DESDE EUROPA: PRONUNCIAMIENTO DE APOYO A LA SEMANA DE ACCIÓN MUNDIAL “¡JUAN VÁZQUEZ GUZMÁN VIVE, LA LUCHA DE BACHAJÓN SIGUE!” DESDE EL MARTES, 25 DE JUNIO AL MARTES 2 DE JULIO DE 2013

EN HONOR A JUAN VÁZQUEZ GUZMÁN Y EN APOYO A SAN SEBASTIÁN BACHAJÓN

Compañeras y Compañeros,

Este es un llamado para firmas. Los grupos, individuos y colectivos que gusten, favor de enviar sus firmas de apoyo para este pronunciamiento, antes del sábado próximo, junio 22 de 2013, a dorsetchiapassolidaritygroup@riseup.net

Muchas gracias y abrazos fuertes de solidaridad del Grupo de Solidaridad con Chiapas de Dorset (Reino Unido).

A nuestras hermanas y hermanos del Ejido San Sebastián Bachajón

A nuestras hermanas y hermanos zapatistas

A nuestr@s compañer@s de la Sexta

A los Comités de la Palabra Verdadera

A la sociedad civil

A la opinión pública

A los defensores de derechos humanos nacionales e internacionales

A los pueblos en resistencia

A los medios de comunicación masivos e alternativos

A las personas de buena conciencia en todo el mundo

Sabemos bien que en todos los rincones del mundo las fuerzas del neoliberalismo están destruyendo la tierra, el territorio, los recursos naturales y todos los seres vivientes como parte del deseo loco de las empresas transnacionales, los bancos y sus aliados en los gobiernos para desarrollar más y más megaproyectos grandes. En este proceso, los habitantes originarios de las tierras se vuelven desechables. Si no pueden ser comprados, son desplazados, desposeídos, echados a un lado, y asesinados.

Esto es lo que le ha estado sucediendo desde el año de 2006 a los adherentes de la Sexta Declaración de San Sebastián Bachajón, y es lo que ha llevado al asesinato de su líder comunitario Juan Vázquez Guzmán. Las fuerzas de la codicia y del saqueo quieren apoderarse del destino turístico potencialmente muy lucrativo de las Cascadas de Agua Azul. Desde ahí viene la continuación de la violencia, la represión, las amenazas, las detenciones por cargos falsos, el abuso, el saqueo, la arbitrariedad y la invasión y ocupación de la zona por las fuerzas estatales. Juan era una fuente constante de inspiración tanto para sus compañeros en su digna lucha en defensa de sus tierras y territorios ancestrales y de sus derechos como pueblos indígenas, así como para otros movimientos sociales a lo largo de México.

Nosotros, los abajo firmantes, hacemos un llamado para la devolución de sus tierras comunales a la población de San Sebastián Bachajón, el respeto de los derechos de estos pueblos indígenas por sus tierras y territorios, el respeto de su derecho a la libre determinación y la búsqueda de formas alternativas de vida, así como una investigación completa sobre el asesinato de Juan, y castigo de los responsables.

En nuestros propios lugares también estamos comprometidos en esta lucha, y sabemos que todos tenemos que trabajar juntos para salvar al planeta de la destrucción por unos pocos, en pos de su propio enriquecimiento personal, a costa de muchos. Por lo que ofrecemos todo nuestro apoyo a esta campaña, y nuestra solidaridad con nuestros compañer@s de San Sebastián Bachajón, en la continuación de su lucha más digna. Nosotr@s honramos el ejemplo de Juan Vázquez Guzmán de la dedicación, el compromiso, la pasión y la resistencia. Él permanece con nosotros todos en el camino hacia un mundo mejor.

Para más información: http://vivabachajon.wordpress.com

Favor de enviar sus firmas de apoyo antes de la noche del 22 de junio, 2013 al dorsetchiapassolidaritygroup@riseup.net

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EUROPEAN PRONOUNCEMENT IN SUPPORT OF THE WEEK OF WORLDWIDE ACTION “JUAN VÁZQUEZ GUZMÁN LIVES! THE BACHAJÓN STRUGGLE CONTINUES!” FROM TUESDAY, JUNE 25^TH TO TUESDAY, JULY 2ND, 2013

IN HONOUR OF JUAN VÁZQUEZ GUZMÁN AND IN SUPPORT OF SAN SEBASTIÁN BACHAJÓN

Compañeras and Compañeros,

This is a call for signatures. Please could groups, individuals and collectives send their signatures to this document, by next Saturday evening, 22^nd June, 2013, to dorsetchiapassolidaritygroup@riseup.net

