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HOY DECIMOS ¡BASTA! A LA GUERRA VS EL #EZLN
Twittazo contra la guerra y el olvido en #Chiapas

Compas de ésta complicada y dolorosa América Latina. En #México mientras celebran la #CELAC, en #Chiapas crece la guerra. Éste 24-S durante 5 min envíen un twitt x minuto a la embajada de México en su país. Mientras los poderosos se reúnen, Nosotroas entrelazamos resistencias

HOY DECIMOS ¡BASTA! A LA GUERRA VS EL #EZLN

#ApoyoTotalEZLN
#ChiapasSinParamilitares

Propuestas de Twitts (agregando al inicio la dirección de la Embajada de México de su país, abajo están las direcciones de Twitter de cada embajada):

1. _______ @RutilioEscandon @lopezobrador_ @m_ebrard HOY DECIMOS ¡BASTA! A LA GUERRA VS EL #EZLN https://t.co/bscuunqnAZ?amp=1 #ApoyoTotalEZLN #ChiapasSinParamilitares

2. _______ @RutilioEscandon @lopezobrador_ @m_ebrard Alto a la impunidad paramilitar en #Chiapas y a la complicidad del Estado https://t.co/bscuunqnAZ?amp=1 #ApoyoTotalEZLN #ChiapasSinParamilitares

3. _______ @RutilioEscandon @lopezobrador_ @m_ebrard SI AGREDEN A L@S #ZAPATISTAS AGREDEN A MILES DE MOVIMIENTOS DE MÉXICO Y DEL MUNDO https://t.co/bscuunqnAZ?amp=1 #ApoyoTotalEZLN #ChiapasSinParamilitares

4._______ @RutilioEscandon @lopezobrador_ @m_ebrard EL RESPETO A LOS DERECHOS INDÍGENAS NO PUEDE SER OTRA PIEZA RETÓRICA Basta de impunidad y encubrimiento a los paramilitares https://t.co/bscuunqnAZ?amp=1 #ApoyoTotalEZLN #ChiapasSinParamilitares

5. _______ @RutilioEscandon @lopezobrador_ @m_ebrard ALTO AL ENCUBRIMIENTO DE CRÍMENES DE PODER Y DE PARAMILITARES https://t.co/bscuunqnAZ?amp=1 #ApoyoTotalEZLN #ChiapasSinParamilitares

Embajadas de México en los países de la #CELAC:

Antigua y Barbuda
@EmbamexSL

Argentina
@EmbaMexAr

Bahamas
@EmbaMexJam

Barbados
@EmbaMexTT

Belice
@EmbaMexBee

Bolivia
@EmbaMexBol

Brasil
@EmbaMexBra

Chile
@EmbaMexChi

Colombia
@EmbaMexCol

Costa Rica
@EmbaMexCri

Cuba
@EmbaMexCuba

Dominica
@EmbamexSL

Ecuador
@EmbaMexEcu

El Salvador
@embamexesa

Granada
@EmbamexSL

Guatemala
@EmbaMexGua

Guyana
@EmbamexGuyana

Haití
@EmbamexHaiti

Honduras
@EmbaMexHonduras

Jamaica
@EmbaMexJam

México

Nicaragua
@EmbaMexNic

Panamá
@EmbaMexPan

Paraguay
@EmbaMexPay

Perú
@EmbaMexPer

República Dominicana
@EmbamexREPDOM

San Cristóbal y Nieves
@EmbamexSL

Santa Lucía
@EmbamexSL

San Vicente y las Granadinas
@EmbamexSL

Surinam
@EmbaMexTT

Trinidad y Tobago
@EmbaMexTT

Uruguay
@EmbaMexUru

Venezuela
@EmbamexVen

Nodo de Derechos Humanos (https://nodho.net/uncategorized/hoy-decimos-basta-a-la-guerra-vs-el-ezln/)
HOY DECIMOS ¡BASTA! A LA GUERRA VS EL #EZLN, Nodo de Derechos Humanos
Twittazo contra la guerra y el olvido en #Chiapas Compas de ésta complicada y dolorosa América Latina.

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FOR LIFE

To the governments of Mexico
To the people of Mexico and the world
To all those ready to live, that is, to fight

The recent aggressions against Zapatista authorities are the culmination of an escalation of attacks and provocations against Zapatista and non-Zapatista communities of Chiapas at the hands of paramilitaries whose character the whole world knows: the bad governments seek the surrender of those who resist the dispossession they promote. Or worse, they provoke a tragic, violent confrontation that would be a pretext for great repression, in order to remove obstacles from their destructive path, that lays waste to Mother Earth as to the social fabric.

