Chiapas Support Committee
Home of the Compañero Manuel blog on zapatistas & mexico
Gustavo Esteva: La Realidad is ours
LA REALIDAD IS OURS
Marcos wearing a black glove with bones painted on it in white
By: Gustavo Esteva
This Saturday we were able to see, with complete clarity, what that other politics is.
The caravan from San Cristóbal, with dozens and dozens of vehicles of all sizes, was a serpent of many kilometers. After the very long trip, not immune from tension and tribulations, they arrived in La Realidad, a teeming reality of Zapatista support bases that had arrived from everywhere to defend what is theirs and to show the vigor of the response.
The Caracol’s esplanade was filling up little by little. When no one would fit any longer and the sun began to shrink, Subcomandante insurgente Marcos appeared on horseback. On his left hand he wore a black glove with bones painted in white. Instead of his usual weapon he was carrying a machete on his back. Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés and Comandante Tacho arrived next. All of them, the milicianos as well as the insurgents and the comandantes, wore the right eye covered; so that we could imagine how the world is seen from the left.
The voice of Sup Marcos greeted everyone from Radio Insurgente. Subcomandante Moisés next reported about the results of their investigations of the attack on La Realidad and the assassination of Teacher Galeano. He asked not to fall into the provocations of the paramilitaries. Tacho as well as Moisés insisted that the Zapatistas do not seek revenge but justice. The indignation and rage have to be directed against the capitalist system and its political expressions, not against those confused brothers that let themselves be bought and manipulated by the government.
In the afternoon, we listened to the words of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee- General Command of the EZLN (Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena-Comandancia General del EZLN), in the voice of Comandante Tacho. The communiqué, read by Subcomandante Moisés, described in every detail the links between the paramilitaries of the Cioac-H and the government of Chiapas and the chains of relationships and complicities that involve municipal presidents, governors and ex governors. He also related the series of harassments and armed attacks that that same organization has carried out recently against the Zapatistas.
Finally, everyone sang the Zapatista Hymn and a long and moving procession was organized to visit the tomb of the teacher Galeano. A little later, the complete audio of the communiqués and the information began to circulate through the free media.
While this was occurring in La Realidad, in more than a hundred cities in Mexico and the world the creativity and entirety of those who shared the pain and rage of the Zapatistas for the atrocious assassination of Galeano was demonstrated publically and transformed into organization and mobilization.
In Oaxaca, for example, there were as many that went on the caravan as those that stayed to organize a political day of homage in the capital’s principal plaza and adopted the slogan “La Realidad is ours” with a double proposition: assuming as their own the pain and indignation for the death of Galeano and recognizing that a similar war exists in the state. In the public pronouncement at the end of the political day of homage they pointed out with clarity: “Today, in Oaxaca, collectives, adherents of the Sexta and diverse organisms of civil society have met to demonstrate our decision and commitment to get organized not only for resisting the violence from above and below that spreads among us, but also to assume a commitment to transformation. By placing ourselves in solidarity with the Zapatistas, we are also asserting in our own spaces and organizations to confront without fear that wave of violence and to convert this difficult circumstance into the opportunity for realizing profound changes… With the construction of autonomy from the social base, with the ability to link ourselves together in a common pledge instead of our political and ideological differences, confident in the known capacity for struggle of the Oaxacan people, today we call to everyone to congregate in this common pledge of profound transformation.”
Ten years ago, Arundhati Roy anticipated what is happening: “Not only is another world possible,” she pointed out “it is underway. If one listens with attention on a quiet day, one can hear its breathing.” This Saturday, in La Realidad, we entered it. It is already among us. The thing is to multiply it everywhere, in its thousand different forms.
That is, very concretely, what is now being attempted. Adherents to the Sixth (la Sexta), students of La Escuelita, and the millions in Mexico and in the world that continue finding in the Zapatistas a source of inspiration, seem decided to employ these dates as un detonator similar to that of the Uprising.
We’re dealing with a new cycle of organization and mobilization to resist, stop the horror and to practice, each in their way, in their place, the new forms of doing politics. Today, like yesterday, we’re also talking about defending the Zapatistas and Zapatismo as a political initiative, at the side of Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Monday, May 26, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/05/26/opinion/016a1pol
Marcos Announces His Disappearance
SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS ANNOUNCES HIS DISAPPEARANCE
The Sup in La Realidad wearing the black eye patch with a pirate skull design on it.
At 2:08 AM this morning, Subcomandante Marcos announced that starting at that moment he ceases to exist. In a press conference before the free media that attended the homage to Galeano, the Zapatista assassinated in the Zapatista com munity of La Realidad, the military chief of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), indicated: “if you permit me to define Marcos, the personage, then I would tell you without hesitating that it was a motley one.”
After more than 20 years at the front of the political-military organization that rose up in arms on January 1, 1994, Marcos announced his relief. He indicated that after the Zapatista Escuelita courses last year and the beginning of this year, “we realized that now there was a generation that could follow the example, that could listen to us and talk to us without waiting for a guide or leadership, or seeking submission or follow-up.” Then, he said, “Marcos, the personage, was no longer necessary. The new stage in the Zapatista struggle was ready.”
In the emblematic community of La Realidad, the same one in which last May 2 a group of paramilitaries from the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Campesinos Historic (CIOAC-H), assassinated the Zapatista support base Galeano, Subcomandante Marcos appeared in the wee hours of the morning before representatives of the free communications media, accompanied by six comandantes and comandantas of the Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena and Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, to whom last December he announced as his elevation to the command.
“It is our conviction and our practice that to reveal oneself and struggle neither leaders nor caudillos, messiahs or saviors are necessary. To struggle one only needs a little bit of shame, and a whole lot of dignity and much organization, the rest or is useful or not to the collective,” said Marcos.
With a black patch with the design of a pirate skull covering his right eye, the Zapatista spokesperson up to now remembered the early morning of January 1, 1994, when “an army of giants, in other words, of indigenous rebels, went down to the cities to shake up the world with their step. Barely a few days later, with the blood of our fallen still fresh in the streets, we realized that those from afar did not see us. Accustomed a looking on the indigenous from above, they do not lift their view to look at us; accustomed to seeing us humiliated, their heart did not comprehend our dignified rebelliousness. Their view had been stopped at the only mestizo that they saw with a ski mask, in other words, they didn’t look. Our chiefs then said: ‘they only see how small they are, let’s make someone as small as them, so that they see him and so that they see us through him.’”
That was the birth of Marcos, fruit of “a complex maneuver of distraction, a terrible and marvelous magic trick, a malicious prank of the indigenous heart that we are; the indigenous wisdom challenged modernity in one of its bastions: the communications media.”
The note about the conference, signed by the “free, alternative, autonomous media or however you say it,” announced in diverse portals of alternative communication like Radio Pozol, Promedios and Reporting on Resistances, recreates an atmosphere of applause and vivas to the EZLN after the Commanders’ announcement.
The figure of Subcomandante Marcos strolled in to the world from the first hours of January 1, 1994. The image of an armed man with red cheeks and an R-15, and decked out in a tan and black uniform covered by a wool chuj (vest) from Los Altos of Chiapas, face covered with a ski mask and smoking a pipe, was the front page of the most influential newspapers on the planet. In the days and weeks afterwards his comunicados charged with irony and humor, defiant and irreverent came to be known. Some white pages written on a writing machine and were literally snatched up by the national and international press. Twenty years and more than four months later, Marcos announces the end of this stage.
“It’s hard to believe that twenty years later that ´nothing for us´ it would turn out not to be a slogan, a good phrase for signs and songs, but a reality, La Realidad,” said Marcos. And he added: “if being consequent is a failure, then incongruence is the path of success, the route of power. But we do not want to go there, it does not interest us. Within these parameters, we prefer to fail than to triumph.”
“We think,” he said, “that it’s necessary that one of us dies in order that Galeano Lives. Thus we have decided that Marcos must die today.”
“At 2:10 AM, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos came down forever from the platform, turned out the lights and next is heard a wave of applause from the adherents to The Sixth (La Sexta), followed with a bigger wave of applause from the Zapatista bases of support, milicianos and insurgents,” they reported from La Realidad.