A big thank you, and embraces of solidarity from the Dorset Chiapas Solidarity Group

To our sisters and brothers of the Ejido San Sebastian Bachajón
To our Zapatista sisters and brothers
To our compañer@s of the Sexta
To the Committees of the True Word

To civil society

To public opinion

To national and international human rights defenders

To the peoples in resistance

To the mass and alternative media

To people of good conscience throughout the world

We know that in all corners of the world the forces of neoliberalism are destroying the land, the territory, the natural resources and all living things as part of the insane desire of transnational corporations, banks, and their allies in governments to develop more and bigger megaprojects. In this process, the original inhabitants of the lands become disposable. If they cannot be bought out, they are displaced, dispossessed, cast aside, and assassinated.

This is what has been happening since 2006 to the adherents to the Sixth Declaration from San Sebastián Bachajón, and is what has led to the murder of their community leader Juan Vázquez Guzmán. The forces of greed and plunder want to seize control of the potentially extremely lucrative tourist destination of the Waterfalls of Agua Azul. Hence the ongoing violence, repression, threats, arrests on false charges, abuse, plunder, arbitrary actions, and the invasion and occupation of the area by state forces. Juan was a constant inspiration, both to his compañeros in their dignified struggle in defence of their ancestral land and territory and of their rights as indigenous peoples, and also to other social movements throughout Mexico.

We the undersigned call for the return of their common lands to the people of San Sebastián Bachajón, respect for the rights of these indigenous peoples to their land and territory, respect for their right to self-determination and the search for alternative ways of life, as well as a full investigation into Juan’s assassination, and punishment of those responsible.

In our own places we are also engaged in these struggles, and we know we must all work together to save the planet from destruction by the few, in pursuit of their own personal enrichment, at the expense of the many. So we offer our full support to this campaign, and our solidarity to our compañeros from San Sebastián Bachajón in the continuation of their most dignified struggle. We honour the example set by Juan Vázquez Guzmán of dedication, commitment, passion and resistance. He remains with us all on the path to a better world.

For more information: http://vivabachajon.wordpress.com/en-ingles/

Dorset Chiapas Solidarity Group

Committee of the True Word from Southwest England

Please could all groups and individuals send their signatures to dorsetchiapassolidaritygroup@riseup.net   by the evening of Saturday 22^nd June

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JUNE 16, 2013

Space full in communities for the Zapatista little school

Zapatista Army for National Liberation.

Mexico.

June 2013

To the adherents of the Sixth in Mexico and the world:

To Zapatista little school invitees:

From: Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.

Compañeras and Compañeros of the Sixth and students of the little school:

The Zapatista men and women send you their greetings. We wanted to let you know how preparations for the little school are going.

Well, we have bad news and good news:

First, the bad news:

We have already run out of space to attend the classes that will be held in communities between August 12th and 16th, 2013. Also, the course at CIDECI in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas is just about full.

There are many compañeros and compañeras who would like to attend the little school in our Zapatista communities. Many more than we expected. And many more than imagined by those people who say that the Zapatista fad is over, that Zapatista initiatives are no longer “attractive,” and other such nonsense repeated by those who have nothing to do.

And so, we wanted to let you know that all of the spaces for attending [the little school] in the communities in August are filled, all of the little classrooms are filled, and can’t hold any more people. There is no more space for students. Because we are not only going to receive them there, but we also need to make sure that they are well housed and fed, according, of course, to our humble means.

First, we had prepared to receive 500 students in Zapatista community. This filled up quickly. Then we expanded to 1000 students, and that filled up in no time. Then we made space for 1500 students and that also filled up. We cannot make any more space this time around because we want to take good care of the students and keep them happy.

But don’t be sad or discouraged, because we are weighing the options for another date, in another month, for those who cannot come to the little school in community this time. We’ll let you know the exact dates later. What is certain is that it will be sometime next December or January.

And now, the good news:

Our Zapatista compañeras and compañeros, who will be your teachers, are finishing up their teacher training.

Yes, they are finishing their preparation because all of the Zapatista people will participate in the school. You will have three teams of teachers: the compañeras and compañeros from the communities who will receive, house, and feed you; the compañeras and compañeros who will accompany you at all times and who will take care of you, that is, the guardians, or your “VOTAN”; and also your teachers in the little school.