We will not permit it. Those bad governments should know, as should their officials and lackeys, that they not only confront the well-organized force of the Zapatista peoples clearly determined to exercise their legitimate right to self-defense. They have tried all the peaceful means of accord and reconciliation and they have only encountered indifference and a irresponsibility. Their patience now wears thin. Together with them, together with the Zapatista communities and peoples, together with the hundreds of communities assaulted by the current regime, we are determined to halt this criminal impulse that doesn’t seem to have another way out except through violence.

We will demonstrate on the 24th that we are determined to react. In silence or shouting, in the streets and plazas, before the embassies or public buildings, in places of work, wherever we are and by any means at our reach, we will show our solidary resistance to the absolutely illegal abuse that takes place with the open complicity of those that have the legal and political obligation to stop it.

The paramilitary mask does not deceive us. It is the State. We will not accept its cult of death. We will come out this Friday the 24th to defend life.

If you want to join this call, send an email with your name and the information you want to share to: contactounitierra@gmail.com

SIGNATURES:

(Continuar leyendo…)

An immersive record – as it is characteristic of Raúl Romero, describing the challenging trajectory of La Extemporánea from San Cristóbal de las Casas to Vienna, Slumil K’Ajxemk’Op’s territory.

By Raúl Romero.

Wednesday, September 8.

The wind farms and PEMEX compounds urge us to go faster. We don’t want night to fall on that stretch of the highway in the state of Veracruz. On other journeys we have been witness to criminal and state violence in that area. At nightfall, on this stretch of road, the commercial bus lines decide to wait for other units and travel in a caravan to support each other. Memory kicks in: “if they throw a stone at our window, don’t stop,” I tell my companion who drives the van we are traveling in. He replies: “It is not so easy, it depends on the amount of damage.” We both know that this is one of the practices used by some criminal groups to force you to stop, and then rob and/or kidnap you.

These are the things that we in Mexico have had to learn in order to be able to travel in a “more secure” way.

I finish sending the agreed message, at the agreed time, to the group monitoring us in Mexico City. I look up and a group of about ten people of African descent walks along the road. They are traveling with very few belongings and bottles of water, part of the migrant caravans that cross Mexico to reach the United States. The scene becomes commonplace. I try to keep count, but there are so many groups we encounter along the way that I have forgotten how many we have counted.

We arrive at our destination, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, at 8:30 pm. A couple of comrades are waiting for us.

We have a brief conversation, catch up. Hugs will be for another time: mouth covers, gel and disinfectant spray accompany our meeting. It’s time to rest. We have been on the road for more than 13 hours. We get settled in the space that we have been lent in solidarity to spend those two nights. In the early hours of the morning, I hear notifications of messages on my cell phone. I hear them in the distance, while dreaming.

The next day when I wake up I finally consult the phone.

“Don’t go out, there is turmoil in the village.”

“How are you? Don’t go near the north of Jovel.” These are some of the messages I read.

According to the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center, the night witnessed confrontations between criminal groups in the northern area of the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, near the community known as Molino los Arcos.

The situation is serious: people assassinated, houses burned, terror. In Chiapas this scene has also become common: paramilitary and organized crime groups carry out constant attacks against rural and urban populations.

The municipal and state governments do not seem to be concerned about stopping this situation; on the contrary, they guarantee impunity and free mobility to these groups. The interventions of the federal government are also insufficient, or complacent depending on how you want to see it. Chiapas is a powder-keg. Its governor, Rutilio Escandón, “is kept in the government with pins” and through agreements with other power constituencies.

On Thursday the 9th, the entire day consisted of preparations and informal meetings with compañeros and compañeras from other organizations. In the morning we went to the Center of Autonomous Resistance and Zapatista Rebellion Caracol Jacinto Canek, a Zapatista caracol in the heart of San Cristóbal de las Casas. We signed up on a list and announced that we would accompany the caravan. The next day La Extemporánea, the Zapatista airborne delegation will leave for Mexico City, where they will stay for a few days and then fly to Vienna, Austria. Outside the Caracol remain people of solidarity, comrades, filmmakers, independent journalists. We share information and tips for the trip.

