Communique from the CNI-CIG and the EZLN in Response to the Recent Violence Against Originary Peoples

To the peoples of the world:
To the CIG support networks:
To the national and international Sixth:
To the media:

Neoliberal capitalism is marking its steps with the blood of our peoples as war is intensified against us wherever we refuse to cede our land, our culture, our peace and our collective organization, and because we refuse to give up our resistance or resign ourselves to dying off.

We denounce the cowardly attack on May 31 against the indigenous Nahua community of Zacualpan, which is part of the CNI, in the municipality of Comala, Colima, where narco-paramilitaries fired high-caliber weapons at a group of young people, killing one and critically injuring three more.

We hold all three levels of bad government responsible for this event, in particular the head of public security, Javier Montes García, as it is the bad government that allows these narco-paramilitary groups to operate in the region. We demand full respect for the traditions and customs of the Nahua indigenous community of Zacualpan.

We condemn the aggression and destruction carried out in the early morning hours of May 31 against the Rebollero and Río Minas communities, part of the Binizza community of San Pablo Cuatro Venados in the municipality of Zachila, Oaxaca. There, a group armed with high-caliber weapons and heavy equipment came in firing on the community, destroying dozens of homes and forcing the population, including children, to flee. In all, 24 homes were demolished in the attack and the communities’ corn and other food supplies set on fire, including seeds saved for planting. The group also burned the families’ personal items such as clothing and shoes and stole their livestock, power generators, and water pumps.

We condemn the repression and displacement of our compañeros and compañeras of the Otomí indigenous community who have maintained a temporary encampment at #7 Londres Street in the Juárez neighborhood in Mexico City since the September 19, 2017 earthquake. At 11 am on May 30, they were violently evicted by shock troops sent by the bad government and real estate companies, working alongside hundreds of riot police at the service of Néstor Núñez, mayor of the Cuauhtémoc district.
We condemn the narco-paramilitary siege sustained by criminal groups—supported and protected by the bad government and all of the political parties—against the communities of the Emiliano Zapata Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero (CIPOG-EZ) in the municipalities of Chilapa and José Joaquín de Herrera, who struggle peacefully to build their autonomy.

We call on all the peoples of Mexico and the world to be attentive to and in solidarity with the struggle of the Guerrero communities and to break the violent siege against them which limits their access to food and medicine and is waged in the interests of the capitalist appropriation of indigenous territory. We urge support for the collection of provisions to be sent to the affected communities, including corn, rice, beans, canned chili peppers, sugar, sardines, tuna, toilet paper, diapers, and medicine, to be collected at the UNIOS headquarters in Mexico City, #32 Carmona y Valle Street, Colonia Doctores.

We reiterate that our Mother Earth is not for sale to big capital or to anybody, that our existence is not up for negotiation and thus neither is the resistance of our peoples.

Attentively,
June 2019
For the Full Reconstitution of our Peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us
National Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista Army for National Liberation

STOP THE NARCO-PARAMILITARY WAR AGAINST THE CIPOG-EZ
Urgent Communique from the CNI-CIG and the EZLN

Today with pain and rage we denounce a new and insidious crime against our compañeros of the Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG-EZ).

At approximately 1:30 pm on May 23, near Chilapa, Guerrero, our compañeros Bartolo Hilario Morales and Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote were taken captive. Both were members of the CIPOG-EZ, the National Indigenous Congress, and the Community Police of the Nahua communities of Tula and Xicotlán, with the former serving as Community Police Captain. They were found dead and quartered on May 24.

This crime follows the recent murder of our compañeros Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastián, council member and delegate respectively of the CNI-CIG. We denounce the politics of terror applied by narco-paramilitary groups, with the shameless support of all three levels of bad government, against our brothers and sisters of the CIPOG-EZ and against all of the indigenous territories of Mexico. In this case, the terrible crime was perpetrated by the “Grupo Paz y Justicia”, who are connected to “Los Ardillos”, who in turn rely on the complicity of the Federal Army.

