Chiapas Support Committee
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Frayba: Counterinsurgency continues in Chiapas
COUNTERINSURGENCY CONTINUES TO OPERATE IN CHIAPAS
The federal and state governments have demonstrated their disdain towards the original peoples of Mexico from one presidential term to the next. In this phase of neoliberal capitalism their policy of dispossession for implementing projects that carry with them the disappearance of forms of social, political and cultural organization of communities and peoples, resistances that are the breath of human diversity. One example of that are the peoples organized in the National Indigenous Congress.
Since the conception of neoliberalism poverty is greater and a juicy business for governments and national and international investors. Poverty as State policy represents the pretext for exploitation and looting of the peoples. By means of the North American Free trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Mesoamerica Project (formerly the Plan Puebla-Panamá) and also the military and territorial control strategy through the Security Agenda Plan contemplated in the North American Security and Prosperity Alliance (NASPA), the governments of the Alliance (United States, Canada and Mexico) close the pincers.
In recent months, the unresolved Internal Armed Conflict in Chiapas has been characterized by continuous aggression towards the Bases of Support of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (BAEZLN, their initials in Spanish) with the actions of some regional social organizations at the service of the State that, since various years ago, are disputing recuperated lands. Several of these social organizations have impelled their leaders to become public officials and servants, in many cases betraying the principles from which they emerged, subjecting their plans for struggle to the government budgets and interests. In Chiapas, the integral war of wear and tear persists towards the peoples that struggle and resist, using media tactics that include the use of concepts of human rights, inter-cultural activities, collective rights of indigenous peoples and emptying them of content.
There is continuity in the state government’s posture in a public discourse about the recognition and respect for the autonomous communities, the Good Government Juntas and the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), as a media action, in opposition to the absence of direct actions to change the situation of constant risk in which the Zapatista communities live, especially those displaced and threatened like San Marcos Aviles and Comandante Abel.
The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center has made constant interventions before the gravity of attacks on BAEZLN and the response has been governmental parsimony and its inability to act. This attitude of indifference maintains and provokes conflicts that are called inter-community as a way of hiding the counterinsurgency. The objective is to generate fatigue among the population that resists, that struggles, that is transforming their reality from their culture and their rights.
The events that occurred in La Realidad on May 2 are evidence of the counterinsurgency in Chiapas: a strategy of provocation and repeated attack towards the EZLN and its Support Bases, with paramilitary actions like the murder of José Luis Solis López, Galeano, a teacher at the Zapatista Escuelita, with rage, by means of machetes, blows, firearms, including the coup de grace, and the destruction of the autonomous school and clinic.
The latest acts documented by this Center, about the attacks on the BAEZLN from the communities of Egipto and El Rosario confirm the climate of constant aggression and provocation that operates behind each celebration of a space for dialogue and meeting, like the Sharing (Exchange) with the National Indigenous Congress on August 4-9 in La Realidad.
These acts represent a new attack on the project of Zapatista autonomy, with the pretension of eroding the construction of systemic change that they are impelling from below, walking projects of life from the community and the collectivity, from the concept of good living.
This Human Rights Center keeps documentation of the attacks on the Zapatistas and the denunciation that corresponds to the human rights violations. We will continue accompanying the peoples that demand the rights that belong to them and that, due to hidden interests, seek to take them away. We repeat our call for national and international solidarity to show their support for the threatened BAEZLN.
Originally Published in Spanish by the
Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
Monday, August 18, 2014
http://www.frayba.org.mx/archivo/boletines/140818_pronunciamiento_contrainsurgencia.pdf
Zapatista Press Conference 2nd Part: SCI Moisés
SECOND PART OF EZLN PRESS CONFERENCE: the WORDS of SUBCOMANDANTE INSURGENTE MOISES
Welcome banner at EZLN Exchange with CNI
Well, compañeros, compañeras, you heard what Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano said. This is what we see; this is what we think.
We need one another’s strength, because if we understand how life is, then we must also understand that we need to link ourselves together.
You saw and heard some of the other compañeros who were here as part of the free media but also part of the CNI. Now you [from the free media] should have an exchange amongst yourselves, because sharing in an exchange is not the same thing as speaking without having listened.
It is through sharing that we realize that we have to link ourselves together, that we have to grab onto each other’s hands.
The question is, as we asked the compañeros of the National Indigenous Congress, what is it that we have to grab onto together, indigenous and non-indigenous people, can we speak in one voice? Yes. The [indigenous] compañeros understand the life of those who are not indigenous. So how will we do this? How will we struggle?
In other words, our already large task is even greater, and we think that it is even more difficult for those who live in the city, although it is also hard for those of us who live in communities, like those of the National Indigenous Congress. At least in the communities there is still a life in common, but in the cities there isn’t.
There, in the city, behind the fences where one lives, people don’t know their neighbor’s problems; sometimes they don’t even know who their neighbor is. Even sharing three walls—I might live here, and some other neighbor lives over there, and someone else over there—my neighbor isn’t concerned about what is happening with me and I am not concerned with him or her. One after another people live like that.
And so it is a very large task, especially given what is coming, what the compas call “the coming beast.” But among all of us we will destroy it. The question we have to answer then is: how can we do this work? That’s what we think. We are not asking you to become indigenous, but you also shouldn’t ask us to think like or be like the people who live in the city.
No. Each of us struggles, but we are united. Remember what the late SubMarcos used to say: for all we have heard and all the listening we have done in the different caracoles where we have held encounters, and where we have tried to determine and say what is most important, even then—certainly it has happened multiple times here—we don’t manage to create an agreement. Everyone thinks they have the best idea and there is no agreement because everyone wants their particular idea to be accepted. But for us compañeros, all that we can do is see what works, and we can only figure this out if we listen and observe.
So some of you saw—those of you who had already arrived during the last session, the closing of the CNI—the compañeros were thinking that someone would officially close the conference. But we hadn’t decided that; those who witnessed this saw that it was the compañeros themselves who closed the Congress; we hadn’t arranged this beforehand.
So you who were here saw that someone came up thinking to himself: “oh, I want to say something too.” He started off with something adequate for the exchange part of the conference, but people realized this wasn’t the time and place for that, that this was the closing. Soon they got things back on track and closed the exchange. Why? Because this was the will of the compañeros of the assembly, and it is the assembly members who have to close the assembly. These are just some examples of what I’m talking about.
We have to figure out what works best and what assures that we feel that we are all equal. None of this business of “I am the most important, or he is the most important.” We don’t think that works. We think this exchange has been an example of how we can do this among ourselves. This is how we go about figuring out how this thing we call a new world is going to be.
We have to continue to work on this. As the compañeros of the National Indigenous Congress said: yes, we need to share our experiences, and not only among indigenous people. We also need to share with the compañeros and compañeras of the national and international Sixth. Then we have to figure out how will we share. And we also have to think about those who aren’t part of the Sixth, how will we share with them?
That is, how will we respect one another? How will we construct this respect? Because respect is something that we have to build, as we are doing right now. And I think that we have to provide this example – the compañeros and compañeras of the Sixth in the city, and the compañeros and compañeras of the Sixth in the rural areas – when we come together: to feel as one without losing what we are. Rather, we unite in order to build this world that we want.
For example, when we were preparing for this exchange with the compañero bases of support, they thought that (we as authorities) were going to tell them “this is what you are going to be doing.” But no, we had an assembly right where you are sitting now, and ideas started to emerge until we found what felt right, as the compas say, and from that we determined the points to be covered.
But tons of ideas emerged in the meantime until together everyone said, “this is it.” That process enriched our ideas so much. For example, our compañeros said: in Leninist Marxism they say that the primary base of capitalism is the means of production, and that is land – or what we call mother earth. But the compañeros disagreed.
And we asked them, why not? Because, [they said], we know that capitalism thinks of the land this way, and these guys did us the favor of writing down this idea, but we have to understand that our struggle is to say, hell no! We are not going to allow land to be the means of production for capital.
And so what came out of the conversation for those of us who were sitting here then was that the land, mother earth, is the fundamental basis of life for living beings.
“So, let’s see, compañero, compañera, how would you make this argument?”
“Yes,” they said, “because in the country and the city, human beings live on the land, and everything on the land and under it, down to the bugs and worms, is the basis of life. Why would we allow these beasts [capitalists] to come and destroy it?”
And the discussion continued:
“Oh shit! How are we going to do this? Because we are saying that this is their means of production and that we have to take it away from them.”
That’s what we said, because you might remember in one of the encuentros in CIDECI, the late SubMarcos presented a discussion about a can of coke, and in that discussion we said that whatever is a means of production for us we have to take back. And so how are we going to communicate to the compas from the CNI that we have to understand that we must take back the means of production. And so we started to discuss this again. The problem that we face here is has to do with who has the best lands and who takes all of the richness that the land possesses. That is the point from which we began the discussion.