In the afternoon of the same Thursday we attended a seminar held by some collectives of the region. The predominant theme of the interventions was the attacks that occurred in the early hours of the morning.

They talk about organized crime, corruption, dispossession, resistance, the struggle for life, the role of women, the objective of the intensification of the war in Chiapas, the situation of terror. There is fear and uncertainty.

An older man takes the floor and maps the links between local governments and organized crime.

He concludes: “we have to ask our allies in Mexico City to help us communicate what is happening in Chiapas. If we write it, they will kill us.”

Night falls again, a reminder that we must hurry.

We distribute the tasks between the three: buy food, water, put gas in the car. My travel partners go together, and I walk through the center of San Cristobal. I adjust my mask, dodging tourists and moving away from where I see the highest concentration of people. It seems that for the hundreds of visitors the pandemic is over: they go without masks, or healthy distance, or any other measure. I meet up with three comrades who live in town, friends of many years. We find a corner and quickly catch up. Jokingly I tell them, “the pandemic is over here, isn’t it?”. Their response is similar to what I have read in the press or heard from others: “The health measures here are a disaster. Listen to what the health workers say… In the protests against AMLO a few weeks ago there were not only the compas of the CNTE, there were also women and men doctors and nurses. Many people died in the communities who were not included in the COVID statistics.”

On Friday, September 10, very early, at 6:00 am, we arrived again at the Caracol Jacinto Canek. The Extemporánea has already boarded the four trucks that will take them to Mexico City. Also on the trucks are the Comando Palomitas, the group of boys and girls who have a special mission on the trip: to play. Also on board is Después de los 17. (The Ixchel-Ramona Militia Section). A total of 177 people make up La Extemporánea. At the head of the delegation is the spokesman of the EZLN, Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, who is also the coordinator of La Travesía por la Vida – European Chapter.

The Extemporaneous is the second Zapatista delegation to travel to Europe this year. Just last May, Squadron 421, the Zapatista maritime delegation, composed of Lupita, Carolina, Ximena, Yuli, Bernal, Felipe and Marijose, left on the ship La Montaña for Europe. After several weeks at sea, in June 2021, Squadron 421 arrived at its destination, which it renamed SLUMIL K’AJXEMK’OP, which means “Rebellious Land”, or “Land that does not surrender, that does not yield”. During its stay in Insubordinate Europe, Squadron 421 met with different organizations. It also led the historic mobilization of August 13, 2021 in Madrid under the slogan: They did not conquer us.

The caravan of vehicles is formed and begins to take its course. A filmmaker runs alongside us with his camera in hand. From the truck in front of us, half of the body of another documentary filmmaker comes out of the window: camera in hand, making funny contortions to get better shots. They both want to record this historic moment.

Several cars break away from the caravan before leaving San Cristobal de las Casas. From there we will be four trucks, five vans and one car that will make the trip.

We have already identified ourselves and we know who should go where. In Tuxtla Gutiérrez we notice that a local police patrol is following us. They take pictures of us. They speed up and get between the cars of the caravan. The same scene will be repeated in Tabasco, Veracruz, Puebla and the State of Mexico: state police patrols passing us, taking photos, closing the road.

Something similar happens with the patrols of the National Guard and the National Migration Institute. These two groups stop us on at least three occasions. The treatment is cold, aggressive. In one of the stops the situation becomes more tense than in the previous ones. Migration and the National Guard stop us at the same time. They want the compas to get out of the trucks. The human rights observers accompanying us argue the right to free transit. Migration insists. All of us accompanying the caravan surround the agents. Some of us turn on our cell phone cameras and start recording. A colleague begins to transmit live via Facebook. The agents look surprised, they don’t expect that kind of reaction. They let us go. We get back on the road.

On two separate occasions we stop for food. The Zapatista delegation is well prepared: bananas, water, tortas. They organize themselves to distribute them. Everyone always wears masks and safety face shields.

16 hours after leaving the Caracol Jacinto Canek we arrived at our destination: Carmona y Valle no. 32 in Mexico City. The location shows off the murals and ribbons that a brigade of artists had painted a few weeks earlier. Other Zapatista sympathizers have attended the reception. The large contingent from the Otomí Community residing in Mexico City stands out. The arrival is, like the departure, quick and orderly.

The Extemporaneous has arrived safely at its first destination. It is time to rest.

---

Published originally in Mexican-Castillian language by Camino al Andar. Part one of two, the second part to be published tomorrow.

