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Desde que el Congreso Nacional Indígena (CNI) se declaró en asamblea permanente –el 14 de octubre de 2016–, el movimiento alrededor de la propuesta ha sido constante. Además de los pueblos, naciones y tribus que conforman al CNI, diversas colectividades, barrios e individuos han buscado escuchar y entender la iniciativa. Para ello, un primer ejercicio esencial ha consistido en leer detenidamente los comunicados «clave», pues son las y los delegados mismos quienes pueden explicar los motivos y razones que dan origen y sostén a esta iniciativa. El primero de ellos, «Que retiemble en sus centros la tierra» —publicado el 14 de octubre de 2016, al concluir la primera etapa del 5º CNI—, realiza un listado de 27 denuncias sobre despojo y represión, que dan cuenta de la guerra de exterminio contra los pueblos originarios en el territorio mexicano. Y señala que, si bien dicha guerra no ha cesado desde hace 524 años, se ha agudizado en los últimos tiempos. Después de las denuncias, el comunicado enfatiza que la lucha es por la vida digna y, el camino, por la resistencia y la rebeldía desde abajo y a la izquierda.

Los participantes del 5º Congreso reiteraron la importancia de las asambleas, juntas y concejos populares —locales, comunales, ejidales, regionales o interterritoriales—, no sólo como parte esencial de la defensa cultural e identitaria de los pueblos originarios, sino como materia prima de la rebeldía: «Para defender lo que somos, nuestro caminar y aprendizaje se han consolidado en el fortalecimiento en los espacios colectivos para tomar decisiones…». Además, mencionaron la importancia que ha tenido para sus luchas hacer uso de recursos jurídicos, acciones de resistencia y alianzas con diversos sectores de la sociedad civil.

(Continuar leyendo…)

(Em português aqui.)

AND THE EARTH TREMBLED! A REPORT FROM THE EPICENTER…

Listen here: (Descarga aquí)  

To the Originary Peoples of Mexico:
To Civil Society of Mexico and the World:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the Free Media:

Brothers and Sisters:

This is the time of the originary peoples, the time for us to replant and rebuild ourselves. It is time to go on the offensive and this is the agreement that we have laid out for how to do so, from our perspective as individuals, as communities, as originary peoples, and as the National Indigenous Congress [CNI]. It is time for dignity to govern this country and this world and for democracy, liberty, and justice to flourish in its step.

We are announcing here that during the second phase of the Fifth National Indigenous Congress we meticulously analyzed the results of the consultation process that we held among our peoples during the months of October, November, and December of 2016. In that process, we issued agreements from communal, ejidal, collective, municipal, inter-municipal and regional assemblies in all of the ways, forms, and languages that represent our peoples in the geography of this country, once again bringing us to understand and confront, with dignity and rebellion, the situation that we face in our country and the world.

We appreciate the messages of support, hope, and solidarity that came from intellectuals, collectives, and peoples in response to our proposal entitled “Let the Earth Tremble at its Core,” which we made public during the first phase of the Fifth National Indigenous Congress. We also acknowledge the critical voices, many of them making fundamentally racist arguments, that expressed indignant and contemptuous rage at the idea that an indigenous woman would aspire not only to contend for presidential election, but would propose to truly change, from below, this broken country.

To all of them, we say that the earth indeed has trembled, and we along with her, and that we intend to shake the conscience of the entire nation, and that, in fact, we intend for indignation, resistance and rebellion to be present as an option on the electoral ballots of 2018. But we also say that it is not at all our intention to compete with the political parties or with the political class who still owe this country so much. They owe us for every death, disappearance, and imprisonment, and every dispossession, repression, and discrimination. Do not mistake our intentions. We do not plan to compete against them, because we are not the same as they are. Unlike them, we are not filled with lies and perverse words. We are instead the collective word of below and to the left, that which shakes the world and makes it tremble with epicenters of autonomy, and which makes us so proudly different from them that:

1. While the country is submerged in fear and terror born from the thousands of dead and disappeared, in the municipalities of the mountains and the coast of Guerrero our peoples have created conditions of real security and justice. In Santa María Ostula, Michoacán, the Nahua people have united with other indigenous communities to ensure that security remains in the hands of the people. The epicenter of the resistance there is the communal assembly of Ostula, the guarantor of the ethic of a movement that has already permeated the municipalities of Aquila, Coahuayana, Chinicuila, and Coalcomán. In the Purépecha plateau, the community of Cherán has demonstrated that by organizing to eliminate the politicians from their bad government structure and by exercising their own forms of security and government they could not only construct justice, but also, as in other geographies across this country, they showed that only from below, from rebellion, can a new social pact be constructed that is autonomous and just. And we have not and will not stop constructing from below the truth and justice denied to the 43 disappeared students from the teacher’s college of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, the 3 student compañeros who were murdered, and their compañeros who were injured, all by the Mexican narco-government and its repressive forces. Meanwhile, all levels of the bad governments criminalize social struggle and resistance and rebellion, persecuting, accusing, disappearing, imprisoning, and murdering the men and women who struggle for just causes.
2. While destruction reaches every corner of the country, knowing no limits and distancing people from their land and from that which is sacred, the Wixárika people, together with the committees in defense of life and water from the Potosino altiplano, have shown that they can defend a territory and their environment and can create an equilibrium based in an identification with nature, with a sacred vision that recreates, every day, the ancestral links with life, land, the sun, and the ancestors, reaching across 7 municipalities in the sacred ceremonial territory of Wirikuta in San Luis Potosí.
3. While the bad governments deform State policies on education, placing education at the service of capitalist corporations such that it ceases to be a right, the originary peoples create primary schools, secondary schools, high schools and universities with their own educational systems, based in the protection of our mother earth, in defense of territory, in production, in the sciences, in the arts, and in our languages. Despite the fact that the majority of these processes grow without the support of any level of the bad government, these institutions are meant to serve everyone.
4. Meanwhile, the paid media – spokespeople for those who prostitute every one of the words that they circulate and fool the people in the country and the city so that they don’t wake from their slumber – criminalize those who think and defend what is theirs, making them out to be delinquents, vandals, and misfits, while those who benefit from ignorance and alienation are the ones with high social status. Those who oppress, repress, exploit and dispossess are always made out to be the good guys, the ones who deserve to be respected and allowed to govern so that they can serve themselves. While all of this is happening, the communities have made their own media, creating ideas in different ways so that conscience cannot be overshadowed by the lies that the capitalists impose, and instead using them to strengthen organization from below, where every true word is born.
5. While the representative “democracy” of the political parties has been converted into a parody of the popular will, where votes are bought and sold like any other commodity and poverty is used to manipulate people so that the capitalists can maintain the division between the people of the countryside and the city, the originary peoples continue to care for and strengthen their forms of consensus and to cultivate assemblies as organs of government where through the voice of everyone together profoundly democratic agreements are made, across entire regions, through assemblies that articulate with agreements of other assemblies, which themselves emerge from the profound will of each family.
6. While the governments impose their decisions to benefit the few, supplanting the popular will of the people and criminalizing and repressing whoever opposes their projects of death which they impose at the cost of the blood of our peoples—such as the New Airport of Mexico City, pretending to consult them while actually imposing death—we originary peoples have consistent ways and forms for free, prior and informed consent, however small or large that may be.
7. While the bad governments hand energy sovereignty over to foreign interests through privatization, and the high cost of gasoline reveals the face of capitalism which in fact only opens a road toward inequality and the rebellious response of the indigenous and non-indigenous peoples of Mexico, the powerful can neither hide nor silence this rebellion. We peoples unite and fight to stop the destruction of our territories through fracking, wind farms, mining, oil wells, and gas and oil pipelines in the states of Veracruz, Sonora, Sinaloa, Baja California, Morelos, Oaxaca, Yucatán and the entire national territory.
8. While the bad governments impose their toxic and genetically modified food on consumers across the countryside and in the cities, the Mayan people continue their indefatigable struggle to stop the planting of genetically modified seed on the Yucatan peninsula and across the country in order to conserve the ancestral genetic wealth that also symbolizes our life and collective organization and is the basis for our spirituality.
9. While the political class only destroys and makes empty promises, we peoples build, not only in order to govern but also in order to exist with autonomy and self-determination.