“Well, it is the transnational corporations and the landowners that take the land’s richness, and that is why we need to get rid of them.”
We do have to get rid of them, but now all of us who live on this earth, on mother earth, have to care for it. And there are compañeros who said:
“Yes, because think how many tons of excrement those who live in the cities produce and release into the river, contaminating it. And the businessmen have completely screwed mother earth.”
But okay, that is just a little part of our conversation, so that you can see how rich it is when we share our ideas in common. I am telling you this because you need to have exchanges. I don’t know how you will do it; it requires organization, work, and thought.
But I think that in the space where the compañeros have already agreed to work together, in the space created as compañeros and compañeras of the Sixth, this can be organized, and everyone will have to struggle to communicate their struggle there.
You can sense when someone is communicating what they have observed or worked on or lived with the people. And you can tell the difference between that and someone who presumptuously starts from: “the thing is that I,” or that “he” or that “she” and so on. That is, you can tell when an individual is being glorified, but this isn’t really how things work. This is what we have been discussing among ourselves in the CNI, that what we have to do is strengthen the way we were before, to truly represent the compañeros and compañeras.
Because they still exist. It is true that capitalism wants to destroy them completely, but it hasn’t been able to. Yes, it has been able to destroy a lot, because it is doing its job.
And so we believe that something has to come, another task. You shouldn’t think that we [the authorities] planned this exchange. We didn’t plan it; the compañeros and compañeras did it themselves. The compañeros shared this fact near the closing of the assembly.
And this also is something that we want to share with you, the free media, because we realize that when our bases, our people, speak, all that we have to do is support and assist them so that others can see the fruits of their participation.
This is what we were doing here, passing on what we call the inheritance. And the only inheritance that we have to pass on is about how to work and to take care for things is our organization as the EZLN and our autonomy.
So then, the compañeros and compañeras said: “you are forgetting something, because we don’t know what we are going to do with respect to this,” talking about the Other Campaign. And that reminded us that we needed to say something about the Other. And so we said to them:
“Well, its better if you do it. Our hope for the Other is that the people organize themselves so that one day it is the people who command, that is, that others do what you are already doing. So you have to share this with our compañeros from the Sixth, with those who do the work of the Sixth. The Other was a campaign that we carried out, that is why it was called the Other Campaign. But with regard to those who actually do the work of what is called the Sixth, which is to organize themselves, struggle, and be anticapitalist, you are the ones who have to share with these compañeros and compañeras.
This is what we were discussing, among everyone, and that is where this idea came from.
“Well, then, we have to have a little school,” the compas said.
And that is how the idea was born, and we decided that we would call it ‘the little school’ because that is how the compañeros thought about it, as a little thing, a little school. And so we were going to give it a try, we were going to do it. And yes, it helped a lot, and many of the compañeros and compañeras, the students who came, now have another way of thinking because they saw things here with their own eyes, not because someone told it to them, not because they saw it in a film, but because they lived it during those hours that they were here.
And so certainly these compañero and compañera students who came, maybe they want to share something with us.
That is how we see it.
But often when we have this type of exchange, sometimes it gets quiet for a few minutes and then we start to ask questions about all of the things that we have already discussed. What did we see? What do we think? What do we believe?
So now, compañeros who were here as part of the National Indigenous Congress and those who listened again now, how did you see things? What do you think? And to the media who came and listened to what the compañeros presented in the closing, maybe you have some questions, so that through your questions we can help and clarify whatever isn’t clear. So if you have questions, ask them, and if not that means that everything was clear…or that you didn’t understand anything.
(End of Sub Moisés’ intervention. The questions and interventions of the free media and the comp@s from the worldwide Sixth that were present followed.)
(Transcription of the original audio by Los Tercios Compas)
Copyleft: “los tercios compas” August 12, 2014. In vitro reproduction, vehicular circulation, and wasteful consumption permitted.
Originally Published in Spanish by Enlace Zapatista
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2014/08/12/segunda-parte-palabras-del-sub-moises/
URGENT: More Zapatistas displaced in San Manuel
FRAYBA DENOUNCES MORE DEATH THREATS AND DISPLACEMENTS IN SAN MANUEL (UPDATED)
San Manuel’s Municipal Clinic named in honor of Compañera Lucha
[Please sign on to a trusted Mexican Human Rights Network’s letter to the bad governments about the attacks in San Manuel.] http://www.redtdt.org.mx/d_acciones/d_visual.php?id_accion=358
We are “on alert” and very concerned about the on-going attacks against Zapatista communities in the hills overlooking the city of Ocosingo, Chiapas, Mexico. Yesterday, Friday, August 15, 2014, the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) issued Urgent Action No. 3 regarding the situation in San Manuel Autonomous Rebel Zapatista Municipality, the Chiapas Support Committee’s partner Zapatista Municipality for the last 12 years. There was no denunciation from the Good Government Junta in La Garrucha when we wrote this, but it was issued August 16. The facts are the same as already presented in this article and the Frayba Urgent Action below.
Frayba issued its first alert regarding this situation on August 4, 2014, when 32 Zapatistas were displaced from Egipto community in San Manuel because of gunshots and threats. Frayba issued a second alert on August 7, 2014, when the paramilitaries continued the same behavior. Now, the threats seem to have escalated.
The new Frayba Urgent Action describes the threats of death and dispossession in the communities of El Rosario, Kexil [1], Egipto and a new community called San Jacinto, all of which are communities founded on land the Zapatistas recuperated from large estate owners following the 1994 Zapatista Uprising.
In a typical Zapatista response to dispossession, Zapatistas from San Manuel founded a new community named San Jacinto on the lands used for collective work adjacent to Egipto and El Rosario, the very lands the paramilitaries desire for cutting down trees and displacing Zapatistas. On August 13, nine Zapatista families built nine houses and a grocery store in San Jacinto. Some 250 Zapatistas were also present that day to clear land for planting.
On August 14, according to the Frayba bulletin, at 3:50 AM, a group of 18 people belonging to the ORCAO, armed with shotguns and .22-caliber weapons from Pojcol community, municipality of Chilón, surrounded the collective work lands and fired their weapons into the air. The aggressors shouted: “these weapons we use are from the government” and “this land is ours and does not belong to those fucking Zapatistas.” They then warned the Zapatistas that they had 6 hours to leave.
In order to avoid being attacked, the 9 families (40 men, women and children) and the 250 Zapatista bases resting there left in different directions. After the displacement, the ORCAO members destroyed the nine houses and the grocery store, stealing the store’s merchandise, any cash in the homes and all the machetes. They also burned clothing left behind and destroyed roofs.
Later that same night (August 14), at 8:30 PM, the women and children of the ORCAO families living in El Rosario abandoned the community, leaving only the men behind. The Zapatistas living in El Rosario were then threatened with eviction and the Zapatista women and children left. So, there are now only men left in this divided community; some are members of the paramilitary group [2] and others that are Zapatistas.
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[1] Kexil is a newly revised spelling used for the community of Nuevo Guadalupe Quexil in San Manuel.
[2] In the EZLN communiqué titled “Pain and Rage,” Marcos (now Galeano) labeled the CIOAC-Historic as a paramilitary organization and named the ORCAO as being in the same category. The Good Government Junta in La Garrucha denounced the ORCAO members from Pojcol in April 2012 for their actions in Francisco Villa autonomous municipality.
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The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Centre
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
August 15, 2014
Urgent Action No. 03
Updated
Displacement, risk of dispossession and threats to support bases of the EZLN
The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Centre has documented further acts of aggression perpetrated by members of the Regional Organization of Coffee Growers of Ocosingo (ORCAO) against support bases of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (BAEZLN) which occurred on the land for collective work (1) of the Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipality (MAREZ) San Manuel (official municipality of Ocosingo), belonging to the Good Government Junta (JBG) “The Path of the Future”, of Caracol III, La Garrucha, Selva Tzeltal Zone, Chiapas .
On August 13, 2014, by agreement of the Zone of the JBG, nine families of BAEZLN built nine houses (one of them containing a grocery shop) and in this way founded Nuevo Poblado (village) “San Jacinto” on the reclaimed lands for collective work belonging to the MAREZ of San Manuel, which adjoin the communities of Egipto and El Rosario; on that day 250 BAEZLN were also present to perform clearance tasks to prepare the ground for planting.