Chronicle by Raúl Romero, photographs by Francisco Lion.

Translation by taller ahuehuete.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Español. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.

#AltoALaGuerraContraLasComunidadesZapatistas
#RutilioEscandón
#RutilioRepresor
#AltoALaGuerraEnChiapas
#OstulaVive

A todos los medios de comunicación,
Al Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional,
Al Congreso Nacional Indígena,
Al Consejo Indígena de Gobierno,
A las organizaciones sociales,
A la población en general,

Por medio de este comunicado, la comunidad indígena de Santa María Ostula, integrante del Congreso Nacional Indígena (CNI), expresa su solidaridad con las comunidades zapatistas que desafortunadamente son atacadas por los paramilitares de la Organización Regional de Cafeticultores de Ocosingo (ORCAO).

Por nuestra historia de lucha en defensa del territorio, conocemos bien las estrategias del mal gobierno para intentar destruir la organización comunitaria, para despojar a las comunidades y pueblos originarios de sus tierras y de sus dignas vidas.

Condenamos las estrategias de muerte que llevan a cabo el gobernador de Chiapas, Rutilio Escandón y su secretaria de gobierno, Victoria Cecilia Flores Pérez.

Condenamos el silencio cómplice con que se maneja el gobierno federal, los partidos políticos y toda la clase política mexicana, al mismo tiempo que ataca a los pueblos originarios ya que para ellos y ellas, nosotras y nosotros merecemos ser exterminados y usados en espectáculos para atraer el turismo.

Como comunidad nahua hemos caminado junto al CNI y junto a las iniciativas de vida que el Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) ha llevado a cabo siempre, por eso no guardaremos silencio frente a los ataques, los secuestros y la muerte que sufren las comunidades y bases de apoyo zapatistas.

Comunidad Nahua de Santa María Ostula
20 de septiembre de 2021
¡Nunca más un México sin nosotras y nosotros!

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Communique from the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation

September 19, 2021

To the people of Mexico:
To the peoples of the world:
To the Sixth in Mexico and abroad:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:

First: On September 11, 2021, in the early morning, while the Zapatista air delegation was in Mexico City, members of ORCAO – a paramilitary organization serving the Chiapas state government – kidnapped the compañeros Sebastián Nuñez Pérez and José Antonio Sánchez Juárez, autonomous authorities from the Good Government Council of Patria Nueva [New Homeland], Chiapas.

The ORCAO is a political-military organization with paramilitary characteristics: they have uniforms, equipment, weapons, and ammunition purchased with money they receive from [government-sponsored] “social programs”. They keep part of the money for themselves and use part of it to pay off government officials for reporting that they [the ORCAO] are complying with the terms of the social programs. They fire on the Zapatista community of Moisés y Gandhi every night with these weapons.

The EZLN has waited patiently as all avenues toward a solution were attempted and exhausted. While the Chiapas state government tried to sabotage and impede freedom for our compañeros, it was human rights organizations and the progressive Catholic church who made an objective assessment of what might happen.

Second: The compañeros were deprived of their liberty for eight days and then freed today, September 19, 2021, thanks to the parish priests of San Cristóbal de las Casas and Oxchuc, of the San Cristóbal diocese. The compañeros were robbed of a walkie-talkie and six thousand pesos in cash belonging to the Good Government Council.

Third: Kidnapping is a crime under both the bad government’s laws and Zapatista law. While the Chiapas state government has supported and covered up these crimes, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation took the necessary steps to free those who were kidnapped and to detain and sanction those who committed the crime.

Fourth: The only reason the conflict did not escalate into a tragedy was due to the intervention of the parishes mentioned above, human rights organizations, and the mobilizations and denunciations carried out in Mexico and, above all, Europe.

Fifth: The misgovernment of Rutilio Escandón is doing everything possible to destabilize the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas:

It violently represses the normalistas [1].

It sabotages the agreements made between the organized teachers and the federal government, forcing the teachers to take more radical action to demand the agreements be complied with.

Its alliance with narcotraffickers forces indigenous communities to create their own self-defense groups, as the government does nothing to protect the life, liberty, and property of the population. It not only protects the narcotrafficking gangs, but also encourages, promotes, and finances paramilitary groups like those that are constantly attacking communities in Aldama and Santa Martha.

Its vaccination campaign is purposefully slow and disorganized, creating unrest in rural communities that it will no doubt exploit. Meanwhile, the rising covid deaths in these communities are ignored.