But SupMarcos, in a separate communiqué, will explain further the three teams of teachers and the way that things will work in the schoolhouse. His computer is almost fixed.

In addition there will be teachers for the videoconference, and for the DVD version they have almost finished recording the class lectures.

The textbooks are also ready. We only need to add the DVDs, filmed by our own compañeras and compañeros in the Zapatista media, which show what we have done in every Zapatista corner here in Chiapas.

Don’t forget that afterwards there will be videoconferences or you can request these materials.

And we are also thinking of sending, later, a team of teachers to other places where there are people who would like to understand our struggle for freedom. Of course, only if they are invited.

In another communiqué, SupMarcos will give you some more information about how everything is going with the students. For now, I will just let you know that the vast majority are young people.

I would also like to take this opportunity to extend a general invitation to everyone who would like to come for the party to celebrate 10 years of the Good Government Councils.

Also, remember that the “Seminar Tata Juan Chávez Alonso,” is open to all who would like to attend, and will be celebrated in CIDECI in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, beginning on August 17th. This is also the day that all of the students are leaving the communities, so that those who are in community can also attend and listen to the word of other original peoples of Mexico who struggle for indigenous rights and culture. In July, we will have a meeting of the Organizing Commission, or those who are convoking the tribute to our dear compañero Don Juan Chávez Alonso.

That’s all for now. We’ll be here waiting for you.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.

Mexico, June 2013

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Watch and listen to the videos that accompany this text:

The song “The Anarchist” by Paradoxus Luporum. Dedicated to the anarchist compas, the new major enemy of the institutional “left.”

Mario Benedetti, in his own voice, “What can the young people do?” also for the anarchists.

So that you can start practicing your steps for the party on the 10 year anniversary of the caracoles and the Good Government Councils.

Translation by el Kilombo Intergalactico

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By: Christopher Argudín

In the Autonomous Municipalities or Zapatista Caracoles, as in any social organization, money as a medium to procure goods, services and to have the means to live is important, although it is significantly different when they are community resources.

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) has described how its members perceive the acquisition of resources, which is very different from what it would mean for a person who does not belong to such a context. Is it possible to live within an economic system which has other rules?

In the Mexican Lacandón Jungle, money, which in different parts of the world has taken lives, unleashed wars, and led man to reveal the darkest sides of his personality, is secondary, more valued are brotherhood, working as a team, a sense of community. In 2003, the Zapatista communities adopted a system known as Autonomous Communities or the Caracoles, which seeks to value ​​its people and celebrate collective work. They have little money, but have implemented strategies for survival and a philosophical approach.

A little while ago, I met a person in the city who came from one of the Zapatista communities. To respect his anonymity, I will call my friend B. He is an indigenous man who has been active in the Zapatista movement, his looks are simple, his huge smile and his kindness stand out, he is cheerful, he could be a positive example of Zapatista thought, and he is in the nation’s capital studying thanks a scholarship from a private institution.

B’s understanding shares with us the concept of money in the autonomous communities, for them “there is no special money, they use the same peso as all Mexicans. It is obtained mainly through trade, but they have managed to establish an order of priority, where it is not getting money that matters, but how it is shared “. B is now living in a place where everything is different. “So I can tell you that work is done through a barter system: I will help you clear  your cornfield on Monday and in exchange you will help me on Tuesday.” He comes from the Caracol and says that life in the community has been fundamental to now having a perspective on life which he has taken with him into a different society.

In the communiqué Them and Us VII: The Smallest of Them All, 5: The Money, made public by Subcomandante Marcos, he explains: “Every inhabitant of the Caracoles has their own capital, an agreed amount. The communities are governed by custom and tradition, and there is communal money. There are the figures of a Commissioner, who is responsible for matters of land plots, and the Rural Agent who is responsible for dispensing justice. We would say that these two figures are the main ones, both have a structure”.

B says that, as in most of the country, money in the communities is managed by the man. The social system is patriarchal. In this situation two banks have been created: BANPAZ (Popular Autonomous Zapatista Bank) and BANAMAZ (Autonomous Bank of the Zapatista Women).

In the Zapatista communities, what is most consumed is pozol, from the Nahuatl pozolli. It is a foamy drink obtained from fermented corn dough dissolved in water.