Faithful to his ironic style and to his traditional postscripts, the personage of Marcos ended: P.D. 1 Game Over. 2. – Check Mate. 3. – Touché. 4. – Mhhh, Is Hell like this? 5. – In other words, can I now walk around naked without the motley clothes? 6. – It’s very dark around here, I need a little light…”
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[A new communiqué follows this Desinformemonos article. It is called Entre La Luz y La Sombra. In the communiqué the figure of Marcos dies and becomes Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano so that Galeano lives. It’s very long. The English translation is out. You can read it here. You can read it in Spanish here. ]
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Originally Published in Spanish by Desinformemonos.org
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Sunday, May 25, 2014
http://desinformemonos.org/2014/05/adios-al-subcomandante-marcos-nace-galeano/print/
Subcomandante Marcos at Homage to Galeano
SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS REAPPEARS AT THE HOMAGE TO GALEANO IN LA REALIDAD
Marcos (on horse) at homage to Galeano in La Realidad
** Thousands participated in the ceremony; more data was given about the murder of the Votán
** Moisés reiterated that the EZLN’s struggle is peaceful: “If they provoke, we don’t”
From the Editors
The Internet portals of dozens of media and digital radios related to Zapatismo reported yesterday that Subcomandante Marcos was present, together with the other chiefs of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), among them Subcomandante Moisés and Comandante Tacho, in the esplanade of the Tojolabal community La Realidad, municipio of Las Margaritas, during a homage to the teacher José Luis Solís López, Galeano.
Before thousands of sympathizers coming from various states and different countries, many of them graduates of the “escuelas zapatistas,” (Zapatista Schools) Marcos and the EZLN’s other chiefs approached the scenario on horseback, wearing –like all the other milicianos that stood guard– an eye patch, over the traditional hood, a red ribbon on the left side and a black one –a sign of mourning– on the right. Sup Marcos was also wearing a black glove with bones painted in white and a machete instead of his traditional rifle.
A few moments later, medias like Radio Zapote, Radio Pozol or Chiapas Paralelo circulated a photograph through the social networks.
Galeano, a leader of the Zapatistas bases that was assassinated with blows and shots on May 2 by groups related to the Green and Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) parties, and armed men from the Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Campesinos Historic (CIOAC-H), they denounce.
Thousands of milicianos and social bases from the five Zapatista Caracoles and authorities of the Good Government Juntas went to the ceremony in his memory. Only community and alternative communications media were admitted. According to what was advertised in the call, published days before, the media of the commercial press were not invited nor would they be received.
At the moment of his first appearance, after years of absence in the EZLN’s official acts –during which also proliferated all kinds of rumors about sicknesses–, the historic spokesperson of Zapatismo only greeted “the independent, autonomous or however you say it media” and advised that in the future there would be an Internet network so that they would be able to publish their information. He indicated that the ceremony would start “after sunset.”
Subcomandante Moisés spoke next. He provided new data about the circumstances of the assassination of Galeano, teacher and leader to whom the Zapatistas bases now grant the level of a Votán. He pointed out that among the reports they have, and that they had previously denounced about how Solís López was ambushed, surrounded, beaten and shot, there were woman involved. He said that they know whom it was “that struck him with a machete and that dragged the body.”
The Juntas and the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center accuse members of the CIOAC-H –that share territory en La Realidad with Zapatista bases–, members of the PRI and the Green Party as authors of the aggression, in which another 15 residents were injured.
In a previous communiqué, the EZLN maintained that the attack was “planned with anticipation, militarily organized and carried out with treachery, premeditation and advantage.” The bulletin, signed by Marcos, denounces that the aggression is inscribed “in a climate created and encouraged from above.”
In that same text, the rebel chief expressed that pain and rage are “what make us now wear boots again, put on our uniforms, wear our pistol and cover our face.” The assassination of Galeano provoked that the EZLN would cancel a gathering planned as homage to the recently deceased philosopher Luis Villoro, foreseen for the end of this month.
Moisés concluded his message asking that the adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle (Sexta Declaración de la Selva Lacandona) not forget that “our struggle is civilian and peaceful.” According to the media referred to above, he urged: “using the rage against the system and not against these people with a bad head and that don’t think, who only want to comply with orders of the bad government.” He concluded: “If they provoke, well they are the ones that do it, we don’t. We are strugglers.”
After that brief presentation, the commanders withdrew. There was no more information coming from La Realidad during the rest of day. The digital radios Pozol and Frecuencia libre of Chiapas, Tlayuda and Autonomía Rebelde of Oaxaca, K Huelga, Regeneración and Zapote of DF and Zapateando of Veracruz linked with each other to transmit the event in La Realidad.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Sunday, May 25, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/05/25/politica/013n1pol
Zibechi: The change from below in Venezuela
THE CHANGE FROM BELOW IN VENEZUELA
By: Raúl Zibechi
A Banner at May 22 Rally in front of Mexican Consulate in San Fran cisco
Now that the media waters have calmed down, we are able to talk about the profound transformations in Venezuelan society, that kind of long-term change called on to reconfigure societies. It cannot be strange to us that the big media don’t pay attention to these movements, but rather focus on news that vanishes without leaving a trace. More striking is the scarce attention that the analysts and a good part of party members grant them, probably because they consider that politics (with a capital P) are reduced to what happens in the proximity of government palaces.
We consider the experience of Cecosesola (Cooperative Central of Social Services of Lara State), a network of 60 communities with its epicenter in the city of Barquisimeto (2 million inhabitants) but with a presence in four states of northwestern Venezuela. The cooperatives are dedicated to agricultural production, small-scale agro-industries, health services, transportation, a funeral parlor, savings and loan, mutual aid funds and distribution of food and articles for the home.
The scope of the undertaking is not minor. They have 20 thousand associates in their group, 1,300 workers that are paid the same salary (which they call an advance or “anticipo”), almost 4,000 participate in the more than 300 annual meetings of the network, from weekly meetings to experiences (vivencias) in which everything is discussed, from the price of the products at the markets to management of the integral cooperative health center.
The three big family markets in Barquisimeto sell 600 tons of fruits and vegetables per week, 35 percent of the consumption of a large city like that, where 500 associates work. There are 250 boxes and they supply some 200,000 people each week. It is not a marginal undertaking, but rather the major point for the sale of food in the city, much more important than the supermarkets. Three aspects seemed outstanding to me.
There are no cameras or private guards, only “community vigilance.” Despite the tense lines that there are all over the country, those that form in the Cecosesola’s markets are serene and in solidarity. The morning that I participated in the center’s market, there were lost shoes in the disturbance that formed at the entrance. When the megaphone reported that fact, the shoes appeared in a few minutes. That’s what happens even when wallets and objects of value are lost. Despite not having vigilance, the “flights” (what capital judges as robberies) are only about one percent, compared to 5 percent in the supermarkets.
The prices are different. The fruits and vegetables have only two prices, so that the buyer can fill a sack with the most diverse foods and it’s weighed all together, simplifying the accounting. A weighed or average price is set. But what’s most notable is that the periodic assemblies of associates set the prices. The assemblies are open, in which the producers explain the costs and share the data with the other cooperative members, eliminating the intermediaries. This democratization of prices, costs and margins restores the market to the “transparency” that Fernand Braudel considered as the principal characteristic of pre-capitalist markets.
The third question is that the enormous network does not have management or leaders. They decide everything among all; thus the large number of meetings. Cecosesola defines itself as “an organization in movement,” part of a process of “personal and organizational transformation through wider participation from everyone.” Trust, conviviality, integration, shared emotions, substitute for formal statutes and positions at different levels.
At the time for explaining their way of doing things, they say that: “the only formal organizational instance is a flexible and changing group of ‘meetings’ open to he or she that wants to incorporate, without distinction as to their origin. We’re talking about meeting spaces that don’t obey a previous design, which are created and disappear according to the needs of the moment.” The logic is not one of accumulation (to grow, gain power or prestige) but to endure over time. They have lasted 40 years.
