DECLARATION FROM THE SECOND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE NATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONGRESS AND THE INDIGENOUS GOVERNING COUNCIL

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To the Support Networks
To the Indigenous Governing Council
To the National and International Sixth
To the peoples of Mexico and the world

Sisters, brothers:

From the Second Plenary Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Indigenous Governing Council (CIG), held October 11-14 at the CIDECI-UNITIERRA, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, we respectfully address the compañer@s of the CIG Support Networks as well as the peoples of this country and the world in order to discuss and together take new steps toward the construction of the new world that we all need.

We bring you this urgent message because as originary peoples our struggle against the profound sickness caused by capitalism means that we must weave life—this is the task given to us by our ancestors. With hope based in memory and in times to come, we sow and grow life everywhere we can, weaving ourselves collectively as a people and thereby weaving ourselves also as persons.

(Continuar leyendo…)

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Chiapas, México. 10 de octubre. “Nuestro caminar sigue. Y la diferencia fundamental con las etapas anteriores es que ahora somos más pueblos originarios caminando juntos, y, LO MÁS IMPORTANTE, ahora somos más personas, grupos, colectivos y organizaciones orientadas a buscar en nosotr@s mism@s las soluciones que, lo sabemos, no vendrán nunca de arriba”, afirman comunidades y organizaciones sociales quienes este próximo jueves asistirán a la segunda Asamblea Nacional entre el Concejo indígena de Gobierno (CIG) y los pueblos que integran el Congreso Nacional Indígena (CNI); a realizarse del 11 al 14 de Octubre de 2018 en el CIDECI-UniTierra, de San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas.

Las y los integrantes del CNI, indican que el motivo de su reunión es porque “cada día que pasa se crece más la guerra capitalista en contra de la madre tierra, de nuestros pueblos y de tod@s l@s de abajo, sin que de arriba, de los capitalistas y de sus capataces que malgobiernan a México y el mundo, recibamos otra cosa que no sean mentiras, explotación, despojo, desprecio y represión”.

En un comunicado el pasado seis de septiembre, los pueblos originarios explicaban el contexto en el que se dará el encuentro que iniciará mañana 11 de octubre: “La iniciativa para conformar el Concejo Indígena de Gobierno (CIG) y proponer a su vocera, Marichuy, como candidata a la Presidencia de la República, lanzada por el Congreso Nacional Indígena (CNI), cumplió una etapa más. La primera etapa consistió en la determinación que tomó el Quinto Congreso Nacional Indígena, en su XX Aniversario, durante el mes de octubre de 2016, de consultar en todos sus pueblos y comunidades la iniciativa antes descrita. La segunda etapa consistió en la consulta al interior del CNI de la iniciativa para conformar el CIG y nombrar a su vocera entre los meses de octubre a diciembre de 2016. La tercera etapa culminó en la Asamblea Constitutiva del CIG y el nombramiento, por consenso de dicha Asamblea, de su vocera María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, en el mes de mayo de 2017. La cuarta etapa consistió en la recaudación de las firmas a favor de nuestra vocera Marichuy, proceso que concluimos este año, sin que por ello hayamos detenido nuestro proceso de resistencia, rebeldía y organización”.

(Continuar leyendo…)

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El territorio de los pueblos originarios es fundamental para las luchas y resistencias. Saludamos, celebramos y les abrazamos desde el Frayba por sus 13 años de recuperar el territorio de San Francisco. Nos honra su lucha, la lucha de ustedes: hombres, abuelos, abuelas, mujeres, niños y niñas, que han forjado con lucha y dolor el caminar en medio de esta guerra contra los pueblos. Su acción articulada con el Congreso Nacional Indígena y del Consejo Indígena de Gobierno, su planteamiento de reconstitución de los pueblos y su acción antisistémica configuran la profundización de su rebeldía para el cambio de sistema en donde la diversidad de mundos es posible.

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AL CONGRESO NACIONAL INDÍGENA (CNI)
AL CONSEJO INDÍGENA DE GOBIERNO
AL EZLN
A LOS ADHERENTES A LA SEXTA NACIONAL E INTERNACIONAL
A LOS MEDIOS DE COMUNICACIÓN ALTERNATIVOS
A LOS DEFENSORES DE DERECHOS HUMANOS
A LA SOCIEDAD EN GENERAL

Como grupo organizado de San Francisco que somos adherentes a la sexta declaración y miembros del Congreso Nacional Indígena, hoy nuevamente hacemos público un aniversario mas de nuestra lucha y caminar por defender nuestros derechos a la tierra y territorio, en donde nuestros bisabuelos, abuelos, y nuestros padres estuvieron bajo el poder del patrón y quienes trabajaron de sol a sol en estas fincas como mozos.

