Zapantera Negra: Zapatista Black Panther Art

ZAPANTERAS NEGRAS: Zapatista Black Panther Art in S.F.

April 10, 2013 @ 7:00pm   at Rincon 3265 17th St. #204

(Between Mission and Capp) San Francisco CA 94110

In 2012, Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, went to Chiapas to work with Zapatista artists to make art, share visions, bringing together the revolutionary art traditions of two communities.

On April 10, artists Emory Douglas and Rigo 23 will present art and photography from the Zapantera Negra art project and share their experiences with the Panthers and the Zapatistas.

Join the Chiapas Support Committee on April 10 to celebrate the life and

   vision of Emiliano Zapata through the art work of two communities

  whose hearts and movements lead a struggle for a boundless liberation.

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                            All proceeds support Zapatista communities

                $5.00-20.00 donation No one turned away for lack of funds

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             For more information contact the Chiapas Support Committee

                    (510) 654-9587 cezmat@igc.org

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Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas

P.O. Box  3421, Oakland, CA  94609

Tel: (510) 654-9587

Email: cezmat@igc.org

www.chiapas-support.org

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chiapas-Support-Committee-Oakland/86234490686

 

 

 

ZAPATISTA NEWS SUMMARY for MAY 2012

MAY 2012 ZAPATISTA NEWS SUMMARY

 In Chiapas

1. Campaign To Free Alberto Patishtan and Francisco Santiz Lopez – The Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) in Chiapas called for an intense national and international campaign to win freedom for Alberto Patishtan and Francisco Santiz Lopez, both of whom are “political prisoners.” Patishtan is a member of the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign and Santiz is a Zapatista support base.  The international week of protest took place between May 15 to 22 and may be extended for another week. A very large protest took place in El Bosque Municipality, where Patishtan is from, and the Oventik Junta demanded the freedom of Santiz Lopez, who they referred to as a “political hostage.”

2. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Grants Protection to Patishtan - While solidarity organizations and collectives around the world took actions to demand Alberto Patishtan’s freedom, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) announced that it granted urgent precautionary measures in favor of prisoner of conscience Alberto Patishtán Gómez, faced with the grave danger to his life and health due to the worsening of untreated glaucoma. The IACHR asked the government of Mexico to instruct the competent authorities “to carry out the medical examinations that permit evaluating the beneficiary’s health and to offer him adequate treatment.” Patishtan has started to denounce de-humanizing conditions in the federal prison located in Sinaloa.

3. Morelia Junta Denounces Land Grabbing by ORCAO Members - The Good Government Junta in Morelia denounced a land grab by members of ORCAO in Patria Nueva community (Lucio Cabañas autonomous municipality) on the outskirts of Ocosingo. It also denounced attacks and harassment by ORCAO members on the El Nantze Ranchería, in the community of 21 de Abril (17 de Noviembre autonomous municipality), near Altamirano. The Junta alleges that the attacks are being orchestrated with support from all 3 levels of government. This is the same organization that the Zapatista Junta in La Garrucha denounced last month for attacking land in Pancho Villa autonomous municipality.

4. Campesinos Reject An Adventure Tourism Hotel on Lake Miramar – A series of articles in La Jornada this month reported that many of Emiliano Zapata’s ejido owners, whose lands are adjacent to Lake Miramar, reject a government plan for a hotel on the shores of the virgin lake. The plan includes 11 double rooms, 4 suites, a restaurant and bar, laundry and an “employee area.” Lake Miramar is located on the edge of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in the Lacandon Jungle. More information and a beautiful photo of the lake can be found at: http://compamanuel.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/chiapas-communities-reject-adventure-tourism-project/

5. Paramilitary Members of Opddic Threaten Cintalapa Women With Death – Paramilitary members of the Organization for Indigenous and Campesino Rights (Opddic, its initials in Spanish) have threatened to kill the women who remain in their homes in the Cintalapa ejido, according to a denunciation by a representative of a group of families displaced from that ejido since 2007. The denunciation alleges that on May 16 two PRI members who are also members of Opddic threatened that if the women did not abandon their homes they would be killed. This is the same group of displaced people that reported the 2011 kidnapping of a little girl in Busiljá. The representative also demanded freedom for 2 prisoners from

their group and reported that paramilitaries intimidated those in Busiljá by throwing stones on the roofs and wearing uniforms and bullet-proof vests and being heavily armed.

6. San Sebastian Bachajon Denounces Armed Attack by UCIAF – On Sunday, May 6, members of the Indigenous and Forest Campesino Union (UCIAF, its initials in Spanish) attacked 2 residents of San Sebastian Bachajon (SSB) with guns. A 17-year old youth was severely injured and was taken to a hospital in San Cristobal. His brother was not injured. A week before, another attack by the same person from the same group attacked a man from SSB with a steel object, seriously injuring him. When they went to demand that the authorities execute an arrest warrant against the assailant, they were told that they would have to pay 6, 000 pesos for that and that “justice costs money.” The UCIAF used to be the paramilitary group known as Paz Y Justicia (Peace and Justice). Its members are also affiliated with the Green Ecologist and Institutional Revolutionary Parties. Moreover, SSB reports constant harassment and the detention of another ejido member.

In Other Parts of Mexico

1. Mexican Spring: #YoSoy132 Student Movement Forms Around Elections – Mexico will hold elections for national office on July 1st of this year, including the election of a new president. The electoral scene has become more interesting with the appearance of the student movement #YoSoy132, which is in touch with the #Occupy movement in the US. According to an account in La Jornada, the university students met several days ago at UNAM and demanded: political trial against President Felipe Calderón, for the more than 65, 000 deaths that his struggle against drug trafficking has left; against the PRI candidate, for the repression in San Salvador Atenco in May 2006, and against president-for-life of the National Education Workers Union, Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, for corruption and for harming education. They demanded her immediate exit from that union and the investigation of her relatives, name lenders and wealth. Moreover, the student movement opposes the return of the PRI to State power, “whose current face is Peña Nieto,” the PRI presidential candidate.