On 14 August, at approximately 3.50 am, a group of 18 people armed with shotguns and .22 caliber weapons, from the community of Pojcol, municipality of Chilón, belonging to ORCAO, surrounded the field and lands for collective work and began firing their weapons into the air for about 40 minutes. According to testimonies of the people who slept there that night, the attackers shouted “these weapons we use are from the government”, “this land is ours and does not belong to those fucking Zapatistas”, warning the BAEZLN at the same time that they had 6 hours to leave the place.
To avoid being attacked, the nine families (a total of 40 people, including girls, boys, women and men) together with 250 BAEZLN who were resting there, decided to leave in different directions. After the displacement, the members of ORCAO from the community of Pojcol destroyed the nine houses (including the grocery shop), stealing the merchandise that was in the shop and the cash that was in the houses; they also burned the clothes left by all the people who were at the scene, destroyed 150 nylon and canvas roofs, and stole the machetes with which they were working the land. The assessment of the damage so far has not been completed.
The same August 14th, at approximately 20.30 pm, information was received that the women and children of El Rosario community, belonging to ORCAO, had abandoned the community leaving only the men, while, according to testimony, the BAEZLN were being threatened with immediate eviction. As a result, the women and children from the same community, but belonging to the BAEZLN, also decided to leave due to the risk of a possible attack, also leaving only the men.
During the last few hours it has been reported to us that the threats from ORCAO against the BAEZLN of the community of El Rosario are intensifying and threatening to potentially result in dispossession.
In this situation, we express our concern at the imminent risk to the life, personal integrity and safety of the BAEZLN of the communities of El Rosario, Kexil, Egipto and Nuevo Poblado San Jacinto, belonging to the MAREZ of San Manuel.
Faced with the displacement of the BAEZLN communities of Egipto, Nuevo Poblado San Jacinto and El Rosario through acts of harassment, threats, aggression and destruction of their property, we hold the government of Chiapas responsible for ignoring the facts which were initially reported, allowing a gradual continuation of increasingly serious flagrant Human Rights violations to be committed.
Given these facts, this Human Rights Centre calls on the authorities of the state and federal government to:
- Stop the death threats, harassments, assaults, damages and attempts at dispossession that have led up to now to the displacement of the three BAEZLN communities.
- Guarantee to take the necessary measures and investigations aimed to promote conditions to protect the life, personal integrity and safety of the BAEZLN from the MAREZ San Manuel, respecting their process of autonomy which they are constructing under the right to self-determination of the peoples, referred to in the San Andrés Accords, and established in international treaties such as Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The denunciation from the La Garrucha Junta also refers to the attackers from ORCAO as paramilitaries.
To national and international civil society we repeat the call to solidarity to circulate the denunciations and express outrage at the systematic attacks against the BAEZLN belonging to the JBG of La Garrucha (official municipality of Ocosingo).
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(1) See Urgent Action No. 03 available at: http://www.frayba.org.mx/archivo/acciones_urgentes/140613_au_3_bazeln.pdf and Bulletin no. 22: http://frayba.org.mx/archivo/boletines/140803_boletin_22_desplazamiento_baez.pdf
Many thanks to our compañera in London for the above translation of the Frayba Urgent Action
First Declaration from Zapatista Exchange
First Declaration from the Exchange between the National Indigenous Congress and the Zapatista National Liberation Army on the Repression Against Our Peoples
Sup Moisés speaks at Zapatista Exchange with National Indigenous Congress
CNI – EZLN: We do not forget our dead, imprisoned, and disappeared.
The war against our indigenous peoples has gone on for more than 520 years. Capitalism was born of the blood of our peoples and the millions of our brothers and sisters who died during the European invasion. We must also add those who died in the wars of independence and reform, with the imposition of liberal laws, during the rule of Porfirio Diaz, and in the revolution.
In this new neoliberal war of conquest, the death of our people is the condition for the life of this system.
In the last few decades, thousands and thousands of us have been tortured, assassinated, disappeared, and imprisoned for defending our territories, our families, our communities, our culture – our life itself.
We do not forget. Because this blood, these lives, these struggles, and this history are the essence of our resistance and our rebellion against those who kill us; they live in the life and in the struggle of our people.
These are our most recent dead:
CHIAPAS
* Compañero Galeano from the Junta de Buen Gobierno of La Realidad and Votán from the Little School “Freedom According to the Zapatistas”, violently assassinated in the Caracol of La Realidad, Zapatista Autonomous Municipality of San Pedro Michoacán, this past May 2, by paramilitaries from the CIOAC-H, who are protected by paramilitary Manuel Velazco Coello and the supreme paramilitary leader Enrique Peña Nieto.
* December 22, 1997, a group of 49 people from Las Abejas, including 4 unborn children, as they prayed in the town of Acteal, municipality of Chenalhó, were violently murdered by a group of PRI paramilitaries protected by the government of the state and by the criminal Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León.
* The murdered adults: Manuel Santiz Culebra, Daniel Gómez Pérez, Victorio Vázquez Gómez, Miguel Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio Pucuj Luna, Alonso Vázquez Gómez, Lorenzo Gómez Pérez, Antonio Vázquez Luna, María Pérez Oyalté, Marcela Capote Ruiz, Marcela Pucuj Luna, Catalina Luna Pérez, Manuela Pérez Moreno o Manuela Paciencia Moreno, Margarita Méndez Paciencia, Marcela Luna Ruiz, Juana Pérez Pérez o Florinda Pérez Pérez, María Gómez Ruiz, Verónica Vázquez Luna, Paulina Hernández Vázquez, Susana Jiménez Luna, Rosa Pérez Pérez, Antonia Vázquez Pérez, Marcela Vázquez Pérez, Juana Luna Vázquez, Juana Gómez Pérez, María Capote Pérez, Marcela Capote Vázquez.
* The assassinated minors: Martha Capote Pérez, Rosa Vázquez Luna, Loida Ruiz Gómez, Micaela Vázquez Pérez, Josefa Vázquez Pérez, Sebastián Gómez Pérez, Juana Pérez Luna, Roselina Gómez Hernández, Lucía Méndez Capote, Graciela Gómez Hernández, María Luna Méndez, Silvia Pérez Luna, Vicente Méndez Capote, Micaela Vázquez Luna, Juana Vázquez Luna, Alejandro Pérez Luna, Juan Carlos Luna Pérez, Guadalupe Gómez Hernández.
*Juan Vázquez Guzmán and Juan Carlos Gómez Silvano, from the Tzeltal community of San Sebastián Bachajón, assassinated on April 24, 2013 and March 21, 2014, respectively, for defending their territory in a conflict with ejido authorities and the three levels of bad government.
*Filemón Benítez Pérez, Antonio Benítez Pérez, María Núñez González, and Vicente Pérez Díaz, members of the Xi-Nich organization, Choles from the community of Viejo Velasco, Ocosingo, assassinated on November 13, 2006, at the hands of the Sectoral Police with high-powered weapons.
OAXACA
*Héctor Regalado Jiménez, member of the Popular Assembly of the Pueblo Juchiteco, who died August 1, 2013, from wounds inflicted by the Industrial and Commercial Bank Auxiliary Police and gunmen from the Fenosa Natural Gas company, who acted as vigilantes for the wind farm.
Pablo Jarquín Ruiz, Mixe, assassinated for denouncing the shots fired that scared the children in the community elementary school when the army entered their community on December 17, 2012.
*Maximino Salinas Hernández, president of the Ejidal Authorities of his community, Fuerza Chinanteca Kia-nan, in San Antonio Las Palmas, Jocotepec, assassinated June 30, 2013, two months after his community detained municipal machinery in order to demand public works projects.
*Carlos Sánchez López, assassinated on August 8, 2003, in Juchitan, Oaxaca, and Manuel Posada Chévez, assassinated April 5, 2004, in Unión Hidalgo, Oaxaca, in the context of the struggle of the Concejo Ciudadano Unidalguense against the Puebla-Panama Plan and the corruption of the PRI town councilperson Armando Sanchéz.
JALISCO
*Aristeo Flores Rolón and Nazario Aldama Villa, indigenous representatives from the Nahua community of Ayotitlán, Sierra de Manantlán, who were members of the Consejo de Mayores, Traditional Authorities of the Sierra de Manantlán, and who were assassinated in September 2001 and May 2003.
