when people tell us we don’t understand the “conjuncture,” or that we don’t have a vision of how to use electoral advantage, or that we are petit-bourgeoisie. We only care that that teacher [maestro, maestro] that señora, that señor, that young person [joven, jóvena] feel that here, in the mountains of southeastern Mexico, there are those who love them, respect them, and admire them. This is what we care about, even though such sentiments do not come into play in grand electoral strategies.
The teachers in resistance and, now more and more often, the people’s movement that gathers around them face very difficult adverse conditions. It isn’t fair that, in the midst of all of that, they have to deal not only with clubs, batons, shields, bullets, and paramilitaries, but also with “advice,” “orientation,” and “with-all-due-respect”-type orders telling them what to do or what not to do, or whether to advance or retreat—that is, what to think and what to decide.
We Zapatistas don’t send junk food to those who struggle, but rather non-GMO corn tostadas which are not stolen but rather homemade through the work of thousands of men and women who know that to be Zapatista does not mean to hide one’s face but rather to show one’s heart. Because reheated Zapatistas tostadas relieve hunger and inspire hope. And you can’t buy that in convenience stores or supermarkets.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano
Mexico, July 21, 2016
[i] Procuraduría General de la República, Mexico’s Attorney General
[ii] Refers to someone affiliated with one of the registered political parties.
[iii] “Croquetas,” or doggy biscuit, was the nickname assigned by the EZLN to Roberto Albores Guillén, governor of Chiapas from 1998-2000.
[iv] This likely refers to ex-president Felipe Calderón who recently took a job with a subsidiary of Iberdrola.
[v] La Asociación de Locatarios del Mercado Tradicional, Traditional Market Tenants’ Association.
=======================
Originally Published in Spanish by Enlace Zapatista
Carta abierta sobre la agresión al movimiento popular en San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas
Violent eviction of the CNTE from Chiapas occupation
[The EZLN has issued a statement on this violent eviction. We’ll post it as soon as the English translation is available. Meanwhile, here’s what happened.]
VIOLENT EVICTION of the CNTE OCCUPATION in CHIAPAS; THEY REINFORCE IT AT NIGHT
Some 200 individuals violently evicted the occupation that CNTE teachers maintained on the San Cristóbal de Las Casas-Tuxtla Gutiérrez toll road, along with parents and members of civil groups that support the teachers. Photo: Colectivo Tragameluz and Elio Henríquez
By: Elio Henríquez and Hermann Bellinghausen
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
Yesterday (Wednesday) noon, around 200 people that were carrying sticks, machetes and firearms attacked the roadblock that teachers, students, parents, representatives of more than 50 of the city’s neighborhoods and members of different organizations have maintained on the San Cristóbal-Tuxtla Gutiérrez toll road since June 27, to demand the abrogation of the education reform.
Accompanied by municipal and states police, the aggressors knocked over the tarps and tents, destroyed them with kicks and machetes, and set them on fire, while the forces of law and order surrounded them to let them finish their action.
During the attack the primary school teacher Romualdo Guadalupe Urbina received a clavicle injury from a 22-caliber bullet. Another participant in the roadblock was run over and suffered a fractured tibia and fibula.
Both were confined in the clinic of the Institute of Security and Social Services for State Workers, while neighbors in the barrio where it is located blocked the Santa Martha Bridge and the access streets “to protect the injured.”
The aggressors, allied with the PVEM
Several dozen pro-government people from San Juan Chamula perpetrated the aggression, as well as more than a hundred indigenous settled in San Cristóbal. Some teachers pointed them out as part of the Traditional Markets Tenants Association of Chiapas (Almetrach), which Narciso Ruiz Sántiz heads and that in in previous days had already threatened to attack the roadblock. These groups are identified with the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM), which governs both municipios (San Cristóbal and Chamula).Teachers and parents did not respond, but rather withdrew to the central park to re-group.
