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Zapatista compañeras and compañeros from the bases of support of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation.

Compañeras, compañeroas, and compañeros from the National and International Sixth.

Sisters and brothers from Mexico and the world.

We greet the family of compañero Luis Villoro.

Welcome to the rebel lands that struggle and resist in Zapatista territory.

It is an honor to have you with us, the Zapatista bases of support from the five zones.

Greetings to the family of Zapatista teacher, compañero Galeano.

Receive our embrace, compañeros and compañeras of the family of compañero Galeano, and of the family of compañero Luis Villoro.

We should honor, and know how honor, those who deserve it for the mission fulfilled by the compañeros Galeano and Luis Villoro.

(Continuar leyendo…)

ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION.

MEXICO.

PROGRAM AND OTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE HOMAGE AND THE SEMINAR.

April 29, 2015

Compas:

Here is the latest information about the May 2, 2015 celebration in Homage to compañeros Luis Villoro Toranzo and Zapatista Teacher Galeano, and the seminar that will be held from May 3-9, 2015.

First.- A group of graphic artists will also participate in the Seminar: “Critical Thought Versus the Capitalist Hydra,” with an exposition called “Signs and Signals” of their own works of art made especially for this exposition. The following people will participate:

The opening of the exposition will take place Monday morning, May 4, 2015, in CIDECI.

SECOND. Here is the program of activities and participants for the seminar. There may be some changes (note: all hours listed are “national time”).

(Continuar leyendo…)

Zapatista Army for National Liberation
Mexico.

April 21, 2015

To the compas of the Sixth:

To the presumed attendees of the Seminar “Critical Thought Versus the Capitalist Hydra”:

We want to let you know that:

As of April 21, 2015, the number of people who have registered for the seminar “Critical Thought Versus the Capitalist Hydra” is approximately 1,074 men, women, others,i children, and elderly from Mexico and the world. Of this number:

558 people are adherents of the Sixth.

430 people are not adherents of the Sixth

82 people say they are from the free, autonomous, independent, alternative, or whatever-you-call-it media.

4 people are from the paid media (only one person from the paid media has been rejected, it was one of the three who were sponsored by the Chiapas state government to sully the name of the Zapatista compa professor Galeano and present his murderers as victims.)

Now then, we don’t know if among those 1,074 who have registered so far there might be a portion who have gotten confused and think that they have registered for Señorita Anahí’s weddingii (apparently she’s marrying somebody from Chiapas, I’m not sure, but pay me no mind because here the world of politics and entertainment are easily confused… ah! There too? Didn’t I tell you?)

Anyway, I’m sharing the number of attendees because it’s many more than we had expected would attend the seminar/seedbed. Of course now that’s CIDECI’s problem, so… good luck!

What? Can people can still register? I think so, I’m not sure. When questioned by Los Tercios Compas, doctor Raymundo responded “no problem at all, in any case the number of people who will actually pay attention are far fewer.” Okay, okay, okay, he didn’t say that, but given the context he could have. What’s more, not even the doc knows how many people are going to come to CIDECI.

(Continuar leyendo…)

On April 7, the Enlace Zapatista website suffered a service denial attack and it is currently unavailable. The attack, few weeks before the Seminar “Critical Thought before the Capitalist Hydra” and shortly after the registration procedures were published, demonstrates how much power fears critical thought. (Update 9 Apr 2015: the Enlace Zapatista webpage is back up.)

We share here the registration forms for the Seminar “Critical Thought before the Capitalist Hydra”:

• Form for adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle
• Form for NON-adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle
• Form for free media collectives
• Forma for paid media

To register, please download the appropriate form, fill it, and send it to the following email address: seminario.pensamientocritico15@gmail.com

More info:

The Storm, the Sentinel, and the Night Watch Syndrome

About the Homage and Seminar

Dear friends and enemies: so… err… umm… the thing is… well… remember that at the end of our March 19, 2015 text entitled “About the Homage and the Seminar,” we said that the organization of the seminar was a mess? Well, we have honored that claim: the email address to which we asked you to send your registration information is wrong, erroneous, in other words, that’s not the one. The correct email is: seminario.pensamientocritico15@gmail.com. Okay, okay, okay. It’s on me. Sincerely, yo merengues.