*Juan Monroy and José Luis Rosales Conteras from the Highlands communities of the Nahua Ejido of Ayotitlán, in the Telcruz district: Persecuted and shot for defending the organization against excessive logging in the zone. MICHOACÁN
*Diego Ramírez Domínguez, Simón Pineda Verdía, Simón Pineda (his son), Quintín Regis Valdez, Erik Nemecio Domínguez, Ernesto Nicolás López, Pedro Nazario Domínguez, Pedro Guzmán Ramírez, Ambrosio Verdía Macías, Francisco Verdía Macías, Pedro Leyva, Isidro Mora Domínguez, Feliciano Cirino Domínguez, Jonathan Verdía Gómez, Fortino Verdía Gómez, Nicolás de la Cruz Rojas, Rafael de la Cruz, Juan Faustino Nemesio, J. Trinidad de la Cruz Crisóstomo, Crisóforo Sánchez Reyes, Teodulo Santos Girón, and Feliciano Corona Cirino, assassinated between 2008 and 2013, from the Nahua community of Santa María de Ostula, Michoacán.
For all of them, we demand JUSTICE!
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These are our disappeared:
JALISCO
*Celedonio Monroy Prudencio, Nahua from the community of Loma Colorada, from the Nahua ejido of Ayotitlán, Sierra de Manantlán, Jalisco, who was disappeared from his home by alleged ministerial police on October 22, 2012.
*Agustín Mancilla Partida, Nahua, disappeared in October 2012 in the Nahua community of Villa Purificación.
MICHOACÁN
*Javier Martínez Robles, Gerardo Vera Orcino, Francisco de Asís Manuel, Enrique Domínguez Macías and Martín Santos Luna, Nahua communal members from Santa Maria Ostula, disappeared on various dates between 2010 and 2013.
*The Guzmán Cruz family, whose names are: Amafer, Solón, Armando, Venustiano, and José de Jesús Guzmán Jiménez, disappeared on July 24, 1974, persecuted for their political militancy, in an operation in which the Mexican army entered the Purépecha community of Tarejero, Zacapu municipality, Michoacan, and took the family.
FEDERAL DISTRICT
*Teodulfo Torres Soriano, indigenous migrant from Oaxaca, was disappeared between March 23 and 26, 2013, because he was the primary witness to the attack and later death of Juan Francisco Kuykendall on December 1, 2012.
VERACRUZ
*Flabio Granado Llanos and Cornelio Viberos Venabidez, originally from San Francisco Agua Fría in the Tatahuicapan municipality, coming from San Antonio and disappeared as of December 21, 2012.
They were taken alive, we want them back alive!
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These are our imprisoned:
OAXACA
*Alejandro Regalado Jiménez, Binnizá from Juchitán de Zaragoza, imprisoned since April 3, 2013 and sentenced to 10 years in the Tehuantepec prison, detained for his Zapotec indigenous identity and for living in the seventh section of the town where the Popular Assembly of the Juchiteco Pueblo (APPJ) defended the land, territory, and air against the invasion of the Bii Yooxh’o windfarm by the Spanish company Fonesa Natural Gas.
*Álvaro Sebastián Ramírez, Justino Hernández José, Eleuterio Hernández García, Abraham García Ramírez, Zacarías Pascual García López, Agustín Luna Valencia and Fortino Enríquez Hernández, Binnizá indigenous people from San Agustín Loxicha, teachers and peasants, guardians of their communities, detained 18 years ago and sentenced to between 20 and 30 years in prison.
*Pablo López Alavez, Binnizá indigenous from San Isidro Aloapan, imprisoned in the Villa de Etla prison, kidnapped in 2012 by alleged furniture manufacturers and then appeared in that prison. Defender of the forests, territory, and natural resources from his community.
*Dionisio Tapia Isidro, Sixto José Miramar and Filomeno Ortiz Antonio, Mixe indigenous people from San Lucas Camotlán, Oaxaca, imprisoned merely for asking the Mexican army why they entered their community on December 17, 2012.
PUEBLA
*Enedina Rosas Vélez ejidal authority from San Felipe Xonacayucan, indigenous Atlixco Nahua, member of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land and Water of Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala (FPDTA-MPT), detained last April 6, imprisoned in the regional CERESO in Atlixco, for defending and respecting the decision of her people against the dispossession of land for the Integral Project of Morelos (PIM) and denounced by the Italian company Bonatti.
*Juan Carlos Flores Solís from San Andres Cholula, in the Nahua region of valle de Puebla, member of FPDTA-MPT, detained last April 7, imprisoned in CERESO regional of San Pedro Cholula for defending the rights of the people in the face of the dispossession inflicted by the PIM, denounced by the bad government of Rafael Moreno Valle, and issued two more arrest warrants: one for by the Italian company Bonatti and the other by the Federal Electricity Commission.
CHIAPAS
*Alejandro Díaz Santís, Tzotzil from Mitontic, sentenced to 30 years in prison without having committed a single crime, and being held in CERESO number 5 in San Cristobal de las Casas.
QUERETARO
*Rubén Díaz Orozco, who has been in prison for 17 years for being a social leader, held in the CERESO in San José El Alto, Querétaro since March 1998. The compañero is about to turn 70 years old and has serious health problems. (We demand his release because of his age and severe health problems). STATE OF MEXICO
*Rómulo Arias Mireles, Pedro Sánchez Berriozabal and Teófilo Pérez González, defenders of water from the Nahua community of San Pedro Tlanixco: sentenced to 54, 52, and 50 years in prison, respectively. Lorenzo Sánchez Berriozabal, Marco Antonio Pérez González y Dominga Martínez González, who are currently under process and imprisoned in the Santiaguito penitentiary, Almoloya de Juarez, for struggling against the dispossession of water from the slopes of the Xinantecatl volcano for major commercial flower companies.
We demand their FREEDOM!
We also demand the cancellation of the arrest warrants for our following brothers and sisters:
OAXACA *Mariano López Gómez, Raymundo Regalado Jiménez and Carlos Sánchez Martínez, members of the Popular Assembly of the Juchiteco Pueblo, who were accused of fabricated crimes and have to live on constant alert, denounced by the transnational wind company Fenosa Natural Gas.
PUEBLA
*Avelino Velazques Tapia, Eusebio Aguilar Torres, Alejandro Torres Chocolatl, Adela Ramos Villalba, Juan Álvares Tapia, Federico Villalba Ramos, Nahua indigenous, members of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land and the Water of Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala FPDTA-MPT, denounced by the Federal Electricity Commission for defending the land and the water in opposition to the Morelos Integral Project.
JALISCO
*Cirilo Rojas López and Casiano Pérez Magallón, Jorge de los Santos Pérez, Vicente Paredes Perales, José Abraham de la Rosa Sanabria, Ismael de los Santos González, Petra Sanabria Claro and Manuel Alejandro Jacobo Contreras, inhabitants and communal members, all from the community of Coca de Mezcala de la Asunción, who have been unjustly denounced and persecuted by the invader Guillermo Moreno Ibarra since September 2011 for defending communal territory. Salvador de la Rosa Paredes, who was denounced and who is now being denounced again by the invader named above.
We also demand an end to the harassment and threats against the following brothers and sisters:
PUEBLA
*This past August 4, while we were having this exchange, 10 public functionaries from the Federal Institute of Communications (IFETEL), led by Raúl Leanel Mulhia Arsaluz and accompanied by two patrols and three trucks from the Federal Preventive Police, violently raided the facilities of Zacatepec Radio in the Nahua community of Santa María Zacatepec, in the municipality of Juan C. Bonilla, decommissioning a transmitter, two microphones, a transformer, a CPU and a console. Minutes later, eight men in plainclothes, white pants and shirts without logos, with an IFETEL badge as identification, and accompanied by three patrols from the Federal Preventative Police who blocked access to the street, threatened compañera María Eugenia Toxcoyoa, operator of Axocotzin Radio, of the Nahua community of San Bernardino Tlaxcalancingo, in the Municipality of San Andrés Cholula, demanding that she allow them to enter the radio facilities or else threatening to use the security forces; six men entered the facilities and damaged them, taking the transmitter, the monitor, three microphones and the CPU with all of the historic social and political memory that the radio had collected in Junta Auxiliar de Tlaxcalancingo. The federal government and the government of Rafaél Moreno Valle orchestrated these actions in an effort to stop the struggle of the people of Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos against the Morelos Integral Plan.
MICHOACÁN
* The commander of the community police of Santa María Ostula, Cemei Verdía Zepeda, whom they are trying to frame for attempted homicide in the struggle against dispossession of the land and natural resources. STATE OF MEXICO
*Rey Pérez Martínez, ex-president of the Ejidal Comisariado of San Pedro Tlanixco, and Santos Alejandro Álvarez Zetina, against whom they have unleashed a systematic repression, raiding their homes late at night and who have not been able to return to their homes for 11 years. OAXACA
*Carmen Ruiz Martínez, member of the APPO who has received death threats via telephone by hitmen from the Fenosa Natural Gas company who tried to kidnap them.
