Words of the EZLN from the Indigenous organizations and Indian peoples meeting in Chiapas

north america / mexico | indigenous struggles | news report

Thursday August 18, 2005 21:29

by EZLN (trans irlandesa) - EZLN

On Saturday, August 13 in the Community of Javier Hernández, Mexico the Second Preparation Meeting for the Other Campaign took place. This one was for Indigenous organizations and Indian peoples Here are the Zapatista speeches and communiques for this meeting and details of the preparation for the next meeting. Marcos's introductions includes some details of the background to the occupation of the lands the host community is based on.

More words from indigenous organizations and Indian peoples meeting

Opening Words by the EZLN For the Second Preparation Meeting for the Other Campaign

Indigenous organizations and Indian peoples

Saturday, August 13, 2005
Community of Javier Hernández

Words of Welcome from Comandante Gustavo

Good day to everyone. Welcome, indigenous brothers and sisters throughout Mexico. In the name of my compañero comandantes from the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee, General-Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, I would like to thank all the Indian peoples of Mexico who have come here to this place at the invitation of the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona.

Welcome to all the indigenous organizations who are here with us. We are here to listen to your words, in order to inform the peoples where we work and the rest of the Clandestine Revolutionary Committee…We hope that you will be happy, even though we have received you with but little, but we are very happy to have you. That is all for today. Thank you. We will turn the word over to Comandanta Kelly.

Words of Welcome from Comandanta Kelly

Good day to everyone. In the name of my compañera comandantas from the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee, General-Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, we are welcoming most cordially all the women of the Indian peoples of Mexico. We are greeting you all and all of us as women, we have the right to participate, to engage in any kind of work; the right to govern ourselves and to organize as women; to have our cultures respected, our languages as the women we are. Let us learn to struggle together, to walk so that in that way we will have the strength to do our work. We demand that our rights as indigenous be respected. That is why we are fighting for the thirteen demands. That is why we are organizing the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona, so we can walk together. We hope you will be happy and pleased. We are here to listen to your words and opinions. That is all. Thank you very much.

And we are also giving the word to compañero:

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

Good day. Welcome to everyone…

... Well, compañeros, compañeras, who come from various parts of the Republic and from various indigenous organizations. We would first like to talk to you about this place where we are. This was a finca prior to the '94 uprising. It was called San Juan. The finquero put the peons to work, to clear the land in order to make a field, and he said he wasn't going to pay them until he saw the [finished] work. So then the brothers cleared the mountain. The finquero took a long time getting back, and when he returned the growth had reappeared. Then he told them: no, you didn't clear it well. And he didn't pay them, and there had been days and days of work, and so this finquero just cheated them. Since there wasn't any water, the compañeros had to make a well in order to get water. The finquero wouldn't let them walk through the land, making them walk through a ravine. Then he left them without water, and he also treated them like animals, worse than animals, because the animals didn't even have to go through that ravine. He then forbade the people there from crossing his land, and he ordered the vaqueros to pursue the people of the village who entered his land, or he passed through it. And, see, there were a lot of pigs there, in the village. And sometimes they went on the finca land. The vaqueros grabbed the pigs, they killed them and they ate them. There wasn't any indemnification or anything of the kind.

In 1994, on the first of January, the finquero fled. The finca's status remained uncertain until it was known what accords the government was going to reach. Finally, the San Andrés Accords were not fulfilled, and the Agrarian Commission of the Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipality, the municipality called Francisco Gómez, divided up the land to campesinos sin tierra from several villages, and they named it Javier Hernández. Javier Hernández was a compañero from here in Carmen Pataté, a Militia sergeant for the EZLN who disappeared during the combat in Ocosingo in January of 1994. He's one of several compañeros who we presumed died, and he was one of those who appeared in the first photos in '94, shot in the head. The federal government never said what happened to those compañeros. He has been disappeared ever since then. We assume he died in combat, and his body was buried in a common grave. That is the history of this place where we are, compañeros. Welcome, then. The name, I remind you, is Javier Hernández. It was a finca, and now it belongs to the campesinos.

