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.

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“¿Dónde está pues tu lucecita que te dimos?”

Con Ramona,
Nuestra mayora, color de la tierra

Con Bety Cariño,
Nuestra hermana asesinada por los cobardes

Con Eulodia Díaz y todas las mujeres asesinadas y desaparecidas,

Nosotras las mujeres del Concejo Indígena de Gobierno/Congreso Nacional Indígena

En armonía con nuestra madre naturaleza, con nuestras ancestras y con todos los buenos espíritus de este mundo,

Las invitamos a todas las mujeres que luchan con resistencia y rebeldía por construir un mundo no patriarcal, no capitalista y no colonial (o que quieren aprender a hacerlo) a participar en nuestro

SEGUNDO ENCUENTRO NACIONAL DE MUJERES

LOS DÍAS 27 Y 28 DE JULIO DEL 2019 (llegada desde el 26 de Julio por la tarde)

EN LA COMUNIDAD NAHUA DE SAN JUAN VOLADOR, MPIO DE PAJAPAN, SUR DE VERACRUZ

En seguimiento al primer encuentro realizado en Julio 2018 en la comunidad de San Lorenzo Nenamicoyan, Jilotepec, Estado de México, con los siguientes objetivos:

1. Evaluar y compartir nuestros avances relativos a los acuerdos del primer encuentro de mujeres que convocamos las mujeres del CNI
2. Intercambiar nuestras experiencias de lucha para seguir articulando nuestra organización como mujeres anticapitalistas, descolonizadoras y antipatriarcales.
3. Concretizar el acuerdo de formar una red de compartición de saberes.
4. Compartir nuestros sueños y sus expresiones diversas hacia otros mundos posibles.
5. Tomar acuerdos para realizar nuestros sueños en la lucha antipatriarcal, descolonizadora y anticapitalista.
6. Seguir tejiendo redes nacionales e internacionales de mujeres comprometidas con la lucha antipatriarcal, descolonizadora y anticapitalista.

Favor de registrarse al más tardar el 21 de Julio al siguiente correo: encuentromujcni2019@gmail.com

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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

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Crónica visual y audios del
Encuentro Nacional e Internacional de Mujeres que Luchan
realizado en la Ciudad de México, 16 y 17 de marzo, 2019.

Texto, fotos y audios: mujeres del Colectivo RZ.

Para Ramona y Susana debieron ser frías aquellas noches de trabajo clandestino. Había que organizarse con las mujeres de los pueblos. Volverse comandantas, insurgentas, pioneras. Había que consensar una Ley Revolucionaria de Mujeres, pues ya venía la rebelión. Debieron ser noches oscuras para ellas y para todas las guerreras zapatistas.

Apenas una generación después, las mujeres del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional son luz que se comparte.

Hace un año, en marzo de 2018, las organizadoras del Primer Encuentro Internacional, Político, Artístico, Deportivo y Cultural de Mujeres que Luchan anunciaron que, en 2019, habría un segundo encuentro de mujeres como el que entonces se realizaba en el caracol de Morelia, Chiapas, y despidieron a miles de participantes haciéndoles la entrega simbólica de una luz. El acuerdo fue vivir y no dejar que esa luz colectiva se apagara. A mediados de febrero de este año, las mujeres zapatistas enviaron una carta a las mujeres del mundo donde anunciaban la cancelación del evento porque los proyectos devastadores del gobierno federal resultan una amenaza que los pueblos originarios deben enfrentar. Ya en el umbral de este año el EZLN había sido contundente al señalar “estamos solos”. Ante la noticia triste de la cancelación, miles de mujeres decidieron organizar eventos similares en distintos lugares para enviar a las zapatistas un mensaje claro: no están solas.

Aquí presentamos una crónica visual del evento realizado en la Ciudad de México este fin de semana, así como los audios de la inauguración, el acto simbólico de solidaridad con las zapatistas, el evento de clausura y algunas intervenciones artísticas. Sirva este registro para dejar constancia de que, al estar con ellas, con las zapatistas, no estamos solas como no lo están ellas en este país feminicida. El patriarcado tiene que caer, va a caer. Lo vamos a tirar.

Escucha aquí los audios:

Fotorreportaje:

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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.
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Texto y fotos: Eugenia Gutiérrez, Colectivo RZ.
Ciudad de México, 8 de marzo, 2019.

Era vida el tema
y tanto le escribimos a la muerte
Ayari Lüders

Cuando avancen los siglos y las mujeres futuras hablen de este tiempo feminicida, un elemento saltará a la vista en cualquier análisis histórico. A diferencia de otras épocas en que las mujeres hemos luchado contra la violencia podrá observarse en ésta la huella dejada por las mujeres zapatistas y por miles de mujeres de comunidades indígenas y pueblos originarios organizadas en todo el mundo. Esa huella será entonces tan visible como fogata en una cueva.