For eight days I participated in a dozen spaces, from meetings of rural producers and of the March 8 (8 de Marzo) production cooperative of pastas (where a young man declared himself a feminist), to meetings of the accounting office and of the health center. Rotation is the rule, the debate frank and direct, the learning is constant and the collaboration permanent.
There were 55 people in the health center’s weekly assembly forming an enormous circle. The center attends to 200,000 consultations annually. The construction of the building demanded three years of debates to decide on the structure. Three floors open to the city, without walls that block communication, lots of air, large collective spaces where the users and their children do yoga, physical and spiritual exercises, and converse while looking at the mountains.
In the assembly there were nurses, office workers, personnel from maintenance, the kitchen and cleaning, and even six or seven doctors out of the 60 that work at the health center; everyone discussing as equal to equal. There were criticisms because of errors, which were debated serenely. It is not easy to incorporate the doctors, but apparently they are softening. A female doctor participates in the markets as a cashier, a place that the office workers also occupy as they consider the vegetable space as the most agreeable.
Cecosesola is a cultural revolution in movement. I heard purchasers at the markets sense community although they never went to a meeting. They don’t receive anything from the State. They finance everything themselves. They teach us that it is possible to produce and live another way, based on other values than the hegemonic ones, which one can create and manage large spaces that capital dominates, with complete autonomy. One of the slogans of Cecosesola is: “Constructing here and now the world that we want.”
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Friday, May 16, 2014
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/05/16/opinion/020a2pol
Justice for Galeano Rally at Mexican Consulate
THURSDAY, MAY 22 10:00 AM 532 FOLSOM ST., SAN FRANCISCO
EN ESPAÑOL
Call To Action in Support of the Zapatistas
AN ATTACK ON THE ZAPATISTAS IS AN ATTACK ON US ALL
CALL TO ACTION IN SUPPORT OF THE ZAPATISTAS
WEEK OF ACTION: MAY 18-24 (DAY OF REMEMBRANCE MAY 24)
JUSTICE FOR GALEANO; STOP THE WAR AGAINST THE ZAPATISTA COMMUNITIES!
CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION
THE CALL
Summary of recent events:
On May 2, 2014, in the Zapatista territory of La Realidad, Chiapas, Mexico, the group CIOAC-H, planned and executed a paramilitary attack on unarmed Zapatista civilians. An autonomous Zapatista school and clinic were destroyed, 15 people were ambushed and injured and Jose Luis Solis Lopez (Galeano), a teacher at the Zapatista Little School, was murdered. The mainstream media is falsely reporting this attack on the Zapatistas as an intra-community confrontation, but in fact this attack is the result of a long-term counterinsurgency strategy promoted by the Mexican government.
Given the experience of the 1997 massacre at Acteal, we are concerned about the mounting paramilitary activity against Zapatista bases of support. It is clear that if we do not take action now, the current situation in Chiapas may also lead to an even more tragic end.
Why this matters to us:
Since 1994, the Zapatistas have shown us the bankruptcy of the world that dominates us and, most importantly, the ability to organize ourselves into self-determining communities autonomous from the political class and capitalism. It is this capacity to show that another world is possible in the here and now, one not rooted in exploitation, dispossession, repression and de-valorization, but rather in liberty, democracy and justice, that has inspired us all. An attack on the Zapatistas is an attack on the other world that we have all tried to build along with them for the past 20 years.
What we should do:
We strongly denounce the murder of Compañero Galeano and the attacks against our Zapatista brothers and sisters. We denounce the deliberate destruction of the Zapatista clinic and school. We denounce the disinformation from the press regarding these attacks.
To denounce these aggressions and in support of our Zapatista brothers and sisters, the signatories below call on all Zapatista supporters, students, anti-prison activists, artists, intellectuals, teachers, academics, LGBTQ groups, anarchists, communities of faith, prisoners, communities and organizations of color, indigenous peoples, Chicanos, migrants and all those seeking a more just, non-capitalist world, to pronounce themselves against these attacks by the Mexican government on the Zapatistas and to hold events starting Sunday May 18th (e.g. demonstrations at Mexican consulates and Embassies, corporate subsidiaries, and banks supporting the Mexican government, teach-ins, discussion groups, concerts, informational sessions, or other civil actions that people deem appropriate for their city) and culminating with a day of remembrance on May 24th called by the Zapatistas in honor of the late Compañero Galeano.
Let’s make our dignified pain and rage another building block towards a movement that will directly participate, along with the Zapatistas, in creating this new world.
STOP THE AGGRESSIONS AGAINST BROTHERS, SISTERS, TEACHERS-VOTANES AND ZAPATISTA BASES OF SUPPORT.
AN ATTACK ON THE ZAPATISTAS IS AN ATTACK ON US ALL!
At http://www.anattackonusall.org/, read the full Denunciation and Call to Action in Spanish and English along with current signatories, sign on in support, and find or plan actions/events in your city.
Groups met last night (May 15) in Oakland to plan actions. As of today (May 16), actions have been planned for May 20 and 22 in San Francisco and either May 23 or 24 in Oakland.
We’ll have a list of actions/events posted soon on this site.
Please make sure to send all information about events or actions around the country to the Enlace Zapatista webpage: laotra@ezln.org.mx and invitaciones.escuelita.srl@gmail.com.
“Like” the Facebook page “An Attack On Us All”, follow @AnAttackOnUsAll on Twitter and Instagram, and promote the hashtags #AnAttackOnUsAll and #ZapatistasNoEstanSolxs]
Marcos: Fragments of La Realidad I
[The Zapatistas announce a homage to Compañero Galeano on May 24 in all Caracols.]
FRAGMENTS OF LA REALIDAD I
Compañero Galeano
May 2014
The wee hours of the morning…it must be like 2 or 3 o’clock, who knows. It sounds like silence here in reality [La Realidad]. Did I say “it sounds like silence?” Well it does, because the silence here has its own sound, like the chirping of crickets; some sounds up front, stronger and dissonant; and others always constant, below. There is no light nearby. And now the rain is adding its own silence. The rainy season has arrived here already, but it is not yet heavy enough to wound the earth. Just enough to scratch it a little, a constant pitter-patter. A little scratch here, barely a puddle over there. As if to give a warning. But the sun, the heat, [i] hardens the earth quickly. It is not time for mud, not yet. It is the time of shadow. True, it’s always the time of shadow. It goes anywhere and everywhere, without regard for time. Even where the sun is the most ferocious, the shadow can still be found, clinging to walls, trees, rocks, people. As if the light gave it even more strength. Ah, but night…in the earliest hours of the morning, this is truly the time of [the] shadow. Just as during the day it brings you relief, in the tiny hours of the morning it awakens you as if to say, “and what about you? Where are you?” And you stammer in your slumber, until you can answer clearly—answer to yourself—“in reality.”
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(…)
“Well, I wouldn’t know, to tell you the truth. Supposedly in the city there is a custom, a way of doing things we could say, that when there is a death in the family, the other family members and friends visit the family to let them know they support them in their pain. They call it “offering condolences” I think. Yes, that’s it, to tell them that they are not alone.
(…)
“Ok, from what I have read, the majority of the students of the little school said that they felt at home, that they had been treated like family. Well, some said they had been treated even better than in their families. That is, as they say, there are families and then there are families, for example in…
(…)
“Could be. Yes, it could be that some feel the need to come and give condolences to the family of the deceased Galeano, or to the compas here, or both.
(…)
“It isn’t that easy, because here is very far away for them. What would it be, maybe some 7 hours from San Cristóbal? So you see, it’s far. And a violent death doesn’t give us any advance warning, it doesn’t have its calendar or its geography marked, it just comes in and sits down, uninvited. Yes, it enters by tearing down the door.
It isn’t like death from old age or illness, that slowly slips in with a foot, then a hand, and soon it is sitting there in a corner, waiting, until it gets comfortable and says, “here, I rule.” And so one can prepare oneself, get used to the idea. But not with violent death. Violent death comes like a blow, it knocks you down, stuns you, kicks you, clubs you, slashes you, shoots you, kills you, puts a bullet in your head and then mocks you. That’s how it works.