Its officials are stealing everything they can from the state treasury, perhaps preparing for a federal government collapse or betting on a new party coming into power.

And now they want to sabotage the departure of the Zapatista delegation participating in the European chapter of the Journey for Life. They ordered their ORCAO paramilitaries to kidnap our compañeros, leaving the crime unpunished, and trying to provoke a reaction from the EZLN, all in a state where governability hangs by a thread.

Sixth: If what the Ecologist Green Party of Mexico (PVEM) wants is to provoke a crisis with international repercussions so that it can destabilize the regime currently in power, they should call a referendum to revoke the presidential mandate.

The PVEM is one of the names used around here by the same old PRI. Sometimes they say it’s the PAN, sometimes the PRD, and now it’s the PVEM badly disguised as the Movement for National Regeneration [MORENA]. But it’s the same criminals as ever, and now they’re part of the misnamed “opposition” movement, a “fifth column” within the 4T [2].

Those responsible are: Rutilio Escandón and Victoria Cecilia Flores Pérez.

If what they want is to topple the federal government, or to cause problems in retaliation for the current federal criminal investigations against them, or to support one of the factions competing for power in 2024, then they should use the available legal channels and stop playing with the life, liberty, and property of the people of Chiapas. They should call for a vote to revoke the presidential mandate and stop playing with fire because they’re going to get burned.

Seventh: We call on Europe below and to the left and on the Sixth in Mexico and abroad to protest in front of Mexican embassies and consulates and at the government offices of the state of Chiapas, demanding an end their provocations and renunciation of their death cult. The date is Friday, September 24, 2021.

Given the actions and omissions of the state and federal governments regarding these crimes and previous ones, we will take the necessary measures to bring justice to the criminals in the ORCAO and the government officials who sponsor them.

That is all. Next time there won’t be a communique. That is, there won’t be words, only actions.

From the mountains of southeastern Mexico,
In the name of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command of the EZLN

Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano.
Mexico, September 19, 2021.

—

[1] Students at the Escuelas Normales, or rural teachers’ colleges.
[2] The López Obrador campaign deemed its governing project the “Fourth Transformation” (4T), supposedly on par with historic events such as Mexican Independence (1810), a period of reform in the mid-19th century, and the Mexican Revolution (1910).

(En français ici | Español aquí)

On September 11 of this year, two Zapatistas from the Good Government Council Patria Nueva of Caracol 10, Ocosingo, were kidnapped by ORCAO. After widespread mobilizations and denunciations, along with the intervention of religious authorities, they were released on September 19.

ORCAO has been denounced repeatedly by the Zapatista Good Government Councils as a paramilitary organization, which has constantly for more than 20 years threatened and harassed Zapatista communities with growing intensity and complete impunity.

The Regional Organization of Coffee Growers of Ocosingo (ORCAO) was founded in 1988 by 12 communities in the municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas, as an organization of legitimate struggle demanding better coffee prices and a solution to agrarian backlog. In little time, many more communities joined the organization. For years, ORCAO maintained connections with Zapatismo. However, those connections were broken in the late 1990’s when the organization, like many others, caved to the temptation of government support and political positions in exchange for favors. The rupture worsened in the year 2000 with the arrival of Pablo Salazar as governor of Chiapas. ORCAO abandoned the struggle and allied with the government, breaking with the EZLN in order to gain access to state funds. From that moment on, the aggressions have become increasingly frequent and violent.

Here is a summary of the trajectory of violence carried out by the paramilitary organization:

In January 2002, around 70 members of ORCAO, armed with rocks, clubs, chains, and machetes, attacked Zapatista Support Bases in Nuevo Poblado Javier López, in the autonomous municipality of Francisco Gómez, with the complicity and support of the police.

In June 2002, members of ORCAO of Silbacá destroyed two hectares of crops in the autonomous municipality of Primero de Enero. Furthermore they demolished the territorial limits of Pomalá, threatened inhabitants of López-Chamizal, expelled Zapatistas from Ucumiljá and Ja’ten’chib (Ocosingo) and dispossessed them of 30 hectares of land, while robbing their houses and all their belongings.