There are also small grocery stores, their economy is limited and there is not much activity. B says: “Outside the communities, the other indigenous get their income from moving to work in the cities. Some become chicle sellers, stewards, waiters, sell ice cream … Everything except deputies. In other communities they receive subsidies for farming through social programmes, but often, rather than investing in their work in the fields, people use the money to buy clothes and shoes”.

“You can say that these non-Zapatista communities are already more consumer-oriented: they now aspire to ‘be somebody’ in life, they think about getting a college degree; the Zapatistas do not, they even have their own schools, their own teachers, who are paid with corn, beans, vegetables and fruits”.

In Oventic there is a university called University of the Earth, here the indigenous teachers who teach their classes have been trained in European universities. There are several exchange programmes that have given them this possibility. Other indigenous from where B comes from do not want to continue speaking their language; they do not dress traditionally and no longer want to exchange their labour, they want money.

For B, one of the successes of the Zapatista communities is the exchange of labour, which rescues and preserves the traditions of the communities of Chiapas. “I think the Zapatista communities have not been able to separate much from the consumption habits of Mexicans, I think if they had a considerable income, they would do the same with money.” The people who live in the communities, have been able to develop cooperatives which help them. They have managed to produce livestock, clothing, food … All this, according to B, has not gone much further, because the government has begun a Counterinsurgency Plan involving building up the communities surrounding the Caracoles.

With regard to all this, B says: “All that I have told you is what I have seen, mainly in my past life as a Zapatista; I am now very much separated from them, but I know that not much has changed. They continue to struggle for equal shares for all.”

I believe that the Zapatista idea “is the great utopia”. But this is where they are.

“Money, cash, bills, benjamins, clams, dinero, the economy, the finances, etc.  The economic question isn’t only about where the resources come from (some people’s morbid curiosity about this will be satisfied in the little school, don’t worry), but also how they are managed (do the authorities get paid? nobody’s sticking their hand in the cookie jar for personal gain? etc.), and, above all, how do we keep track of everything? Wait a second! The Zapatistas have a banking system?! Well, continue to be scandalized because, as we have said, this is what the Zapatistas do, unsettle “good people’s consciences.”

Them and Us VII: The Smallest of Them All, 5: The Money

March 2013

Subcomandante Marcos.

http://komanilel.org/2013/06/08/la-utopia-zapatista/

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 ** 1500 people will go to the rebel communities of the five Caracoles, he reveals

By: Hermann Bellinghausen

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN, its initials in Spanish), announced that the quota for the Zapatista “escuelitas,” to be held next August, is completely full up, because “many more than we expected” registered. He reveals that 1500 people will go to the rebel communities of the five Caracoles in the mountains of Chiapas to know and learn first-hand about the experience of fifteen uninterrupted years of practical autonomy, especially the first ten years of the Good Government Juntas. “All the Zapatista communities” will participate, he said.

He also said: “We are thinking to send, later, a team of teachers to other places where there are people who want to know about our struggle for freedom.” So, the Zapatistas would be willing to take the story of their experience to wherever they may be invited in the future.

“There are no places left to attend classes in a community from August 12th to 16th”, he reiterated. And “the course is almost full” at Cideci, in San Cristóbal de las Casas. “Very many people want to attend the escuelita in our communities. More than the people believed, those who went around saying that the Zapatistas had gone out of fashion, that their initiatives no longer ‘pull’, and other stupidities that are said by those who have nothing to do”.

The rebel Subcomandante explains: “First we made preparations to receive 500 students in the communities” for the escuelita. “It filled up quickly.  Then we increased it to 1,000, and that was not enough.  Now we have made space for 1500 and that is also full. And we are no longer able to [accommodate] any more this time because we are planning to look after them well and for them to be happy. But don’t be sad or discouraged; on the contrary, we are looking at another date, at another month, for those who were not able to enter into the escuelita in a community this time. What is certain is that it will be next December-January.”

He then adds the “good news,” as if the previous news wasn’t good: the EZLN support bases, “who will be the teachers, are now finishing their preparations.” Because, he specifies, “all the Zapatista peoples will participate in this school.” There will be three teams of teachers: “the compañeras and compañeros from the communities who are going to receive, house and feed you;” those who “are going to accompany you at all times and are going to be caring for you, in other words the guardians, or your Votán.” And finally, “your teachers in the escuelita.”

He said that soon Subcomandante Marcos will give detailed information about “how special the escuelita is going to be,” because “according to him his computer is almost ready.”