We as indigenous peoples, nations, tribes, and barrios resist not only the megaprojects used by the owners of power to appropriate land and nature, but also the death, fear, and desolation imposed by their armed groups throughout the country. Whether they wear the uniform of “Los Rojos,” “Los Ardillos,” or the repressive forces of the bad government, the power of money and ambition to profit off the suffering of our peoples make them one and the same. Our brothers were murdered by neoliberal capitalism in their struggle to create peace and autonomy for the peoples of Chilapa and the broader region.

This is why our compañeros continue to resist, because that seed of struggle comes from the determination of our peoples who, along with our mother earth, will not give up, give in, or sell out in the battle to not disappear from history in the midst of this total destruction. We will make their struggle, their word, and their determination grow in the collective conscience of those of us who dream of and struggle for a new world.

We demand an immediate halt to the repression against the CIPOG-EZ, justice for our brothers Bartolo Hilario Morales, Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote, Bartolo Faustino, and Modesto Verales Sebastián, and justice for the dignified peoples of Guerrero.

Attentively
May 2019
For the Full Reconstitution of Our Peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us
National Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista Army for National Liberation

COMMUNIQUE FROM THE CNI-CIG AND THE EZLN ON THE COWARDLY KIDNAPPING AND MURDER OF COMPAÑEROS FROM THE EMILIANO ZAPATA POPULAR INDIGENOUS COUNCIL OF GUERRERO

The National Indigenous Congress [CNI], the Indigenous Governing Council [CIG], and the Zapatista Army for National Liberation [EZLN] condemn with pain and rage the kidnapping and murders of José Lucio Bartolo Faustino, CIG council member from the Nahua indigenous community of Xicotlán, and Modesto Verales Sebastián, delegate of the National Indigenous Congress from the Nahua indigenous community of Buenavista. Both were part of the Emiliano Zapata Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero [CIPOG-EZ], which is a member organization of the CNI-CIG. This crime was carried out by narco-paramilitary groups who operate in the municipality of Chilapa de Álvarez and who are protected by the Mexican Army as well as by municipal and state police.

At 3pm yesterday, May 4, our compañeros were attending a meeting with other members of the CIPOG-EZ in Chilpancingo, Guerrero. On their way back to their communities they were kidnapped and murdered by these narco-paramilitary groups which operate with total complicity and protection from all three levels of the bad government, which pretend to address the indigenous communities’ demands for security and justice. The indigenous communities have repeatedly denounced to the federal government the impunity with which the criminal Celso Ortega wages violence against them. It is important to mention that our murdered compañeros and their communities have for years been organizing their own Community Police in order to resist the violence, extortion, and poppy cultivation imposed by two criminal groups in the area, Los Ardillos and Los Rojos. These two groups control municipal presidencies across the region and are protected by the Mexican army and the municipal and state police. At one point they even managed to get one of their leaders named president of the Guerrero State Congress.

We hold all three levels of bad government responsible for this cowardly crime as they have been complicit in repressing our peoples’ organization in defense of their territories. We also hold the bad government responsible for the safety and security of our brothers and sisters of the CIPOG-EZ.

As the National Indigenous Congress-Indigenous Governing Council and the Zapatista Army for National Liberation, we send our collective embrace and solidarity to the family members and compañeros of José Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastián, and we share with them our commitment to continue this path of autonomy and dignity for which our fallen compañeros provide a light and an example.

We denounce the intensification of neoliberal repression against the originary peoples, nations, and tribes who do not consent to these projects of death in Guerrero and in all of Mexico, nor to the violence which is used to impose these projects and to repress, kidnap, disappear, and murder those of us who have decided to sow a new world from the indigenous geographies that we are.

We demand justice for our compañeros.