*Raúl Javier Gatica Bautista, Mixteco indigenous, exiled from the country because of constant death threats that he received for defending the rights of the communities who make up the Indigenous Popular Council of Oaxaca Ricardo Flores Magón (CIPO-RFM).
Our rage was born from our pain, and our rebellion from our rage, and from our rebellion the freedom of the people of the world will be born.
From Zapatista Reality, August 2014
For the holistic reconstruction of our peoples! Never again a Mexico without us!
National Indigenous Congress and Zapatista National Liberation Army
En español: http://espoirchiapas.blogspot.mx/2014/08/cni-ezln-no-olvidamos-nuestrs-muerts.html
EZLN Invitation to Worldwide Festival of Resistances…
EZLN invitation to the Worldwide Festival of Resistances and Rebellions against Capitalism “Where Those From Above Destroy and Those From Below Reconstruct”
Photo from the Zapatista Exchange
Published by: POZOL COLECTIVO August 10, 2014
Saturday, August 9, 2014 - Invitation to the Worldwide Festival of Resistances and Rebellions
“We came to share our feelings and pains that this neoliberal system has given us, but not just that. We also came to share valiant knowledge, experiences of struggle and of organization. Challenges in the face of the capitalist invaders and neoliberals that have caused us so much damage.” (EZLN, August de 2014)
To the brothers and sisters of the national and international Sixth:
Our peoples met in the Exchange (Sharing) of Zapatista Peoples and the National Indigenous Congress “David Ruíz García,” we talked about our sorrows, our words and experiences with struggle, rebellion and resistance.
Together we know that in our rebelliousness is our “NO” to the policies of destruction that capitalism makes all over the world. And we know that the seeds of the world that we want are in our resistances.
These rebellions and resistances are not only of the original peoples of Mexico. They also walk in the steps of the original peoples of the whole continent and in all corners of the planet where individuals, groups, collectives and organizations not only say “NO” to the destruction, but they also are reconstructing something new.
In this exchange that we know has been possible in great measure thanks to the support of brothers and sisters of the national and international Sixth, we confirm that our Mother Earth, giver of all life on the planet, is in danger and with that all of humanity; we see that it is neoliberal capitalism that provokes so much pain, so much destruction and so much death; that it is what dispossesses, exploits, scorns and represses us.
In defense of Mother Earth, in the struggle for humanity and against neoliberalism, there is no small struggle.
Brothers and sisters of the national and international Sixth, because we know that this savage and deadly capitalism is not invincible, as you already taught us, besides the Zapatista experience, the rebellions and resistances that flourish on all of the planet, and that your pains are our pains, and that your struggles are our struggles, and that your dreams are our dreams, we want to share with you the words, experiences, paths and the joint decision that a world where many worlds fit is possible. We are concretizing the steps to achieve that dream and it is necessary to share with each other, to know what we think, to listen to each other in order to know how our struggles are, to know about our rebellions and to learn about our resistances.
The peoples, tribes and nations have agreed in this assembly to hold together with you the “First Worldwide Festival of Resistances and Rebellions against Capitalism” with the slogan of “WHERE THOSE FROM ABOBE DESTROY THOSE FROM BELOW RECONSTRUCT.”
This gigantic worldwide exchange will be held between the December 22, 2014 and January 3, 2015 in the following sites:
*Inauguration in the Ñatho community of San Francisco Xochicuautla, Lerma, State of Mexico, on Sunday, December 21, 2014.
*Exchanges in the communities of San Francisco Xochicuautla and in Amilzingo, Morelos on December 22 and 23, 2014.
*Great Cultural Festival in the Federal District on December 24, 25 and 26, 2014.
*Continuation of exchanges in the Binnizá communities of Juchitán, Oaxaca, and on the Yucatán Peninsula, on December 28 and 29, 2014.
*Fiesta of Anticapitalist Rebellion and Resistance in the Caracol of Oventic on December 31, 2014 and January 2015.
*Conclusions and closing, pronouncements and declarations, at the CIDECI, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, on January 2 and 3, 2015.
Our exchange in this “First Worldwide Festival of Resistances and Rebellions against Capitalism” will be between the Zapatista peoples, the peoples, tribes, nations and barrios of the National Indigenous Congress, the original peoples of the continent, and peoples, collectives and individuals adhered to the national and international Sixth all over the world.
In the coming days we will announce more details of this convocation.
Our peoples of corn that we are, sharing with you will be like the milpa that flourishes, for strengthening us in our resistances and caring for Mother Earth in this new walking that we want to share.
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From La Realidad Zapatista, August 2014
For the integral reconstitution of our peoples!
Never more a Mexico without us!
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NATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONGRESS
ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY
Also, the individuals, groups, collectives, organizations of the Sixth in the whole world that may add themselves to this call
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Luis Hernández Navarro: New rural latifundistas
[To Our Readers: Mexico’s Congress recently passed energy “reforms” into law. They are structural reforms that functionally undo major accomplishments of the 1910-1917 Mexican Revolution. Luis Hernández Navarro, editor of La Jornada’s Opinion section, analyzes the effect on rural life.]
THE NEW RURAL LATIFUNDISTAS*
By: Luis Hernández Navarro
Indigenous Women protest wind farm in Oaxaca
A new social class is at the point of emerging in the Mexican countryside. It is the class of the energy latifundios [1]. The new legislation not only permits the dispossession of the lands and territories of ejido owners, comuneros and small property owners, but it also re-concentrates a significant part of the land in a few hands: those of the large hydrocarbon and electric companies.
There will be no limit for the energy companies in the extension of land that they acquire or “temporarily occupy” for extracting oil or gas, or for generating electricity. Nor will hindrances exist in their access to water. They will be the new latifundistas.
If in the past the lords of the land that legally and illegally monopolized large surfaces were dedicated to extensive cattle ranching and to plantation crops, like coffee, cotton and sugar cane, now the new latifundistas will extract natural resources.
With the State’s endorsement, the companies will have at their disposal practically any surface that they desire. Despite being private, they will embody a public utility cause. The lands that are appropriated will not be destined to cultivating food, breeding cattle or practicing forestry.
The appropriation of land and territory by these new latifundistas will irremediably break the countryside’s associative fabric. With all the limitations that one wants, the agrarian nuclei have permitted up to now the survival of small campesino production and its forms of life. Around 70 percent of the rural population is occupied in it, and produces around 40 percent of the food.
The promises of wellbeing and employment for rural society with which are wrapped the poisoned apples of the reforms to constitutional article 27, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the neoliberal policies never arrived. To survive, the campesinos took refuge in immigration, growing drugs and the return to the countryside. With the new latifundistas foraging, the coexisting in ejidos and communities is mortally wounded.
The new relationship between energy companies and campesinos will seriously divide ejido owners and comuneros with rights to land and to the use of common areas, from the settlers that live in the rural populations. They (the energy companies) will be able “to distribute” benefits to those who have agrarian rights and leave out the residents that lack them. Moreover, inside of the same ejido or community they will be able to deal with some ejido owners and comuneros and leave others out of the agreement.
Immediately, the incursion of this new latifundista class in the Mexican countryside will provoke expropriations in fact, land speculation, over-exploitation (and contamination) of the ground water and the privatization of water. Simultaneously, it will facilitate uprooting, the rupture of the social fabric, the proliferation of private guards at the service of the companies, flourishing of a rental culture, the strengthening of local political bosses, human rights violations and the emergence of a new kind of social resentment.
The companies will dispossess those that have titles to land or otherwise own property through different legal mechanisms: rental agreements, voluntary servitude, surface occupation, temporary occupation and sale. With different names we’re dealing with the same fact: spoliation (plunder).
Although expropriation was formally eliminated from the energy law and temporary occupation was substituted for it, dispossession is maintained. The agrarian law already contained the legal mechanism of expropriation of ejidal and communal lands and with the new legislation it remains in effect. Expropriation continues being a sword of Damocles that can fall on the head of the campesinos at almost any moment. Nevertheless, to this threat is now added that of temporary occupation. The mechanism leaves in Limbo how “temporary” the occupation will be. Its duration has no expiration date; in other words, it can literally be maintained for decades. During that time, it would permit the new latifundistas to indiscriminately extract the riches of those lands without having to worry about their sustainability. When the lands are no longer useful, they will return them devastated and lacking in value.
The energy consortiums that are thinking to invest in Mexico cannot ignore the possibility of running into social expressions of discontent, given a theme as sensitive as that of land. The mining companies have already experienced a taste of what can happen to them in almost the whole country: the wind farms in Oaxaca, the CFE in the southeast, the irrigation zones of the north and the Pemex in states like Tabasco.