So if you make a plan, as they say, for a “sharing” or an exchange, or a meeting, or for courses at the Zapatista Little School, then you can say that it will be on this day in this place, and you let people know in advance, and each person, in their place, also makes their plan regarding work or school or family, and they arrange their trip. And you too use this time to prepare for where you will house them and what you will offer them.
But because violence gives no warning, there is no time to prepare anything, not who will come nor who will receive them. And then, what is there to say? Even if you are all there together, looking at each other, the sound of the silence quiets you, as if death had not only taken the deceased, but your words also.
So it is difficult for you to come, but not because you don’t want to, or not because you don’t love Galeano or the compas in La Realidad, but because it is hard to find a way to get here.
What’s more, where would we have these people stay, this caracol being very small and surrounded once again by paramilitaries? And what would we give them to eat? And what about the bathrooms, if 25 or 50 of them need to go, or if they want to bathe because of the heat[ii] or the rain?
(…)
Ah, yes, and if the visitors brought their own food and their own tent for the rain, well that would change things a little, but not much, because as the health promoter already explained, we have to care for, as they say, hygiene, and make sure they don’t turn this into, as they say, a pigsty. Because there are people you know who are really dirty, who always miss the toilet, above all the fucking guys. Because as women we are…
Huh? Yes, its important for preventing illness. Yes, like cholera. Huh? No, the other cholera, fury, rage.
(…)
What? No, good visitors tell us ahead of time that they are coming; they don’t just show up. When a visitor comes without warning, they call them, or used to call them, “gorrón,” or “gorrona,” as the case may be. I don’t know why they called them that, or still call them that, but they are referring to the people who show up without being invited, the ones who, as they say, invited themselves. Yes, death is like a “gorrón” or “gorrona,” as the case may be, like a visitor who shows up without warning, who didn’t ask if they could come. Yes, I know that it isn’t exactly the same thing, but that’s what came to mind
(…)
Yes, I think that if you give them a particular day, then some will come, not all of them, but some. Because even though they don’t all come, they are there in another way. Like “listeners,” but in reverse. Because death can also be defeated with another calendar and another geography. Why do I say “also”? Oh, I know what I am saying. Pay me no mind right now. Maybe another day I will explain to you…or you will see.
(…)
How many? I have no idea, but it could be many, depending, because over there I see that they are putting up another shelter, and sweeping and cleaning. Yes, as if they are expecting visitors.
(…)
When exactly? Well, ask Emiliano or Max, or SubMoi who I saw over there speaking with a young woman who is from here. He was on his way to talk to the comités [CCRI].
(…)
Me? Well, I’m waiting. When the comités from the zone come to an agreement, I’m sure they’ll tell me write something and that’s what I’ll do.
(…)
Look! …There!… that little light over there. Did you see what a strange animal that is? Yes it looks like a dog…or rather a cat. Yes like a cat-dog. Strange, no?
(…)
Yes, it’s true, reality is strange.
-*-
Fragment from Page 4 of the Investigative Report of the assassination of compañero Galeano. Questioning of compañera S., Zapatista, base of support from La Realidad, age 16 going on 17 years old. May 11, 2014.
(Warning: the following text contains language that may offend the sensibilities of the European royalty and those that aspire to the throne. Between us, it’s nothing that isn’t heard in any corner of the world below. Here goes).
“Today is May 11, 2014.
(…)
We have a compañera present here who is going to tell us what was said to her, rather, what one person in particular said; the other didn’t actually say anything. This is what the compañera is going to tell us about.
Go ahead, compañera.
Compañera S: Well you see, compa Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, I am going to tell you what this murderer said to me.
SCIM: When was it that he said this to you?
Compañera S: It was Saturday.
SCIM: May 10?
Compañera S: May 10.
SCIM: At what time?
Compañera S: At about 9.
SCIM: 9 in the morning?
Compañera S: Yes, at about 9 he said to me: “You’re really full of yourself,” but I didn’t want to answer him. Then he said “stop,” and I stopped. “Listen to what I’m going to say to you,” he said; I stopped. SCIM: And what is this man’s name?
Compañera S: His name is R.
SCIM: R. Ok, continue.
Compañera S: He said to me, “listen to what I am going to tell you,” and I listened.
He said: “Enjoy your Caracol. Enjoy it now because we’re going to take it; that Caracol is going to be ours very soon. With glee I’m going to build my house there when it’s ours. Very soon we’re going to take it.
I answered him: “Well if that’s the case, if you feel like such a man, if you’ve got such a big cock and balls, that dead or alive you’re going to take the Caracol, then go ahead and take it if you have the balls.”
And he said to me:
“I do have the balls and the cock, you want to see?”
And I answered:
“If you want to show it, show it to your mother.” That’s what I said.
Then he said:
“Are you so angry because we killed your husband?”
And I said:
“That compañero isn’t our husband. That compañero is our compañero in struggle, in the struggle for our communities, not for measly handouts from the government.”
And he started to laugh with his friend who was with him, and he said…
SCIM: What was his friend’s name?
Compañera S: M.
He told me: “The ones we are going to get our hands on are Raúl, Jorge, and René. Once we get our hands on them we’re going to kill them like we killed la peluda (Note: “La peluda” is the derogatory name with which the CIOAC-H paramilitaries refer to compañero Galeano).
I told him that if they were going to do it to go ahead and do it, to try it, but to come into the Caracol. Not when there aren’t any people there, like they did in the school—they went in there because there wasn’t anybody there. I told him: “if you’re really men, take the Caracol.” And they laughed and said:
“You should be happy we didn’t kill your father.”
SCIM: That’s what he said to you?
Compañera S: Yes.
“We didn’t kill your father, but we will next time.”
And I responded: “Why didn’t you kill him? “Well, we didn’t see him.”
“Well, if you’re going to do it, do it. He’s in the Caracol, that’s where he is.
That was when he said: “You know who killed la peluda?”
And I responded: “How am I going to know if I wasn’t there when they killed our compañero?”
He said: “It was me who killed him. I shot him in the head and sent him to hell. And that’s what we’re going to do when we get our hands on the others—the ones I already mentioned to you, that’s what we’re going to do to them. But each will have his moment. You know what? We’re fed up with you all.” This is what he said to me. “Because what you’re doing isn’t fair. We’re fed up with it.”
But I responded: “We’re the ones who are fed up with what you all are doing. Even more so when we found out what you did to our compañero. We compañeras went to pick up the body; that’s when we got really fucking fed up.”
And that’s when they laughed.
“Of course, because they are all your husbands,” he said to me.
SCIM: And when they were making fun, what was it that he was saying about what they do, that they do what they say, no? Didn’t he say something about the Good Government Council? Or didn’t he say something about…”
(inaudible).
SCIM: Okay.
Compañera S: He said: “We are going to kill them, break them once and for all. You all are the Good Government Council, you are good governments, whatever we do to you, you’re not going to do anything in response. Why? Because you are good governments.
I said to him: “Yes, of course we are good governments, but not that good.”
“But what are you all going to do to me? Even if you know exactly who killed him, you’re not going to do anything to us because you’re the Good Government Council that protects everyone. I’m not scared,” he said. “I’m not scared, that’s why I’m telling you that I killed him.”
And I answered: “I wish that were the case. When your day comes I hope you posture like the tough guy you’re posturing with me right now.”
“That is what I’m going to do. But when? That day isn’t going to come,” he said. “Because you all are the Good Government Council, you are good governments and you’re not going to do anything to us.”
SCIM: Anything else you remember about what he said to you? You had said something about him laughing and cackling.
Compañera S: Yes, he laughed and his friend was yelling, but didn’t say anything.
SCIM: M didn’t speak, he just laughed?
Compañera S: He didn’t say anything, he just laughed. M was there, he poked the other guy’s back so that he wouldn’t say anything else.
SCIM: Ah. He poked him?
Compañera S: Yes, he poked his back and they started yelling. He said:
“You should go on your way, go do your errand.” I didn’t respond to him.
SCIM: Okay, if later on you remember anything else he said to you, we can do some more work here. This is to keep gathering information, because in this case that guy himself said what happened.
Compañera S: Yes.
SCIM: And he himself had tried to cover it up. So you say that he had asked you if you knew who killed compañero Galeano. And then he says he did it, right?