Desde el año 2005 nos organizamos y recuperamos lo que por derechos ancestrales nos corresponde.

(Continuar leyendo…)

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Sentimientos de los Pueblos Originarios.

1.- Los Pueblos Originarios llevamos más de 525 años de resistencia, lucha y dignidad. En los últimos 5 siglos, nuestros pueblos, han resistido sistemáticamente los embates de los colonialistas, imperialistas. liberales, conservadores, positivistas, neorevolucionarios y neoliberales. Sin importar el color o la filiación partidista del gobierno en turno, nos mantendremos en resistencia y lucha, es parte de nuestra herencia cultural e histórica.

2.- Reconocemos a los Acuerdos de San Andrés Larraínzar como nuestra máxima ley, nuestra ley de leyes.

3.- Los Pueblos Originarios somos Sujetos Históricos, Sujetos Jurídicos, Sujetos de Conocimiento y Sujetos Comunales.

4.- Lucharemos por la restitución, reconocimiento y confirmación de nuestros territorios ancestrales. El Estado mexicano históricamente es el agente ejecutor del despojo de las tierras de ejidos y comunidades.

5.- Nuestra cosmovisión resguarda la naturaleza y los recursos naturales, hemos presentado batallas por la madre tierra, los bosques y los ríos o lagos. Actualmente los pueblos enfrentan un nuevo proceso de conquista a través de las compañías trasnacionales, mineras, petroleras y generadoras de energía, para apoderarse de nuestros recursos naturales, biodiversidad y patrimonio genético. Combatiremos incansablemente los megaproyectos, la explotación minera y los cultivos transgénicos.

6.- Ni amnistía, ni perdón, ni olvido. Memoria, verdad y justicia para los desaparecidos, los muertos y los presos políticos de las comunidades originarias. Nunca, jamás perdonaremos a nuestros opresores y verdugos. No olvidaremos el dolor y la indignación de nuestros ancestros.

7.- Exigimos la abrogación de la Ley de Seguridad Interior, La Ley Minera, la Reforma Energética, la Reforma Educativa, los Decretos que Privatizan el Agua y la Reforma al Artículo 27 Constitucional de 1992.

8.- Mantenemos el derecho histórico, jurídico y social a la libre autodeterminación, autonomía y autogobierno, pelearemos por la creación de Municipios Autónomos Indígenas sin partidos políticos, la creación de Consejos de Gobierno Comunal a través del presupuesto directo y el establecimiento de Regiones Autónomas por medio de Confederaciones de Autoridades Tradicionales.

9.- Rechazamos categóricamente toda política pública indigenista, autoritaria, integracionista y clientelar. Como legitima expresión de nuestros derechos, demandaremos consultas libres, previas, informadas, culturalmente adecuadas y vinculatorias sobre todas las políticas públicas, administrativas o legislativas que nos afecten. Nunca más permitiremos que decidan por nosotros.

10.- El idioma oficial en todas nuestras comunidades es el idioma materno o idioma originario, el castellano es la segunda lengua. La educación que se imparta en las comunidades originarias debe emanar de nosotros mismos, y servir para destruir la marginación, la discriminación, la desigualdad, las injusticias y la explotación que históricamente hemos padecido.

11.- Rescribiremos nuestra propia historia, la historia oficial legitima el saqueo, la destrucción y el olvido de nuestras raíces y antepasados.

12.- La autonomía de la mujer radica en ser tomadas en cuenta para las diversas decisiones que conciernen a toda la comunidad. Que se generen espacios productivos, recreativos y artísticos para las diferentes etapas de la vida.

13.- La resolución de los problemas de las comunidades originarias, solo será realizable por la lucha de las propias comunidades originarias, llamamos a la unidad de acción y al combate colectivo en la defensa de nuestros derechos, cultura e historia.

14.- Exigimos a los tribunales electorales que respeten la libre autodeterminación de las comunidades indígenas que en Asambleas Generales decidieron no permitir la instalación de casillas electorales, y al Estado mexicano le demandamos no reprimir y/o criminalizar a las comunidades que luchan por su autonomía sin los partidos políticos.

15.- Requerimos la creación de tribunales indígenas agrarios que conozcan las cosmovisión y derechos de los pueblos originarios, que medien, propongan y solucionen los ancestrales conflictos agrarios.