Enormous misinformation and incredulity dominate rural society today about the effects that the new energy laws will have. Many campesinos simply and plainly do not believe that they can be dispossessed of their lands. When they comprehend the true reach of the plunder underway, their response will be of a guarded prognosis. Moreover, it occurs at a time in which the emigration escape valve has stopped functioning as it had in the past, and many of those without documents are returning to the country to plant their plots of land.
The history of Mexico has been marked by incessant agrarian rebellions. Peoples and communities have been rising up time and time again in defense of their lands and territories. Against wind and tide, the campesinos have persisted in their determination to continue being campesinos. There is no basic reason that it’s going to be different now.
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- Latifundio – a large estate of land owned by a one party.
* Latifundista – The party owning a large estate of land
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/08/05/index.php?section=opinion&article=019a1pol
EZLN: 1st Report on Reconstruction
FIRST REPORT ON RECONSTRUCTION PROGRESS IN ZAPATISTA LA REALIDAD
Design for the school and clinic
(Clarification: according to some bad information that we received, the compas from the free, alternative, autonomous, or whatever-they-call-themselves media weren’t going to be able to make it to the closing and resolutions of the first Exchange (and so wouldn’t be able to report on the ongoing work for the reconstruction of the school and the clinic destroyed by the paramilitaries from CIOAC-Historic). The rationale, motive, or reason for this was that they didn’t have the cash, the coin, the bucks, the bills, the money, the financial support, the liquidity, the economic solvency, the credit, etc., to get here. For this rationale, motive, or reason, “Los Tercios Compas,” [1] who are always ready to support the compa media, mobilized a special multimedia, multitask, multidisciplinary team – very cutting edge – with their morraletas [cloth shoulder bags] stuffed full of gigabytes and pozol, to take pictures and do interviews to circulate about the events. Then during what they call the “post production” phase of their informative material, we received different information telling us that the compas from the alternative media did in fact have the means, the manner, the bizness to be able to get here and do their work of spreading information far and wide about what is happening here. In other words, they were coming after all. In other words, all that work for nothing. In any case, we are sending you the material, for whatever it’s worth. Here goes.)
-*-
Interview conducted on August 5, 2014, in the afternoon (that is: after pozol), in the Zapatista community of La Realidad, in the mountains of southeastern Mexico. Climatological conditions: the heat was fierce, the ski masks were almost unbearable, but what can you do.
Compañera: Good afternoon compañero.
- Good afternoon compañera.
Compañera: What’s your name?
M: My name is M.
Compañera: What is your work?
- I am an authority in this community of La Realidad. I am part of the ejidal commission of this community, La Realidad.
Compañera: I have a question. How is the construction of the school going?
M: We began the construction of the school on the 31st of last month, and so it has only been going on for a few days. It hasn’t even been a week, it’s really just beginning. We are only just now starting with the installation of the iron bars, which are the primary base. The construction will require 25 or 26 bars altogether, and we have just finished installing six of them. This is what is currently happening with the construction; it has only just begun. It’s only been six days since we started.
Compañera: What materials do you still need?
M: We now have almost all of the materials that we need. We have already bought them from the hardware store; everything’s ready. All that we’re missing are some of the materials that haven’t yet arrived here in the community of La Realidad. That is, we already have all of the metal rods, the wire rods, all of that. Now we are waiting for the cement blocks to arrive – 430 sacks of cement and 9 bundles of laminate (Note: one bundle has ten sheets of laminate bundled into a single packet), and some nails for the construction of the house. That is what we are still waiting for here in the community in terms of materials. Most of the materials that we need are already here in La Realidad.
Compañera: And when will the construction be finished?
M: According to the masons here—the master builders—according to their calculations, it will take them 80 days to finish. That is how long the master builders have calculated; this is how long they have told us that it will take.
Compañera: And how is the work organized?
M: Well, here we organize our work such that we take turns. We take turns depending on how many helpers the master builders, the masons, need. If they say, ‘well this day I need 10 helpers, the next day I need 8,’ then we send the number of they ask for, taking turns. We might send 8 people today and another 8 a different day, and that is how it goes depending on how many people the master builder says that they need. That is how we are organized. It is the community of La Realidad who are doing the work here now; we are working and the masons, who are compañeros, are directing the work. This is how it is organized.
Compañera: How do you think the construction is going to turn out?
- Well, the master builders, the masons, asked us what we wanted the building to be like, what type of house we wanted built. So we told them how we wanted it to be, with two stories. We had someone who is an architect draw up a design according to what we said that we wanted. We have some of the drawings here for you to see. They show what it will be like, that is, the model or the type of house. And this is the type we chose. This drawing in my right hand is what it will look like from the front and in this one in in my left hand we are looking at it from the back. This is the model, how the house will look when the construction is finished. This is how we thought the building should be.
Compañera: And this big building that we are looking at, what will it be used for?
M: Well this building, as of a long time ago – before this problem of what happened on May 2nd had come about – for a long time we had been thinking about this building. The community had gotten organized and decided to make a collective store for both compañeros and compañeras. We had said: let’s build a house divided into two where we were going to build the store for a school instead. And the community approved the idea. And that is how we left it, now we aren’t planning a store anymore. Now we are planning a school, a schoolhouse. We realized we aren’t going to have those two rooms after all, but that is what we decided, that this building would be a school. So this building is now destined to be a school, and in the meantime, the children aren’t studying, they aren’t going to class right now. For now the house is designated as a place to stay for the brigades that come to help with the construction of the autonomous school, but now that house that you are looking at is destined to be a school.
Compañera: Okay, very well compañero. Thanks so much for talking to us.
M: You’re welcome compañera.
-*-
Reporting for “Los Tercios Compas:” Airwaves Insurgent compañera Angelina on microphone and Infantry Insurgent compañera Erika on camera. While we wait for official permissions from the Junta de Buen Gobierno, consensual and responsible reproduction is permitted, as is coronary circulation (it’s good for the heart) and the unobstructed rise and fall of what they call the upload and download.
[1] The name given the autonomous Zapatista media collective that is usually for internal use.
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Originally Published in Spanish by Enlace Zapatista
Friday, August 8, 2014
Click on the above link to see more photos of the construction.
Closing of Zapatista Exchange with Indigenous Peoples
REBEL AND ANTI-CAPITALIST INDIGENOUS SAY TO PENA NIETO:
“We will not surrender, we will not sell out and we don’t give in.”
By: Isaín Mandujano
SubComandante Moisés
With a call to close ranks and walk together in resistance against the privatizations, dispossessions and assassinations, some 1300 Zapatista delegates and more than 300 indigenous representatives of 28 other indigenous peoples of Mexico, the Exchange of the Zapatista Peoples with the Original Peoples of Mexico “David Ruiz García” concluded Saturday. It took place from August 4 to 9 in this community located in a canyon of the Lacandón Jungle.
Before members of the “National and International Sixth,” the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and different groups from the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) announced the “Declaration On Dispossession and Our Peoples” in which they portray the problem that the attending groups confront in diverse regions of the country.
Subcomandante Moisés, Comandante Tacho and Comandante David, headed the closing of the Exchange between the Zapatista Peoples and the Original Peoples of Mexico, from last Monday to Saturday, in which they held several plenaries where they listened to denunciations of threats that hang over the country’s different indigenous peoples.
It was Venustiano Vázquez Navarrete, Indigenous Wirrárica of Tepoztlán, who read the “Declaration on Dispossession of Our Peoples,” signed by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and the 28 collectives, groups, tribes of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) that participated in the gathering.
“The dispossession of what we are as original peoples is the pain that unites us in the spirit of struggle that we commemorate today in our Compañero David Ruíz García, who died sharing the pain of the brothers of the Zapatista National Liberation Army because of the murder of Compañero Galeano and to become one in our history and in our hope,” Vázquez Navarrete said from the stage to the Indigenous peoples present.
He pointed out that the death of David Ruíz García, which gave birth again to the collective of 28 peoples, colors and languages that met in the Zapatista Caracol of La Realidad, inspires in them a joy of meeting as original peoples in the exchange, of knowing that we are alive as are the peoples, languages and collective history that become memory, resistance and congruence towards the mother that is the earth that also is alive and she ought to be.
“The struggle that we are is diverse and we name the enemy dispossession because it is what we see, we die and we live every day, in a collective way as is the corn, as is Compañero Galeano, as is Compañero David and like our brothers and sisters are, whose lives have been snatched away in this war of extermination,” indicated the person responsible for introducing the document, who added that the dispossession is so diverse that it has only on e name and it is called capitalism.
“From the beginning, capitalism has increased dispossession and exploitation. Dispossession and invasion, they are the words that best describe what they called the Conquest of America, dispossession and robbery of our lands, of our territories, of our knowledge, of our culture. Dispossession, accompanied by wars, massacres, prison, of deaths and more deaths, which become collective life because we are here the peoples that we are, who continue being,” he said.