Attentively
May 2019

For the Full Reconstitution of Our Peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us

National Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista Army for National Liberation

 
Source: Enlace Zapatista

ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO

April 2019

To the family and friends of Samir Flores Soberanes:
To the Assembly of the Amilcingo Resistance:
To the Morelos-Puebla-Tlaxcala People’s Front in Defense of the Land and Water:
To the National Indigenous Congress:
To the Indigenous Governing Council:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the CIG Support Networks and the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
To all those who struggle against the capitalist system:

Sisters and brothers:
Compañeros and compañeras:

This is Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, writing you on behalf of all of the Zapatista women, men, children, and elders. It is my job, as EZLN spokesperson, to communicate our collective word.

We also send you our collective embrace from the mountains of the Mexican southeast to the dignified lands of Emiliano Zapata and his successors in struggle—like Samir Flores Soberanes, our brother and compañero in the struggle to defend life. That embrace comes from all of the Tzotzil, Chol, Tojolabal, Zoque, Mame, Mestizo, and Tzeltal Zapatista peoples. Brothers and sisters, accept this embrace from all of the Zapatistas of the EZLN as a symbol of our respect and admiration.

We aren’t able to be present there with you as we would have liked, for the simple reason that the bad government has increased its military, police, and paramilitary presence in our lands, as well as its use of spies and informants. Flyovers by military planes and helicopters and armored vehicle patrols have once again reappeared here, just as during the presidencies of Carlos Salinas de Gortari [1988-1994], of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León [1994-2000] (political mentor of the current president), of Vicente Fox Quesada [2000-2006] after the betrayal of the San Andrés Accords, of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (that psychopath), and of that pompadoured thief in a suit and tie named Enrique Peña Nieto, but now with greater frequency and aggression.

Those patrols and flyovers are not monitoring the narco-trafficking routes, nor the routes of those exhausted caravans of our migrant brothers and sisters who are fleeing one unrecognized war to enter another, the latter hidden behind that yammering bully who occupies the [US] presidency. No, this death threat passes by air and by land through the indigenous communities who have decided to maintain their resistance and rebellion in defense of the land, and thus in defense of life.

(Continuar leyendo…)

To the people of Mexico:
To the people of the world:
To the CIG Support Networks:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the media:

The plans for dispossession and destruction that the bad governments call the “Isthmus of Tehuantepec Development Program,” are for us as originary peoples an announcement of the tragedy they now intend to extend through the territories of all of the Isthmus peoples.

As the CNI-CIG, we reject and condemn the bad governments’ so-called referendum, to be carried out throughout the Isthmus communities March 30 and 31, which simulates consultation of our peoples in order to impose these megaprojects of death.

We denounce the corrupt practices with which the bad governments, through their National Institute for Indigenous Peoples, have sought to divide, deceive, and intimidate our communities, offering programs and projects in exchange for yes votes in their so-called referendums, as if it were not precisely our territories and natural resources which are at stake.

The Binizzá, Ikoot, Chontal, Zoque, Nahua and Popoluca originary peoples who inhabit the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz have already made clear our “NO” to these megaprojects of death, which will lead to the destruction of our territories and the death of our mother earth.

We reject the invasion of our territories by mining companies that will destroy the mountains, springs, rivers, and air, as well as by the wind power companies that use the wind as a tool of negotiation to displace us from our lands. We do not want their trains, which only transport death, nor their repressive military or paramilitary violence, which devastate our territories.

We state once again that we will not cease in our struggle to protect mother earth and our indigenous communities and territories no matter how many simulated referendums the bad neoliberal capitalist government carries out in order to impose—via war—projects that prioritize money over the life of the originary peoples and of nature. On the contrary, we will continue to organize ourselves in resistance and rebellion with all those below.

We call upon all honest organizations and collectives, on the CIG support networks and on the national and international Sixth to be alert and ready to respond in solidarity to this new attempt to impose projects of dispossession.