As To How the Entire World Began

By Subcomandante Marcos

As this is the meeting of Indian peoples and indigenous organizations, we are going to try and talk about what our way is like, among the indigenous, among the Indian peoples. And a small part of that is the history recounted by our Mayan ancestors as to how the entire world began. They said then, so our old ones recounted, that in the beginning there was nothing, and in reality the world began to run, started to run, when the word appeared. But the word did not appear just like that, the word, so say our old ones, began by being thought inside oneself, by, they say, reflecting. By using the word, the first gods, those who made the world, began consulting among themselves, they spoke, they reached agreement and they reflected.

And then, since they had made accords, they joined together, joined their thoughts, and that is when the world began to run. That is how everything began, with the word being thought within, or being reflected in the heart, which is mirror within, for us to look at what we are. And therefore then it was the word that met with other word.

The first word did not fight, it did want to dominate, not want to conquer another word, and that is because the first word which came out met a word that was like its sister, because it was equal yet different. Or as if they had the same root, but it was branch or leaf of the tree of the world. Or as if the first word was not alone, but there was another word, and, according to this way of thinking of our Mayan ancestors, the world began being birthed when that one word and that other word met each other and they did not quarrel, rather they met and reached accord because they each respected the other and they spoke and they listened.

Then there was accord, because the first word was not born alone, instead it had ear, and with the ear, by listening, is how the first words began to grow because they made accord, and the first words which found each other reached accord and first they thought up the world and then they made it. As if they did not just set about making the world with its rivers, its mountains, its animals, its night, its day, its sun, its moon, its maize, its men and women, instead the first words first thought and then they made.

But then it came to pass that someone said he was better than the rest and he wanted to rule, he wanted to have more and better than the rest, and then the one who wanted to rule more, he stole from others, he took what they had away from them by force, he took away from others what was theirs, or as if, as is said, he deprived them, which means he took away from them what they possessed. And then he also dominated them and dominated their work, he divested them of what they produced, or as if, as is said, he exploited them. And that is how the one who has more and better was born. He was not born because he just arrived, but because of the depriving and the exploitation. And thus began, as is said, the problem. Because, as that is how the one who wants to dominate and dominates came forth, so the one who did not allow himself to be dominated also came forth. And so the history of the world is the history of that struggle between those who want to dominate in order to impose their word and their way, taking away from others their wealth, and those who do not allow themselves to be dominated, those who rebel.

And these who rebel, who are called rebels, they do not want to be the ones who dominate, instead they want everyone to be even, without there being those with more and those with less. Without there being those with reason to rob and exploit and those with no reason to be robbed and exploited. These rebels want us to be branches and leaves of the tree of the world, each one in their own place and in their own way. That is how our Mayan ancestors so recount. The Mayan indigenous who were the very first to people these lands. And so this way was passed down to their sons and daughters, to the grandsons and granddaughters, and so from one time to another, which means from one generation to another, and the way then remained among the Mayan indigenous who have various names and whose house extends to Yucatán and Guatemala, Campeche, Tabasco, Quintana Roo and here in our state which is Chiapas.

Then what came to pass is that way remained with us, as they then said, and so we the zapatistas, or neo-zapatistas as they call us, or we are like new zapatistas, we also have this way that first we think up the world which is and what to do from within, and then we take out the word and we seek other sister words and we look to find if there is accord speaking and listening, and so the word is made large and thus the world we are dreaming is also made large. But now the beginning of the world is not up to us, but what is up to us now is that there are those who divest and exploit and there are those who rebel and want liberation and then we chose to be by the side of those who are struggling for liberty, the side of those who are dominated and who are stolen from and are exploited.