Comunidades Originarias de: Santa Fe de la Laguna, San Felipe de los Herreros, Comachuén, Cocucho, Zirahuén, Naranja de Tapia, Tiríndaro, Carapan, Cuanajo, Aranza, Sevina, Urapicho, Pamatácuaro, Sicuicho, San Miguel Pomacuarán, Zopoco, San Benito, San Pedro Zipiajo, Caltzontzin, San Andrés Tziróndaro, Cherato, Dieciocho de Marzo, Jicalán Viejo, Tarecuato, Santa Ana, San Isidro, Condémbaro, Apúndaro, Apo del Rosario, Paracho, Quinceo, Nuevo Zirosto, La Majada, La Tinaja, San Antonio Tierras Blancas, Pareo, Angahuan, San Francisco Peribán, Corupo, Santa Catarina, Rancho Seco, Jucutacato, Tarecuato, Huecorio, San Ángel Zurumucapio, Capácuaro, Cherán Atzicurín, Agua Verde, Tomendán, Turián Bajo, Arato, Santa Rosa, Comanja, Ahuirán, San Andrés Coru, San Isidro, Santa Gertrudis, La Virgen y La Escondida, Consejo Supremo Indígena de Michoacán, Sección XVIII de la CNTE y Organización Comuna P´urhépecha

Comunidades P´urhépecha a 25 de agosto del 2018. 

National Indigenous Congress
CONVOCATION

Given that:

First: The initiative of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) to form the Indigenous Governing Council (CIG) and put forward its spokeswoman, Marichuy, as Mexican presidential candidate has reached yet another phase. The first phase was marked by the decision of the Fifth National Indigenous Congress, on its twentieth anniversary in October of 2016, to hold a referendum on that initiative with all of its peoples and communities. The second phase consisted of carrying out that internal CNI referendum, between October and December of 2016, on the formation of the CIG and the designation of its spokeswoman. The third phase culminated in the Constitutive Assembly of the CIG and the naming, by consensus of that assembly, of María de Jesús Patricio Martínez as CIG spokeswoman in May of 2017. The fourth phase was made up of the signature-gathering effort for our spokeswoman Marichuy, a process that we concluded this year. Our process of resistance, rebellion, and organization, however, continues.

Second: Our path continues. In contrast to previous phases, there are now far more originary peoples walking together with us, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, there are more people, groups, collectives, and organizations seeking solutions by and for ourselves, solutions that we know will never come from above. (Continuar leyendo…)

300
Part III:
A Challenge, Real Autonomy, An Answer, Multiple Proposals, and a Few Anecdotes about the Number 300

So what’s next?

We’ll have to swim against the current, but that’s nothing new for us Zapatistas.

We want to reiterate—and we have consulted this with the Zapatista communities—that we oppose any and every overseer. We’re not just talking about those who insist they will administrate properly and repress correctly—as in the current proposal to combat corruption and improve security via impunity—but also those whose intentions for hegemony and imposed homogeneity lie just below their vanguardist dreams.

We will not exchange our history, our pain, our rage, and our struggle for a “progressive” conformity which is currently closing ranks behind its leader. We don’t forget, even when everybody else does, that we are Zapatistas.

With regard to our autonomy and the discussion that’s going on about whether it will be recognized or not, we make the following distinction: there is official autonomy, and there is real autonomy. Official autonomy is recognized by law, and this is its logic: “If you have an autonomous system and I legally recognize it, then your autonomy begins to depend on my law and not on your actual autonomous practices. When election season rolls around, you’ll have to support us, voting and promoting the vote for our party, because if another party takes office they’ll undo that law that protects you.” In that logic, we become political party peons, just as has happened to social movements all over the world. The actual function and defense of autonomy ceases to matter; the only thing that matters is what is recognized by the law. The struggle for freedom is in effect transformed into a struggle for the legal recognition of struggle.

-*-

We talked to our “bosses,” that is, the communities that determine our path, our route, and our destiny. We see what is coming through their perspective. We asked them: “if we take this position (what we believe is necessary), what will happen?”

And this is how we answered ourselves: “we’ll be alone and isolated in our position. People will say that we’re irrelevant—that we have placed ourselves outside the great revolution, the supposed fourth transformation, this new religion or whatever you want to call it—and we’ll have to swim against the current yet again.”