Attentively,
March of 2019

For the Full Reconstitution of Our Peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us

National Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista Army for National Liberation

Convocation to the Events:
“Zapata Lives, Samir Lives, The Struggle Continues”
on the 100^thAnniversary of the Assassination of General Emiliano Zapata Salazar

Given that:

Our brother Samir Flores Soberanes was murdered by the neoliberal regime—we don’t know if it was the government, big business, their criminal cartels, or all three together.

The so-called “Fourth Transformation” began with Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, was intensified by Carlos Salinas de Gortari, continued as a war of conquest by Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, Vicente Fox Quezada, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, and Enrique Peña Nieto; and is now extended through the long-term project of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the Party of National Regeneration [MORENA]. For the originary peoples, the only “real change” will be an increase in lies, tricks, persecution, threats, imprisonment, displacement, murder, mockery and disrespect, human exploitation and natural destruction—in sum, the annihilation of the collective life that we are.

The current neoliberal government headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador has its sights set on our peoples and territories. Using its “National Institute for Indigenous Peoples”, it has put into place a web of cooptation and disorganization that clears the way for a war whose principal front will be industrialization. This war will be implemented via infrastructure projects and violence and backed by the armed forces and the soon-to-be National Guard, casting a dark shadow of death and destruction over the originary peoples of our country.

We restate our firm opposition to the neoliberal policies of old and new governments; to the referendums or whatever they choose to call them whose only purpose is our displacement from and dispossession of our territories; to mining, to the damming of our rivers, to highway construction and the acceleration of real estate speculation throughout our lands, to the construction of neoliberal megaprojects of death like the Integral Project for Morelos, the Trans-isthmus Corridor, and the Mayan Train.

We have not forgotten that the struggle led by General Emiliano Zapata Salazar and the Liberation Army of the South and Center represented and continues to represent the interests and aspirations of our peoples and of millions of the exploited in Mexico and the world. This upcoming April 10 is the 100^thanniversary of the cowardly murder of General Emiliano Zapata Salazar by the political regime that, despite its “transformations”, continues to govern today.

Given this, we convoke a National Assembly of the indigenous peoples of the National Indigenous Congress/ Indigenous Governing Council, adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle, the Support Networks for the Indigenous Governing Council, and collectives and organizations organized in struggle against capitalism, to take place on April 9 of this year in the indigenous community of Amilcingo, municipality of Temoac, Morelos, from 10:00am-6:00pm.

We also convoke a national and international mobilization to mark the 100^th anniversary of the murder of General Emiliano Zapata Salazar. The mobilization’s epicenter will be Chinameca, Morelos, on April 10, 2019, beginning at 9:00am.

The schedule of activities will be published shortly.
(Continuar leyendo…)

SAMIR LIVES! THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!
Declaration from the Third National Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress, the Indigenous Governing Council, and the EZLN

To the peoples of the world:
To those organizations and collectives acting in resistance and rebellion:
To the national and international Sixth:
To the media:

As Ayuuk, Binizza, Chinanteco, Chol, Chontal, Guarijío, Maya, Mayo, Mazahua, Mazateco, Mixteco, Nahua, Nayeri, Otomí, Popoluca, Purépecha, Raramuri, Tepehuano, Tlapaneco, Tojolabal, Totonaco, Tzeltal, Tsotsil, Wixárika, Yaqui, Zoque, and Quichua (Ecuador) peoples, we have come together for the Third National Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Governing Council. Today, almost 100 years after the assassination of General Emiliano Zapata, we now face the pain and rage brought by the war waged against our peoples and the murder of our compañero Samir, killed for defending the land and his people. As a national assembly, we send our embrace of solidarity and struggle to his family and the community of Amilcingo, Morelos. As the CNI-CIG and the EZLN, for whom compañero Samir will always be a glimmer of light, we send our solidarity and collective embrace.