In the same vein, “the textbooks are now ready and the only thing still to be done is to add the DVD in which you are going to be able to see what our own compañeros and compañeras of the Zapatista media filmed about what we have done in all the Zapatista  corners here in Chiapas.” He announced that there will be videoconferences, that the material will be available to the public, and that, “in another writing, sup Marcos is going to put out some information about how everything is going with the students.” He only said that: “the great majority of them are young men and women.”

The EZLN commander reiterated “the general invitation to the fiesta for 10 years of the Good Government Juntas”, also in August, and reminded [us] that the Tata Juan Chávez Alonso Seminar, convoked by the National Indigenous Congress and the EZLN, is open to the public, in San Cristóbal de las Casas, from August 17th, “which is when all the students are leaving the communities.”

The event will be an opportunity to “listen to the word of other original peoples of México who struggle for indigenous rights and culture.” Before this, in July, the commission for organizing the homage to “our beloved compañero don Juan Chávez Alonso,” will meet, he ended.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Saturday, June 15, 2013

En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/06/15/politica/015n1pol

English translation by the Chiapas Support Committee for the: International Zapatista Translation Service, a collaboration of the: Chiapas Support Committee, California, Wellington Zapatista Support Group, UK Zapatista Solidarity Network

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“We remain strong” against the tourism project: Bachajón ejidatarios

Clayton Conn, June 3, 2013

Dispossessed of part of their territory by the Chiapas government, and with one of their most respected members killed with impunity a month ago, the ejidatarios (common landholders) of San Sebastián Bachajón make clear that they will continue to defend their land against the tourist project planned for the waterfalls of Agua Azul.

The struggle, however, has been at a high cost.  ”The government ordered the killing” of the Tzeltal ejidatario Juan Vázquez Guzmán, accuses Ricardo Lagunes, the legal representative of the ejido of San Sebastián Bachajón, located in the municipality of Chilón. Lagunes warns that the dispossession of the land of the ejido “is only the beginning; it is not just 2,590 square metres that the government wants, this is just the start of the plunder that is to come”.

Lagunes and the Tzeltal ejidatarios Mariano Moreno Guzmán and Domingo Pérez Álvaro, said that the inhabitants of Bachajón are outraged by the violent repression from the government and its relentless efforts to strip them of their land.

The disputed territory includes the site of the popular (and profitable) tourist destination of the Waterfalls of Agua Azul, and is witness to a long history of bloodshed and “legal”  intervention from the authorities, with the intention of preventing the Tzeltals from exercising their right to self-determination, and opening up the land for private development. The latest round of violence and judicial blows began in April 2013, and continued until the assassination with six bullets in the chest -on the night of April 24-, of Juan Vázquez Guzmán, passionate ejidal authority[i], a man respected by his community and an indigenous rights defender.

“It is a tragedy that they killed him in a cowardly way, it is wicked that they did not show their faces”, says Perez. Vázquez Guzmán worked tirelessly for the organization of his community and of social movements throughout Mexico. An adherent to the Other Campaign (La Sexta), Guzmán was appointed secretary general of the three centres of the ejido in 2010. In 2011 he was arrested without a legal warrant by state and judicial police, who argued that he was leading the resistance to the project, referring to the opposition of the inhabitants of Bachajón to the privatization of the area to expand tourism around the waterfalls.

More than a month after his murder, there is no indication that there is an effective investigation in place to find those responsible. The ejidatarios accuse the government of political murder, because of Guzmán’s active participation: “The one responsible, we have said from the beginning, is the government which had him killed,” Lagunes accuses.

Since 2007, the ejidatarios have suffered differing levels of violence and repression from the authorities and from paramilitary organizations supporting the PRI, used as a means of breaking up the community and its resistance. In 2009, eight ejidatarios and adherents to the Other Campaign were arrested by state and federal police. That same year, Ricardo Lagunes was arrested and beaten at a PRI paramilitary checkpoint when he left a meeting in Bachajón. In 2011, 117 ejidatarios were arbitrarily detained by police when they tried to evict them from the toll booth at the entrance to the Agua Azul area. Ten, including Pérez Álvaro, remained political prisoners for an extended period of time.

The violence and repression are joined by legal and judicial decisions denying the rights of the ejidatarios. The 2011 arrest and the eviction of the ejidatarios allowed the authorities to take control of collectively owned lands, where they want to build a tourist destination to rival sites like Cancun.