In the United States

1. State Department Report on Human Rights in Mexico – On May 24, the US State Department issued its 2011 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The section on Mexico reports that members of security forces have been involved in killings, forced disappearances, torture and other abuses, while a high degree of impunity and official corruption persist. It emphasized that the transnational criminal organizations are the ones principally responsible for violent crimes in Mexico. The report has prompted some legislators to look at the Merida Initiative’s human rights provisions and consider whether a cut in funding is appropriate. The (weak) provisions allow for a very small reduction in security aid if human rights violations by security forces persist. The report on Mexico is found at:

www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/humanrightsreport/index.htm?dynamic_load_id=186528#wrapper

__________________________________________

Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas

P.O. Box  3421, Oakland, CA  94609

Email: cezmat@igc.org

www.chiapas-support.org

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chiapas-Support-Committee-Oakland/86234490686

http://compamanuel.wordpress.com

Zapatista News Summary – February 2012

FEBRUARY 2012 ZAPATISTA NEWS SUMMARY

In Chiapas

1. Seven More Released in Acteal Case – On February 1, 7 of the men convicted of murder and other crimes in the Acteal Massacre case were released from prison after serving 14 years of a 35-year sentence. Lawyers for those released also obtained a finding of innocence by the court. Their were released and found innocent based on the fact that the evidence used against them by the Attorney General was tainted. The same lawyers said they are also suing the PGR for damages caused by the “false” imprisonment. Bishop Arizmendi, who many in the diocese of San Cristóbal consider conservative, spoke out against the release, questioning whether anyone would end up being punished for this crime against humanity? The 7 released will be relocated in Villaflores Municipality, in the center of Chiapas state, where the 45 previously released have also been relocated. 28 more men who were convicted and sentenced for the massacre remain in prison and await decisions in their appeals.

2. Update On Chiapas Prisoners – The General Labor Confederation of Spain, adherent to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and participant in the EZLN’s International Campaign, visited Chiapas political prisoners during February. Their report indicates that all Other Campaign and Zapatista support base prisoners, including those from Banavil, are in good spirits, although there are still complaints about the lack of medical care. That lack was confirmed in a denunciation from Alberto Patishtan from the federal prison in Guasave, Sinaloa. Patishtan reported that he is still being denied treatment for glaucoma. The Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) is asking the court for an order returning him to the prison in San Cristobal de las Casas Municipality, Chiapas.

3. Other Campaign Communities Deprived of Electricity by CFE Workers - The Digna Ochoa Human Rights Center in Tonala, Chiapas, denounced that the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE, its initials in Spanish) dismantled a transformer in La Central, a community in resistance to high electricity rates, belonging to the Regional Autonomous Council of the Coastal Zone of Chiapas. The residents of La Central (municipality of Pijijiapan) have been without electricity since January 3. The Regional Autonomous Council of the Coastal Zone of Chiapas is an adherent to the EZLN’s Other Campaign. Its members refuse to pay their electricity bills, which they believe are outrageously high. (See item #1 in Other Parts of Mexico below.)

In Other Parts of Mexico

1. Francisco Hernandez Detained and Imprisoned for Refusing to Pay Electricity Bills - Federal agents detained Francisco Hernández and placed him in a Chihuahua state prison, accusing him of robbery because of his participation in the payment strike against the CFE due to its high rates. The MARC is an organization that has struggled for more than 10 years against the high charges for electric energy service. Its members maintain a payment strike and reconnect service to users whose service has been suspended, while the cases and complaints are reviewed and the charge for the real consumption that the family has is adjusted, principally in precarious settlements in the state capital. Francisco Hernández, an electrician, is one of its principal leaders. The MARC is an adherent to the EZLN’s Other Campaign and a member of the National Network in Resistance to High Electricity Rates.

2. Mexico’s President Puts Up A Billboard on the US / Mexico Border – On Thursday, February 16, Mexican President Felipe Calderón made a speech at the Ciudad Juárez-El Paso Border. The backdrop for his speech was a three-ton billboard built with crushed weapons illegally exported from the US and confiscated by various authorities. Calderon said: “One of the main factors that allows criminals to strengthen themselves is the unlimited access to high-powered weapons, which are sold freely, and also indiscriminately, in the United States of America.”  The billboard, posted on the border at Ciudad Juárez, read in English “NO MORE WEAPONS.” (What politicians won’t do during an election year!)

In the United States

1. US Officials in Mexico - From February 18-20, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was in Los Cabos (Baja California Sur)  for a G-20 preparatory meeting of foreign ministers. While in Mexico, Clinton signed an agreement with her Mexican counterpart for joint oil exploration in cross-border underwater oil fields. On February 27, Janet Napolitano, US Secretary of Homeland Security also signed a joint agreement with Mexico for increased Customs Security at the border. She continued on to visit Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Panama. Her visits were scheduled to conclude on February 29. At the beginning of February, Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman delivered 17 million dollars worth of equipment for computerizing clinic records of individuals receiving treatment for drug addiction in Mexico’s 332 drug treatment centers. The technology enables the centers to share clinical records and is part of the Merida Initiative.