In January 2009, while the EZLN celebrated the Festival of Dignified Rage in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, members of ORCAO attacked and tried to dispossess Zapatista Support Bases of 500 hectares in Bosque Bonito, in the autonomous municipality of Che Guevara. A little while afterwards, 220 members of ORCAO aboard 19 trucks and vans tried to forcibly enter the Caracol of Morelia. Around that time, ORCAO also impeded the passage of Zapatistas who were transporting wood for the construction of new spaces of the autonomous school of Primero de Enero.

In April of that same year, while police and the paramilitary group OPDDIC attacked and harassed Zapatistas around the waterfalls of Agua Azul, members of ORCAO threatened Zapatistas with death, seeking to burn the collective store in Cuxuljá (an act they accomplished in August of 2020) and setting fire to 60 hectares.

At the end of that year, the Good Government Councils of La Garrucha and Morelia denounced that ORCAO organized a group to take over the market in Ocosingo, expelling the Zapatistas.

In July of 2011, members of ORCAO invaded lands which had been recuperated by the EZLN in El Paraiso. This followed several previous attacks between March and June of 2011, in which ORCAO destroyed 4500 coffee plants, a half hectare of sugar cane, and a half hectare of corn, in addition to stealing cattle, wire, and wood. In June of that year, members of ORCAO kidnapped and tortured two Zapatistas in Ocosingo.

In August of 2011, ORCAO paramilitaries destroyed a house used by human rights observers in the community Ejido Patria Nueva, then belonging to the Caracol of Morelia. That same month, 12 armed groups of ORCAO attacked Zapatista Support Bases with firearms, sticks, and stones.

In May of 2012, the Good Government Councill of Morelia denounced land dispossession by ORCAO in the autonomous municipalities of 17 de Noviembre and Lucio Cabañas. In August of that same year, ORCAO carried out various armed attacks against Zapatista Support Bases, according to a denouncement made by the Good Government Council of Morelia.

In July and August of 2014, members of ORCAO carried out a series of attacks, displacing Zapatista Support Bases in the autonomous municipality of San Manuel, Caracol of La Garrucha. This took place just before the reunion of Indigenous peoples of the country in the Caracol of La Realidad in August of that same year.

On February 23, 2020, members of the National Indigenous Congress from the communities of San Antonio Bulujib and Guaquitepec, in the municipality of Chilón, were beaten and kidnapped by members of ORCAO and the paramilitary group, Los Chinchulines, as well as members of the MORENA political party. This attack was carried out in retaliation for the communities having participated in the Days in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth “We Are all Samir.”

On August, 2020, members of ORCAO looted and set fire to two corn and coffee warehouses pertaining to the Zapatista Support Bases, in Cuxuljá, between Oxchuc and Ocosingo, in the autonomous municipality of Lucio Cabañas, triggering strong national and international condemnation.

On November 8 of that same year, ORCAO kidnapped and tortured Zapatista Félix López Hernández, who was freed a couple days later thanks to national and international pressure. In the same denunciation, the Good Government Council of Patria Nueva confirmed that ORCAO received government support to construct a school, but that they used it to buy high-caliber weaponry, with the presumed complicity of the government of the Fourth Transformation.

In January of 2021, the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center reported new armed aggressions of ORCAO in the community of Moises Gandhi. In April, two members of that human rights center were kidnapped while on their way to a meeting in Palenque, in the community of San Felipe, inhabited in the majority by members of ORCAO, in what all indications was an act of retaliation for the documentation work of the human rights center.

It is not a coincidence that the recent kidnapping of two members of the Good Government Council of Caracol 10 Patria Nueva took place in the context of the Journey for Life, just as the Zapatista air delegation arrived in Vienna to begin a series of encounters with leftist collectives and organizations in the territory known as Europe. In the face of the struggle for life, the response is paramilitary violence promoted by the government of the so-called Fourth Transformation.

Translation: It’s Going Down

Only 500 years later
Words of the Zapatista Peoples

August 13, 2021.

Sisters, brothers, hermanoas:

Compañeros, compañeras, compañeroas:

The Zapatista communities speak through our voices.

First, we would like to express our thanks.

Thank you for having invited us.

Thank you for having welcomed us.

Thank you for having housed us.

Thank you for having fed us.

Thank you for having taken care of us.

But above all, we’d like to express our gratitude for the fact that despite differences and obstacles you have all agreed to what we’re doing today. Perhaps it seems small to you, but for us Zapatista communities it is huge.

-*-

We are Zapatistas of Mayan descent.

We are from a geography called Mexico, and we crossed the ocean to share these words with you, be with you, listen to you, and to learn from you.