Samir was killed by the neoliberal regime—we don’t know if it was the government, the business class, their criminal cartels, or all three together. The path was laid for this cowardly murder by the new federal executive, Andrés Manuel López Obrador [AMLO], through his offers of support not to those below, but rather to the owners of money and power, while making veiled threats against those of us who defend and fight for life. AMLO has promised to hand over to big business and the military elite what neoliberal capitalism and all of its various bad governments never could: our land. His administration’s new Agrarian Development Law aims to dismantle collective organization and collective property forms, deeming as “development” what is actually shameless theft and destruction. This is accompanied by military threats to our peoples via his “National Guard” in what amounts to the total reconfiguration of our country.

What above they call “transformation” has always mean the same thing for our peoples: we give our lives so that powerful and oligarchic interests, fewer and fewer but bigger and bigger, can live off of oppression, exploitation, and destruction. The so-called “Fourth Transformation”[i] follows the same path as the previous three, although more brutally and cynically, if such a thing is possible.

(Continuar leyendo…)

CNI/CIG/EZLN Denunciation of the Murder of Samir Flores Soberanes
February 20, 2019

To the people of Mexico and of the world:
To the CIG Support Networks:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the media:

With pain and rage we denounce the cowardly murder of our compañero Samir Flores Soberanes, community leader in Amilcingo, Morelos, and key figure in the opposition to the “Integral Project for Morelos”. Soberanes was a long-time delegate to the National Indigenous Congress.

On February 20^th at approximately 5:40 am, armed individuals in two vehicles showed up at Soberanes’ house and knocked on the door. When he answered they shot him four times, including two bullets to the head that would end his life within minutes.

Just the day before, Samir had presented arguments against the “Integral Project for Morelos” at an event in the Jonacatepec municipality organized by Hugo Erick Flores, representative of the bad government at the federal level. The event was connected to the supposed “referendum” that the government intends to use in order to justify building a thermoelectric plant and associated industrial projects in Huexca, Morelos, which will require territorial dispossession and pose a risk to all life in the region.

We hold the bad government and its bosses—corporations and armed groups that operate both legally and illegally—responsible for this crime, through which they intend to rob us blind, kill us off, and extinguish the glimmers of light that give us hope, which is what our compañero Samir was to us.

Attentively
February 2019

For the Full Reconstitution of our Peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us

National Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista Army for National Liberation

(See also: Letter to the Zapatista women from the women who struggle in Mexico and the world)

ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO

February 2019

To: Women in struggle everywhere in the world
From: The Zapatista Women

Sister, compañera:

We as Zapatista women send you our greetings as the women in struggle that we all are.

We have sad news for you today, which is that we are not going to be able to hold the Second International Encounter of Women in Struggle here in Zapatista territory in March of 2019.

Maybe you already know the reasons why, but if not, we’re going to tell you a little about them here.

The new bad governments have said clearly that they are going to carry forward the megaprojects of the big capitalists, including their Mayan Train, their plan for the Tehuantepec Isthmus, and their massive commercial tree farms. They have also said that they’ll allow the mining companies to come in, as well as agribusiness. On top of that, their agrarian plan is wholly oriented toward destroying us as originary peoples by converting our lands into commodities and thus picking up what Carlos Salinas de Gortari started but couldn’t finish because we stopped him with our uprising.

All of these are projects of destruction, no matter how they try to disguise them with lies, no matter how many times they multiply their 30 million votes. The truth is that they are coming for everything now, coming full force against the originary peoples, their communities, lands, mountains, rivers, animals, plants, even their rocks. And they are not just going to try to destroy us Zapatista women, but all indigenous women—and all men for that matter, but here we’re talking as and about women.

In their plans our lands will no longer be for us but for the tourists and their big hotels and fancy restaurants and all of the businesses that make it possible for the tourists to have these luxuries. They want to turn our lands into plantations for the production of lumber, fruit, and water, and into mines to extract gold, silver, uranium, and all of the minerals the capitalists are after. They want to turn us into their peons, into servants who sell our dignity for a few coins every month.