He remembered that after the War of Independencia, the emergence of a new nation, the liberal reform and the Díaz dictatorship, Mexico was born denying these peoples, by means of Constitutions and laws that privatized their lands and sought to legitimize the looting of their territories. Thousands of your indigenous brothers, dozens of your peoples were exterminated through military campaigns and their massive exile.
“Despite a million Indigenous and campesino deaths during the Revolution, the agrarian laws that emerged later were inspired by Venustiano Carranza and Álvaro Obregón, the assassination of Emiliano Zapata, for the purpose of protecting the large estates (latifundios), impeding the restitution of lands, waters, air and communal mountains of the peoples and converting communal property into ejidal. In other words, they wanted to kill us again over and over again, to kill us as peoples and as individuals. And after so much death, we continue being the peoples alive and collective,” he pointed out.
He also remembered that the responses to dispossession and extermination were rebellion and resistance; that hundreds of rebellions in Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Nayarit, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Querétaro, Veracruz, Estado de México, San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo, Morelos, Puebla, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Yucatán, Campeche, Quintana Roo, and prominently the Zapatista Revolution; that challenged colonialist society, all occurred after the liberal reform, exploding the 1910 armed movement defending with weapons the possession communal land until the times of the Cardenas agrarian reform and oil expropriation.
That currently the neoliberal capitalists, with the support of all the political parties and the bad governments headed by the criminal and paramilitary chief Enrique Peña Nieto, they are applying the same dispossession policies on a large scale that the liberals of the nineteenth century applied, the Carranzas or the Obregons, showing itself in the militarization and paramilitarization, advised by the United States intelligence bodies, in those regions where the resistances confront dispossession.
And just like the governments of those times, the current governments are delivering their territories and wealth that are the nation’s to the big national and foreign corporations, seeking the death of all the peoples of Mexico and of Mother Earth, but the dead among these peoples is born again today collectively.
One by one they read all of the 29 red lights or problems that the indigenous peoples of Mexico that attended this gathering confront and that it is because of that that they know they are in “an emergency” that attempts against the life of the indigenous peoples of Mexico.
“So today we say to the powerful, to the corporations and the bad governments, headed by the supreme criminal chief of the los paramilitaries, Enrique Peña Nieto, that we will not surrender, that we will not sell out and we will not give in,” he indicated.
“Our memory is alive because we are it and to it we owe us and we point out that that there is no better memory than that of our peoples, who like today meet to see one another and that our struggle will not end, because fi they have not killed us in 520 years of resistance and rebellion they will not do it now or ever,” Vázquez Navarrete said.
In the final declaration they declared themselves “peoples of corn” because they know that the milpa is collective and of different colors: “so diverse that we also want to name in only one word, rebellious and anticapitalist, with those that are brothers of the National and International Sixth. Today, like the corn, we are renewed in our decision to construct from below and to the left a world where all worlds fit.”
At the closing, it was Comandante David, Indigenous Tsotsil of Oventic, who was the one responsible for giving the event’s final words.
“We ought to give continuity to his historic gathering, because no one should forget it and ought to be continued in coming celebrations, because during these days, we have been able to share our reality of pain, of suffering, but also our experiences of struggle, our resistance as peoples, our faith and our culture,” Comandante David said.
The Zapatista commander pointed out that this situation must not continue or stay like this forever, because some day it must change “because it is not just that as original peoples we live in oblivion, in misery, under the domination and exploitation of those that have dispossessed us of our natural riches, of our life, of our history, and of our autonomy.”
“This encuentro, ought to be the start of our walking together as brothers. This encuentro ought to frame the direction and the horizon as our destiny as peoples. And the construction of the new society that we need and that we deserve,” Comandante David said.
In this event where Subcomandante Galeano, aka Marcos, was absent, they said that a worldwide exchange of the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico with the Indigenous Peoples of the World would be held. It will take place in the communities of San Francisco Xochicuautla and Amilcingo, Morelos, next December 22 and 23.
The Great Cultural Festival will be held on December 24, 25 and 26 in the Federal District. The exchange with Indigenous Peoples will follow on December 28 and 29 in Juchitán, Oaxaca and in the Yucatán. And, the Fiesta of Anti-capitalist Rebellion and Resistance will take place in the Caracol of Oventic on December 31 and January 1, 2015.
The conclusions from the Exchange of the Zapatistas Peoples with the Original Peoples of Mexico will be the days of January 2 and 3, 2015.
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Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas Paralelo
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Sunday, August 10, 2014
EZLN: Homage to David Ruiz García
HOMAGE to the COMPANERO DAVID RUIZ GARCÍA during the Exchange between Indigenous Peoples and Zapatista Peoples
Words of the National Indigenous Congress compañero Armando García Salazar, of the Hñahñu´ people of San Francisco Xochicuautla, in homage to the deceased compañero DAVID RUIZ GARCÍA during the Exchange between Indigenous Peoples and Zapatista Peoples, August 4, 2014.
AND
TWO SHORT CHRONICLES OF THE HOMAGE
- Words of Compañero Armando García Salazar on behalf of the family and Compañeros of the deceased Compañero David Ruiz García.
Good morning everyone.
Good morning brothers, sisters, grandparents, children, and all of the compas who represent this movement.
Two months ago a nephew, a son, came to these lands in support of our brother Galeano. Unfortunately he suffered an accident upon his return.
Out of eagerness to defend justice and indigenous rights, he had been part of this movement for eight years. He very much wanted to come meet the Zapatista brothers, and to be frank, shake the hand of Subcomandante Marcos. It was his greatest desire. And he fulfilled it. He came to La Realidad.
Unfortunately, destiny is like this. Today, despite this, we, his brothers and his relatives, are here again. We will not retreat; David would have wanted us to go forward.
Since he began to participate in the struggle, he would ask why there was so much for so few and so little for so many. I could never answer him because I haven’t yet understood this either. He believed however that one day this would change, and that is what we are doing now.
All of us present here come with an objective. All of us present here come with conviction, and we are doing what many people have done: raising our voices, not giving in, claiming what is ours, and running off those who have invaded us.
This was one of David’s objectives, and I come humbly here today to carry out the traditional custom of our community: to put a cross at the site of the accident.
Many thanks, Zapatista brothers.
In his first visit to the beautiful state, David said, “I must go and contribute the voice of our tribe, our indigenous people, the Otomí or Hñahñu´.
Many thanks for listening to me, and for sharing this experience in this place. Thank you brothers.
- TWO CHRONICLES
ONE…
The initial ceremony of the exchange between the CNI and THE ZAPATISTAS was held and compañero comandante Tacho read a speech. Afterwards, all of the compañeras and compañeros present on stage went to pay homage to the compañero David Ruiz García at the site of the accident.
One relative of the deceased compañero David said he was commissioned to leave a cross at the site.
We started out toward the site, walking in two columns, with one compañero showing us where exactly the accident that killed the compañero David had happened and where we would leave the cross. The compañero sub comandante insurgente Moisés and the compañero comandante Tacho began to clear the area, and another compañero dug a hole in which to place the cross. Meanwhile the compañeras and compañeros of the CNI began to burn something like incense; they had brought embers in a small cup and they began to pray and sing in their ways of paying homage to the compañero David, who was a fighter. They expressed their pain at his death, and to see the compañeras and compañeros is to continue the path of struggle. They sang a song titled “Heroes and Martyrs,” and then climbed a small path to place the cross there. It is a rocky area, but they planted the cross with boughs of flowers and a candle. They prayed and sang again, and chanted “vivas,” LONG LIVE DAVID, LONG LIVE GALEANO, and THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES, and applauded. One of compañero David’s compañeros in struggle said that compañero David would be present here and in all of the struggles of our country. They brought a muslin cloth which was received by compañero sub comandante insurgente Moisés who also spoke, affirming that the compañero David was with us, that he would stay with us here in rebellious territory, and that it was good that the compañero David had known where to give his life. Finally, one of the CNI members asked us to accompany him in singing the Zapatista anthem and then we returned.
ANOTHER…
Compañeras and Compañeros here, August 4, 2014. Today was the inauguration for the National Indigenous Congress Compañeros. First, comandante Tacho spoke. After he finished, compañero subcomandante Insurgente Moisés spoke and said that we would go to the site of Compañero David’s accident. The Compañero David’s family brought an iron cross and boughs of flowers and bean and corn seeds to the site, and they placed the cross there. They sang some songs for the compañero. In truth, the family is very much in pain, but they are also very strong and they will follow the example of the compañero David who did not die just anywhere, but in Zapatista territory. After this was over, the family gave a handkerchief and an embroidered cloth to the compañero sub comandante insurgente Moisés. The compañero sub comandante insurgente Moisés then spoke, saying that the compañero David had known where to give his life, and that he would always be with us. We then returned to continue our work.
