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Campesinos y campesinas, Indígenas y trabajadores del campo y la ciudad de la CLOC- VC celebramos junto a los Zapatistas

Publicado el Domingo, 05 Enero 2014 04:31

Hermanos y hermanas, compañeros y compañeras zapatistas, de Chiapas, de México,e América Latina, del Mundo, en estas sencillas palabras nuestro abrazo, nuestro respeto, y nuestra celebración junto a ustedes, por estos 20 años de aniversario de aquel 1 de enero de 1994.

El saludo no sale ni llega en la fecha precisa, es que nuestros tiempos no siempre se acomodan al calendario, pero seguramente, como toda fiesta campesina, la alegría y los festejos no se agotan en un día. Aquel 1994 navegaba en tiempos donde germinaban y fructificaban luchas en América Latina (sembradas y cultivadas durante muchos años ), a pesar de la ofensiva neoliberal que azotaba (y azota) a los pueblos del mundo.

La campaña continental “500 años de resistencia indígena, negra y popular” permitió el encuentro de muchas resistencias y luchas populares del campo: los Cocaleros de Bolivia, los Sin Tierra de Brasil, Indígenas Ecuatorianos, Mayas Guatemaltecos, Negros, Campesinos y Campesinas de todo el continente.

Durante 1992 comenzamos a articular continentalmente y desde allí al mundo, llegando en 1993, a la primera Conferencia Internacional en la Vía Campesina en Mons Bélgica, luego de un gran encuentro en Managua el año anterior .

Pero no cabe duda de lo que significó para nosotras y nosotros el digno y rebelde alzamiento Zapatista de enero de 1994, destelló iluminando nuestras luchas allí donde estuviéramos, fortaleció y agrandó nuestras esperanzas, allí en la trinchera o el camino, la montaña o la selva, el barrio o la villa, la comunidad , el cantón, el campamento o asentamiento, sea en el campo o la ciudad, en las fincas, en el arduo trabajo rural, o en las aulas de las universidades, en fabricas, en las cárceles, en el monte… en todos los rincones fue oxígeno rebelde, con el que se avivaron las llamas de las luchas populares y aun las brasitas y cenizas de luchas pasadas que algunos creían ( o deseaban) apagadas.

En febrero de 1994, en Perú realizamos el primer Congreso de la CLOC , inspirados en la heroica revolución Cubana, y en cada una de las luchas campesinas indígenas y negras del continente, allí ratificamos que el camino era de solidaridad con las revoluciones de los pueblos y por sobre todo que no había lugar para nuestros sueños en el capitalismo. Que la lucha por la tierra es primaria, así como la importancia de nuestra voz tantos años acallada.

Fue también en marzo de 1994 que El comandare Hugo Chavez Frías saldría de la prisión gracias a la movilización de los humildes de Venezuela y se iniciaría una nueva etapa en el continente, recuperando el legado de Bolivar, de Martí, del Che siempre presente en el corazón de los pueblos latinoamericanos. Y el renacer de las ideas y principios de Juan Azurduy, Micaela Bastidas, Bartolina Sisa, Tupac Katary , Tupac Amaru, Sandino, Zapata, Villa…

Aunque a veces las geografías o los calendarios ( como suelen decir ustedes) parezcan mantenernos alejados, sepan que estamos cerca, en solidaridad, en lucha, por la justicia , la libertad y la democracia. Por la Soberanía Alimentaria y la Reforma Agraria y por una integración de nuestros pueblos en paz, libertad, igualdad y respeto a la diversidad.

Así que en estos días, van bailes y cantos de festejo en su honor y en el nuestro, en los territorios donde las luchas están al orden del día, mas allá de las tácticas y formas. Va también nuestro agradecimiento.

Ya se escuchan los corridos, las chacareras, las bachatas y rumbas, las cuecas y tangos, los forró y las sambas, los guainos y sayas, las sanjuanitos, las cumbias, el rock , el regueton, hip hop, festejamos juntos y juntas la lucha zapatista y la resistencia de los pueblos del mundo.

