CNI-CIG Repudiates the aggression against the zapatista support bases and calls for solidarity
To the peoples of Mexico and the world.
The Indigenous Government Council-Indigenous National Congress repudiate the cowardly attack by members of the paramilitary group called the Regional Organization of Coffee Growers of Ocosingo (ORCAO), who on Saturday August 22 around 11:00 in the morning robbed and burned the facilities from the Nuevo Amanecer del Arcoiris Trade Center, which is located in the place known as the Cuxuljá crossroad, Lucio Cabañas Autonomous Municipality, within the official municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas.
The paramilitary organization ORCAO has maintained constant pressure on and violence against the Zapatista communities for years; as is the case of the Moises Gandhi Autonomous Municipality, to stop the autonomous organization and to privatize the lands that have cost the struggle and organization of the original peoples, who are Zapatista support bases. They have intimidated and threatened the compañeros and compañeras that from below bet on hope, such as the various attacks against compañeros of the National Indigenous Congress, who were violated and kidnapped by paramilitaries from ORCAO, the Chinchulines, and people from the MORENA party.
We denounce the war that, from above, is being deployed against the Zapatista communities’ organizing, at the same time that above the bad governments seek to impose, throughout the country, megaprojects of death that we oppose and will oppose, because we are not willing to give up our territories and allow the destruction promised by the powerful.
We hold the paramilitary organization ORCAO, the MORENA party, the state government, and the federal government responsible for these events. They have not stopped sowing violence in the region in order to hit not only our sisters and brothers in the Zapatista communities, but to all the peoples who dream of fighting for life, of healing our mother earth and not letting her be privatized, so that the capitalist bosses and bad governments never return to the autonomous Zapatista territories, and may that light continue to flourish in the territories of the original peoples of the CNI-CIG and all of humanity.
We call on the compañeras y compañeros of support networks and networks of resistance and rebellion to speak out and mobilize against the war of extermination, which is dangerously sharpening against our sisters and brothers of the Zapatista peoples, who teach us to never stop sowing rebellion and hope.
To the peoples of Mexico and the world.
The Indigenous Government Council-Indigenous National Congress repudiate the cowardly attack by members of the paramilitary group called the Regional Organization of Coffee Growers of Ocosingo (ORCAO), who on Saturday August 22 around 11:00 in the morning robbed and burned the facilities from the Nuevo Amanecer del Arcoiris Trade Center, which is located in the place known as the Cuxuljá crossroad, Lucio Cabañas Autonomous Municipality, within the official municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas.
The paramilitary organization ORCAO has maintained constant pressure on and violence against the Zapatista communities for years; as is the case of the Moises Gandhi Autonomous Municipality, to stop the autonomous organization and to privatize the lands that have cost the struggle and organization of the original peoples, who are Zapatista support bases. They have intimidated and threatened the compañeros and compañeras that from below bet on hope, such as the various attacks against compañeros of the National Indigenous Congress, who were violated and kidnapped by paramilitaries from ORCAO, the Chinchulines, and people from the MORENA party.
We denounce the war that, from above, is being deployed against the Zapatista communities’ organizing, at the same time that above the bad governments seek to impose, throughout the country, megaprojects of death that we oppose and will oppose, because we are not willing to give up our territories and allow the destruction promised by the powerful.
We hold the paramilitary organization ORCAO, the MORENA party, the state government, and the federal government responsible for these events. They have not stopped sowing violence in the region in order to hit not only our sisters and brothers in the Zapatista communities, but to all the peoples who dream of fighting for life, of healing our mother earth and not letting her be privatized, so that the capitalist bosses and bad governments never return to the autonomous Zapatista territories, and may that light continue to flourish in the territories of the original peoples of the CNI-CIG and all of humanity.
We call on the compañeras y compañeros of support networks and networks of resistance and rebellion to speak out and mobilize against the war of extermination, which is dangerously sharpening against our sisters and brothers of the Zapatista peoples, who teach us to never stop sowing rebellion and hope.
Sincerely,
For the integral reconstitution of our peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us
National Indigenous Congress-Indigenous Governing Council
EZLN closes Caracoles Due to Coronavirus and Calls on People Not to Abandon Current Struggles
Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation
Mexico
March 16, 2020
To the people of Mexico:
To the peoples of the world:
To the National Indigenous Congress—Indigenous Governing Council:
To the Sixth in Mexico and abroad:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
Sisters, brothers, hermanoas:
Compañeros, compañeras, compañeroas:
We write to inform you that:
Given the serious and scientifically proven risk to human life presented by COVID-19 or “Coronavirus”;
Given the frivolous irresponsibility and lack of seriousness shown by the bad governments and the political class in its entirety who are using this serious humanitarian problem to attack each other instead of taking the necessary measures to confront a life-threatening virus which endangers all regardless of nationality, gender, race, language, religion, political affiliation, social class, or history;
Given the lack of accurate and timely information about the spread and severity of the virus and the lack of a coherent plan to confront it, and;
Given that our commitment as Zapatistas is to struggle for life;
We have decided the following:
First: We declare a red alert in all of our communities, towns, barrios, and Zapatista organizational bodies.
Second: To the Juntas de Buen Gobierno [Good Government Councils] and the Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities in Rebellion, we recommend the full and immediate closure of the Caracoles and Centers of Resistance and Rebellion.
Third: To the bases of support and the entire Zapatista organizational structure, we recommend adherence to the series of recommendations and special hygiene measures which will be distributed in all Zapatista communities, towns, and barrios.
Fourth: Given the total absence of the bad governments, we strongly urge everyone [todos, todas, todoas] in Mexico and around the world to follow the necessary scientifically-based sanitary measures that will allow us to survive this pandemic.
Fifth: We call on you to sustain the struggle against femicides and violence against women, to continue the struggle in defense of territory and Mother Earth, to maintain the struggle for the disappeared, murdered, and imprisoned, and to hold high the flag of the struggle for humanity.
Sixth: We call on all not to lose human contact, but rather to temporarily change our forms of relating as compañeras, compañeros, compañeroas, sisters, brothers, and hermanoas.
The word, the listening ear, and the heart have many ways—paths, calendars, and geographies—in and on which to meet. This struggle for life can be one of them.
That’s all.
From the mountains of Southeastern Mexico,
For the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation,
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
Mexico, March of 2020.