We are from Mexico and in and with you we find love, care, and respect.

The Mexican state and their administrations don’t recognize us as citizens of this geography. We are strangers, foreigners, undesirable and unwelcome in the same lands that were farmed by our ancestors.

For the Mexican state we are “extemporaneous.” That’s what it says on the birth certificates that we managed to obtain after we made many trips and incurred many expenses on visits to the offices of the bad government. And we did all that to be able to come to where you are.

But we didn’t come all this way to complain or even to denounce the bad government we have to put up with.

We only share this because it is this same bad government which has demanded that the Spanish State apologize for what happened 500 years ago.

You should understand that in addition to being shameless, the bad government of Mexico is also ignorant of history, twisting and adapting it to its liking.

So let’s leave aside the bad governments that each of us have to put up with in our geographies.

They are just overseers, obedient employees of a greater criminal.

-*-

Those of us who make up the Zapatista Maritime Squadron, known as the 421st Squadron, are here in front of you today, but we are just the first wave of a much larger group. There will be up to 501 delegates. There are 501 of us just to show the bad governments that we are ahead of them: while they simulate a false celebration of 500 years, we [nosotros, nosotras, nosotroas] are already heading towards what’s next: life.

In the year 501, we will have explored the corners of this rebellious land.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Zapatista Sixth Commission
Mexico

July 31, 2021.

To the victims and families of victims in Mexico:
To the organizations, groups, collectives and individuals who support the victims:
We present the first results we have received from the Popular Referendum:

1. As of 13:00hrs on July 31, 2021, the twelve Zapatista caracoles and their respective Good Government Councils have received the official decisions of 756 small towns, villages, communities and rancherías [rural farming communities] where the following Mayan languages are spoken: Zoque, Tojolabal, Mam, Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Ch’ol. The decisions come from Zapatistas, CNI communities and partidista [political party-affiliated] communities which came together in “extemporaneous” community assemblies, which is to say that they do not have an official, legal existence.

2. The 756 originary communities have said “YES” in response to the question of whether they agree that whatever is necessary should be done to respect the rights of the victims and their families to truth and justice.

3. What we have noticed up to now is that in many areas, the INE [National Electoral Institute] did not translate the referendum into Mayan languages. The INE did not explain what the referendum is about and in some places it simply dropped off ballot boxes without explaining to the townspeople what they are.

4. The Zapatista communities did the work of explaining the importance of participating in the referendum and what the referendum is about. They did this in both partidista and CNI communities, and they did this in the communities’ mother tongues.

To our surprise, some partidistas communities where there are no Zapatistas held and continue to hold assemblies, and they have sent and continue to send their results to the Good Government Councils.

The partidista communities have thanked the Good Government Councils for explaining the referendum, and have said they will go to the polls tomorrow and will send us the count of how many people from their communities participated in the referendum with their official ID cards.

The gap created by the absence of representatives of the Mexican government and its institutions is being filled by “extemporaneous” individuals who took it upon themselves to translate the referendum into their originary languages and to explain what the referendum is about and its importance.

Not only did no one from the INE show up to explain anything: no one in any government capacity deigned to even try to go to any community (even though the government is supposedly the interested party in the referendum because their overseer ordered it).

The only thing the government officials have done is threaten people by saying that if they don’t go “vote” in the referendum, then their government support programs will be “cut.” They were sent to say: “If you don’t want to lose your cash handouts, go and put down ‘yes.’”

In addition, the government is lying because when it tells people to just go and vote “yes,” it says that the referendum is about whether to take the former presidents to trial.

Instead of explaining things to the people, they resort to threats and lies.
All that was needed was a bit of self-respect and political work.

5. Even though according to the Mexican state they do not exist, the thousands of “extemporaneous” indigenous communities embrace the thousands of families of the victims of the decisions made at different levels of government in recent years.

6. Although we do not legally exist according to the Mexican government, we ask you all – victims, families, and organizations that support them – to accept this embrace from those who have spent centuries (up to the present day) being victimized by the “decisions of political actors” of all governments across the entire political spectrum.

When we have the complete results, we will ensure they are shared with those who struggle for truth and justice for the victims and their families.

With this communiqué we announce that the Zapatista communities, as of July 31, 2021, are initiating their participation in the National Campaign for Truth and Justice.

That is all.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano
Zapatista Sixth Commission for the National Campaign for Truth and Justice
Mexico, July 2021

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