Abrazos Fraternos

Secretaría Operativa

Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC)

La Vía Campesina

Al cumplirse meses y medio de haber sido desplazados de su comunidad, los niños, hombres y mujeres ejido Puebla, Municipio de Chenalhó en la Zona Altos de Chiapas, realizaron una conferencia de prensa en el Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (Frayba), el jueves 9 de enero de 2014.

En dicha conferencia dieron a conocer la situación e informaron su determinación de ir a sus tierras para recoger la cosecha de café, como único medio de sustento para su sobrevivencia en estas condiciones, e invitaron a organizaciones de la sociedad civil a acompañarlos en dicha tarea.

Lectura del comunicado por Catarina Sántiz Hernández, desplazada del Ejido Puebla e integrante de Las Abejas de Acteal
(Descarga aquí)  

Antonio Gutiérrez, presidente de la mesa directiva de Las Abejas de Acteal, comunidad en donde permanecen los 98 desplazados desde hace cuatro meses y medio.
(Descarga aquí)  

Gilberto Hernández, abogado del Frayba
(Descarga aquí)  

Francisco López Sántiz, desplazado del Ejido Puebla, habla sobre los robos ocurridos desde el desplazamiento (tsotsil y traducción)
(Descarga aquí)  

Lee el comunicado de prensa del Frayba aquí.

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By: Raúl Zibechi

In the 20 years that have transpired since the January 1, 1994 Zapatista Uprising, Latin American movements have championed one of the most intense and extensive cycles of struggle in a long time. Since the 1989 Caracazo (Caracas Massacre), uprisings, insurrections and mobilizations occurred that encompassed the whole region, delegitimized the neoliberal model and installed those from below, organized into movements, as central actors of changes.

Zapatismo formed part of this wave of the 90s and very soon became one of the inescapable referents, even for those who do not share their proposals and forms of action. It is almost impossible to enumerate everything the movements realized in these two decades. We can only review a handful of significant acts: the picketer cycle in Argentina (1997-2002), the indigenous and popular uprisings in Ecuador, the Peruvian mobilizations that forced the resignation of Fujimori, and the Paraguayan March, in 1999, that led to the exile of Lino Oviedo, who led a military coup.

In the next decade we had the formidable response of the Venezuelan people to the 2002 rightwing coup, the three Bolivian “wars” between 2000 and 2005 (one del about water and two about gas) that erased the neoliberal right from the political map, the impressive struggle of the Amazon Indians in Bagua (Peru) in 2009, the resistance of the Guatemalan communities to mining, the Oaxaca commune in 2006 and the mobilization of the Paraguayan peasantry in 2002 against the privatizations.

In the last three years a new layer of movements were felt that insinuate a new cycle of protests, like the mobilization of Chilean secondary students, the community resistance to the Conga mining enterprise in northern Peru, the growing resistance to mining, to fumigations and to Monsanto in Argentina, the defense of the TIPNIS (Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure) in Bolivia and the resistance to the Belo Monte Dam in Brazil.

In 2013 alone we had the Colombian agrarian strike that was capable of uniting all the rural sectors (campesinos, indigenous and cane cutters) against the free trade agreement with the United States and one of the urban movements, and also the June mobilizations in Brazil against the ferocious urban extractivism of labor for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

This group of actions throughout the two decades permits assuring that the movements of those below are alive in the whole region. Many of them are carriers of a new political culture and organization that is demonstrated in very diverse ways in the different organizations, but make up different ways of doing than what we knew in the decades of the 60s and 70s.

Some of the movements, from the Chilean secondary school students to the Zapatista communities, passing through the Guardians of the Conga Lakes, the Venezuela Settlers Movement and the Free Pass Movement (Movimiento Passe Livre, MPL) of Brazil, among the most prominent, demonstrate some common characteristics that would be worth noting.

The first is the massive and exceptional participation of youth and women. This presence revitalizes the anti-capitalist struggles, because the people most affected by capitalism are participating directly, those who don’t have a place in the still hegemonic world. It is the majority presence of those who don’t have anything to lose because they are, basically, women and youth from below that give the movements an intransigent radical character.