And therefore then this history. The compañeros and compañeras from indigenous organizations already know it, because we have been walking together for a good while. And together we saw that we must join together and reach accord and that was how what is called the National Indigenous Congress was born. And accords and marches and mobilizations were made, and those who rule and dominate did not want to recognize our word of how we are. Then each one thought once again, and new struggles were born to put our way in place, even if they did not recognize the laws of the rich. And that is what we hope we shall talk about a bit with the brothers and sisters who come from other sides, from other Indian peoples and from other indigenous organizations.

* Read at the second preparation meeting for the Other Campaign.

Little unarmed paper boats

Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Mexico, October 12, 1998.

These bridges which are little unarmed paper boats

To national civil society and to the members of the working meeting for the preparation of the encounter between the EZLN and the signatories, those who signed on and those who are neither signatories nor have signed on, but who wish to meet with us.

(For your initials: AALRDTPTPDEEEEYLFLFYLQNSFNFPQE uf!!)

Brothers and sisters:

Greetings, bows, handshakes, hugs, respectful inclinations of the head.

From here, along with the pretense of aid to those affected by the rains, can now be added the grotesque operetta of some local elections which, despite the gifts and threats, did not manage to convoke even a fourth of the possible voters. So, mending the stage curtains and worn-out sets, the federal and state governments are no longer counting on having their lies believed, but only that they do not cause scandals or indignation. They are counting on exhaustion, and that the pyrotechnics of an early presidential succession will distract you and us from the forgetting, from the postponements, from the legal victories of usury (ah, the rule of law!! So far from justice and so close to crime!!), from the arbitrary acts and from the natural and the neoliberal catastrophes. We are waiting and we are preparing.

And, speaking of preparations, a few days ago we received a document with the main proposals and ideas which were made at your meeting on the ... the..I do not know what day, but it's been some days since you met. Here we are sending you a response as to the place and date of the meeting. While we are meeting, we will continue to use these letters which some call "communiques," and which are no more than bridges to solve distances and differences, and so we go.

And things are not easy. Here you have, for example, these sheets of paper with ink (or this screen with the Internet with little lights, because we do not want to forget that we are in the age of the information highways). You read the letters and, with a little luck, you are able to understand what they are saying. And it seems easy to you, there the letters are now, arranged in a way which may or may not please, but understandable and, in any case, the work is yours, because the letters have to be arranged and made into what some call words, and manage to have meaning. But do not believe it, gathering all those letters was quite difficult, getting them to remain quiet required seven-tailed whips, threats of all kinds, supplication, pleas and promises. Then the nightmare began, trying over and over to put the jigsaw puzzle together so that it would approximate, even moderately, the other jigsaw puzzle which we have in our head. Then, and only then, science and technological development came to our aid, and so we opted for the very efficient and effective mechanism of making a little paper boat, painting a little flag with a fierce skull supported by crossbones, putting inside it a little rubber monkey which the sea gave me, and which did not know (the little monkey) that its future would be that of being a sailor in such a fragile craft.