Compañera S: Yes.
SCIM: “And he says he shot him in the head.”
Compañera S: “That he shot him in the head and that finished him off.”
SCIM: Okay compañera. What is your name in the struggle?
Compañera S: My name is S.
SCIM: S?
Compañera S: yes.
SCIM: Okay compañera. That’s what we wanted, so that it is clear that the testimony is direct, because you are from here, from La Realidad. What was your work when you went to the “sharing” or exchange in Oventik?
Compañera S: Listener
(Note: “Listener” is a job or a commission or a responsibility given to some compañeras and compañeros that consists of “listening” to what is said in one of the “sharings” or exchanges and then recounting it to their community, region, and zone. This is so that what happens in the exchange isn’t limited to those attending, but is heard by all of the Zapatistas. It would be like the equivalent of “narrator.” The compas select young people to be the “listeners” who have a good memory, understand Spanish well, and can explain in their own languages what was said. The exchange with National Indigenous Congress (CNI) already had dozens of young people from the various zones assigned as “listeners.” The idea was that whatever the compas from the indigenous peoples of the CNI said would be heard by all of the Zapatista bases of support.)
SCIM: Ah, yes, yes, yes. The exchange that was going to take place with the National Indigenous Congress. Very good. That will be all, compañera S. Thank you.
(inaudible)
SCIM: Oh wait. When you talked to this guy R, was he drunk or sober?
Compañera S: No. I got pretty close but I didn’t smell alcohol. And when I got to L’s house, the same guy passed by on his way home. He looked at me and turned around and laughed. I looked at him with anger in my face.
SCIM: So we could say that he was sober when he said what he said to you? He wasn’t drunk then.
Compañera S: No, he wasn’t drunk.
SCIM: Okay, that’s all compañera. Thank you.
-*-
Another night, in the wee hours of the morning. Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés comes and tells me:
“The decision is made. The agreement is that the arrival will be Friday May 23, the homage for compa Galeano will be Saturday May 24, and Sunday May 25 everybody goes home. The bases of support that is.”
“And for those from outside our communities?” I ask.
“Same, but for those from outside, tell them the same applies as for the bases of support: everybody brings their own food and place to sleep.”
“So I should make it a communiqué or a letter or what?”
“Whatever you think, but make it clear so that they aren’t a burden on the compas. They are coming to lend their support, to offer their condolences to the family of the deceased and the compas here, not to be attended to. Meaning, it’s not a party.”
Oh, and also tell them that the bases of support will be holding an homage to compa Galeano in all of the caracoles on May 24. And that it would be good for them to do something that day in the places where they live also, according to their own schedules and styles.
And another thing. Tell them we are especially inviting the compañeras and compañeros from the independent media or alternative media or autonomous media or whatever, the media that isn’t paid off, that is part of the Sixth, the ones that are our compañeras and compañeros and have the responsibility of “listener” commission in their lands. Tell them that maybe—say it like that, “maybe”—the General Command of the EZLN will do a press conference with the independent media or whatever you call them, the ones who are part of the Sixth. I say “maybe” because it could be that it won’t happen because of work we have to do and we don’t want to end up on bad terms. Also, the paid media aren’t invited; we won’t receive them.
“Shall I send them a photo of the deceased?”
“Yes, but the one of him alive, not of the cadaver. Because we remember our compañeros for how they lived the struggle.”
“Okay. What else?
“Just that we are here—which I think they already know—here in la realidad [reality].”
-*-
Vale. To health and listening.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. Mexico, May 2014. In the twentieth year of the war against oblivion.
[i] Calor, or heat, is a masculine noun in Spanish. Here the author uses “la calor,” in the feminine.
[ii] See footnote 1.
—————————————————————–
Originally Published in Spanish by Enlace Zapatista
May 13, 2014
En español: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2014/05/13/fragmentos-de-la-realidad-i/
Letter in Solidarity with the Zapatistas
[Letters of Solidarity are being sent to the Zapatistas from all over the world and Protest Actions are taking place and being planned. We, the Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas, signed the letter below.]
Letter in solidarity with the Zapatista Support Bases from collectives, adherents to the Sixth (La Sexta) and the Escuelita students from Baja California, Mexico and California, United States.
Baja California, Mex./California, USA May10, 2014
To the Towards Hope Good Government Council, Mother of the Caracols Sea of Our Dreams Caracol of La Realidad, Chiapas, Mexico.
To the Zapatista Autonomous Bases
To the Adherents of the Sexta in México and the world
To the people of México
Through this means we send you our solidarity and express our indignation at the cunning attacks against the Zapatista Autonomous Bases (ZAB) in La Realidad perpetrated by paramilitary members of so-calledIndependent Central ofAgricultural Workers and Campesinos Historic (CIOAC-H, its initials in Spanish), sent and organized by the three levels of bad governments against the Zapatista National Liberation Army’s (EZLN, Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) support bases; directly sent there by the top paramilitary chief of Chiapas, Manuel Velasco Cuello, who is shielded by the supreme paramilitary leader Peña Nieto.
From the border region of the north, we demand that the different paramilitary bands used against the ZAB are dis-activated, prosecuted and jailed and that the criminal paramilitary assassins who took the life of our compañero José Luis Solis López, a teacher of the Zapatista Escuelita, and then shot him giving him a coup de grace.
We know that assassins are still at La Realidad and continue provoking and will continue doing that because that is the plan of the supreme paramilitary and of the top paramilitary ins Chiapas and the paramilitary chiefs of the CIOAC, as commanded by the supreme government of that paramilitary coward Peña Nieto. But be clear, ladies and gentlemen of the bad government, we adherents of the Sexta on this corner of our homeland will continue being in the Zapatista struggle until you fall as bad governments and the system that permits what is capitalism.
Everything is quite clear: the paramilitaries of La Realidad were well organized and followed their counterinsurgency plan. They were in two groups. One group was at the entrance of the community and the other group was in the center all armed with rifles and guns, machetes, clubs and rocks. Before they carried out the assassination, they started with a provocation destroying the autonomous school of our compañero support bases of the community. Then they cut the water lines of our Zapatista compañeros and of the Caracol’s center. The Zapatista men and women were arriving from working in the area. Immediately, the Realidad paramilitaries went to ambush them at the road at the entrance of the community. They began by attacking them with rocks, clubs, destroying the trucks’ windshields. Our compañeros got off the trucks and defended themselves and others went to alert the Good Government Council who then went to help those being attacked. But they weren’t able to; they were also attacked in the middle of the community with gunfire and that’s where our compañero, José Luis Solís López, a teacher in the region of the Escuelita Freedom According to the Zapatistas, was shot in the right leg and then shot with a 22 caliber bullet on the right side of his chest, then with a blow of a machete to his mouth and then he was re-killed with a coup de grace to the head with a bullet of the same caliber and with several club blows to his back.
There are other ZAB compañeros who are equally severely wounded by the armed attacked, including machetes, clubs and stones. These criminal bands, named the federal and state Chiapas governments and the CIOAC executioners, have been fully identified by us women and men and we know what their objective is: to finish off all the advances made by Zapatista Autonomy in Chiapas and her dignified example that another world and another economic and social system is possible. And that it is being built against all odds in Zapatista autonomous territory in Chiapas and it is being replicated in all corners of Mexico and in many other countries and lands. Know that the Zapatistas are not alone, that the people of the city and countryside are not alone: now we are brothers and sisters with the indigenous Zapatista’s rebellion and dignity.
It is no accident that these same paramilitary gangs directed their attacks of hate and destruction against the Zapatistas Autonomous Schools, against the life of our Zapatista teachers of freedom. But they cannot finish them off because they have resisted more tan 500 years against colonialism and capitalism and have deep rooted and ancient culture, autonomy and dignity. From Mexico’s northwest without borders, we thank you for your resistance and example compañeras and compañeros of La Realidad.
Collectives:
Mexicali, B.C. Mex.
Semilla del Fractal
Tijuana, B.C. Mex.