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Text and camera work by Airwaves Insurgent Compañera Angelina, and Infantry Insurgent Compañera Erika of Los Tercios Compas [“Odd Ones Out”].
Note: “Odd Ones Out,” as their name indicates, are neither media, nor free, nor autonomous, nor alternative, but are rather more of the however-you-call-it type, but they are compas… I think. They are a collective dispersed through calendars and geographies, and they would be completely anonymous except that their members’ identity is given away by their rebellious irreverence. They are the EZLN mass media, and they function whenever they can, which is just once in a while. They are made up of human beings and animals, although sometimes you can’t tell the difference between them. They include those who edit texts and images, put them into cyberspace, add and subtract and sometimes successfully publish something moderately comprehensible. Their logo is a cat-dog putting the rubber stamp where it should always go, that is, below and to the left. Formal registry for the Junta de Buen Gobierno is still in process for the simple reason that they are currently all in the exchange. Reproduction authorized for non-population purposes, wrong-way circulation, and non-consumerist consumption. I testify: meow… or was it woof?
Cat-dog
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Originally Published in Spanish by Enlace Zapatista
More photos at:
Inauguration of Zapatista Exchange with Indigenous Peoples of Mexico
INAUGURATION OF THE FIRST EXCHANGE OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF MEXICO WITH THE ZAPATISTA PEOPLES
Indigenous man speaks at Zapatista Exchange with Indigenous People of Mexico
The words of Comandante Tacho, on behalf of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee – General Command of the EZLN, at the Inauguration of the First Exchange of Indigenous Peoples of Mexico with Zapatista Peoples.
August 3, 2014.
COMPAÑERAS AND COMPAÑEROS OF THE NATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONGRESS:
COMPAÑEROS AND COMPAÑERAS OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES WHO ARE VISITING US:
We greet you hoping that everyone has arrived safely to these Zapatista lands.
You have made a long journey from distant lands to meet us here in this corner of rebellious Zapatista lands of the Mexican Southeast.
Compañeras and compañeros:
Welcome, compañeras and compañeros of the original peoples, the guardians of Mother Earth.
Welcome peoples, nations, and tribes.
Welcome brothers and sisters:
NAHUAS, PURÉPECHAS, MAYA PENINSULARES, MAZAHUA, ZOQUE, WIXARIKA, MIGRANTE, TEPEHUANO, COCA, HÑAHÑU, MAYO, TRIQUI, NAZA BI BINNI ZAA, CHINANTECO, IKOOT, AFROMEXICANO, POPOLUCA, TZOTZIL, CHOL, TOJOLABAL, TZELTAL, TOTONACO, CHOL, KUMIAI, AMUZGO HUARIJIO, MIXE, ÑHATO, CHONTAL
WELCOME INDIGENOUS PEOPLES!
Welcome to all of the bases of support, representatives of the Zapatista communities. Welcome compañeros Subcomandantes Insurgentes. Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés. Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano.
From the General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army.
We hope that you have all arrived safe and sound in order to carry out this first very important exchange between the National Indigenous Congress and the Zapatista communities.
This exchange carries the name of the compañero “David Ruiz García”.
We send our most sincere greetings to all of our compañer@s insurgentes.
And to the compañeras and compañeros – elders, young people, and children – who are bases of support of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation.
As well as to all of the compañeras and compañeros of the Fuerzas Mexicanas de Milicias [Mexican Militia Forces] of the EZLN.
To the members of the MAREZ (Autonomous Zapatista Municipalities in Rebellion) and to all of the compañer@s who make up the Good Government Juntss.
Compañeros and compañeras of the National Indigenous Congress.
We come to share our suffering and pain caused by the Neoliberal system.
But not only this…
We also come to share valuable knowledge, our experiences in struggle and organization, and our goals and challenges.
We do so in the face of the neoliberal capitalist invaders that have done us so much damage.
These invaders were not satisfied with the theft and looting carried out by the conquistadors in 1492.
Those conquistadors encountered the resistance of the peoples, tribes, and indigenous nations of these lands of this country called Mexico.
They killed those who opposed subordination to the Spanish monarchy.
These wicked invading tormentors stained their hands with indigenous blood and stole the richness cared for by our oldest ancestors.
They persecuted the Indian peoples of Mexico and all of Latin America with the goal of eliminating the indigenous peoples completely and banishing their existence.
They did not achieve this. That we are here now is proof.
However, communication from the communities of our ancestors was lost; the relations of these communities were lost.
But the wisdom and intelligence of our oldest grandparents was hidden from the Spanish invasion.
And with that the indigenous peoples remade their existence.
We grew, forgotten by the powerful, for 500 years in all of the corners of our Mexican homeland.
We as original peoples were ignored, deceived, forgotten, exploited, and enslaved in their dominion for more than 500 years.
And now, through the rise of the neoliberal powers, the machine of destruction appears once again to disappear our peoples.
They have made it bigger and more modern, supported by laws and bad governments, in order to invade us once again.
It has a new plan of dispossession, dispossessing us of our mother earth using the machinery of the power of money, looting the riches that mother earth has held and kept safe for millions of years.
With this machine comes the death and destruction of our peoples and our mother earth.
When we say these two words so well known by our peoples—these words of death and destruction—our heart and our gaze goes to the PALESTINIAN people. We hear and read what they say about “the conflict in Gaza,” as if there were two equal forces confronting each other, and as if saying “conflict” would hide the death and destruction such that death would not kill and destruction would not destroy.
But as the indigenous people that we are, we know that what is happening there is not a “conflict” but a MASSACRE, which the government of Israel is carrying out a war of extermination upon the PALESTINIAN people. Everything else is just words to try to hide reality.
But we also know, as the indigenous people that we are, that the PALESTINIAN people will resist and will rise again, that they will once again begin to walk and that they will known then that, although we are far away on the map, the Zapatista peoples embrace them today as we have before, as we always do, with our collective heart.
And here on our map, the power of money’s machine of war of is without a brain, without memory, wicked, like a savage animal unleashed against our indigenous peoples of Mexico.
They do not care about the destruction and death of our entire peoples, tribes, and nations.
We as the indigenous peoples of Mexico are not protected by laws and by bad governments.
Our hope lies only in ourselves.
No one is going to come save us; absolutely no one will fight for us.
Not political parties, nor politicians, nor laws; there is nothing there for us.
Compañeras and compañeros, the political parties, laws, and bad governments have demonstrated this clearly.
They will not be able to keep deceiving us; they have shown what they are for the last 83 years. They all work in the service of transnational capitalists.
That is why we have to struggle together to defend ourselves and to defend our mother earth.
This is the earth from which we were born, that gave us life, and in which we will rest eternally.
That is why we are all the colors that we are, all of the languages that our hearts speak; that is why we are peoples, tribes, and nations. We are the guardians of these lands, of this country Mexico, of this continent and of the world.
So, compañeras and compañeros, today is the beginning of our walk together and our search for how we will defend ourselves communally. There is no more time.
We will work with wisdom and intelligence these days together.
We inaugurate this encounter of exchange under the name of compañero David Ruiz García, let his heart continue to walk in our step, today August 3, 2014, at 10 hours and 21 minutes.
On behalf of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, in the name of all of the women, children, men, and elders of the Zapatista National Liberation Army…
I declare formally inaugurated this first Exchange.
Welcome to all of you.
Welcome here is the word of those who resist and struggle. Welcome is the ear that listens and the heart of a compañero.
Thank you very much.
From the Zapatista Realidad.
Comandante Tacho. Mexico, August of 2014. In the twentieth year of the war against oblivion.
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Originally Published in Spanish by Enlace Zapatista
You can also find more photos on the Enlace Zapatista website above
Note about the photos: Regarding photo credits, if they come out badly or blurry or are generally worthless, you can say that they are from CNN, EFE, AFP, Reuters, AP, Notimex, or one of those agencies that misinforms about the crime taking place against the Palestinian people. If they look good, or at least so-so, and they at least do more than rob megabytes from your page, then you can put “Photos courtesy of the EZLN mass media collective, ‘Odd Ones Out’,” which, as their name indicates, are neither media, nor free, nor autonomous, nor alternative, but really more of the “however-you-call-it” type, but they are compas. Photo reproduction, circulation, and consumption is permissible as long it is not for esoteric purposes or for anything with too many
Chiapas Support Committee 