Our resistances and rebellions constitute the power of below. We don’t offer empty promises or actions, but rather real processes for radical transformation where everyone participates and which are tangible in the diverse and enormous indigenous geographies of this nation. This is why, as the National Indigenous Congress, which brings together 43 peoples of this country in this Fifth Congress, WE AGREE to name an Indigenous Governing Council with men and women representatives from each one of the peoples, tribes, and nations that make up the CNI. This council proposes to govern this country. It will have an indigenous woman from the CNI as its spokesperson, which is to say a woman who has indigenous blood and who knows her culture, and this indigenous woman spokesperson from the CNI will be an independent candidate for the presidency of Mexico in the 2018 elections.

That is why we, the CNI, as the Home for All Indigenous Peoples, are also the principles that configure the ethic of our struggle. In these principles there is room for all of the originary peoples of this country. Those principles that house the Indigenous Governing Council are:

To obey, not command

To represent, not supplant

To serve others, not serve oneself

To convince, not defeat

To go below, not above

To propose, not impose

To construct, not destroy

This is what we have invented and reinvented, not simply because we want to, but because it is the only way that we have to continue existing – by following new paths forged from the collective memory of our own forms of organization and that are the product of resistance and rebellion, in order to confront, every day, the war that has not ended and yet has not been able to do away with us. Using these forms it has not only been possible for us to build a path toward the full reconstitution of our peoples, but also toward new civilizational forms. In other words, it has been possible to build collective hope that is transformed into communities, municipalities, regions, states, and which is able to respond precisely to the real problems that the country is facing, far away from the political class and their corruption.

From this Fifth National Indigenous Congress, we call on the originary peoples of this country, the collectives of the Sixth, the workers, the coalitions and committees who struggle in the countryside and the city, the students, intellectuals, the artists, and scientists, the elements of civil society that are not organized, as well as all good-hearted people to close ranks and go on the offensive. We call on you to dismantle the power of above and to reconstitute ourselves now from below and to the left, not only as peoples but as a country. We make a call to come together in a single organization where dignity will be our final word and our first action. We call on all of you to organize with us to stop this war, and to not be afraid to build ourselves and sow our seeds on the ruins left by capitalism.

This is what humanity and our mother earth demand of us. It is the time for rebellious dignity. We will make this a material reality by convoking a constituent assembly of the Indigenous Governing Council for Mexico in the month of May 2017. From there we will build bridges toward the compañeros and compañeras of civil society, the media, and the originary peoples in order to make the earth tremble at its core, to overcome fear and recuperate what belongs to humanity, what belongs to the earth and what belongs to the peoples. We do this so that we can recuperate the territories that have been invaded or destroyed, so that the disappeared of this country can be returned, so that all political prisoners are freed, so that there can be truth and justice for all of those who have been murdered, so that there can be dignity for the countryside and the city. That is, have no doubt, we are going for everything, because we know this might be the last opportunity we have as originary peoples and as Mexican society to peacefully and radically change our forms of government, making dignity the epicenter of a new world.

From Oventik, Zapatista Territory, Chiapas, Mexico

Never Again a Mexico Without Us

National Indigenous Congress

Zapatista Army for National Liberation

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Primero de enero de 2017, Caracol de Oventic, Los Altos de Chiapas, montañas del sureste mexicano. Aquí, en un atiborrado auditorio repleto de delegados y delegadas del Congreso Nacional Indígena (CNI), padres y madres de los noralistas desaparecidos y asesinados de Ayotzinapa, científicos invitados al encuentro ConCIENCIAS, adherentes a la Sexta Declaración de la Selva Lacandona y bases de apoyo, insurgentes y comandantes del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, se dio el anuncio histórico de la decisión de crear un Concejo Indígena de Gobierno para gobernar al país, cuya voz será la de una mujer indígena que se postulará como candidata a las elecciones presidenciales del 2018.