The Storm, the Sentinel, and the Night Watch Syndrome

April 2015.

To the compañeroas of the Sixth:

To all those interested:

Although it may not look like it, the following is an invitation… or is it a challenge?

If you are an adherent to the Sixth, if you are from the free, autonomous, alternative, independent media or whatever it’s called, if you are interested in critical thought, then accept this invitation to the seminar, “Critical Thought versus the Capitalist Hydra.” If in addition to accepting this invitation you would also like to attend the seminar, please follow this link: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/registro-al-seminario-de-reflexion-y-analisis-el-pensamiento-critico-frente-a-la-hidra-capitalista/

If you are an invited speaker,[i] a similar letter will be sent to you via the same channels through which you have already been contacted. The difference will be that the invitation letter sent to the speakers will contain a “secret clause.”

Ok then, the invitation is really something like the wrapping paper.

Inside, further down below and to the left, you will find…

The Challenge

Oh, I know. The classic beginnings to a Zapatista reflection: disconcerting, anachronistic, silly, absurd. As if not really putting in any effort, as if just sort of putting it out there, a kind of “we’ll leave you to it,” or “see what you can do with it,” or something like “it’s on you.” It’s almost like they toss out a piece of a jigsaw puzzle and expect that people would understand that they are not just describing one part of reality, but have the entire image in mind. As if they saw the completed jigsaw puzzle, with its precise figures and colors in place, but with the border of each piece still visible, as if to point out that the whole exists because of all the parts, and of course, that each part acquires its meaning in relation to all the others.

(Continuar leyendo…)

ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION.

March 2015.

To the compas of the Sixth in Mexico and in the World:

Compas:

I have been asked to let you know that…

Despite the significant increase in military activity in the vicinity of the Zapatista Caracoles (aggressive patrols, intimidating checkpoints, threatening flyovers)—particularly in the caracoles of La Realidad and Oventik (the first has just opened a school-clinic, and the second will host the tribute to Don Luis Villoro Toranzo)…

Despite the growing belligerence of the paramilitary groups sponsored by the Chiapas government…

Despite the tired “new” lies in the paid media /no, there is not and there has not been any proposal for dialogue; no, not since 2001, that is to say that no federal official has approached the EZLN in the last 14 years for any reason other than in an attempt to assasinate the Zapatista leadership; no, the federal and state governments are not looking to improve the living conditions of indigenous people in Chiapas, rather, they are trying to divide communities; no, the only governmental approaches that Jaime Martinez Veloz claim for himself were not to Zapatistas but to the paramilitaries backed (before he took over) by Luis H. Alvarez, Juan Sabines Guerrero, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, and now Manuel Velasco Coello, Rosario Robles Berlanga and Enrique Peña Nieto, one of whose groups (the CIOAC-H) is responsible for the murder of the compañero teacher Galeano; no, and so forth and so on/…

Despite the fact that truth and justice are still missing in Ayotzinapa…

(Continuar leyendo…)

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México
10 March 2015

The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba), has documented, through the Civilian Observation Brigades (BriCO), systematic incursions by the Mexican Army, who are harassing the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) bases of support, in the territory of the Good Government Council of La Realidad, Jungle-Border zone, Caracol I “Toward Hope” (JBG).

The military actions in the territory of the JBG consist of incursions in convoys with trucks, hummers, jeeps, and motorized equipment; with members of the Mexican Army that range from 4 to 30 people. There are also low flights with light aircraft and helicopters photographing and filming members of the BriCO, zapatistas, and the JBG facilities. Since July 2014 these actions have been increasing, both in the size of the troops and the frequency with which they happen. (See the record of military activity at La Realidad).

Frayba is concerned with the increasing harassment by the Mexican Army in zapatista territory, since it constitutes actions to provoque and besiege that harm the rights to autonomy and free determination stipulated in the Mexican Constitution, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), and the San Andrés Accords.