Hace un año, en tierras rebeldes de Chiapas, México, miles de mujeres presentes o no en el Caracol de Morelia respondimos al llamado de las indígenas del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional para participar en el Primer Encuentro Internacional, Político, Artístico, Deportivo y Cultural de Mujeres que Luchan. Conscientes de la violenta realidad que vivimos, miles de mujeres celebramos el 8 de marzo de 2018 luchando con las mujeres zapatistas. Ahí surgió el compromiso de mantenernos vivas y de volver a reunirnos un año después. Como símbolo de ese acuerdo, las rebeldes zapatistas encendieron una luz que se multiplicó por miles. Este 2019, las zapatistas anunciaron la cancelación del segundo encuentro que iba a realizarse de nuevo en Chiapas, pues las presiones y las amenazas de despojo y devastación que ha lanzado el gobierno entrante lo hacen inviable. No obstante, y aunque hemos visto partir a muchas, las que seguimos aquí estamos aprendiendo a organizarnos con otra mirada en oposición a un sistema patriarcal, capitalista y colonial que se empeña en suponer, equivocadamente, que aceptamos como destino la mera sobrevivencia. Las actividades de este mes y de meses siguientes caminan firmes. (Continuar leyendo…)

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Porque las ZAPATISTAS no están solas
La gran Jornada de Mujeres que Luchan #NosotrasConLasZapatistas
‘Aquí esta la lucecita que nos dieron’

5, 6 y 8 de marzo

TEPIC –NAYARIT /5M-Plática sobre “La Vida y Obra de Rosa Luxemburgo”, 5pm en Calle Zapata #172 / 6M-Café Literario, 6pm en el kiosko de la Plaza Hidalgo. / 8M-Conversatorio sobre el “Día Internacional de la Mujer Trabajadora” , 5pm en la Biblioteca Marx-Lenin. Convoca: Célula “Rosa Luxemburgo” del Partido de los Comunistas.

8 de marzo

ZACATECAS – UAZ/ Conversatorio sobre la experiencia zapatista, 18hrs. Convoca: Red en Rebeldía y Resistencia Zacatecas. Mas información: FB-Red de Rebeldía y Resistencia en Zacatecas.

OAXACA-ZÓCALO /Lectura de comunicado de las compañeras zapatistas y encender nuestra luz. Punto de encuentro Zócalo, 18:00hrs. Convocan: Mujeres que luchan Oaxaca.

ESTADO DE MÉXICO-ECATEPEC / Marcha de la Colonia Las Américas al Palacio Municipal. Punto de encuentro Puente de Fierro, 12 hrs. Convocan: Mujeres del estado de México que luchan.

CREEL, CHIHUAHUA-PLAZA PRINCIPAL / Lectura de comunicado, carta de respuesta y encender nuestra luz. Punto de Encuentro Plaza Principal , 17:00hrs. Convocan: Mujeres de distintas redes y organizaciones.

CDMX-CASA COMUNITARIA (VENUSTIANO CARRANZA) / Compartición de saberes ¡¡Porque acordamos vivir!!, 10 a 14 hrs. Convoca: Casa Comunitaria. Mas información: casacomunitaria.espora.org/

PUEBLA-ZÓCALO / Lectura de comunicado de las compañeras zapatistas y prendida de veladoras. De 17 a 20hrs. Convoca: Red de Rebeldía y Resistrenzas. Más información: FB: Red de apoyo al CNI-CIG Puebla

SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS / Acto político cultural “No están solas”. Punto de encuentro Plaza de la Resistencia, 18:30hrs. Convoca: Red de colectivas de mujeres, lesbianas, género disidentes rumbo al 8M

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, QUINTANA ROO / Encuentro de mujeres que luchan en el Mayab 2019. Solkinkalli-Jardín Holístico Pueblo Sacbé, Playa del Carmen. Convocan: Las mujeres en resistencia de la zona Riviera Maya. Más información: +52 1 984 1653588.

8 y 9 de marzo

CDMX- EXPLANADA BELLAS ARTES / 9 horas de luz Rebelde. Acto político cultural de 12pm a 9pm. Convocan: Mujeres y la Sexta y Red de Mujeres Porque Acordamos vivir. Más información: mujeresylasexta.org/

8 y 10 de marzo

GUADALAJARA/ 8M-Marcha con nuestra lucecita y paliacate rojo. Punto de encuentro Paseo alcalde,18:00hrs. /10M-Taller-reunión del Semillero de Mujeres: “Recordando el 1er. Encuentro con las Zapatistas y Nuestras Luchas Actuales”. Rincón Zapatista, 16hrs. Convocan: Red yovoy8M Guadalajara y Semillero de mujeres ‘Nosotras las Otras’.