2. US Vice President Joe Biden to Visit Mexico – The White House announced that Vice President Joe Biden would visit Mexico on March 4, where he will meet with President Felipe Calderón to discuss a broad range of issues to forge cooperation ahead of April’s Summit of the Americas. Vice President Biden will continue on to Honduras for a visit with its president, Porfirio Lobo, and will attend, at Lobo’s invitation, a meeting of Central American Integration System (SICA, its initials in Spanish). SICA is Central America’s regional security organization to which the United States, the Inter-American Development Bank and some European countries are giving funding to fight a “war on drugs.”

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Compiled monthly by the Chiapas Support Committee.

The primary sources for our information are: La Jornada, Enlace Zapatista and the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba).

We encourage folks to distribute this information widely, but please include our name and contact information in the distribution. Gracias/Thanks.

Click on the Donate button at: www.chiapas-support.org  to support indigenous autonomy.

_______________________________________________________

Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas

P.O. Box  3421, Oakland, CA  94609

Email: cezmat@igc.org

www.chiapas-support.org

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chiapas-Support-Committee-Oakland/86234490686

Delegation to Chiapas, Mexico

 SPRING DELEGATION to CHIAPAS, March 25 – April 1, 2012

The Chiapas Support Committee of Oakland, California announces a Human Rights Fact-Finding Delegation to Chiapas Mexico.   We hope you will join us for this in-depth exploration of how corporate globalization is affecting indigenous communities constructing autonomy (self-governance).

On January 1, 1994, eighteen years ago, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) rose up in arms against the government of Mexico and took control of large expanses of land owned by cattle ranchers. Thirteen days later, the Zapatistas  declared a truce. The government also declared a truce, but prepared for war. In February 1995, the Mexican army entered “Zapatista Territory” and set up military bases and camps close to indigenous communities.  The army has never left and an estimated 50,000 or more soldiers remain there to this day. The territory claimed by the Zapatistas and militarized by the army is known as a “conflict zone,” but in contrast to many places in Mexico plagued by drug-related violence, Zapatista Territory is surprisingly calm.

Since the Zapatistas put down their weapons in 1994, they began to construct another world, one characterized by regional self-government, collective economic projects, autonomous education and health care.  This delegation takes place eight and a half years after the Zapatistas renamed their 5 government centers Caracoles (shells) and created 5 autonomous regional governing bodies, called Good Government Boards, or Juntas; and nearly seven years after launching the Other Campaign, an effort to unite anti-capitalist movements into a political movement within Mexico.

The indigenous peoples of Chiapas confront a design by multilateral organizations such as the World Bank to re-conquer indigenous territory for exploitation by transnational corporations. The Zapatistas live in resistance to the Mexican government and are committed to resist corporate acquisition of their lands and natural resources. They say they will not permit the Plan Puebla Panama (now renamed the Mesoamerica Project) within their territory. That project threatens the people of Chiapas with eviction from their lands so that transnational corporations can exploit the natural resources and construct hydroelectric dams, soft drink bottling plants and upscale tourist facilities; as well as for oil and mining exploration and mono-crop export agriculture, such as biofuels.

Delegates will receive briefings from Mexican non-profits and will visit Zapatista communities, including the Caracol of Oventik .

This delegation provides an opportunity to visit and interact with civilian Zapatista communities constructing autonomy and resisting corporate exploitation. (We’re hoping to include a non-Zapatista community too this year.) While in San Cristobal, there will be time for shopping and entertainment. So, we invite you to join us for an amazing learning experience.

Getting there, cost, etc.

Delegates will arrive in Tuxtla Gutiérrez by plane and then travel by bus or taxi to the colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas.  We will assemble at a hotel in San Cristobal de las Casas on Sunday, March 25.  Several days later, when the delegation travels into the communities, conditions will be like rough camping and require both a sleeping bag and a hammock.

Cost of the delegation is US $500.00.  This does NOT include airfare or bus transportation to and from San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas.  It DOES include most food (2 meals per day), lodging (double room) and ground transportation to the communities. Private rooms with Wi-Fi are available for an additional $50.00. Your tuition ALSO includes a donation for each community we visit, an honorarium for each NGO briefing we receive, delegation expenses and educational materials.  We provide each delegation with experienced group leaders and a translator. Delegation dates are March 25 to April 1, 2012.  We are working on arranging visits now. When we have arrangements confirmed, we will prepare a day-to-day itinerary and will send it to those who express interest in the delegation.

Who is the Chiapas Support Committee?

The Chiapas Support Committee is a grassroots nonprofit organization founded in 1998.  All of us are volunteers. We support indigenous and campesino (peasant) organizations, autonomous communities and non-governmental organizations in Chiapas. We certify human rights observers, organize delegations, fund autonomous projects and process applications for the Zapatista Language School. We have a partnership (hermanamiento, in Spanish) with the autonomous Zapatista municipality of San Manuel, Chiapas. We have been organizing delegations to Chiapas since 2000.

Conditions in Chiapas

As described above, the areas we visit in Chiapas are in a “conflict zone.” There are military bases and “paramilitary” groups within the zone. The EZLN maintains its own army, although it does not use its weapons offensively. The conflict is almost entirely between unarmed Zapatista communities and armed civilian groups referred to as “paramilitary,” sometimes accompanied by local police. Violence has not been directed at or against foreign visitors. Between 1998 and 2000, the Mexican government expelled some foreign visitors from Mexico for “interfering” in internal Mexican politics because they were working in Zapatista communities, but changed its policy at the beginning of 2001 and there have been no problems for foreign visitors since then. Nevertheless, it is a zone of conflict and, therefore, conditions are not entirely predictable. Delegates travel at their own risk.