Therefore, this Human Rights Center demands: Respect for the free determination and autonomy of zapatista peoples; and an end to the harassment by the federal government through the Mexican Army.

Finally, we recall that on May 2, 2014, members of the Central Independiente de Obreros Agrícolas y Campesinos Histórica (CIOAC-H), ambushed zapatista bases of support in the territory of the JBG of La Realidad; durng the attack, the armed group murdered José Luis Solís López, “Maestro Galeano,” and destroyed the Autonomous Clinic and School. The aforementioned organization is part of the municipal government of Las Margaritas and has the protection of the state government of Manuel Velasco Coello, which has allowed it to carry out aggressions, forced displacements, and murders in the region. (See Frayba Bulletin 16 on the aggression to zapatista bases of support at La Realidad on 5 May 2014.)

Thank you Part III:

The Most Expensive Building in the World

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.  Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano.

February-March, 2015

[showtime]

It is the eve of the big day… in the wee hours of the morning. The cold bites under the cover of shadow. On the solitary table that furnishes this small hut (which has no sign but is known to now be the headquarters of the Zapatista Command), there is a handwritten, wrinkled sheet of paper detailing the accounts for the construction of the clinic-school in the Zapatista community of La Realidad. A voice summarizes the gazes, silences, smoke, rage:

The accounts don’t balance. The life of any Zapatista is worth more than Peña Nieto’s white house and the houses of all of the rich in the whole world combined. The entirety of the funds required to construct the huge buildings where the powerful hide in order to organize their thievery and crimes would not be enough to pay for a even a single drop of Indigenous Zapatista blood. That is why we feel that this is the most expensive building in the world.

So must state clearly that what doesn’t appear in the accounts is the blood of our compañero Galeano. All of the papers in the history of the world would not be enough to balance that account.

And so that is how it should appear in those lists that come out in the press where they name the richest people, and where the poorest live. The rich have first names, last names, lineage, and pedigree. But the poor only have a geography and a calendar. So they should say that the most expensive building on the whole planet is in Zapatista La Realidad, Chiapas, Mexico. And that the Indigenous Zapatista girls and boys attend the most expensive school in the world. And that the men, women, boys, girls, elderly, indigenous, Zapatistas, Mexicans, when they get sick in La Realidad, will be treated in the most expensive clinic on earth.

But the only way to balance these accounts is to struggle to destroy the capitalist system. Not to change it. Not to improve it. Not to make it more human, less cruel, less murderous. No. To destroy it completely. To annihilate each and every one of the heads of the Hydra.

Even then there would be more to do, as what we want here is to construct something better: another system, one without masters, without patrons, without bosses, without injustice, without exploitation, without disrespect, without repression, without dispossession. One without violence against women, children, anyone who is different. One where work is paid justly. One where ignorance does not rule. One where hunger and violent death are just bad memories. One where no one can be above on the backs of others below. One that is reasonable, one that is better.

Then and only then, the Zapatistas can say that the accounts are even.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Capitalism Destroys, the People Build

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés

The words of the EZLN’s General Command in the voice of Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés in the Zapatista community La Realidad at the presentation of the Zapatista Autonomous School, “Compañero Galeano” and the Autonomous Clinic 26 of October, “Subcomandante Insurgente Pedro” to the Zapatista bases of support, March 1, 2015.

[showtime]

Good morning to everyone, compañeros and compañeras of this zone, in this caracol of La Realidad, Selva Fronteriza zone.

We are here with you today, compañeros, compañeras of this zone, to officially turn over these buildings to the compañeros and compañeras bases of support of this Zapatista community, La Realidad, Nueva Victoria, as it is called in the struggle for us as the Zapatista Army for National Liberation.

Compañeros and compañeras, what we must make clear and understand is that the pain carried by each Zapatista continues, not only the Zapatistas in Mexico, but across the world, because we do not have with us the compañero whose name this new construction carries: compañero Galeano.

This construction was the fruit and the work, the efforts and the organization of the compañeros and compañeras of the International Sixth and the National Sixth. Here we are demonstrating what we Zapatistas are, in Mexico and in the world.

(Continuar leyendo…)