MEXICO – The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) indicated that paramilitary activity has increased in the state of Chiapas, thereby increasing the risk of new aggression that could mirror what ended in the massacre of 45 indigenous people in 1996. The communication, signed by EZLN leader Sub-Commander Marcos, also denounced the Fox government for not fulfilling the negotiations and peace accords that were promised in 2000.
In Mexico, Zapatista communities in the state of Chiapas, located in southeastern Mexico, denounce various aggressions by paramilitary groups and authorities, a conflict invisible to the press but which has been going on for some time.
The state of Chiapas was the birthplace of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), which took up arms in 1994. Twenty-eight years later, the Zapatista indigenous communities are working to build an autonomous and different society, but at the same time denounce constant aggressions by paramilitary groups and the authorities.
With the support of the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center, based in Chiapas, members of civil society from different countries have formed an international observation mission.
“What these communities are doing in Chipas is impressive: developing their autonomy, a very democratic, anti-capitalist political system, and we wanted to give a political character to our trip (…) The objective was to be able to participate as a human rights observer and thus support the movement,” says Antoine Dibon, a member of an international observation mission to Chiapas.
The Bad Mexican Government prefers to protect narco-paramilitary groups than attend to the demands of CIPOG-EZ (Popular Indigenous Council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata). As the same time the The National Indigenous Congress is calling for “Global action against militarization & the capitalist & patriarchal war against the peoples of Mexico & the world, against the EZLN & the Zapatista communities & against the orginal peoples of Mexico.”
CALL FOR GLOBAL ACTION AGAINST MILITARIZATION AND CAPITALIST WARFARE
“530 years after the misnamed Conquest of America, we have nothing to celebrate but the resistance and rebellion of the native peoples.
This date marks the beginning of the resistance of our peoples and communities against the greatest genocide in the history of humanity, against the invasion, against the conquest, against the dispossession of our lands and territories, against the extermination of our institutions, languages, culture and traditions; that is to say, against the death produced by patriarchal capitalism.
In contrast to the pain and rage of our peoples, last year, while the EZLN denounced that “Chiapas was on the verge of Civil War”; at this time, the Zapatista peoples, in what they called “The Journey for Life”, decided to cross the Atlantic to reach the other Europe, the Europe of the Insubmissive, the Europe of Below and to the Left…, they said: “Let’s thank the other for its existence. To thank the teachings that their rebellion and their resistance have given us. To deliver the promised flower. To embrace the other and tell it in its ear that it is not alone, alone, alone. To whisper to her that it is worth the resistance, the struggle, the pain for those who are no longer here, the rage that the criminal is unpunished, the dream of a world that is not perfect, but better: a world without fear. And also, and above all, we will seek complicity… for life.”
Next October 12, it will be 26 years since the founding of the National Indigenous Congress, the House of Indigenous Peoples in Mexico, a space for reflection and solidarity of which the EZLN is a founder and where the forms of organization, representation and decision-making are respected. The struggle for life has been our collective word for 530 years and the war against our peoples has always been the response of the bad governments. For this reason we raise our voices and mobilize to demand a total halt to the military encirclement, paramilitary attacks and the counterinsurgency war directed against the EZLN and Zapatista communities; and against the original peoples of Mexico through militarization and paramilitarization, organized crime, mega-projects of death and the dispossession of our lands and territories.
Last year, the CNI denounced that up to that date, 33 murders of its members had been documented, among them six women, as well as two disappearances; one year later, these numbers have increased considerably, the common denominator is impunity.
Mexico has always faced flagrant and systematic violations of individual and collective human rights that have worsened under the current 4T regime. Homicides, extrajudicial executions and mass disappearances, as well as repression against students, women, peasants, teachers, workers, youth, defenders of human rights and Mother Earth, as in the case of our brother Samir Flores Soberanes, journalists, activists and indigenous peoples is constant and growing; and ranges from harassment, harassment, threats, to dispossession, displacement, torture, political imprisonment, disappearance, homicide, femicide….
There are innumerable forms of war that we, the peoples of Mexico, face.
We know that this patriarchal and capitalist system wants to subdue us all over the world, as is currently happening in Ukraine, in Afghanistan, in the Middle East, all over the planet; but if we unite and organize ourselves we can fight together against war and against capitalism.
Bad governments use militarization, paramilitarization, attacks and aggressions of organized crime to impose the extraction of minerals and hydrocarbons or mega-projects of death such as the misnamed Mayan Train, the Interoceanic Corridor and the Morelos Integral Project; the dispossession of water is institutionalized practically throughout the national territory and elements of the public forces are assigned to defend transnational companies; the contamination of rivers, groundwater, air and land is increasing; priority is given to mining, drug trafficking, logging and industry. The communities, peoples and organizations denounce time and again that the imposition of infrastructure and extractivism projects is carried out with the direct participation of the National Guard, which increases the militarization of daily life in many regions and indigenous peoples. This situation is nothing more than the endless continuity of colonization.
Recently, the Chambers of Deputies and Senators approved legislative modifications to pass operational and administrative control of the National Guard to the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), even though this contravenes Article 21 of the Constitution. Now it is intended to extend the time in which the Army and the Secretariat of the Navy may intervene in public security tasks: not only until 2024, -a term that had been agreed to strengthen state and municipal police forces- but until 2028, thus imposing a trans-sexennial scheme.
These decisions, instructed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador from the executive branch, contradict his campaign promises to “return the Army to its barracks” and give the military a leading role and a presence in the life of the country as they have never had before; This despite the fact that they have violated and continue to systematically violate the human rights of the people of Mexico, as evidenced by massacres such as that of October 2, 1968, that of June 10, 1971, the so-called dirty war, the alleged war against drug trafficking, from Calderón to the present day, or the disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa with the central participation of the Mexican Army.
For all of the above, as an agreement of the Expanded Meeting of the Coordination and Follow-up Commission of the CNI-CIG, as well as of the different organizations, networks and collectives that accompany the National Indigenous Congress, we call so that according to their times, modes, calendars and geographies, on October 12, 2022, we carry out a….
GLOBAL ACTION AGAINST MILITARIZATION AND THE CAPITALIST AND PATRIARCHAL WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLES OF MEXICO AND THE WORLD, AGAINST THE EZLN AND THE ZAPATISTA COMMUNITIES AND AGAINST THE ORIGINAL PEOPLES OF MEXICO.
We call on the peoples of Mexico and the world who resist against death and oblivion, on the social, civil and political organizations, on the National and International Sexta, on the networks of resistance and rebellion, on the signers of A Declaration for Life in the five continents, on the women and men of good heart, so that together we raise our voices against the war in Mexico and in the world.”