9 de marzo

MÉRIDA-TEATRITO YUCATÁN / Proyección y conversatorio “Tempestad”. Convocan: Cinito Yucatán y Mujeres de la Red de Resistencias y Rebeldía Jó Más información: FB-Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía Jo

16 y 17 marzo

CDMX-DEPORTIVO SME / Encuentro Nacional e Internacional de Mujeres que Luchan. Convocan: Mujeres de distintas redes, colectivos y organizaciones. Más información: FB:-Encuentro de Mujeres que Luchan

MONTERREY / Primer Encuentro del Noreste de Mujeres que luchan. Convoca: Red de Mujeres del Noreste en Resistencias y Rebeldías. Más información: FB-Red de Mujeres del Noreste en Resistencias y Rebeldías.

6 y 7 abril

LEÓN- CANAL DE SARDENATA / Encuentro de Mujeres –Región Bajío. Convocan: Mujeres de la Red de Resistencia y Rebeldía del Estado de Guanajuato. Más información: FB-Mujeres que Luchan en el Estado de Guanajuato.

Fuente: Enlace Zapatista.

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

Letter in Japanese
Letter in Turkish
Letter in Italian
Letter in Portuguese
Letter in French
Letter in German
Letter in Spanish

LETTER TO THE ZAPATISTA WOMEN
FROM THE WOMEN WHO STRUGGLE IN MEXICO AND THE WORLD
(signed by 891, Organizations, Collectives, Networks, and Individuals)

To our compañeras Zapatistas
To the women of the world who struggle
To the grandmothers, mothers, sisters, youth and girls
To those who have the heart of a woman

We the undersigned are women of Mexico and the world, convened by the Zapatista women on March 8th, 2018 in the First International Political, Artistic, Cultural and Sports Encounter of Women Who Struggle.

We reaffirm that every one of us committed ourselves to struggle, each one from our own place of origin or new home places, from our distinct cultures and occupations, so that “not one more woman in the world, regardless of color, size, or place of origin, should feel alone or afraid anymore”. We committed ourselves to the light that all of you shared with us in our gathering, and to the light that all of you represent to all of us. We keep that light alive in order to be, to walk and to struggle together.

Today we proclaim that we will not allow the bad governments to destroy your worlds and displace you from the territories that provide the roots, heartbeat and direction to your lives and dreams. We will denounce, through multiple venues and modes, the misuse of practices of cultural resistance, staging ancestral people’s rituals to justify megaprojects of death and sickness imposed by the patriarchal capitalist system.

Given the conditions of war that we continue to face every day as women, we reaffirm our agreement to “stay alive, and for us to live is to struggle, each one according to her means, her time and her place.”

Now is the time to tell the bad governments, past and present, in every corner and place in the world, that we repudiate, from our multiple locations and territories, the practices of concessions, extraction, and the misuse and abuse of our Mother Earth. “Fracking,” gas and oil pipelines, massive hydroelectric dams, extensive agro-industrial monocultures of crops and trees, and infrastructure for corporate tourism in indigenous territories, all benefit major commercial projects, at the cost of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples’ lives and territories. In the face of profit-seeking interests, we will struggle for Life, for the lives and territories of people and other living beings.

As women, we know the value of life and for this reason we work to build conditions that support life. We declare that yes, we can do this, we women with our collective hearts. You are not alone compañeras zapatistas, friends, and sisters, and neither are your children, families and peoples!

Quotations excerpted from Zapatista Women (2018) Zapatista Women’s Opening Address at the First International Gathering of Politics, Art, Sport, and Culture for Women in Struggle. March 8, 2018. Caracol in the Tzots Choj zone. March 26, 2018, Enlace Zapatista:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2018/03/26/zapatista-womens-opening-address-at-the-first-international-gathering-of-politics-art-sport-and-culture-for-women-in-struggle/

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El pasado 25 de enero de 2019 se realizó la Jornada de Movilización Global contra los Proyectos de Destrucción y en Defensa de la Madre Tierra en muchas partes de México y del mundo.

En Hamburgo, Alemandia, se llevó a cabo la plática “¡Yepa, Yepa! 35/25 Años de la Lucha Zapatista: Un internacionalismo en concreto”. Quienes participaron en el evento mandaron una carta en solidaridad con la lucha zapatista y los pueblos originarios de México.

Reproducimos aquí la carta:

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