La decisión surge de la propuesta hecha por el EZLN durante la asamblea del V Congreso Nacional Indígena realizada el pasado octubre en el Cideci/Universidad de la Tierra, Chiapas. En esa ocasión, los delegados de 33 pueblos, naciones y tribus originarios acordaron iniciar una consulta en todas las comunidades del CNI para aprobar o rechazar la propuesta. Ahora, en este 23 aniversario del levantamiento zapatista, se dio a conocer el resultado de la consulta y se aprobaron los resolutivos acordados el 30 y 31 de diciembre de 2016 en asamblea, con la presencia de casi un millar de delegadxs de 43 pueblos, naciones y tribus originarias del país.

Los principales acuerdos fueron:

1. Conformar un Concejo Indígena de Gobierno con representantes hombres y mujeres de los pueblos, tribus y naciones originarias que integran al CNI.
2. Este Concejo será colectivo, o sea, “que no uno manda”, y se regirá por los siete principios de gobierno del EZLN y el CNI: obedecer y no mandar; representar y no suplantar; bajar y no subir; servir y no servirse; convencer y no vencer; construir y no destruir; proponer y no imponer.
3. Que la voz de este Concejo sea la de una mujer indígena perteneciente al CNI.
4. Que esa mujer indígena sea postulada como candidata independiente a las elecciones presidenciales del 2018.

Tanto los miembros del Concejo como su vocera serán propuestos y legitimados en asamblea y nombrados según los usos y costumbres, y sus puestos serán revocables por la asamblea del CNI. Además, se acordó una serie de medidas para fortalecer al CNI y a los pueblos indígenas, como eliminar todo aquello que divide, como partidos políticos y proyectos gubernamentales, y desarrollar la autonomía en todos sus ejes, sobre todo en la educación, la justicia y el autogobierno.

La consulta se realizó en un total de 525 comunidades de 43 pueblos en 25 estados; de esas, 430 comunidades aprobaron la propuesta. Otras 80 consultas continúan en proceso, y a éstas se sumaran otras que lo soliciten al CNI, con pueblos indígenas, afrodescendientes y migrantes. Los delegados explicaron también que en algunas comunidades no se pudo realiar la consulta por varias razones, entre ellas la violencia que se vive en varias partes del país.

Para conformar el Concejo Indígena de Gobierno, se realizará una Asamblea Constituyente en mayo de 2017.

La asamblea finalizó con las palabras del Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, quien dijo que el EZLN respalda plenamente la propuesta. “Tienen nuestro apoyo con toda nuestra fuerza”, dijo, porque “tal vez sea la última oportunidad de que estos suelos no desaparezcan entre tanta muerte”.

La propuesta y la decisión surge del brutal despojo y violencia que sufren las comunidades indígenas del país ante los proyectos de muerte en todo el territorio nacional. Un análisis detallado de este despojo se dio a conocer en octubre tras las reuniones del V Congreso Nacional Indígena (ver “Que retiemble en sus centros la tierra“).

“Que retiemble en sus centros la tierra” fue el lema que surgió de la asamblea del CNI el pasado octubre. Y retembló la tierra ante el anuncio de la consulta. Expresiones, por un lado, de un racismo profundo, visceral, enraizado en la cultura mexicana; y, por otro, la esperanza de una alternativa real para el país, fundamentada en la experiencia de autogobierno horizontal, radicalmente democrático, del EZLN y los pueblos del CNI. La esperanza de que en México pueda reinar una justicia verdadera, de que se pueda frenar la violencia y el despojo de la tríade gobierno-empresas-crimen organizado, de que entre los escombros dejados por la destrucción sistemática que nos acomete pueda florecer la vida: una casa para todos y todas, donde quepan muchos mundos.

