MEXICO – On October 12, Latin America celebrated the indigenous resistance against the colonial invasion of the conquistadors 530 years ago. In Mexico, different collectives, organizations and indigenous peoples coordinated through the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) called for a global day of action against militarization and war, in response to the Mexican government’s recent decision to modify laws to allow the army to perform public security tasks and take control of state police forces.
This move by the Mexican government is part of a series of political initiatives that seek to give greater power to the armed forces, who play a key role in repressing social sectors that oppose megaprojects and private capital initiatives that seek to dispossess peoples of their territories, as a CNI communiqué points out: “These megaprojects and these businesses are installed in the national geography and, above all, in the indigenous territories; spaces where for some time now crime, alcoholism, drug addiction and, of course, the destruction of Mother Earth, as well as poverty and human exploitation, have been growing.”
Mobilizations took place in the states of Veracruz, Oaxaca, Morelos, Chiapas, Jalisco and Sonora. In Mexico City, thousands of people from different indigenous peoples and neighborhoods from different parts of the country, accompanied by relatives of the disappeared, victims of femicides, feminist collectives, students and civil society organizations participated in the mobilization called by the CNI with the slogan: NO to militarization and the war against the peoples of the National Indigenous Congress and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).
The march emphasized the call to stop the war against the peoples in all parts of the world, including the Kurdish people, who are being systematically attacked by the Turkish state and recently by the repression in Iran.
“Militarization, paramilitarization, femicides, espionage, dispossession of territories, open and covert wars, assassinations and harassment against journalists, human rights defenders, social organizations and activists, megaprojects that affect the entire lives of people and communities, contamination of the planet, economic crisis and devaluations.”
SOLIDARITY FROM THE INTERNATIONALIST COMMUNE OF ROJAVA
“Today, October 12, marks 530 years since the Western empires arrived in the Americas to plunder, exploit and massacre indigenous peoples. But more importantly, it is 530 years since these same indigenous peoples and communities began to resist against the barbarism of patriarchal capitalism. 530 years later, the resistance and rebellion of native peoples against invasion, dispossession, exploitation, and the extermination of indigenous culture and languages is more alive than ever, raising, with it, different democratic alternatives raised on the common principle of a free life.
Today, October 12, the Internationalist Commune of Rojava wants to join the Global Action against Militarization and Capitalist War and to stand in solidarity with the Mexican people, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the Zapatista Communities that are suffering attacks by the Mexican government. Military activity continues to grow in Chiapas and with it tensions that could lead to a new aggression against the sovereign Zapatista people.
Capitalist Modernity, submerged in a state of global crisis, is collapsing in the face of a society expressing its desire for freedom. The revolution in Iran is a symptom of this impulse for freedom. Times are changing and Democratic Confederalism together with the Zapatista people is illuminating the new democracies to emerge. Today, more than ever, it is necessary to stand in solidarity with the sovereign peoples who resist the constant attacks of imperialism that want to deny their existence. Solidarity is the tenderness of the peoples.
All power to the people! Until victory always.”