The violent eviction began at 12:30 pm. Carrying a few small signs and brandishing sticks, machetes and stones, the attackers arrived asserting that they came “peacefully,” only to immediately attack the roadblock’s installations and remove the tree trunks, tires, rocks and other obstacles.
A heavy truck and several small trucks of state and municipal police sounding their sirens came behind them. The police agents did not participate directly in the eviction; they just protected the indigenous individuals that destroyed and burned tarps and tents.
Some of the assailants attacked Dolores Rodríguez, a reporter from Noticiero en Redes (Network News?), “for taking photographs.” One of the aggressors pointed a pistol at her head. Another one threw big firecrackers in a horizontal trajectory towards the forest.
Police agents withdrew a little later and the place stayed under the control of the aggressors, who Adalberto Hernández Rabanales, leader of Section 7 in Los Altos, classified as a “shock group;” he also placed responsibility for the acts on the three levels of government.
When local police withdrew, teachers and members of civil organizations re-grouped one hundred meters further ahead, near the Hospital of the Cultures, and the masked men shot at them when they tried to return to rescue the vehicles. That’s when Urbina Estrada, a teacher in San Andrés Larráinzar, was injured.
Afterwards six patrol cars arrived from the Federal Police (PF). La burning and destruction of the encampment continued while the police watched. The action concluded at 3 o’clock in the afternoon exactly, when the contingents of masked indigenous men abandoned the spot at kilometer 47 of the highway to Tuxtla Gutiérrez.
The group from San Juan Chamula boarded a Cristóbal Colón bus and the larger group marched in formation returning to the city. The place remained under the charge of three PF patrols until 16 hours, when dozens of neighbors from the southern part of San Cristóbal returned with sticks and stones that they threw at the police patrols.
The police drew away in the vehicles and stopped one kilometer ahead. The roadblock was re-established in a matter of minutes. More people continued arriving in the evening. They extended the obstruction of streets with bonfires, tree trunks and iron. Once again there are several hundred parents, teachers and neighbors from the different barrios in an atmosphere of excited tension.
In the afternoon, in the central park, Hernández Rabanales said that since early “there were rumors that the people from Chamula would evict us, but compañeros from social organizations told us that they were in communication with government agencies and they told them that the Chamulas were on the way to an activity in Tuxtla Gutiérrez.”
In an interview with La Jornada, the teachers’ leader added: “It seems that the idea was to provoke a break in the dialogue, because since yesterday the negotiating committee said that it had no chance to talk because the government was only trying to impose.”
In the afternoon, the teachers marched in the center of town while in the park a group of masked youths set fire to the wooden doors of the old municipal presidency (that is being arranged as a museum) and entered the building, breaking all the windows. Smoke was coming out of some windows.
Meanwhile, unidentified masked indigenous men, unrelated to the organizations that support the teachers, looted an Oxxo [1] located a half block from the ex mayor’s office. They distributed cigarettes, drinks and other products to lumpen children and youth in a relaxation plan.
In the state government’s version, the police went to “dissuasively dislodge in order to avoid a confrontation between San Juan Chamula residents and CNTE demonstrators.”
In a comunicado, the state maintains that faced with an alert the C4i [2] issued, and because it pointed to the presence of Chamula inhabitants at kilometer 46 of said road, blocked by CNTE members, they sent 200 members of the police to guard the integrity of the citizens, thereby avoiding any motive for confrontation.”
Police and the attackers arrived at the events together. According to the government’s version, the indigenous went to “dialogue peacefully and to request the free transit of citizens, businesspeople and transport drivers,” because of which “the demonstrators opted for withdrawing from the place voluntarily” and “the roadway was opened.”
The coleto [3] mayor, Marco Antonio Cancino González, set himself apart from any responsibility in the midday eviction.
Notes:
[1] OXXO stores are similar to 7 Elevens or a gas station with a mini-mart.
[2] C4i is the abbreviation for the State Center of Control, Command, Communication, Computation and Intelligence.
[3] A coleto is a male resident of San Cristóbal that claims to descend directly from the Spanish invaders.