How to apply

Please email cezmat@igc.org, requesting an application. Act now! There are only 10 spaces on the delegation, so the sooner you send in your application the better. We must receive all applications by February 18, 2012.   A deposit of $100 is required with your application in order to reserve a space.  Balance is due March 5, 2012.  For those who want more information, just email your questions to: cezmat@igc.org  or call  (510) 654-9587.

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Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas

P.O. Box 3421, Oakland, CA  94609

http://www.chiapas-support.org/

(510) 654-9587 cezmat@igc.org

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chiapas-Support-Committee-Oakland/86234490686

http://compamanuel.wordpress.com

 

 

 

Seminar: Planet Earth, day 4

In the Seminar of Reflection, Agreement Predominates in Condemning the System

** University students, indigenous and ocupas share experiences with spokespersons for Resistencia

** Unanimous rejection of capitalism and domination by participants in San Cristóbal

By: Hermann Bellinghausen, Envoy

San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, January 3, 2012

The presence of anti-systemic movements and organizations very involved in the current continental process of resistance, throughout the sessions of the International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis celebrated here, permitted understanding, as Víctor Hugo López, Director of Frayba and moderator of one of the tables of discussion, would summarize: “the problem that confronts us all is systemic,” and therefore all the movements must be against that system.

University students from Chile and Cuba, indigenous leaders from Bolivia and Ecuador, representatives from Occupy Wall Street, shared experiences together with spokespersons of Purépecha resistance in Cherán and the Wirrárika defense of the Wirikuta Desert, in San Luis Potosí. The cultural expression of Zapotecs, Peninsula Mayas, Tzeltals and Tzotzils, and the debate between different currents of feminism came to meet each other here, in a predominance of coincidences, the clarity of anti-systemic demands and the condemnation of the parties as monopolizers of the political and government decisions.

“The struggle is long-winded,” warned Daniela Carrasco, from the Revolutionary Student Tendency collective of Chile, upon relating how the student movement of 2011 “displaced the right and the parties” in student representation. “We are not an apolitical movement but [we are] non-partisan,” because “we no longer believe in individualisms or in the parties; therefore one speaks of a crisis of Chilean representative democracy,” he maintained.

“What did not advance in 20 years, turned into one of fervent struggle,” he celebrated. Also, the vindication of the street struggle, the population’s support, the making of collective and horizontal decisions, the national organization through new communication technologies, to get beyond centralism in a country of great geographic and mental distances. And he accepted as pending the deepening of unity with the Mapuche and Rapa Nui, the campesinos and the workers of Chile. “The youth are not asleep, they are there, learning, and with all desire to continue the struggle.”

That [occurs] in a country as unequal as Mexico is, pointed out Paulo Olivares, of the Central University of Chile. “Ours was not a spontaneous movement,” he added, but one largely dug by “the mole” of popular action.

In the workshops where Luis Alberto Andrango also participated, director of the polemical National Confederation of Campesino, Indigenous and Black Organizations (Fenocin) of Ecuador, and the indigenous leader Julieta Paredes Carvajal, of Bolivia, confronting the contradictions of their governments that are considered progressive, but still anchored in practices of the old partisan democracy functional with the global system of domination, the participation of Cuban students was of particular interest. They said: “we have inherited a 53-year old revolution and we have the challenge re-founding it and re-making it, above all in these times,” as Danay Quintana expressed, of the Martin Luther King Center, based in Marianao, Havana.

According to what the university student Boris Nerey recognized, “the idea of ‘re-founding’ the State in Cuba can be too much pretension,” but socialism “is a permanent construction,” and moreover, a true “civilizing process.” Recognizing himself as in the island’s revolutionary tradition, Nerey pointed to the existence “of a process of the historic reconstitution of the Cuban resistance” against the big enemy that has not ceased its aggressions. And, citing Fidel Castro, he pointed out that the revolutionary process “has produced two forces, one for the continuity of the socialist system,” and inside currents that could be able to make it fall.

The frontal rejection of the capitalist system of domination was unanimous in the participations of Marlina, from the New York Occupy Wall Street; from Carlos Marentes, an activist with agricultural workers in Texas and New Mexico, and members of Via Campesina; of Santos de la Cruz Carrillo, Wirrárika representative, who recognized that indigenous and non-indigenous resistance has up to now impeded that mining exploitation is initiated in the Wirikuta desert, sacred for his people, in San Luis Potosí. Or even Salvador Campanur, from Cherán, where one day the population decided to put a ¡ya basta¡ to the criminal destruction of their forests, as well as to the manipulative and divisive role of the political parties in the meseta Michoacán Meseta.

For his part, the Bolivian Paredes described the experience of communitarian feminism in her country, without denying the importance that the Zapatista struggle has had for Bolivian women, and she denounced that the destruction of culture and nature “is also constructed on the oppression of women.”

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/01/04/politica/011n1pol

Seminar on Anti-Systemic Movements re: EZLN Influence

The EZLN, Origen of the Current Social Unrest All Over the Globe

** Vision of González Casanova and De Sousa Santos in seminar

By: Hermann Bellinghausen, Envoy

San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, January 2, 2012

Two of the most influential sociologists-thinkers of the last half-century, Pablo González Casanova and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, referred with animation to the emergence of alternative social movements all over the world, and both found the Zapatista Rebellion at the origin of this process. “We are conscious,” González Casanova said, “that we are more all the time and that there will be more all the time who struggle in the entire world for what in 1994 just seemed like a ‘post-modern indigenous rebellion’ and that in reality is the beginning of a human mobilization considerably better prepared for achieving liberty, justice and democracy.”

The Portuguese De Sousa, ample expert of the Latin American reality and committed to democratic change in the countries of our south, considered that today “one cannot have a view from the left and struggle against capitalism” without referring to the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). He said that during the international seminar Planet Earth: Anti-Systemic Movements that was held during four days in el Cideci-Unitierra and concluded this Monday.