Colectivo Auka
Casa de Cultura Obrera
Centro de Información para Trabajadoras y Trabajadores
Ensenada, B.C. Mexico
Movimiento Contra el Alza de los Energéticos y la Carestía, A. C.
D.F., Mexico
Costureras de Sueños, San Diego, CA
Colectivo Zapatista de San Diego
Los Ángeles, CA: Colectiva A.R.M.A.
Oakland, CA: Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas
Students of the Escuelita Zapatista and/or adherents of the Sexta
Mexicali, B.C. Mex.
León Fierro R.
Silvia Resendiz Flores
Tijuana, B.C. Mex.
Aníbal Méndez Martínez
Carmen Valadez Pérez
Verónica Márquez
Elisa Domínguez Gastelum
Shirley A. Thomas
Gerardo Díaz
Emmanuell Galaviz
Magdalena Cerda Báez
Raquel Herrera Álvarez
Jesús Flores Moroyoqui
Raquel Ruiz
Laura Carrasco
Jaime Cota A.
Magdalena Ramírez Cerda
Ensenada, B.C. Mex.
Concepción Martínez Valdez
Sashenka Fierro Resendiz
María Rosa Soqui Murillo
D.F., Mex.
Inti Barrios
Individuals in solidarity:
Tijuana
Roberto Gerardo Farías
Alberto Lucero Antuna
Cecilia Tabares
Lizzete Mata
Toluca, Edo. De México
Beatriz Caballero
This letter was posted in Spanish on the Enlace Zapatista website: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2014/05/10/carta-de-solidaridad-con-las-bases-de-apoyo-zapatistas-de-colectivos-adherentes-a-la-sexta-y-estudiantes-de-la-escuelita-de-baja-california-mexico-y-california-estados-unidos/
*******************
Read (in Spanish) the protest made on May 5 from the Good Government Council “Hacia la Esperanza” in Spanish against the paramilitary attack: JUNTA DE BUEN GOBIERNO HACIA LA ESPERANZA DENUNCIA ENÉRGICAMENTE A LOS PARAMILITARES CIOAQUISTAS ORGANIZADOS POR LOS 3 NIVELES DE LOS MALOS GOBIERNOS EN CONTRA DE NUESTROS PUEBLOS BASES DE APOYO DEL EJERCITO ZAPATISTA DE LIBERACIÓN NACIONAL-EZLN
You can also read (in Spanish) the May 9 EZLN communiqué, “Pain and Rage:” EL DOLOR Y LA RABIA. EJÉRCITO ZAPATISTA DE LIBERACIÓN NACIONAL. Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
1 Dead and 15 Injured: La Realidad Junta
THE “TOWARDS HOPE” GOOD GOVERNMENT JUNTA VEHEMENTLY DENOUNCES THE CIOAC PARAMILITARIES ORGANIZED BY THE THREE LEVELS OF BAD GOVERNMENT AGAINST OUR BASES OF SUPPORT OF THE ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY
THE GOOD GOVERNMENT JUNTA “HACIA LA ESPERANZA”
CARACOL I
MOTHER OF THE CARACOLES
SEA OF OUR DREAMS
LA REALIDAD, CHIAPAS, MEXICO
MAY 5, 2014
PUBLIC DENUNCIATION
TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SOCIETY
TO THE STUDENTS OF THE LITTLE SCHOOL
TO THE COMPAÑERAS AND COMPAÑEROS OF THE SIXTH IN MEXICO AND IN THE WORLD
TO THE INDEPENDENT HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS
TO THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA
TO THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PRESS
TO ALL HONEST PEOPLE IN MEXICO AND THE WORLD
Compañeros and compañeras, brothers and sisters, we vehemently denounce the CIOAC paramilitaries organized by the three levels of the bad government against our bases of support of the Zapatista National Liberation Army – EZLN.
On March 16 of this year, as we were carrying out an autonomous health drive with our Zapatista communities in the autonomous municipality of General Emiliano Zapata, headquartered in Amador Hernández, the CIOAC paramilitaries from La Realidad detained the Junta de Buen Gobierno’s [Good Government Junta] truck which was transporting medications for our campaign. They used the pretext of objecting to the two loads of gravel that our compañero bases of support in la Realidad were supplying for the construction of a dormitory for the health promoters working in the autonomous municipal health clinic in the municipality of San Pedro de Michoacán, headquartered in La Realidad.
1. The pretext: before, there had been an agreement about how the gravel could be used. But the paramilitaries of La Realidad have been using it to construct the chicken coops and pigpens that the bad government gives them as part of the dignified housing program, so now the paramilitaries do not allow our compañeros to use this gravel; this was their pretext.
The paramilitaries, organized by the three levels of bad government in preparation for a counterinsurgency campaign, tried to provoke our Zapatista compañeros by acting against the Junta de Buen Gobierno, because instead of detaining the truck that transported the gravel, they detained the vehicle that was working in the service of the health of thousands of Zapatistas. They never intended to understand or resolve the situation. The leaders of the CIOAC paramilitaries are the ejido commissioner (comisariado ejidal) Javier López Rodríguez, paramilitary agente Carmelino Rodriguez Jiménez, Jaime Rodríguez Gómez, Eduardo Santiz Santiz, Álvaro Santiz Rodríguez, and Oscar Rodríguez Gómez.
This was just a pretext for provocation, because there is a community agreement that the gravel is communal. The CIOAC paramilitaries of La Realidad are using that gravel to build the pigpens that the bad government calls dignified housing.
And so the compañeros thought that they also had the right to use it.
The paramilitaries of La Realidad are paid, organized, led, and trained by the three levels of bad government to divide and provoke the Zapatista people and the Zapatista autonomous government; this time they distorted the issue at hand and went after the Junta de Buen Gobierno.
As the Junta, we wanted to resolve the situation, but they never wanted to come to an understanding, because it was the leaders of the CIOAC paramilitaries of la Realidad that brought their people against the Junta de Buen Gobierno, and as such the situation could not be resolved. They dragged the Junta de Buen Gobierno’s truck to their ejidal house and it is still in their hands today.
2. As the Junta de Buen Gobierno, we believed that we had an understanding with the other paramilitary leaders from the CIOAC-Histórico, which is to say the paramilitary leaders Luis Hernández, José Antonio Vázquez Hernández, Roberto Alfaro Velasco, Alfredo Cruz Calvo, Juan Carlos López Calvo, Romeo Jiménez Rodríguez, Víctor García López, Conrado Hernández Pérez, Gustavo Morales López, and Roberto Méndez Vázquez, and accompanied by some of their militants such as Adrián López Velásquez, Cesar Hernández Santiz from the community Victoria la paz; Bernardo Román Méndez, Enrique Méndez Méndez, who are from the Ejido Miguel Hidalgo; Misael Jiménez Pérez, Vidal Jiménez Pérez, Marconi Jiménez Pérez from Guadalupe Tepeyac; and Ismael Garcia Perez from San José la esperanza. And there are other accomplices who work from another site, including Gilberto Jiménez Hernández, Delmar Jiménez Jiménez, and Gerardo Hernandez Perez, the three paramilitary bosses who operate in Guadalupe Tepeyac.
There are others from Guadalupe los Altos including Julio Rodriguez Aguilar, Carmellino Rodriguez Aguilar, Ranulfo Hernandez Aguilar and Alejandro Vazquez; from San Carlos Veracruz including Gaudencio Jimenez jimenez who works in the municipal presidency of Las Margaritas; and Gabriel Grene Hernandez, Isauro Mendez Santiz, Ivan Mendez Dominguez, Fidel Mendez Zantiz, and Alfredo Mendez Rodriguez, from Veracruz annexed to San Carlos.
3. Knowing the attitudes of the CIOAC paramilitary leaders, which is to say the Los Luises gang, we first went to the Human Rights Organization Fray Bartolomé de las Casas. We explained the acts of provocation against us, and “Frayba” explained it to Los Luises and gave them a summons with the date of March 31. There was a first summons, and then a second, and a third. The response was that if the summons was for the problems with the CIOAC from Guadalupe los Altos, Santa Rosa el Copan, Diez de Abril, San Francisco or San Jose el Puente, then that isn’t their problem. Frayba explained the situation around the summons and, moreover, the summons itself specifies the problem with the CIOAC paramilitaries in la Realidad, but they didn’t present themselves.