Those capitalists and the new bad governments who obey them think that what we want is money. They don’t understand that what we want is freedom, that even the little that we have achieved has been through our struggle, without any attention, without photos and interviews, without books or referendum or polls, and without votes, museums, or lies. They don’t understand that what they call “progress” is a lie, that they can’t even provide safety for all of the women who continue to be beaten, raped, and murdered in their worlds, be they progressive or reactionary worlds.

How many women have been murdered in those progressive or reactionary worlds while you have been reading these words, compañera, sister? Maybe you already know this but we’ll tell you clearly here that in Zapatista territory, not a single woman has been murdered for many years. Imagine, and they call us backward, ignorant, and insignificant.

Maybe we don’t know which feminism is the best one, maybe we don’t say “cuerpa” [a feminization of “cuerpo,” or body] or however it is you change words around, maybe we don’t know what “gender equity” is or any of those other things with too many letters to count. In any case that concept of “gender equity” isn’t even well-formulated because it only refers to women and men, and even we, supposedly ignorant and backward, know that there are those who are neither men nor women and who we call “others” [otroas] but who call themselves whatever they feel like. It hasn’t been easy for them to earn the right to be what they are without having to hide because they are mocked, persecuted, abused, and murdered. Why should they be obligated to be men or women, to choose one side or the other? If they don’t want to choose then they shouldn’t be disrespected in that choice. How are we going to complain that we aren’t respected as women if we don’t respect these people? Maybe we think this way because we are just talking about what we have seen in other worlds and we don’t know a lot about these things. What we do know is that we fought for our freedom and now we have to fight to defend it so that the painful history that our grandmothers suffered is not relived by our daughters and granddaughters.

We have to struggle so that we don’t repeat history and return to a world where we only cook food and bear children, only to see them grow up into humiliation, disrespect, and death.

We didn’t rise up in arms to return to the same thing.

We haven’t been resisting for 25 years in order to end up serving tourists, bosses, and overseers.

We will not stop training ourselves to work in the fields of education, health, culture, and media; we will not stop being autonomous authorities in order to become hotel and restaurant employees, serving strangers for a few pesos. It doesn’t even matter if it’s a few pesos or a lot of pesos, what matters is that our dignity has no price.

Because that’s what they want, compañera, sister, that we become slaves in our own lands, accepting a few handouts in exchange for letting them destroy the community.

Compañera, sister:

When you came to these mountains for the 2018 gathering, we saw that you looked at us with respect, maybe even admiration. Not everyone showed that respect—we know that some only came to criticize us and look down on us. But that doesn’t matter—the world is big and full of different kinds of thinking and there are those who understand that not all of us can do the same thing and those who don’t. We can respect that difference, compañera, sister, because that’s not what the gathering was for, to see who would give us good reviews or bad reviews. It was to meet and understand each other as women who struggle.

Likewise, we do not want you to look at us now with pity or shame, as if we were servants taking orders delivered more or less politely or harshly, or as if we were vendors with whom to haggle over the price of artisanship or fruit and vegetables or whatever. Haggling is what capitalist women do, though of course when they go to the mall they don’t haggle over the price; they pay whatever the capitalist asks in full and what’s more, they do so happily.

No compañera, sister. We’re going to fight with all our strength and everything we’ve got against these mega-projects. If these lands are conquered, it will be upon the blood of Zapatista women. That is what we have decided and that is what we intend to do.

It seems that these new bad governments think that since we’re women, we’re going to promptly lower our gaze and obey the boss and his new overseers. They think what we’re looking for is a good boss and a good wage. That’s not what we’re looking for. What we want is freedom, a freedom nobody can give us because we have to win it ourselves through struggle, with our own blood.

Do you think that when the new bad government’s forces—its paramilitaries, its national guard—come for us we are going to receive them with respect, gratitude, and happiness? Hell no. We will meet them with our struggle and then we’ll see if they learn that Zapatista women don’t give in, give up, or sell out.