“The world movement of the indignados (indignant ones) of the Earth began in the Lacandón,” he points out about entry of González Casanova’s document for the seminar, and that turns out to be a “script of words” about where to travel at this complex moment; a 17-point manual, for worldwide use, for interpreting new ideas for action that will also have to be new: “Impoverished and excluded, indignados and occupiers formulate theories that contain great empirical support, based on a large quantity of experiences;” understandings, arts and techniques “that correspond to the wisdom and ‘know how’ of the peoples” that exalted Andrés Aubry, and the Tojolabal values “of human solidarity” that Carlos Lenkersdorf rescued.

“We think about the immense mobilization of the indignados and the occupiers that struggle for another possible world. Today –two admired English professors write–, the mobilization is gigantic. Never had one of that magnitude been presented, and all the mobilization ‘began (they add) in the jungles of Chiapas with principals of inclusion and dialogue,’” says González Casanova. “That universal movement in the midst of their differences lives in similar problems” and finds “similar solutions for the creation of another world and another necessary culture, which the peoples of the Andes express as living well; in which the living well of some does not depend on others living badly.”

The slogan that the Zapatista Movement used for liberty, justice and democracy “walks through the whole world not as an echo, but as the voices of thinking and a similar wanting,” points out the author of La democracia en México. Those movements “coincide in that the solution is that democracy of everyone for everyone and with everyone that is not delegated, and that some call democratic socialism or 21^st Century socialism and others just democracy, and that is that, and much more, because it is a new way of relating to the land and with human beings, a new way of organizing life.”

De Sousa, a professor at the University of Coimbra and promoter of the World Social Forum, maintained last night that: “a change of civilization is needed” to conquer capitalism, dominant on a planetary scale, since “is has created a civilization-wide totality” that one must conquer. “Zapatismo is a window of what this change can be like, the only one that can save Humanity.”

In a description of the progressive processes en Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and other South American countries, De Sousa pointed out paradoxical aspects in relation to the content against the State in the anti-systemic protests. “The constituent assembly that is now demanded in Chile and Tunis,” he suggested, means that at the moment there it is thought that it is necessary to re-found the State. Our continent, he said, “has possibilities of using hegemonic instruments to be counter-hegemonic, utilizing them against the dominant class.”

Assuming himself a Marxist with a long history, he admitted that in the last 20 years the important popular revolts “have been led by actors ignored, strangers to Marxism.” He enumerated: women, indigenous, gays and lesbians, migrants, campesinos, and that, “using words that the traditional left izquierda doesn’t know how to use,” like territory, dignity and spirituality. He recognized the pioneer value of the new constitution in Ecuador that assumes the rights of nature, “a contribution of the indigenous movement whose importance will only grow with time” in the entire world.

Inside the “sociology of emergencies” that we live in, De Sousa recognized that the Zapatistas “taught us another way of looking at the world; they broke with prevailing Marxist orthodoxy, discourse, semantics and some novel ideas; they taught us a new organizing logic that had a fundamental influence all over the world.”

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/01/03/politica/009n1pol

 

 

December 2011 Zapatista News Summary

 DECEMBER 2011 ZAPATISTA NEWS SUMMARY

The CSC Wishes All of You A Happy New Year and a

Happy 18th Anniversary of the Zapatista Uprising

________________

In Chiapas

1. Marcos Letter to Luis Villoro: A Death… Or A Life – The 4th letter from Sub-comandante Marcos to Luis Villoro was published on the Enlace Zapatista website December 7. In the letter, Marcos remembers the lives of Tomás Segovia and Comandante Moisés, both of whom died in recent months. Marcos quotes extensively from Segovia’s writings regarding the left, Power and resistance, then recognizes that Comandante Moisés lived in resistance. This is an interesting letter! Rumors had circulated for months of Comandante Moisés’ death, with at least one electronic account confusing his background information with that of Lt Col Moisés. This letter confirms that it was the Comandante Moisés on the CCRI-CG, from Oventik, who was killed in an auto accident. He had participated in organizing for the EZLN since 1985 with Comandanta Ramona. Marcos ends with the a P.S. attacking the political class, as the 2012 presidential campaign is poised to begin in Mexico. The entire letter can now be read in English at: http://compamanuel.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/sci-marcos-a-death-or-a-life/

2. Las Abejas Commemorates the 14th Anniversary of Acteal Massacre – The civil society organization Las Abejas began commemorating the 14th anniversary of the Acteal Massacre with a 2-day walk through the Tzotzil mountains of Chiapas, fasting and prayer on December 20 and 21. 45 women, children and men were massacred by paramilitaries on December 22, 1997. On the 22, both Bishops Raul Vera and Felipe Arizmentdi attended the mass and commemoration ceremony in Acteal. Las Abejas emphasized that the ceremonies were also an act of resistance.

3. Guatemala Opens Consulate in Chiapas – While he was in Mexico for the Tuxtla Summit, Guatemala’s out-going president, Alvaro Colom, opened a new Guatemalan Consulate in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas. Besides the geographical and ethnic (Maya) closeness, Chiapas and Guatemala have many common issues of migration and trade. There are also new Guatemalan refugees in Mexico, displaced from the Peten by “conservation” measures.

4. Seminar in San Cristóbal - Between Dec 30 to Jan 2, Cideci-Unitierra, located on the outskirts of San Cristóbal de las Casas, is hosting an international seminar of reflection and analysis entitled  Planet Earth Anti-Systemic Movements. The seminar coincides with the 18th anniversary of the Zapatista Uprising on January 1, 1994. You can read our translation of the seminar’s first day on our blog:

http://compamanuel.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/the-power-of-the-poor/ (More on this next month!).