As a way to legally prove who has the rights to the land, the ejidatarios of Bachajón, presented amparo 274/2011 against the dispossession. Mariano Moreno Guzmán, one of  the founders of the ejido, was assigned to present the petition for amparo, which was denied on January 30, 2013 by the Seventh District Judge from Tuxtla Gutiérrez, José del Carmen Constantine. However, on 16 May, the Third Collegiate Court from Tuxtla threw out the order from the Seventh as illegal and ordered the reinstatement of the procedure.

The ejidatarios are not convinced that the state will act in their interests. They identify the president, Enrique Peña Nieto, the governor of Chiapas, Manuel Velasco Coello, and the mayor of Chilón, Leonardo Guirao Aguilar, as those responsible for the dispossession, for the  benefit of corporations. “They do not let us go to our land, they say it all belongs to them, but we have a plan to show that it is our land. We have to fight and take it back”, cried the ejidatario Moreno Guzman.

The Tzeltal of Bachajón have suffered persistent repression from the judicial authorities, -who in theory should be defending them-, but they insist that they remain steadfast in their struggle for justice. “Even though they killed our compañero, it does not stop us from walking, we will go forward and be strong,” said Perez.

Several Mexican and international social organizations (such as Movement for Justice in El Barrio, the Dorset Chiapas Solidarity Group, the Committee of the True Word from Calcutta and the Committee of the True Word from Alisal) announced the launch of the “Week of Worldwide Action: Juan Vazquez Guzman Lives!, The Bachajón struggle continues!” This worldwide action will run from June 25th (the birthday of Vázquez Guzmán) to July 2, 2013.

http://desinformemonos.org/2013/06/estamos-firmes-contra-el-proyecto-turistico-ejidatarios-de-bachajon/

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Zapatista initiative reunites the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico

Gloria Muñoz Ramírez, June 10, 2013

The autonomous defence of territories and ancestral cultures against their main threats (mining, tourism, hydroelectric schemes, gas, wind energy developments, roads, among other megaprojects); the construction and exercise of their autonomy, and their internal strengthening are some of the concerns and challenges of the peoples, nations, tribes and indigenous barrios of Mexico who make up the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), a network which will be “re-launched” in the recently announced “Juan Chávez Alonso Seminar” to be held in August in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas.

The CNI was convened in January 1996 and formed in October of that same year, at the initiative of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Throughout the last 17 years, the indigenous peoples have been confronted by various government offensives, but today, as they said in the Huichol community of Bancos de San Hipólito, “as if there was not already a comprehensive multi-pronged onslaught against us along with the looting of our territories by caciques, businesses and bad governments have become more aggressive in their war of extermination which began more than 500 years ago”.

One of the events that marked the life of the CNI was the betrayal by the Mexican government in 2001 of the San Andrés Accords, signed with the EZLN in February 1996, and which led them, like the Zapatistas, to the practical exercise of their autonomy. This practice has been, until now, the only viable way to resist and confront dispossession and repression.

A year after the accidental death of Don Juan Chávez Alonso, Purhépecha from Nurío, Michoacán, founder and moral leader of the CNI, the EZLN and various indigenous peoples from throughout the country, have announced that “with his gaze as the horizon”, indigenous organizations will meet in August to “build a forum in which the indigenous peoples of the continent can be heard by those who have an attentive and respectful ear for their word, their history, and their resistance”.

Open to the public and intended as a continuation of the work of the First Meeting of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, held in October 2007 in Vícam, Sonora, in the territory of the Yaqui tribe, the Traveling Seminar Tata Juan Chávez Alonso, also proposes, “an even wider call”, the re-launching of the CNI, for which it will make “a joint appeal to the original peoples of the continent”.

The first event of the seminar will be on 17 and 18 August 2013, but it is expected, given its traveling nature, that other sessions will take place in “different locations of indigenous America throughout the continent, in accordance with the geographies and calendars agreed upon by those who convoke this seminar and those who join along the way”.

At the seminar, there will be indigenous organizations, and representatives and delegates of original peoples, communities and neighbourhoods, who will ‘take the word’ and tell “with their own voice of their stories, sorrows, hopes and, especially, their resistance”.