4. We again sent a second summons through Frayba and the response was that they were going to come, but they never did.
Seeing this with concern, we had to go to the Frayba offices to explain more fully the reason for the call and that they should go directly to tell the Luises, the paramilitary leaders. Not until the third citation was sent did they come. We asked for Frayba’s presence as a witness for a peaceful solution and they set the date of the meeting for May 1 of this year.
5. The first to arrive were Roberto Alfaro Velasco, secretary of the CIOAC, and Alfredo Cruz Calvo, their secretary of transportation. One of them, Alfredo Cruz Calvo, went to talk to his CIOAC paramilitary compañeros in La Realidad, and he returned to tell us, the members of the Junta de Buen Gobierno, that they hadn’t understood – exactly as they have been taught to act. They proposed to us that they would go and talk to some of the other paramilitary leaders in La Realidad, but that was backbiting trickery because they didn’t go talk to the paramilitaries in La Realidad – they went to speak with the paramilitary boss of the Luises. When Alfredo returned, after supposedly having gone to talk to the paramilitaries in La Realidad, he brought 15 people with him telling us that we had to free Roberto Alfaro. In other words, he didn’t come to address the problem but to tell us that one of them was going to stay to talk to the leaders in La Realidad.
Once the discussion began, it was made clear to them that Roberto Alfaro had neither been kidnapped nor detained. The 15 people they brought were the ones forcing Roberto Alfaro to say that he had been kidnapped and detained, and Frayba was a witness to all of this; they were there the whole time. Roberto Alfaro asked those 15 people to go talk to the paramilitaries in La Realidad but they refused. On May 2 we were about to reach an agreement at about five or six in the evening to establish another dialogue the following day. But those 15 and the paramilitary head of the Luises were already organizing something else outside. On the evening of May 2 the Zapatista compañeros bases of support were arriving to our Caracol to work on other zone projects, and these paramilitaries were planning an ambush at the entrance to the community in order to attack our compañeros.
The paramilitaries in La Realidad already had a plan organized. They had split into two groups – one at the entrance to the community and the other in the middle of the community. They had both long and short weapons – machetes, clubs, and rocks. Before they carried out the murder, they began their provocations by destroying ourcompañeros autonomous school and cut the water piping that supplied water to our Zapatista bases of support and to the center of the caracol. We saw and heard it happen. As this was happening, the compañeros were arriving to work on other zone projects, and immediately the La Realidad paramilitaries ambushed the entrance road to the community and began attacking our compañeros with rocks and clubs, destroying the trucks’ windshields. Our compañeros managed to get out of the trucks however they could and defended themselves. We as Junta de Buen Gobierno were informed immediately that our compañeros were being attacked, and other compañeros who were working in the caracol came out to help, but they were unable to reach them. They were attacked with firearms in the middle of the community, and that is where our compañero José Luís Solís López fell; he was a zone level teacher in our Little School “Freedom According to the Zapatistas.” He was shot in the right leg and the right side of the chest with a .22 caliber bullet, cut across the mouth with a machete, and received a coup de grace to the back of the head with a weapon of the same caliber. He had also been clubbed many times on the back.
Many other compañeros sustained injuries from bullets, machetes, clubs, and rocks:
– Romeo Jimenez López, shot twice: once in the right leg and another in the left leg with a .22 caliber bullet.
– Andulio Gómez López, grazed in the chest with a .22 caliber bullet.
– The compañero Abacuc Jimenez López, struck by a machete blow to the right arm.
– The compañero Yadiel Jimenez López, struck by a machete blow, also to the right arm.
– The compañero Efraín, struck by a rock blow to the head.
– The compañero Gerardo, struck by a rock blow to the mouth.
– The compañero Ignacio, struck by a rock blow to his right hand and to his brow.
– The compañero Esau, struck by a rock blow to his brow.
– The compañero Noe, struck by a rock blow to his head.
– The compañero Saul, struck by a rock blow to his right arm.
– The compañero Elder Darinel, various blows to his neck.
– The compañero Hector, struck by a rock blow to his eye.
– The compañero Marin, struck by a rock blow to his mouth, destroying his teeth.
– The compañero Nacho, struck by a machete blow to his hand and eye.
– The compañero Jairo, struck with blows to his back.
Our compañeros were transported to our hospital-school “La Primera Esperanza Compañero Pedro” for medical attention.
6. We adamantly refute that we were armed. If that had been the case, the outcome would have been different. This took place at 8:30pm on May 2.
That little mob of paramilitary leaders – those 15 who were with us – were told to go outside and control their people, but none of them would go.
7. Today, May 5, we see that the bad government in Chiapas had detained five people. One of them is a CIOAC paramilitary leader, Conrado Hernández Pérez; we don’t know the others. But they know exactly who they are, especially their paramilitary head, Manuel Velasco Cuello, and their supreme paramilitary-in-chief, Peña Nieto. However, those murderous paramilitary criminals who took the life of our compañero José Luís Solís López, and shot him coup de grace style have not been detained. They are still in La Realidad, keeping up their provocations, and they will continue to do so because this is the plan of the supreme paramilitary-in-chief, the top paramilitary in Chiapas, and the paramilitary bosses of CIOAC.
8. As you can see from what we’ve recounted, the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center was present at every moment. This is why we did not put out our own statement on what took place quickly. Out of respect for their mediation role and impartial perspective, we waited for Frayba to issue its neutral account, the way it does with all the issues it handles. In Frayba’s statement you can see directly who is lying and what the truth is, according to those who were present but did not belong to any of the groups involved.
9. Now it can be clearly seen that everything that the paid press reported is a lie. There was never a confrontation. There was an attack against us.
10. In light of this problem and the cowardly murder of our compañero Galeano, the Junta de Buen Gobierno has decided to withdraw its participation and hand the entire issue over to the General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation so that it can take charge of the investigation and help bring about justice. Now we have to wait for what our EZLN compañeros have to say.
SINCERELY
JUNTA DE BUEN GOBIERNO
HACIA LA ESPERANZA
ZONA SELVA FRONTERIZA
Translated by El Kilombo Intergaláctico
EZLN: Marcos: Pain and Rage – activities cancelled
EZLN: PAIN and RAGE
Zapatista National Liberation Army
May 8, 2014
Subcomandante Marcos
To the Compañeras and Compañeros of the Sixth:
Compas:
To tell you the truth, the communiqué was all ready. It was succinct, clear, precise, how communiqués should be. But… well… maybe later.
For now the meeting with the compañeros and compañeras bases of support of the community of La Realidad is about to begin.
We listen.
We have known the tone and the emotion with which they speak for a long time: pain and rage.
So it occurs to me that a communiqué will not adequately reflect this.
Or at least not fully.
True, maybe a letter won’t do so either, but at least the words that follow are an attempt, even if they are only a pale reflection.
Because…
It was pain and rage that made us challenge everything and everyone 20 years ago.
And it is pain and rage that now again makes us lace up our boots, put on our uniforms, strap on our guns, and cover our faces.
And that leads me to don the old and tattered hat, the one with three red five-pointed stars.
It is pain and rage that has brought us to Reality (La Realidad).
A few moments ago, after we explained that we had arrived here in response to the petition of support made by the Good Government Council, a base of support and a teacher in the course “Freedom According to the Zapatista,” told us more or less the following:
“Compañero Subcomandante, we want to be clear, if we were not Zapatistas we would already have taken revenge and it would have led to a massacre, because we are filled with rage about what they did to our compañero Galeano. But we are Zapatistas and we don’t seek revenge, but rather justice. So we have waited to see what you all will say and that is what we will do.”
As I listened to him, I felt both envy and sorrow.
I felt envy toward those who have had the privilege of having women and men like Galeano and like this compa who was speaking as teachers. Thousands of men and women from across the world have had this good fortune.
And I felt sorry for those who no longer have the possibility of having Galeano as their teacher.