Como en todas las iniciativas del CNI y del EZLN, lo fundamental está en el proceso. Los próximos meses prometen ser una lección, para el país y el mundo, de que es posible crear formas otras de democracia radical con justicia y dignidad.

Escucha los audios:

Lectura de resolutivos del 30 de diciembre de 2016:
(Descarga aquí)  

Lectura de resolutivos del 31 de diciembre de 2016:
(Descarga aquí)  

Carta de Gonzalo Molina, preso político de la CRAC-PC:
(Descarga aquí)  

Carta del Chanti Ollin:
(Descarga aquí)  

Carta de padres y madres de los 43 de Ayotzinapa:
(Descarga aquí)  

Palabra de padres y madres de los 43 de Ayotzinapa:
(Descarga aquí)  

“Y Retembló: Informe desde el epicentro” – Palabras conjuntas del CNI y del EZLN:
(Descarga aquí)  

Palabras de clausura del Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés:
(Descarga aquí)  

Nota: Para mejor entender la propuesta, ver: CNI y EZLN: Que retiemble en sus centros la tierra (CNI y EZLN), Preguntas sin respuestas, respuestas sin preguntas, concejos y consejos (Subcomandante Galeano), No es decisión de una sola persona (Subcomandante Moisés) y Una historia para tratar de entender (Subcomandantes Moisés y Galeano).

DESPITE AGGRESSIONS, THE CONSULTATION CONTINUES
JOINT COMMUNIQUE BY THE NATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONGRESS AND THE ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION.

December 2, 2016.

TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO:
TO THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD:
TO THE FREE MEDIA:

The steps taken by our peoples are great, steps wise when taken in collectivity, and the National Indigenous Congress turns with attentive ears to listen to each other, to the thoughts of we who are the word and the agreements of the 5th CNI. We continue in permanent assembly, traveling to all corners of our country, Mexico.

Our permanent assembly arises from and convenes among the peoples, nations, and tribes of all the languages spoken by the National Indigenous Congress; in large and small assemblies; in meetings of communal councils, in deep reflections by dispersed families; in regional forums and ceremonial spaces. In our collective words, we continue to conclude that it is the time of our peoples, time for the earth to tremble at its core.

The fears of the powerful, the extractive companies, the military, and the narcoparamilitaries are so great that our consultation is being attacked and harassed in the places where our peoples are meeting to discuss and decide the steps to take as the CNI. For that reason, we denounce the following:

(Continuar leyendo…)

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Charla impartida por el Compañero: Sergio Rodríguez Lascano.

En la Gozadera: Plaza San Juan 15, colonia centro, esq Pugibet, metro Salto del Agua
La Cita es a las 18:00 Hrs.

Convocan: DH Rayoactivo, Grietas en el Muro, Proyecto La Mal Hablada, Lechuza Buza, Los Nadies del Otro Tultitlán, Los Zurdos, Mujeres y la Sexta, Punto Gozadera, Redmyc
Zapatista,Tlakopan

https://www.facebook.com/events/117721135382575/?active_tab=discussion

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Compañeras y compañeros:

Compartimos el audio y video de la la plática realizada el pasado miércoles 23: “la Sexta y la propuesta del CNI y del EZLN”.

Audio difundido por las compañeras y compañeros de Noticias de Abajo

https://noticiasdeabajoml.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/audios-charla-sobre-la-propuesta-del-cni-en-unios/

A STORY TO TRY TO UNDERSTAND

November 17, 2016.

To the national and international Sixth:
To those who sympathize with and support the struggle of originary peoples:
To those who are anticapitalists:

Compañeras, compañeros, compañeroas:
Brothers and sisters:

We wrote this extensive text together, Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, spokesperson and current head of the EZLN, and I, consulting on certain details with some of the Comandantas and Comandantes of the Zapatista delegation that attended the first phase of the Fifth Congress of the National Indigenous Congress.