Last year during the women’s gathering we made a great effort to assure that you, compañera and sister, were happy and safe and joyful. We have, nevertheless, a sizable pile of complaints that you left with us: that the boards [that you slept on] were hard, that you didn’t like the food, that meals were expensive, that this or that should or shouldn’t have been this way or that way. But later we’ll tell you more about our work in preparing the gathering and about the criticisms we received.

What we want to tell you now is that even with all the complaints and criticisms, you were safe here: there were no bad men or even good men looking at you or judging you. It was all women here, you can attest to that.

Well now it’s not safe anymore, because capitalism is coming for us, for everything, and at any price. This assault is now possible because those in power feel that many people support them and will applaud them no matter what barbarities they carry out. What they’re going to do is attack us and then check the polls to see if their ratings are still up, again and again until we have been annihilated.

Even as we write this letter, the paramilitary attacks have begun. They are the same groups as always—first they were associated with the PRI, then the PAN, then the PRD, then the PVEM, and now with MORENA.

So we are writing to tell you, compañera, sister, that we are not going to hold a women’s gathering here, but you should do so in your lands, according to your times and ways. And although we won’t attend, we will be thinking about you.

Compañera, sister:

Don’t stop struggling. Even if the bad capitalists and their new bad governments get their way and annihilate us, you must keep struggling in your world. That’s what we agreed in the gathering: that we would all struggle so that no woman in any corner of the world would be scared to be a woman.

Compañera, sister: your corner of the world is your corner in which to struggle, just like our struggle is here in Zapatista territory.

The new bad governments think that they will defeat us easily, that there are very few of us and that nobody from any other world supports us. But that’s not the case, compañera, sister, because even if there is only one of us left, she’s going to fight to defend our freedom.

We aren’t scared, compañera, sister.

If we weren’t scared 25 years ago when nobody even knew we existed, we certainly aren’t going to be scared now that you have seen us—however you saw us, good or bad, but you saw us.

Compañera, hermana:

Take care of that little light that we gave you. Don’t let it go out.

Even if our light here is extinguished by our blood, even if other lights go out in other places, take care of yours because even when times are difficult, we have to keep being what we are, and what we are is women who struggle.

That’s all we wanted to say, compañera, sister. In summary, we’re not going to hold a women’s gathering here; we’re not going to participate. If you hold a gathering in your world and anyone asks you where the Zapatistas are, and why didn’t they come, tell them the truth: tell them that the Zapatista women are fighting in their corner of the world for their freedom.

That’s all, compañeras, sisters, take care of yourselves. Maybe we won’t see each other again.

Maybe they’ll tell you not to bother thinking about the Zapatistas anymore because they no longer exist. Maybe they’ll tell you that there aren’t any more Zapatistas.

But just when you think that they’re right, that we’ve been defeated, you’ll see that we still see you and that one of us, without you even realizing it, has come close to you and whispered in your ear, only for you to hear: “Where is that little light that we gave you?”

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,

The Zapatista Women
February 2019

Partial aereal view of the deployment, on 31 December 2018, of zapatista troops belonging to the 21st Infantry Division (the same one that, 25 years earlier, took the municipal seats of Altamirano, Oxchuc, Huixtán, Chanal, Ocosingo, Las Margaritas, and San Cristóbal de Las Casas, in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas — now reinforced with combattants from the 2nd and 3rd generation, zapatistas who were children or had not been born in 1994, and who grew in resistance and rebellion against the militarization, paramilitary atacks, and lies, slander and treason by the bad governments of the right or the progressive “left” and the “Marxist-Leninist” “revolutionary” “vanguards”). The material is a courtesy of the free, autonomous, independent, alternative media or whatever they’re called “Regeneración Radio” (https://www.regeneracionradio.org/); the edition showed was done by the Support Teams of the Sixth Commission of the EZLN. January 3, 2019. The EZLN thanks the compas from Regeneración Radio for sharing their communication work.