In Other Parts of Mexico

1. Trinidad de la Cruz, an Indigenous Leader from Xayakalan, Murdered – On December 6, Trinidad de la Cruz, 73, was kidnapped while he was traveling in a vehicle with other members of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) from the county seat of Santa Maria Ostula to the autonomous Nahua community of Xayakalan. A group of MPJD members were on their way to Xayakalan to hold a community assembly. They had a Federal Police escort up to Ostula. Soon after the police escort left, a gang of criminals, referred to as “paramilitaries,” held the vehicle’s occupants captive, then separated “Trino,” as he is known, from the rest of the group and proceeded to torture and kill him. His body was discovered the next day. Trinidad de la Cruz was the 28th person from Xayakalan murdered since the community’s founding. De la Cruz was a member of the EZLN’s Other Campaign and of the the MPJD and an important leader in the community. In spite of witnesses identifying the paramilitaries by name, none of them have been apprehended. After separating de la Cruz from the others, the rest  of the MPJD’s members were escorted by the armed group to a city several hundred miles away and then released. The autonomous community of Xayakalan was founded on land recuperated from the region’s property owners in June 2009. 28 people from the small community have been murdered by criminal armed groups and four people are currently classified as disappeared. The community fears for the lives of the families that still live in Xayakalan and the MPJD suspended activities to review its security protocol.

2. Police Kill Two Students In Guerrero – On Monday, December 12, federal and state police killed two students from a teacher’s college in Guerrero. They were part of a group of 500 students protesting efforts by the federal government to close down teachers colleges throughout the country.  Unarmed students blocked a major highway near Chilpancingo demanding a meeting with Governor Angel Aguirre and the re-opening of the Raul Isidro Burgo normal school in Ayotzinapa, a town about 90 miles from Chilpancingo.  Protestors complained the governor had canceled four previously scheduled meetings.  Blocking highways is a common protest tactic in Mexico.  Federal, state and ministerial police working with army troops and armed paramilitaries used tear gas and live ammunition to clear the highway, killing Gabriel Echeverria and Jorge Herrera.  Police fired live ammunition for at least 20 minutes, while students responded with stones and bottles.  Some students were reported disappeared and at least two were seriously injured. More detailed information can be found in English at: http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/

3. 13th Meeting of Tuxtla Summit – Countries participating in the Tuxtla Mechanism met in Merida, Yucatan, during the first week in December. A free trade agreement was signed by the presidents, thereby unifying previous free trade agreements between Mexico, Central America and Colombia. Mexico’s Congress still must approve. Some of the countries in attendance also signed a letter to the United States demanding that it take drastic measures to reduce drug consumption and the flow of money and weapons.

4. Official Numbers on Death Toll in Drug War – Relying on a number of both government and journalistic sources, La Jornada published the total number of deaths from President Felipe Calderón’s 5-year “war against organized crime” as 51, 918 as of December 30 2011, 11,890 in 2011. For those who have followed the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD), led by Javier Sicilia, these numbers may seem confusing. The MPJD started using the number of “more than 50,000 dead in March of this year, which would mean that there are now more than 60,000 dead by its count. The difference may be that the MPJD number includes 10 thousand disappeared (and presumed dead). The government does not include a person as dead until a body has been found; apparently, the MPJD does.

In the United States

1. Congress Approves $248.5 Million More for Merida Initiative - On December 17, the US Congress approved $248.5 million more in aid for Mexico under the Merida Initiative for Fiscal Year 2012. It also approved an additional $33.5 million more for Mexico as development aid. The new funding for the Merida Initiative is in addition to the original $1.6 billion for 3 years. The original security agreement expired on December 31, 2011. Thus, the new funding extends the agreement for one year. So far, the US has only delivered equipment and training to Mexico amounting to $700 million, meaning that it still owes Mexico 3.6 million dollars promised under the expired agreement. Several naval helicopters and one Blackhawk helicopter were delivered to Mexico in December.

2. DEA Agents Launder Mexican Cartel Profits – On December 3, the New York Times published a story about US undercover agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) laundering profits from drug trafficking by Mexican cartels.  These agents have shipped the money across borders, allegedly to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep it and, most important, who their leaders are. DEA officials said agents had deposited the drug proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents. The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency’s effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty, and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests. The same House committee that is investigating the Fast and Furious (gun-running) operation will investigate the money laundering operations. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/world/americas/us-drug-agents-launder-profits-of-mexican-cartels.html

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Compiled monthly by the Chiapas Support Committee.

The primary sources for our information are: La Jornada, Enlace Zapatista and the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba).

We encourage folks to distribute this information widely, but please include our name and contact information in the distribution. Gracias/Thanks.

Click on the Donate button of  www.chiapas-support.org to support indigenous autonomy.

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Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas

P.O. Box  3421, Oakland, CA  94609

Email: cezmat@igc.org

www.chiapas-support.org

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chiapas-Support-Committee-Oakland/86234490686

http://compamanuel.wordpress.com

Seminar on Anti-Systemic Movements 1: The Power of the Poor

Progress, False Promise by the Rich to Loot the Poor

 ** Seminar in Chiapas about the parameters imposed by power

** After 18 years, indigenous communities still confront war

By: Hermann Bellinghausen, Envoy

San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, December 30, 2011

With the challenge of confronting the novel concept of The power of the poor, which the Tzeltal intellectual Xuno López called “provoker,” the 2nd International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis began this noon, at Cideci-Unitierra (University of the Earth), in this ciudad. The presentation of a book-conversation by the thinkers Jean Robert and Majid Rahnema, with precisely that title, gave way to debate. How to understand from there development, progress and in general the parameters imposed by power?