The compañero Subcomandante Moisés has had to make a very difficult decision. His decision cannot be appealed, and if someone were to ask my opinion (which no one has done), his decision is unobjectionable. He has decided to indefinitely suspend the meeting and exchange with the indigenous peoples and organizations of the National Indigenous Congress. And he has also decided to suspend the homage that we had prepared for our absent compañero Don Luis Villoro Toranzo, as well as to suspend our participation in the Seminar “Ethics in the face of Dispossession,” that was being organized by artists and intellectuals in Mexico and the world.
What led him to this decision? Well, the preliminary results of our investigation, as well as information that we have received, leave no doubts regarding the following:
1. This was a planned, premeditated attack, militarily organized, and put into action with premeditated malice and advantage. And it is an act of aggression inscribed in a climate created and cultivated from above.
2. The leaderships of the paramilitary group called CIOAC-Historica, the Green Ecological Party (the name under which the PRI governs in Chiapas), the National Action Party [PAN] and the Revolutionary Institutional Party [PRI], are all implicated in directing this attack.
3. We know that at least the government of the State of Chiapas is implicated. We have not yet determined to what extent the federal government was also involved.
One woman from these anti-Zapatista organizations has come to tell us that this attack was planned and that in fact the goal was to specifically “fuck over” Galeano.
In sum: this was not some intra-community problem, where two groups confront each other in the heated emotions of the moment. This attack was planned: first they tried to provoke us by destroying our school and health clinic, knowing that our compañeros were not armed and that they would humbly defend what they had created through their own efforts; next the attackers took up positions on the path that they knew our compañeros would take from the Caracol to the school; and finally they fired on our compañeros.
Our compañeros were injured by gunfire in this ambush, but what happened to our compañero Galeano is even more extreme. He did not fall in the ambush. He was surrounded by 15 or 20 paramilitaries (yes, they are paramilitaries; their tactics are those of paramilitaries); our compa Galeano challenged the aggressors to hand-to-hand combat, without guns; they would swing at him and he would jump from one place to another avoiding their blows and disarming his opponents.
When these aggressors saw that they could not beat him like that, they shot him in the leg and he fell. Then came the barbarism: they descended upon him, beat him and cut him with a machete. Another shot to the chest brought him to the edge of death, and they kept beating him. When they saw that he was still breathing, one of those cowards shot him in the head.
They shot him three times at point blank range. And all three shots came while he was surrounded and unarmed, but had not given up. His body was then dragged by his assassins for some 80 meters and then tossed aside.
Our compañero Galeano was left there alone, his body thrown in the middle of what had been the territory of the campamentistas, men and women from all over the world who had answered the call to build a “peace camp” in La Realidad. And it was our compañeras, the Zapatista women of La Realidad who defied fear and went to pick up Galeano’s body.
Yes, there is a photo of our compa Galeano in this state. The image shows all of his wounds and it feeds our pain and rage, despite these needing no reinforcement after listening to the stories of what happened. Of course I understand that this photo could offend the sensibilities of the Spanish royalists; reason enough to publish a photo of a scene unashamedly manufactured, with a few injured people, and with reporters, mobilized by the government of Chiapas, selling the lie that there had been a confrontation. Well, “he who pays, rules.” Because classes do exist my friend. The Spanish monarchy is one thing, and these “fucking” rebellious Indians who tell you off—telling you to beat it to Lopez Obrador’s ranch because a few feet away, they are mourning the body of the still bloody compa Galeano—are quite another.
The CIOAC-Histórica, and their rival CIOAC-Independiente, and other “peasant” organizations such as ORCAO, ORUGA, URPA, and the rest, make their living from provoking confrontations. They know that creating problems in the communities where we have a presence pleases the various levels of government and that they will be rewarded with social programs and thick wads of cash for their leaders for the problems that they cause us.
In the words of a government official in the administration of Manuel Velasco: “it is more convenient for us that the Zapatistas be kept busy with artificially created problems than for them to be holding activities that “güeros” from all over the world come take part in. That’s what he said,” güeros.” Yes, it is comical that he should say that, given that he is the servant of a certain “güero.”[1]
Each time the leaders of these “peasant” organizations see their budgets thinning due to their bingeing, they create a problem and then run to the government of Chiapas who pays them in order to “calm down.”
This “modus vivendi” of these leaders who can’t even tell the difference between “sand” and “gravel”, began with the Priista and nearly forgotten “croquetas,”[2] Albores, and was taken up once again with Juan Sabines, follower of Lopez Obrador, and continues today with self-proclaimed Green Ecologist Manuel “el güero” Velasco.
Wait just a minute…
Now a compa is speaking. Crying. But we all know that these are tears of rage. With a faltering voice he says what we all feel: we don’t want revenge, we want justice.
Another compa interrupts: “Compañero Subcomandante Insurgente, don’t misunderstand our tears, they are not tears of sadness, they are tears of rebellion.”
And now there is a report about a meeting of the leaders of CIOAC-Histórica. The leaders say, word for word: “with the EZLN we cannot negotiate with money. But once all of those who appear in the newspaper are detained, locked up for 4 or 5 years, and the problem has abated, then their release can be negotiated with the government.” And another one adds, “or, we can say that we had a death on our side and that now things are even because there was a death on both sides, and the Zapatistas should settle down. We will stage a death or we’ll kill one of our own and then the problem will be solved.”
In the end, this letter has got long and I don’t know if you have managed to feel what we feel. In any case, Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés has charged me with letting you know that…
Wait…
Now they are speaking in the Zapatista assembly in La Realidad.
We had left so that they could come to an agreement regarding their response to a question that we had asked them: “The government pursues the comandancia of the EZLN. You know this well because you were there during the betrayal of 1995. So, do you want us to be here to see about this problem and to see that justice is done, or is it better for us to go elsewhere? Because all of you may now also suffer direct persecution by the governments and their police and military.”
Now I hear a young person, about 15 years of age. They tell me that he is the son of Galeano. I look and yes, it is a young man, it is a Galeano in the making. He says that we should stay, that they trust us to find justice and to find the people who assassinated his father. And that they are open to anything. The voices in this vein multiply. The compañeros speak, the compañeras speak, and even the children stop crying; these women were the ones who reconnected the water, despite the threats by the paramilitaries. “They are brave,” says a man, a war veteran.
We will stay, this is the agreement.
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés gives some monetary support to the widow.
The assembly disperses. Although we can see that their step is firm again, that now there is another light in their gaze.
What was I telling you? Ah yes.
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés has charged me with letting you know that the public activities of May and June have been suspended indefinitely, as have the courses “Freedom According to the Zapatistas.” And so you should see about your cancellations and all of that.
Wait…
Now they are saying that up above they are re-invoking the model that they called “the Acteal model”: “it was an intra-community conflict over a sand bank.” Hmm… and then the militarization follows, the hysterical voices of the domesticated press, the simulations, the lies, and the persecution. It’s no coincidence that the old Chuayffett is in office, now with disciplined students in the government of Chiapas and in the “peasant” organizations.
And we already know what comes next.
But what I want to do is take advantage of these lines to ask you:
For us, pain and rage have brought us here. If you have managed to feel these as well, where has it brought you?
For us, we are here, in reality (La Realidad), where we have always been.
And you?
Vale. Health and indignation.
From the mountains of Southeastern Mexico.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, May 2014. In the 20th year of the war against oblivion.
P.S. The investigations are being conducted by Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés. He will be reporting on the results, or, he will do so through me.
Another P.S. If you asked me to summarize our laborious journey in a few words, they would be: our efforts are for peace, their efforts are for war.
[1] “güero” is a term that in Mexico is often used to refer, often affectionately, to people with light skin. Manuel Velasco, governor of Chiapas, has made his entire political career with the self-appointed nickname of “el Güero,” continuing the long tradition in Chiapas of the despotic rule of a white political class over a majority mestizo and indigenous population. The irony here then is an official that serves under this governor (el Güero) is complaining about the EZLN bringing “güeros” to the state of Chiapas.
[2] “Croquetas,” or doggy biscuits, was the nickname assigned by the EZLN to Roberto Albores Guillén, whose bloody tenure as governor of Chiapas lasted from 1998-2000.
Translated by El Kilombo Intergaláctico
Chiapas Support Committee 