———————————————————————
Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Thursday, July 21, 2016
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2016/07/21/politica/005n1pol
Re-published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
In Chiapas, thousands march in support of the CNTE
THOUSANDS of INDIGENOUS CATHOLICS MARCH IN SUPPORT of the CNTE IN CHIAPAS
The banner reads: We, Believing People of Simojovel, demand that the government not betray the dialogue with the CNTE like it betrayed the agreements signed in San Andrés with the EZLN.
By: Isaín Mandujano
TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ, Chiapas
Thousands of Indigenous faithful from almost 50 parishes of the San Cristóbal de las Casas Diocese marched today (Monday) in the Chiapas capital in support of the teachers’ movement.
During the mobilization they demanded that the federal government “not betray” the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), like it betrayed the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) in the San Andrés dialogues.
For the fifth time, the Catholics of Pueblo Creyente marched for several kilometers from the state capital’s eastern exit until reaching the central plaza, where after issuing a pronouncement in favor of the teachers in the occupation, they held a mass, an act in which there were prayers, songs and chants in favor of the teachers’ fight.
During the march Father Gustavo Andrade, from the parish of Venustiano Carranza, and the priest Marcelo Pérez Pérez, from the Simojovel temple, celebrated the realization of this approach between the CNTE and the Secretariat of Governance (Segob) to achieve agreements that permit satisfying the teachers’ demands against the education reform.
Nevertheless, it was Pérez Pérez who stated his concern that the federal government “would betray” its word as it already did with the EZLN, after the agreements from the dialogues in San Andrés in 1996.
“We are worried, we must be attentive and alert so that the government does not betray its word, because it would not be the first time in which the government failed to fulfill the agreements that it signed,” said the parish priest that marched with the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
With drum music, and accompanied with the sound of the conch shell, the faithful arrived in the capital escorted by thousands of teachers that protected their walk for several kilometers until reaching the central plaza.
There on the platform the parish priest of Tila, Heriberto Cruz Vera, asked the teachers not to stop their fight against unjust laws, and if for this fifth time they left their communities, it is because they consider it a peaceful struggle in which they have the need to add themselves.
He asked the priests that don’t leave their parishes to tour the Chiapas communities and observe the misery, poverty and marginalization, the places in which the teachers work in the most undignified conditions.
“We want a reform that really benefits the teachers and the boys and girls of Chiapas, a reform that really puts an end to those destitute conditions in which classes are imparted in Chiapas, not a reform that attacks the teachers’ labor rights,” Cruz Vera said.
Also on the platform was Father Joel Padrón, who along with Cruz Vera is considered a disciple or follower of the work that the late Bishop Emeritus Samuel Ruiz García constructed and left as a legacy.
Joel Padrón is a parish priest that was persecuted and imprisoned in the 1990’s, who the state government of Patrocinio González Garrido accused of promoting the invasion of ranches.
It was during his incarceration 25 years ago that what is called Pueblo Creyente (Believing People) was born as a Catholic organization that defends the rights among the indigenous peoples and communities of Los Altos of Chiapas.
Today, Pueblo Creyente alerted the teachers in a missive not to cede in their fight, because in they have great social support in the state from those who believe and trust in them to achieve that the government retracts the unjust laws, like it did with the so-called 3×3 Law after minimal protest of a group of business owners.
—————————————————————
Originally Published in Spanish by Proceso.com.mx
Monday, July 18, 2016
http://www.proceso.com.mx/447687/marchan-miles-catolicos-indigenas-en-respaldo-a-la-cnte-en-chiapas
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
EZLN: The geography? Oventik; the calendar? July 29, 2016
ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY
MEXICO
July 17, 2016
To the Artist participants in the CompArte:
To the National and International Sixth:
Sisters and brothers:
Compañeras, compañeros and compañeroas:
Receive our greetings. We write you to communicate the following:
We want in some way to let you know and feel, all the artists that committed to participate in the CompArte, not just our admiration and respect. Also and above all, our conviction that the current dark hours, and those that will come, require your occupation and creativity for finding the path that, like humanity, we want, we need and we deserve.