The Yaqui tribe which is struggling against the Aqueduct Independencia with which they want to take away their water; the Wixarica people defending the sacred site of Wirikuta and the rest of their territory against mines; the Coca community of Mescala who do not give up the defence of their island and their cultural heritage; the Juchitecan Popular Assembly in full resistance against wind energy projects; the Nahnu people of Atlapulco who continue to defend their territory against a road project; these are some of the convokers who sign beside the General Command of the EZLN. 

http://desinformemonos.org/2013/06/iniciativa-zapatista-vuelve-a-reunir-a-los-pueblos-indios-de-mexico/

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Monsanto and DuPont-Pioneer Threaten Food Security in Mexico

**Monsanto: Perhaps the world’s most hated company.

**Ironically, it claims to be pursuing the human interest.

EDITORIAL La Jornada, Mexico, June 3, 2013

The International Day of Protest against Monsanto, convoked by a range of civil rights and environmental organizations, managed to attract shows of support in hundreds of cities and more than 50 countries, including the United States, Argentina, México, Japan, South Africa, Germany and Australia, among many others.

Significantly, this massive social mobilization, practically simultaneous around the world, was not on this occasion addressed to any state or financial institution. Rather, It was against a particular entity that holds a hegemonic and illegal position in the field of food production and biotechnology. This is particularly the case when it comes to the development and commercialization of genetically-modified maize; the enormity in power and scope of which puts it in a position to threaten biodiversity and food supplies for entire populations.

In the particular case of our country [Mexico], this comes as Monsanto and DuPont-Pioneer have submitted permit applications to the Mexican government for the right to large-scale, unrestricted GM-maize production for commercial purposes, with the supposed goal of diminishing the need for increased grain imports.

These applications are inappropriate. As documented by various scientific publications around the world, these crops are a risk factor for the health of populations and biodiversity. Their consumption is causally-related to conditions of the vital organs, while their production is tied to the irreversible contamination of indigenous species in distinct environments.

Examples abound: last year, a study by researchers at the University of Caen in France, documented the appearance of cancerous tumours in rats fed with a variety of transgenic maize produced by Monsanto. Three years earlier, the International Journal of Biological Sciences published an academic article showing that three varieties of genetically-modified maize produced by U.S. food multinationals can cause damage to the kidneys, liver and heart.

The lack of sufficient evidence about the safety of these crops should be sufficient for the authorities to impede their unrestricted, large-scale production. But there are also weighty economic considerations, such as the fact that the liberal commercialization of genetically-modified grains, far from offering a solution to increased food dependency, is an additional blow to traditional producers, which have already been penalized by rising imports of these and other food staples. This would place production in the hands of a small number of companies, three of which – Monsanto, Sygenta, and DuPont-Pioneer – control over 90 percent of the market. As such, it would worsen the loss of self-sufficiency of the country in the food sector.

If the fight against hunger is genuinely a priority of the current federal government, the starting point must be recognition by national authorities of the connection between the just-stated calamity and the model of food policy that has been imposed on the population as a whole. It is a model based on an indiscriminate opening up of markets, and now also, on converting the right to eat into a private benefit for a handful of companies.

Correcting the problem requires designing and implementing policies guided by measures to guarantee food self-sufficiency, starting with maintaining or extending restrictions on cultivating genetically-modified crops; reversing the outrageous increase in food imports, and refocusing the government on supporting small farmers and producers.
 

Translated By Kyle Shepard

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/05/26/opinion/002a1edi

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 ** The cases of their compañeros in prison are no longer isolated

** They document errors and inconsistencies in the process of Miguel Demeza Jiménez

By: Hermann Bellinghausen

The resistance of the Zapatista communities and the adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle, as well as the protests of other organizations like OCEZ, has made visible the profound arbitrariness with which the justice system in Chiapas operates. The cases of their compañeros in prison are no longer isolated ones, and together reveal just how unequal is the administration of justice; and the multitude of formal labyrinths they have to negotiate in order to regain the freedom they never should have lost.

In the coming days, Miguel Demeza Jiménez, an adherent to the Sixth from San Sebastián Bachajón, will face a hearing on the case for a protective order (amparo) 1478/2012 promoted before the fifth district judge in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Ricardo Alfonso Morcillo Moguel, against the writ of formal prison that a judge in Cintalapa de Figueroa issued for the alleged crime of robbery with violence on September 30, 2012.

Once again, as in the cases of Alberto Patishtán, Rosario Díaz Méndez (and not long ago the Zapatista Francisco Sántiz López, released in January), we are dealing with revenge, and a scapegoat for local authorities (of El Bosque, Huitiupán and Tenejapa, in these cases, of Ocosingo and Chilón in the case of Demeza Jiménez, a prisoner in El Amate, likewise accused of crimes he did not commit).