Convoked close to the date of the eighteenth anniversary of the Zapatista National Liberation Army’s uprising, in its evening session the seminar also gave space to a precise account by the anthropologist Mercedes Olivera, about the Zapatista rebellion and the covert, economic and paramilitary war that the indigenous communities of Chiapas still confront from resistance and autonomy, from which their strength emanates. This would be the “potency” to which the work of Rahnema and Robert alludes.

The same Robert, a participant in the first session, enunciated the opposition between “poverty as a symptom of wealth” and “wealth as a symptom of poverty.” Where does one look? Or, as López had pointed out: “the poor are poor according to whom?” trying to find a translation into his language, to Tzotzil, of that concept generalized by the system of domination. At his opportunity, Rafael Landerreche, an educator and collaborator with Las Abejas of Acteal, offered a characterization of said “dogma” imposed on education and ideology, citing the infallible English writer Chesterton, saying that progress is the story that the rich tell the poor every time that the rich want to take something away from them.

Xuno López, a native of Tenejapa, who began his comments in Tzotzil, in consideration of the fact that it is the language of a large number of the attendees, set an example as close as eloquent, which in fact served to illustrate the whole session: “the false promise is evident” in the Santiago el Pinar rural city, a Los Altos community reputed by the government as the poorest of the poor, where the government and different corporations constructed a “city” so that they would abandon their homes on their plots of land, thus allegedly “living better.”

Continuing the simile, which almost all the presenters, of the carrot and the stick, López exposed that the residents of El Pinar, almost obliged to accept the promise, are “benefitted with houses, if you can call them that” and left their own houses. After being installed in their new home “they become disillusioned.” Their former house was bigger. Now they were going to live better. According to whom? That disillusion among brothers, he expressed, was because of accepting the system’s concept of poverty, being that “the peoples have found in the art of living beginning with what’s sufficient that one can find in the communities.”

As Landerreche outlined, in the book (“that questions the kaxlanes”) an essential difference exists between “a man of power” and “a being with potency.” From here “one can renounce power, not potency” (the possibility of doing, deciding, self-governing). The original peoples and the organized movements are opposed to the devastating logic of capitalist accumulation, which Jean Robert locates in the first paragraph of El Capital by Karl Marx. That which imposes a wrong and foreign ch’ulel (conscience, soul or spirit, in Mayan languages), as López would say, on the people that convinces them of needing what they do not need, accepting the stick to reach the promised carrot of progress.

The “development” that accompanies capitalist plunder “destroys dignified poverty with undignified poverty,” in the sense that the capitalist system never stops producing “poor,” something that all the participants shared in their critique of power, among whom are also the researcher Ana Valadez and the studious and activist Zapotec, Carlos Manzo.

Manzo said finding that “potency of the poor” in the resistance of the peoples, which includes resisting the terms of Western economic thought “that do not necessarily reflect the reality of life of the Indian peoples.” He maintained that “those who permit freedom are the true revolutionaries” realized by “those that are the only dignified supports of revolutions that function” and make possible the dignity of good living. He mentioned the experiences of the Oaxacan Ikoots, the Zapotecs and the Zoques of the Chimalapas as concrete struggles against the plunder and for dignity, which can tell us “how to construct those different tomorrows.”

At his time, López asserted: “The peoples have contributed something to that path of change, through the construction of autonomies. It is our potency as peoples that is there, against the ch’ulel of the dominators.”

The International Seminar sessions continued this evening with a panel between Xóchitl Leyva, Mercedes Olivera, Jerome Baschet and Ronald Nigh.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Para leer en español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/12/31/politica/013n1pol

Remembering 28 Years of the EZLN

EZLN: 28 Years of Persistence For An Ideal

Jaime Martínez Veloz

 On November 17, 1983, 28 years ago, a small nucleus of men and women arrived in the heart of the Lacandón Jungle, bringing with them an accumulation of dreams and ideals for transforming Mexico into a just and democratic country. With patience, intelligence and method they linked with the communities and organizations that were living in different regions of Chiapas, as well as with the struggles that for years had fought with indigenous peoples against centuries-old oppression and humiliation. For a resident of Mexico’s urban zones, it is not easy to adapt to jungle conditions, but when higher proposals and firm convictions exist, they tolerate those conditions until achieving the ideals that motivate them.

In a State crossed by social, political and religious contradictions, the work of the original nucleus that impelled the formation and organization of the Zapatista National Liberation Army had to process natural differences and different conceptions around how to conduct the struggle against injustice and oblivion of which the indigenous communities of Mexico have been the object. A lot of work had to be carried out to achieve that on January 1, 1994, Mexico and the world turned over to look at Chiapas and had to recognize that the issue of the relationship of the Mexican State with its original peoples is a pending issue that has been outside of the national agenda.

The impact of the armed Zapatista Uprising mobilized Mexican society to oblige the State to dialogue with the insurgents to resolve the causes that required indigenous Chiapanecos to take up arms as the ultimate means to achieve the resolution of their centuries-old demands and their cries for justice.

The transcendence of the insurgent actions motivated the then PRI candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, to hold a more committed definition than any leader of that party had held, when in his March 6, 1994 speech in front of the Monument to the Revolution, he proposed: “We PRI members must reflect before Chiapas. As a part of stability and social justice it shames us to notice that we were not sensitive to the great complaints from our communities; that we were not at their side in their aspirations; that we were not at the height of the commitment that they hope for from us. It is the hour of doing justice to our indigenous peoples, of overcoming their backlogs and lacks; of respecting their dignity. It is the hour of celebrating a new pact by the Mexican State with the indigenous communities.”