And when we speak of darkness, not only do we refer to the horror that leaps out and destroys at any point of the already suffering world geography. We also refer to the political and economic commercialism that, mostly without importance to the deaths and afflictions, is launched over the still warm cadavers of the victims, and tries to extract profit and advantage.
If the machine imposes this perverse logic in which each pain doesn’t anger but rather waterproofs, perhaps the Arts can be those who remind humanity that it not only destroys and kills the person, it imposes and subjects, scorns and forgets. It is also capable of creating, liberating and remembering. Don’t life and freedom beat even in the most sorrowful and bloodcurdling artistic creations?
That’s good, we think, we feel, we believe, as the Zapatistas that we are, that there are artists that will know how to extract, from the most profound of the most obscure calendar, a light for humanity.
If not now, then when?
We don’t want to make them feel that they owe something to anyone, or submission, or pursuit, or absoluteness. We don’t seek their votes or their vetoes. We just want to say to them that, in that world that we catch sight of from the crow’s nest, we look at them. Or better still, we look at their creations.
That’s what we think. Nevertheless, we see that our ideas and sentiments don’t even begin to cover it with these words.
It’s because of this the Zapatistas silently persist in a new effort that we now want to communicate:
We want to greet you and honor you as what you are. Not as activists in the causes that people the world with different colors and symbols, but as the step in which we anticipate a more human, more dignified, a better tomorrow.
We Zapatistas don’t gaze towards above.
We only raise our eyes, our ears in front of the sciences and the arts. And fear and obedience don’t lift our view that way. It’s the portent of knowledge; it’s the marvel of the arts.
Therefore, we have organized ourselves to present a very squeezed version of what our work for the CompArte has been. This is with the sole purpose of trying to make you feel how great you are to us, the Zapatistas.
We know that the compas of the Sixth and part of the artistic community of Chiapas, with the on-going commitment of the compas of the CIDECI, have moved forward with the organization of the CompArte in the CIDECI to be celebrated in its space, from July 23 to 30, 2016. We truly expect that celebration to be a brilliant as is your artistic work and that, in these calendars of dark despair, in that corner of the world breathes another air and it’s not the night from above that reigns. That, although it may be in the fugacity of a musical piece, a trace of paint, a dance step, a photogram, a line from a dialogue, a verse, a whatever, the hour of the police is defeated, and in a second at least the possibility of another world breathes.
Then, taking advantage of the fact that some of you (no all, for sure) will be creating at CIDECI during those dates, we want to invite you (invitarlas, invitarlos, invitarloas) participants and attendees, to the Caracol of Oventik on July 29, 2016. From 10 am and until at least 7 pm (national time) we will be presenting theater, dances, music, poetry, painting, thoughts, and perhaps even predictions. Although it will only be a small part of what was prepared in the towns for the CompArte, the 5 caracoles that support the Tzotzil, Chol, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, Zoque, Mam and mestizo Zapatista peoples will be present. Even with the haste, the Zapatista compas, have prepared to celebrate, in your honor, life and liberty.
It will no longer be everything that was prepared on our part, but it will not be something minor: a present that we want to give you. We hope you like it, or not so suddenly. But we are sure that you will find here sounds, colors, lights and shades that have no other aspiration than to make you listen, watch and feel the “gracias” with which we embrace you.
The Zapatista artists make their presentation on July 29 and on July 30 they return to their communities, unless, of course, someone invites them to be at the last day of the CompArte Festival in the CIDECI. In such a case, they will make a stopover at CIDECI to learn something from you.
So now you know:
The geography? The Caracol of Oventik.
The calendar? July 29, 2016, from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm.
Maybe it will rain, maybe not. Perhaps it’s cold, perhaps not, but we’re here, we will be here.
Because this corner of the world, where it falls to us to resist and fight, is only our temporary house.