And then we continue to wait for the rain, which is not fussy or considerate these days, and here comes a little stream with twigs and mud and then the little stream becomes clear and it takes the little paper boat towards the West and down the mountain, and hours later (believe me it does not fail) the little paper boat appears unarmed now in the middle of your newspaper or on your computer screen and up top it reads: "Zapatista Army of National Liberation," and a little further down it says: "To civil society and etcetera," and you know these letters are directed to you and you start to read and you make your best effort to put the puzzle together and we-others are sad here, not for putting the puzzle together, but because the little paper boat is unarmed and it is a shame, look how pretty, with what gallantry it dodged little branches, little rocks and not so "little" toads, and then we cure the sadness by making more little paper boats and Pedrito says horses would be better and I that seahorses would be better and soon I have a flotilla with all of them and their aircraft carriers and Pedrito plays with the horses, and meanwhile my stupendous flotilla is brought back to reality by the rains, or the mud, and it is for that I am writing to you, because hope is also a little paper boat, a 'no' which becomes a yes. And then I remember I read Benedetti the other day, who is a man who looks to the heavens, and he saw a fleeting star and he made many wishes which are one single wish and, for example, he asked the just "to take up all their no's in order to establish the one great affirmation," and I already know that Benedetti says he's from Uruguay, but I do not believe it, he only says that to disturb dictatorships and to bother, in those customs and borders places - with which those from above fragment the dream of those from below - and below, as ever, no's are dreaming, and that is what I am saying, if we meet together and join all the no's which, like the just, are the great majority in this country, then perhaps we can try to put together the puzzle of the morning, and we will find, with so many well-accompanied no's, that is, with justice and dignity, there will come a yes, which is not many yes's, but will be worth as much as the no's which stop it, and now I remember that Old Antonio said that dialogue is like putting a puzzle together and perhaps Old Antonio did not say it, but he should have said it, and all the better then are these bridges which are little unarmed paper boats, or, because we say many no's and you say many no's and at the best you and we suspect that your no's and our no's are the same no's, I say, no?

And so here we are lookingatandreadingeachother (which comes from the verb "mirolear," the action of jointly looking, in reciprocity, mutually). Bring your somewhat organized no's (because neither are we speaking of "no-ing" - the action of sharing no's - without thinking), we will carry ours in little paper boats, so if no one comes to meet with us we will be able to put them in the little streams which, most certainly, will not be lacking.

Vale. Salud and may the looks and the words be joined tomorrow.

From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. October of 1998.

Marcos on preparations for social organizations' meeting

Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Mexico
August 16, 2005

To all those who support the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona:

Compañeros and compañeras:

As we announced, the next preparation meeting for the "other campaign" is for Social Organizations and Movements who are supporting the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona. Arrival is this Friday, August 19; the meeting is on Saturday, the 20th and departure on Sunday, the 21st.

The location will be in the zapatista community of Dolores Hidalgo, which is on one side of - very close to - the old village of Nueva Estrella. The village is in the "San Manuel" MAREZ, belonging to the Caracol of La Garrucha. There are two ways of getting there: the complicated one and the more complicated one.

The complicated one is: from Ocosingo head towards San Miguel, turn left towards San Rafael (which is where the meeting with political organizations was held, and you can ask there) and go straight past, until you reach Agua Dulce. There, turn towards Monte Líbano, but don't go all the way there. About an hour before you reach Agua Dulce, there's a small bypass for Arena and for Dolores Hidalgo. That's where the banners will be, and that's right where the village is where the meeting will be held. The travel times are approximately: from Ocosingo, about an hour and a half to San Miguel, and about another two or two and a half hours to Dolores Hidalgo. Or about 4 hours from Ocosingo.

The more complicated one is: leaving Ocosingo, don't turn towards San Quintín, but towards Toniná, and, at the Quexil crossroads turn towards Agua Dulce. Pass through San Pedro and Pamalá (where you can ask if you're doing alright), and further ahead is Agua Dulce. There, turn towards Monte Líbano, and, in about an hour and a half, you'll see the banners and the village of Dolores Hidalgo. The approximate travel times are: 40 minutes from Ocosingo to Quexil; another 40 minutes to Agua Dulce, and one more hour to Dolores Hidalgo. Or about 2 and a half hours from Ocosingo. It's more complicated, but shorter.

If you don't understand anything, don't worry, because I don't, in fact, even know how to go from there to there. I'm sure the people at Frayba know it quite well, and perhaps they'll give you a little map and some caramels (for when your courage fails). Maybe you think we're making it complicated to see if you're really determined, but, no, what's going on is that's how the work was divided up in the towns. Whatever, don't be late, because this girdle is killing me (what one has to do to regain their "sex appeal" &endash;-sigh).

By the Sixth Committee of the EZLN
From the Mountains of the Mexican Southeast
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

All Originally published in Spanish by the EZLN

Translated by irlandesa