In second place, a political culture is gaining ground that the Zapatistas have synthesized in the expression “govern by obeying” (mandar obedeciendo), which is still expressed diffusely. Those that care for the lakes in Perú, the heirs of campesino patrols, obey the communities. Youths of the MPL make decisions by consensus so that majorities are not consolidated, and they explicitly reject the “sound cars” that union bureaucracies imposed in the previous period to control the marches.

The third question in common is related to autonomy and horizontalness, words that just started to be used 20 years ago and were fully incorporated into the political culture of those who continue struggling. They claim autonomy from the State and the political parties, meanwhile horizontalness is collective leadership of the movement and not individual. Members of the Coordinator Assembly of Secondary Students (ACES, its initials in Spanish) of Chile function horizontally, with a collective leadership and assembly.

The fourth characteristic that I see in common is the predominance of flows over structures. The organization adapts and is subordinate to the movement, not frozen in a structure capable of conditioning the collective, with its own interests separate from the movement. The collectives that fight are something like communities in resistance, in which all run similar risks and where the division of labor adapts to the objectives that the group outlines at every moment.

In this new layer of organizations it is not easy to distinguish who the leaders are, not because referents and spokespersons don’t exist, but rather because the difference between directors and directed has been diminishing as the leadership of those below increases. This is perhaps one of the most important aspects of the new political culture in expansion in the last two decades.

Finally, I would like to say that Zapatismo is a political and ethical referent, but not as the direction of these movements, which it does not seek or could be. It can be an inspiration, a reference and an example if one chooses. I feel that there are multiple dialogues among all these experiences, not in the style of formal and structured gatherings, but direct exchanges between militants, capillaries, not controlled, but the kind of exchange of knowledge and experience that we need to strengthen the fight against the system.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Translation: Chiapas Support Committee

Friday, December 27, 2013

Since that Januaryr 1, 1994, the EZLN has been to us a source of hope, light in the darkness of our country and our world. Gift and privilege. Inspiration and the responsibility to struggle and keep on struggling for another world.

Gratitude… immense gratitude.

Happy anniversary, EZLN!

When the Dead Silently Speak Out

(Rewind 1)

(A text which reflects on those who are absent and on biographies, narrates Durito’s first encounter with the Cat-Dog, and talks about other things that may or may not be relevant, as the impertinent postscript dictates).

November-December 2013

Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death.
Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual,
we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water,
and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.
Me thinks my body is but the lees of my better being.
In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me.
Herman Melville “Moby Dick.”

For a while now I have maintained that most biographies are merely a collection of documented, well-written (well, sometimes) lies. The typical biography is based on a pre-existing belief and the margin of tolerance for anything that strays from that conviction is very narrow, if not inexistent. The author, starting from that previously held belief, begins the search through the jigsaw puzzle of a life unfamiliar to him or her (which is why the bibliography interests them to begin with), and goes about collecting the false or ill-fitting pieces that allow him or her to document their own belief, not the life they are talking about.

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El día 24 de diciembre por fin salió libre Antonio Estrada Estrada, preso politico del Ejido de San Sebastián Bachajón, Adherente a la Sexta Declaración de la Selva Lacandona.

El 27 de diciembre se realizó una conferencia de prensa en el centro cultural El Paliacate, en San Cristóbal de Las casas, con la participación de autoridades del ejido de San Sebastián Bachajón, el abogado Ricardo Lagunes y el ex preso de conciencia Antonio Estrada Estrada, y la presencia de much@s de l@s que lucharon por su libertad.

Esa misma tarde se presentó también el documental “Tierra y resistencia. San Sebastián Bachajón” (ver abajo).

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Here we explain the reasons behind this strange title and those that will follow, narrate the story of an exceptional encounter between a beetle and a perplexing being (that is, more perplexing than the beetle) and the reflections of no immediate relevance or importance which occurred therein; and finally, given a particular anniversary, the Sub tries to explain, unsuccessfully, how the Zapatistas see their own history.

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