Our great house, in the morning and asleep, has been, is, and will be the world that we will create with others.
We await you here.
Of course we always await you.
And although you cannot come, receive our biggest hug, which we give you…
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés | Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano
Chiapas, Mexico. July 17, 2016
——————
Originally Published in Spanish by Enlace Zapatista
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
For la Maestra, with affection
To the maestras [female teachers] of the teachers in resistance:
To the national and international Sixth:
To the attendees and participants of the CompArte all over the world:
Compas, hermanoas,[i] etcéteras:
We send you all [todas, todoas, todos] our greetings and respect. We hope that your health is good and your spirits high.
We are writing to send you a few videos of the contributions that the Zapatista bases of support had prepared for the CompArte. For now we are including two videos dedicated to women below and to the left, and especially to the maestras in struggle. Here goes:
_*_
“TO DANCE A THOUGHT”
This first video that we will show you is from the Caracol of La Garrucha. It a bailable [choreographed dance] entitled “The Rights of Women.” As is the case with almost everything here, it was prepared collectively by men and women, young people trained in the Zapatista autonomous education system. Zapatista bases of support wrote it, practiced it, and prepared to present it at the CompArte. The MC [maestra or master of ceremonies] explains everything. If you end up repeating the chorus, that’s to be expected. But we can tell you one thing: when you are capable of, as the compañera MC says, “singing a thought,” then perhaps you will have to rethink the idea that Art only comes from above, while below what we have are “crafts” [artesanías].
The value of a bailable lies not only in what you will see and hear below, but in its genealogy: the Selva Tzeltal zone, whose Junta de Buen Gobierno [Good Government Council] is located in La Garrucha, was the last [zone] to incorporate women into positions of organizational responsibility. Just as the bailable or choreography demonstrates, it was just a few women at the beginning who started participating (two or three, as we remember). The other compañeras began taking on other positions of responsibility later, yes, but not because the men told them to, or because the mandos [EZLN authorities] gave an order, or because of the “consciousness-raising” that various feminist groups tried to impose on us once we were “famous.” Rather, it was the Zapatista women themselves who explained to each other, convinced each other, and began to take on positions of responsibility.
So there’s the challenge: go figure out how to dance a thought; then we’ll talk.
The video is from April of 2016, and it was produced by “Los Tercio Compas.” Copyleft: Junta de Buen Gobierno, etc.
Gender gossip: a delegate from the “Subterranean” section of the Tercios Compas went down, underground where the late SupMarcos is resting poorly, to show him the video. The deceased just made a few pained gestures and declared: “forget about the dance, the problem is the reality.” Then, upon seeing how each compañera who joined the dance cast the men behind her and took position ahead of them, he shook his head in disapproval and, before returning to his non-eternal slumber, said “nobody has any values anymore.”
The Dance of the Rights of Women:
_*_
“Las Musiqueras”
The following video is not finished. It’s just a clip, less than a minute, because… because… well, because of technical problems. Talking among ourselves, we were remembering the festivals and celebrations from before (meaning, more than 22 years ago), when women only danced. They were never seen playing an instrument. What’s more, we didn’t even imagine it was possible for the women to make music other than church songs. So watch and listen to the history of struggle behind this track of ranchera-corrido-balada-cumbia-norteña. This part isn’t in the video, but when we asked the women in charge to call the band over to make the video, they commented among themselves, “hey, go look for the musiqueras, they’re going to get their picture taken.”
If you manage to dance a thought, perhaps you will discover the genealogy behind those ski masks, the history that embraces the violin as if it were embracing a shield, and which grips the trumpet as if it were what it is: a sword.
The song is by a collective from the community “OSO,” MAREZ [Autonomous Zapatista Municipality in Rebellion] “Lucio Cabañas,” Caracol of the Tzotz Choj zone which includes Tzeltales, Tzotziles, and Tojolabales, and is titled “Our Demands.” The video is from April 2016 and was produced by “Los Tercios Compas.” Copyleft or whatever it’s called.