After his assassination, this definition was filed in the forgotten box.

During the term of President Ernesto Zedillo, an intense negotiating process between the federal government and the EZLN was produced, where the National Mediation Commission (Conai, its Spanish acronym) played a relevant role. Bishop don Samuel Ruiz headed the Conai. The Congress of the Union, by conduct of the Cocopa had a relevant role; the figures of Heberto Castillo and Luis H. Álvarez were the principal support.

After an arduous negotiating process, the federal government and the EZLN addressed the first theme from the agenda agreed to by the parties, the theme of “Indigenous Rights and Culture,” and signed what today are known as the Accords of San Andrés Larráinzar, which were not recognized by ex President Zedillo, brandishing lies and false statements that hid the underground strategy that the federal government was impelling, for delivering assets, territory and sovereignty. In this way, seaports, airports, mining concessions, banks, railroads, satellites, energy production, oil exploration and the natural gas business were delivered to transnationals, some of which contracted the former president’s services and several of his closest collaborators. The EZLN was not only betrayed by the Mexican State, it was also persecuted, stigmatized and on several occasions has suffered the attempt at larger actions for the purpose of dealing a blow that could annihilate it or, at least, reduce it to a minimum.

Because of all that, the Zapatistas decided to carry out a strategy that would permit them to consolidate their communitarian structures, to establish mechanisms to resolve their issues and eventual internal differences, as well as with other organizations close to their communities. In this way, in 2003 the good government juntas were born, which have permitted them to strengthen their internal work and, at the same time, bring to a head important tasks in the areas of salud, education, food production and development of agricultural projects, despite their modest resources.

The enormous economic spill that the Federation has invested in Chiapas after the armed insurrection has been made public, where, paradoxically, those who exposed their life live in the same communities with the same lacks as in times previous to the uprising. Thanks to the EZLN, Chiapas now has an infrastructure that it did not have before January 1, 1994. Nevertheless, despite the needs of each community the ideal of one day achieving peace with justice and dignity continues alive that keeps them at the foot of the struggle, resisting in the most adverse conditions, interweaving dreams and longings, guided by the Zapatista ideal in effect that has kept them united for 28 years.

An affectionate hug to all the Zapatistas on this anniversary of their insurgent formation, as much to the support bases as to the general command, with the wish that some day their ideals of justice and liberty may take shape in the Mexican Constitution and are converted into a reality.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Friday, November 18, 2011

Para leer en español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/11/18/opinion/024a2pol

Sicilia Movement Shows Support for Zapatistas

Para leer en español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/10/09/politica/017n1pol

Sicilia Movement Shows Support For Zapatista Bases

** He demands guarantying the life and integrity of said communities

** Indigenous install occupation demanding the liberation of prisoners

By: Hermann Bellinghausen, Envoy

San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, October 8, 2011

Javier Sicilia showed “moral and political backing to each and every one of the Zapatista support bases” by the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD), headed by him.

In a message read this morning by the MPJD’s Resistance Actions Commission, in a press conference, Sicilia expounds: “During the time that we were in the state of Chiapas, with the Southern Caravan (in September), we were informed about the threats and attacks the Zapatista support bases suffer, particularly in San Patricio community, La Dignidad autonomous municipality, corresponding to the official municipality of Sabanilla.”

Similarly, the civilian movement demands that the federal and state governments “immediately guaranty the life and integrity of all the EZLN’s support bases” in the autonomous community of San Patricio. That, continues Sicilia, “besides that free access is guaranteed and respect for the said community’s lands since we consider that said aggression is an attack, not just against the Zapatista support bases, but on a new hope for the nation’s reconstruction: the autonomies.”

Sicilia emphasizes that in the MPJD: “different indigenous peoples participate with the hope that we may construct ‘a world where many worlds fit;’ therefore, any attack on any of the country’s indigenous communities, we consider an attack on our Movement.”

The MPJD’s delegation also announced a message to the Good Government Juntas in the Los Caracols, of Roberto Barrios and Oventic, announcing to them that it will meet in Chiapas to “be informed directly in your voice what is happening here, we are here to demonstrate our support.”

The movement “has given punctual follow up about what happens in the Zapatista towns, and we observe with concern what happens in different villages inside their autonomous municipalities.” He also observes: “how the autonomous education projects developed by the Zapatista peoples in different population centers receive attacks in Los Altos, the jungle and the Northern Zone of the state.”

In two more messages, directed to Las Abejas of Acteal and to the prisoners on a hunger strike and fast in the San Cristóbal prison, the MPJD reiterates its peaceful vocation. To the latter he says: “We fully recognize the fast and hunger strike as two forms of struggle of great moral and physical radical [nature], which seek to bring afloat the truth and touch the conscience of those who do them and of their adversary. We trust fully that this hunger strike and fast that they have started may bear the fruits that everyone hopes as soon as possible, and that we will be able to meet in a solidarity embrace of freedom.”

Also this morning, the family members of these indigenous prisoners, in the majority women, installed themselves in an occupation at one side of the Cathedral, demanding the liberation of members of the Voice of El Amate, Innocent Voices, Solidarity with the Voice of El Amate and the organized community of Mitzitón.

In the same atrium of what’s called the Cathedral of Peace the World Summit of Adventure Tourism will be celebrated next weekend, to which the hotel and restaurant owners expect a large number of visitors that come to evaluate the state’s beauties. Authorities already installed a big pavilion of plastic for the event, a few meters from where the indigenous occupation demanding justice is found.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Saturday, October 8, 2011

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/10/09/politica/017n1pol