On Wednesday, as Patishtán Gómez reminded La Jornada by telephone, 13 years will have been completed since the unpunished massacre of police in El Bosque municipality, for which he is still in prison, for the revenge of the then PRI Mayor Manuel Gómez Ruiz. The anniversary serves to highlight the immense efforts represented by the struggle of these indigenous men for freedom. They are victims of different legal, cultural, political discrimination, and of the Kafkaesque and tortuous process that is imposed on them, their families, communities and organizations, without ignoring the institutional corruption that allows the ministerial traps to be set.

Following the constitutional hearing of Demeza Jiménez, to be held on June 18, the judge will issue a decision. The defence plans to clarify the grave violations that the Chiapas General Prosecutor of Justice committed against him.

Demeza Jiménez, 32 years old, is a Tzeltal campesino, a stonemason and the father of children. According to his defender Ricardo Lagunes Gasca, he was arrested in Ocosingo while he was eating at a street stall in the company of his cousin Jerónimo, without a warrant, on October 7, 2010, and “held without charges and tortured by the Special Unit Against the Crime of Kidnapping, an agency under the State’s Special Prosecutor Against Organized Crime, and later sent to El Amate as the man probably responsible for the robbery with violence of the Coxito Ironmongers, which occurred on September 18, 2010, and also probably responsible for the kidnapping of a minor in Ocosingo, on October 7, 2010.”

The robbery had occurred three weeks before. The manager of Coxito, Emilio Adiel Argueta Ruiz, denounced the acts two days later. He stated that during the holdup he was with a female employee and a man named Jorge; that he did not recognize the robbers, and that they hit him on the head with such force that he lost consciousness, and did not wake up until the robbers had escaped. He gave no further account.

On October 15, members of the Special Police presented Argueta Ruiz to the prosecutor of the unit against kidnapping, due to the fact that his cell phone number was linked with that of his friend Rubén Aníbal Ramírez Monge, with whom the rescue of the kidnapped minor on October 7 was carried out. In this second statement, Argueta Ruiz radically changed his September denouncement and introduced new “eyewitnesses”, Ramírez Monge among them, and indicated that on that day the aforementioned cell phone was stolen. He did not mention any cell phone in his first statement, let alone that his friend was present at the scene. Nevertheless, Ramírez Monge is now the only person who claims to recognize the indigenous man from San Sebastián as a participant in the robbery.

The Public Ministry (Ministerio Público) showed the ironmonger, his friend and his “witnesses,” a photograph of Demeza so that they could accuse him of the robbery and kidnapping, which they did. Thus, despite the fact that there are good reasons for investigating Argueta Ruiz and Ramírez Monge for their probable participation in the kidnapping, they were released and illegally and maliciously imputed responsibility to Demeza.

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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada

Thursday, June 13, 2013

En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/06/13/politica/018n1pol

English translation by the Chiapas Support Committee for the International Zapatista Translation Service

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Pronouncement of Fuerza Indígena Chinanteca Kia-Nan regarding San Sebastián Bachajón

THE FUERZA INDIGENA CHINANTECA KIA-NAN. ADHERENT TO THE SIXTH DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE CHIAPAS

IN SOLIDARITY WITH OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF BACHAJON IN THEIR STRUGGLE FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE MOTHER EARTH AND TERRITORY, AGAINST TOURIST MEGAPROJECTS, DEVELOPED BY THE THREE LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT, FEDERAL, STATE, AND MUNICIPAL, WHO ARE AT THE SERVICE OF LARGE TRANSNATIONAL COMPANIES, WE ACCUSE THE THREE LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT, OF ALL THE ATTACKS, VIOLATIONS, ARRESTS, REPRESSION, AND IMPRISONMENT, WHICH OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF BACHAJON ARE SUFFERING.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE. WE ARE WITH YOU IN YOUR STRUGGLES, FROM OUR TRENCHES WE ARE ALSO AGAINST DISPOSSESSION AND MEGAPROJECTS.

WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF BACHAJON, WE DEMAND RESPECT FOR THE ORIGINAL PEOPLES WHO, THROUGH HISTORY, ARE THE TRUE OWNERS OF THEIR TERRITORIES.

TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY

LONG LIVE THE NATIVE COMMUNITIES IN RESISTANCE.

LONG LIVE THE ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION.

FUERZA INDIGENA CHINANTECA KIA-NAN, TUXTEPEC OAXACA, 4 JUNE 2013

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