Musiqueras
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Okay, compas and non-compas. That’s all for now. It possible, maybe probable, who knows, perhaps, that another day we’ll send along more examples of what we prepared for CompArte, with photos and videos. And maybe, we’re not sure, who knows, perhaps, we’ll tell you about an upcoming surprise.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés
Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano
Mexico, July 2016
From the notebook of the Cat-dog:
Conversation captured by the interstellar satellite system “Pozol Systems,” during July of 2016. The coordinates are classified, but of course everybody knows that it was in Chiapas, Mexico, America, Planet Earth on the path of extinction. The audio is defective and it’s impossible to tell who’s talking and whether it’s a man, a woman, unoa otroa, an animal, vegetable, or mineral:
“Los maestros” [the teachers],” “los dirigentes” [the ones in charge], “los líderes” [the leaders], ha. All referring to “los,” [men]. And what about the “las” [women]? They’re out there too. And there aren’t just a few of them. No, I’m not sure of the exact quantity. What, I have to actually count them? Huh? So approximately how many? I mean it’s not a popularity contest, my friend. You all are always concerned with quantities, you always end up counting ‘likes,’ thumbs up, views, followers, subscribers, affiliates, members, marked ballots… you even demand statistics from reality. Yes I know, but your logic of accuracy and correction infuriates me. If it was up to you all, shit would be your candidate and your slogan would be “millions of flies can’t be mistaken.” Huh? Ah true, that’s already the case. But look, the issue isn’t what you count, it’s what you don’t. Let’s say you apply this thing about gender equality to the teacher’s popular movement, well, they wouldn’t be in compliance. There are more women than men. And if that’s how we’re doing things, then why don’t you count loas elloas? They’re there too. Huh? Yes, among the people, not just among the teachers. Go and see for yourselves, because you all say they’re vandals, criminals—you’re almost at the point of calling them “terrorists.” There you are going to see women from the market, the lady who sells tortillas, you know, people from the community. People who break their backs every day, all day, trying to make enough to live poorly. Yes, these are the ones who not only support the teachers, but also demand justice, freedom, democracy, good government. Eh? The Zapatistas? I don’t know really, they are in their caracoles, you can go ask them if you want. I’m telling you about the blockades, which are more like a people’s encampment then a blockade. What? You don’t like the word? Oh yes, of course, your obsession with “populism.” By the way, listen, how ridiculous was that guy who went and got himself a boss among the gringos… oh it was in Canada? Same thing, the geography doesn’t change the result. An idiot anywhere is an idiot everywhere. Oh I see, I can’t say anything against the main guy, the one at the top, the one with the money? Well anyway I was talking about the women. No, not about the teacher’s movement, but about the women. Because you all think they’re only good for… huh? Without being rude? Oooooh, look how sensitive you all turned out to be. Fine then, about the women: some are teachers, yes, others employees, others housewives or “box” wives because don’t tell me you can call those cardboard constructions houses. Some are students, yes. Professionals? Well, I don’t go around asking them for their degrees or their voting registration or anything like that. I just watch, see, hear, listen, learn. Anyway, I was telling you about the maestras. They’re out there. They get beaten, gassed, and chased too. And the things people say to them. It’s not that they’ve told me about it; I’ve seen it myself. And did you see them give up? No. They don’t falter, that is, they aren’t doormats. No, they aren’t manipulated by diabolic forces, nor are they part of a conspiracy. They are, well, normal. Young women, mature women, elderly women. They are all different, but they are alike because they are all from below and they are women. Look, what I notice is the gaze. And it’s clear that these women have their gaze set, as if they were saying no more, this is the line, enough already. Why? I don’t know, but I think it’s because they know now that they are not alone…
I testify. Woof-Meow
[i] The text uses “hermanoas” for sisters [hermanas] and brothers [hermanos] to give a range of possible gendered pronouns including male, female, transgender and others.