But being alone and isolated is nothing new for us. Then we asked ourselves: are we afraid to be alone in what we believe? Are we afraid to hold fast to our convictions and to struggle for them? Are we afraid that the people who previously supported us will turn against us? Are we afraid to refuse to give up, give in, or sell out? We asked ourselves each of these questions and we came to the conclusion that what we were asking was if we were afraid to be Zapatistas.

We aren’t afraid to be Zapatistas and that’s exactly what we are going to continue to be. That was what we asked ourselves, and that was our answer.

We think that, alongside all of you (the support networks), and with everything against us—because we know that throughout this process you didn’t have the support of the media or the masses, nor could you count on pay or popularity (we know you had to use your own money to carry out your work)—we organized ourselves around a collective of originary peoples and a small, brown woman, the color of the earth, to denounce a predatory system and defend our conviction and our struggle.
We’re looking for other people who aren’t afraid. That’s why we want to ask you (the support networks), are you afraid? You decide. If you’re afraid, we’ll look somewhere else.

-*-

We think that we should continue to walk closely with the originary peoples.

Maybe some of you as support networks still think that what you’re doing is supporting the originary peoples. As time goes by you’re going to see that it’s just the opposite: they will support you through their experience and their forms of organization. That is, you will learn, because if anyone is an expert in surviving a storm it’s the originary peoples. They’ve had everything thrown at them and here they still are—here we still are.

But we also think, and compañer@s we want to make this very clear: that won’t be enough. We will have to incorporate into our horizon of struggle all of our own realities and the pain and rage they hold. We will have to move toward a new phase of this process: the construction of a Council that includes the struggles of all of the oppressed, marginalized, disappeared, and murdered, the struggles of political prisoners, of women who have been attacked and harassed, of children who have been prostituted, of all the calendars and geographies that delineate a map that is impossible within the laws of probability and illegible to polls and votes: the contemporary map of rebellion and resistance across the planet.

If we—all of us together—are going to challenge the laws of probability that say there is little to no chance that we will succeed, if we are going to challenge the polls and the millions of votes and the world-in-numbers that Power pulls out to try to demoralize us and make us give up, then we have to make the Council [Indigenous Governing Council, CIG] bigger. At this point this is just a thought that we want to share with you—that we think it is important to build a Council that neither absorbs nor annuls differences, but rather gives each of us the chance to be with others [otros, otras, otroas] who share the same struggle. This is why we think the Council should not be limited by a geography imposed by borders and flags, but should aim to become international.

What we are proposing is that the Indigenous Governing Council cease to be only indigenous and only national in scope.

To that end, as Zapatistas we put forward the following proposals, in addition to the ones already suggested during this gathering, to be consulted with all of your home collectives and organizations:

1. To reaffirm our support for the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Governing Council.

2. To create and maintain open and transparent forms of communication among all of us who have come together on this path of the Indigenous Governing Council and its spokeswoman.

3. To begin or continue our analysis and evaluation of the reality in which we live, and to share with each other these analyses and evaluations as well as our subsequent proposals for coordinated action.

4. Without ceasing our support for the originary peoples, we propose to double down on the work of the CIG Support Networks in order to open our collective heart to all of the rebellions and resistances that emerge and persevere wherever we might be, in the countryside or the city, without regard for borders.

5. To begin or continue the struggle to grow both the demands and dimensions of the Indigenous Governing Council with the goal of extending it beyond originary peoples to include workers of the countryside and city and all of those who have been discarded or marginalized but who have their own history and struggle, that is, their own identity.

6. To begin or continue the analysis and discussion toward the creation of a Coordination or Federation of Networks which avoids any kind of centralized or vertical command and which spares no effort in building solidarity, support, and sisterhood/brotherhood among its participants.

7. Finally, to hold in December of this year an international gathering of networks—we propose that for now we call ourselves the Network of Resistance and Rebellion (and then the name of each collective), but it could be whatever we decide to name ourselves. At that point we will have had the chance to hear, analyze, and evaluate what the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Governing Council decide and propose during their meeting in October, and we will also have the results of the consultation process to be undertaken as a result this meeting we are in right now. We would like to offer one of the Zapatista Caracoles as a location for that upcoming meeting, if you are all in agreement.

Our proposal, then, is not only for the originary peoples, but for everyone [todoas, todas, todos] who resist and rebel in each and every corner of the world, and who challenge every rule, law, mold, dictate, number, and percentage imposed on us.