Although now, as on other occasions, the task of actually writing it down falls to me, it is Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés who reads, adds or subtracts, approves or rejects not just this text, but all those published as authentic writings by the EZLN. Not infrequently through these writings, I will use the first person singular pronoun. The reason for this will be understood later on. Although the primary audience of the following lines is the Sixth, we have decided to extend it to those who, without being with us or one of us, have identical concerns and similar work. Here goes:

-*-

…NEITHER OUR NIGHTMARES

Some years ago, the creativity and ingenuity of some collective of the Sixth produced a phrase which, with the passage of time, was attributed to Zapatismo. As you know, we are against copyright, but we don’t usually claim words or actions that are not ours. However, although not of our authorship, the statement does in part reflect our feelings as Zapatistas.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Read in Tzeltal here.

It Is not a Single Person’s Decision

November 2016

For the [l@s] racists:

Well, we’ve been reading and listening to everything you’ve been saying and writing.

We’ve seen all of your mockery, your scorn, the racism that you can no longer hide.

I believe that the compañeros and especially the compañeras of the National Indigenous Congress [CNI] are also reading and listening to what you say.

It’s clear that the CNI was right about what they thought and what they told us, that there is a lot of racism in society.

I imagine you amuse and applaud each other over what a good joke you made with your leftist mockery about the EZLN’s “candigata.”[i]

You celebrate your machismo making fun of indigenous women.

You say that we ‘fucking Indians’ let ourselves be manipulated, are unable to think for ourselves, and go like sheep wherever the shepherd points.

But I think when you say this you are actually looking in the mirror.

(Continuar leyendo…)

ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO

October 26, 2016.

To the invited and attending Scientists of the Gathering “Zapatistas and ConSciences for Humanity”:

To the compañeras, compañeros, compañeroas of the National and International Sixth:

Brothers and sisters:

We send you greetings. We write to inform you of the following:

First: Per instructions from the National Indigenous Congress, which at the moment is consulting with the originary peoples, barrios, tribes, and nations throughout Mexico on the proposal made during the first phase of the Fifth Congress, we inform you that the permanent assembly of the CNI will be reinstated December 29, 2016, at CIDECI-UNITIERRA in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas.

There the CNI will hold roundtable sessions on December 30 and 31 of this year. During these sessions, or before then if the CNI so chooses, the results of the consultation will be made known. On January 1, 2017, the plenary assembly will take place in Oventik, Chiapas, Mexico, and any agreements necessary will be made there.

The compañeras and compañeros of the originary peoples, barrios, tribes, and nations who make up the National Indigenous Congress inform us that they have financial difficulties that impede their travel to this meeting, and so they request solidarity donations from the national and international Sixth, as well as from any honest people who want to support them in this way. To offer this support, the compas of the CNI ask that people communicate directly with them at the following email: info@congresonacionalindigena.org. From there they will explain where and how to send support.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Questions without Answers, Answers without Questions, Councils and Counsels.
(Pages from the Cat-Dog’s Notebook)

October 20, 2016

To Whom It May Concern:

Questions without answers:

—So what about the women murdered for the grave crime of being women? Will the fact that they have demanded that the attacks stop and, with their blood, raised the topic not just to the national agenda but the global one, make them the object of mockery, disdain, and accusations that they are playing to the right? Because they aren’t dying, they are being killed. What if they refuse to accept that this is a problem that can be solved by addressing corruption? And if they dare to say that the origin of this murderous hate is located in the system itself? What if they come up with the crazy idea to sideline men with regard to the most vital decisions (yes, as in questions of life of death)? And if they decide to take their destiny into their own hands? Would any part of that, or all of it, be a governmental maneuver to avoid… etcetera?

—What about the others (loas otroas)? Must they wait for the political class to turn its haughty gaze on one of the most vilified peoples below? Must they resign themselves to be knocked off until the murder rate finally gets high enough to attract attention? And what if they organize themselves and demand respect, if they decide they’ve had enough of the fact that being disrespected means being killed? Would they be told that their problems are not a priority, that their position is not generally politically correct and is in fact counterproductive with regard to the electoral race, and that their demands should unite and not detract?

(Continuar leyendo…)