En español: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2016/07/13/a-la-maestra-con-carino/
Mega-march fills Tuxtla Gutiérrez
The participation of urban and rural civil society is giving the teachers’ protest broader content. It’s no longer about actions against the education reform, as the contingents that follow the teachers proclaim; it’s about a “resistance to all the structural reforms that harm the peoples without their consent,” according to what a handwritten banner reads in a contingent from the Tojolabal zone.
A view of the Mega-March in Tuxtla. Photo: Pozol Colectivo.
By: Hermann Bellinghausen, Envoy
Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas
A demonstration more of strength from the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), the mega-march held this afternoon through the Chiapas capital’s principal avenue was to say: “No more talks that lead nowhere. We want resolution of our demands,” maintained José Luis Escobar Pérez, state spokesperson for the Coordinator at the start of the demonstration. “In case it doesn’t go that way, a plan of forceful actions of greater intensity has been designed.
Escobar Pérez, a member of Section 7 of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE), wearing a marine blue shirt with “Ya basta” in red, and covering his chest with the famous photo of Subcomandante Marcos giving the finger, said to the communications media that the roadblocks “are only in recess and can be re-installed at any moment.”
Before beginning the long twilight walk from the western part of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, thousands of teachers met under the shade from the trees. They come from practically all the state’s regions: the borders, the jungles, the cities of Comitán, Tapachula, Cintalapa, the Northern Zone, Bachajón, Las Margaritas, the Sierra and the Coast.
Their permanent occupation fills ten blocks of Avenida Central and blocks the government palace, silent and with passage obstructed. Hundreds of rows of plastic and canvas with the banners of the Sections and regions sit over the sidewalks, the plaza and the atrium of the San Marcos Cathedral.
The teachers’ spokesperson reiterated the demands of the mega-march: ‘‘Revocation of Articles 3 and 73 of the reformed Constitution; realization of forums and consultations that permit designing an education model that permits the people’s participation.”
In third place, “compensate for the damages from the deceptively named education reform;” that is, pressures, firings and docked wages. ‘‘We are willing to continue the blockages during the whole vacation period,” Escobar Pérez answered reporters.
“The teachers owe the families and the communities. Government authorities decide vacation periods, but we are willing to work during that period to make up classes,” if that’s what the communities decide.
To the chant of “it’s seen, it’s noted, in Chiapas there’s no defeat,” Sections 7 and 40 of the teachers’ union marched at the front. Later, the workers of Higher Education, followed by students, parents and diverse social organizations.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a confluence so full of independent Chiapas organizations; especially if one adds the explicit and in kind support that the teachers’ movement received this weekend from the Good Government Juntas in the Zapatista Caracoles, and with pronouncements of Las Abejas, Xi’Nich, Pudee and other organizations.
There was also support from the barrios and colonies in the cities, especially San Cristóbal de las Casas, the only place now where parents and villagers continue blocking a highway.
The participation of urban and rural civil society is giving the teachers’ protest broader content. It’s no longer about actions against the education reform, as the contingents that follow the teachers proclaim; it’s about a “resistance to all the structural reforms that harm the peoples without their consent,” according to what a handwritten banner reads in a contingent from Tojolabal zone.
Now the teachers speak to worldwide public opinion, especially on Latin America, as Escobar Pérez made clear: “The assault against the Mexican teachers is the same all over the world. We are at a time to make an organization without borders to stop it. We didn’t put up those borders,” he concludes. They have no importance when it’s about uniting the peoples.
The tens of thousands of teachers from all the regions of Chiapas that walk this Monday from the exit for Mexico City –the place they call La Pochota, although the tree with that name disappeared some time ago– endure the sun and rain la in the direction of the center, whose principal artery they have kept occupied for almost two months.
They maintain, as at the beginning, their rejection of “the punitive evaluation and educational degradation to favor its privatization.” They struggle against the end of public education.
And they march “with tired feet,” with continuous stops, “to hope that the government sits down to negotiate with the teachers’ demands.”
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2016/07/12/politica/005n1pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 