-*-

First anecdote: During the first days of 1994, the intelligence services of the Mexican army estimated that the self-designated “ee-zee-el-en” consisted of “only” 300 transgressors of the law.
Second anecdote: That same year, as Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León and Esteban Moctezuma Barragán plotted the betrayal and ambush to be carried out against us in February of 1995,i the Nexos group (dedicated at that time to singing the praises of Salinas de Gortari and Zedillo), exclaimed, out of growing frustration and in so many words by Héctor Aguilar Camín, “Why don’t we just obliterate them? There are only 300 of them!”

Third anecdote: Information from the registration table at the Gathering of Support Networks for the CIG and its spokeswoman, held at the Zapatista Caracol “Whirlwind of our Words” August 3-5, 2018: “attendees: 300”.

Fourth anecdote: Profits of the 300 most powerful corporations on the planet: we have no idea, but it could be 300, or any other number, followed by a shitload of zeros, and ending with “millions of dollars”.

Fifth anecdote: “encouraging” quantities and percentages:

The quantitative difference between 300 and 30,113,483 (the number of votes López Obrador the candidate received according to the INE): thirty million, one hundred and thirteen thousand, one hundred and eighty-three.

300 is 0.00099623% of those more than 30 million votes

300 is 0.00052993% of the total votes cast (56,611,027)

300 is 0.00033583% of the total number of registered voters (89,332,032)

300 is 0.00022626% of the total Mexican population (132,593,000, minus the 7 women who, on average, are murdered daily. Over the past decade, a girl, young woman, adult woman, or elderly woman has been murdered, on average, every 4 hours).

300 is 0.00003012% of the population of the American Continent (996,000,000 in 2017)

The probability of destroying the capitalist system is 0.000003929141%, which is the percentage of the world population (7,635,255,247 at 7:54pm on August 20, 2018), represented by the number 300 (that is, of course, if those supposed 300 people don’t give up, give in, or sell out).

Oh I know, not even the tortoise beating Achilles[ii] would be consolation.

What about a caracol?[iii]…

La Bruja Escarlata?[iv]…

The cat-dog?…

All right, enough of that. What keeps us Zapatistas awake is not the challenge presented by this infinitesimal probability of triumph, but the question of what the world that follows, the one that begins to emerge from the still smoking ashes of this system, will be like.

What will be its ways?

Will its colors speak?

What will its theme song be? (Huh? “The Girl with the Red Bow?”[v] No way).

What will be the lineup of Defensa Zapatista’s (finally) full team? Can Esperanza Zapatista’s teddy bear join the lineup and team up with Pedrito? Will they let Pablito wear his cowboy hat and Amado Zapatista, his crocheted helmet? Why doesn’t the damned referee blow his whistle on the Cat-dog who is so obviously off-sides?

Above all, and most importantly, how will that new world dance?

This is why, when we Zapatistas are asked, “What’s next?” Well…how can I explain it? We don’t answer on the spot, it takes us a bit. The truth is, you’ll see, that dancing a new world is less problematic than imagining it.

Sixth anecdote: Oh, you thought the thing about “300”vi was because of the film by that title and the Battle of Thermopylae, and you were ready to get dressed up like Leonidas or Gorgo (to each their own) and start shouting “This is Sparta!” while decimating the “immortal” troops of the Persian King Xerxes? Man, haven’t I been saying? Those Zapatistas, always watching another movie. Or, worse yet, watching and analyzing reality. What can you do…

-*-

That’s all…for now.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.                     Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano.
Mexico, August of 2018.

Words of the EZLN’s Sixth Commission at the Gathering of Support Networks for the Indigenous Governing Council (CIG) and its spokeswoman

(Expanded version)

Given time restrictions, we were unable to present these thoughts in full during the gathering. We promised you the full version, and we include the full transcription here, including the parts that were not read at the gathering. You’re welcome. Don’t mention it.

300
Part I:
A Plantation, a World, a War, Slim Chances.

August, 2018.

Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano:

Good morning, thank you for coming, for accepting our invitation and for sharing your words with us.

We are going to begin by explaining our way of doing analysis and evaluation.

We start by analyzing what is happening in the world, then move to what is happening at the continental level, then to what is happening in this country, then to a regional and finally to a local level. From there, we develop an initiative and begin to move back up from a local level to a regional level, then to the national, the continental, and finally the global level.

We think that capitalism is the dominant system at the global level. In order to explain this system both to ourselves and to others, we use the image of a plantation. I’m going to ask Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés to explain this part.

-*-

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés:

Compañeros and compañeras: we interviewed our own compañeros and compañeras who are our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers, some of whom are still alive. The following is what they told us and what they helped us understand: how the rich, the capitalists, want to turn the whole world into their plantation.

(Continuar leyendo…)

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