October 5th 2023
To the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the National Indigenous Congress
To the peoples of Mexico and the world,
To the individuals, collectivities and peoples that defend Life
On October 12, 1492, a new history began to be written: the History of Indigenous Dignity. The strength and determination of the native peoples, cultivated for more than 531 years, acquires new meanings today: the anti-colonial resistance of the first ones, the defense of their territories and ways of inhabiting the world, are a source of knowledge and inspiration in the struggle against predatory and ecocidal capitalism.
Throughout the Americas, the history of struggles for freedom and justice are marked by the resistance of indigenous peoples. In Mexico, they resisted the war of conquest, strengthened the popular armies in the War of Independence, fought against North American imperialism and its expansionist attempts, were part of the resistance against the French empire, and against the dictatorship of Porfirio and played a fundamental role in the Revolutionary War in the armies led by Villa and Zapata. During the PRI regime, the native peoples nurtured the popular and national liberation armies. With the uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation on January 1, 1994, and the formation of the National Indigenous Congress on October 12, 1996, indigenous peoples went on the offensive against neoliberal integration and its accelerated dispossession. And as in the past, indigenous peoples are today resisting the neo-developmentalism that attempts to disguise dispossession as welfare.
Those of us who subscribe to these words have responded to the call of the organized indigenous peoples, many times in actions that are limited to solidarity and the accompaniment of their struggles. But they have taught us, not without difficulty, to broaden our gaze: each struggle is connected to another; each neighborhood, tribe, people, nation that resists is the world that resists.
In the mirrors of the reality of the war faced by those who ancestrally care for and defend Mother Earth against capitalist and patriarchal plunder and exploitation; in the mirrors of the contempt for maintaining the dignity of being who they are against colonial attempts at extermination; in the mirrors of political persecution, disappearance, imprisonment and murder for fighting, organizing, resisting and caring for Life. In these mirrors is reflected the capitalist war against nature and Life, a war that today fills all the national and worldwide territory with blood.
The historical dimension of the challenge of the Zapatista peoples and the National Indigenous Congress can be seen in the very meaning of this call: to confront the war against the peoples of Mexico and the world. To fight and organize against the advance of militarization in Mexico is, at the same time, to defend the beautiful work that the Zapatista communities have achieved in their autonomous territories, as well as to defend the freedom of organization throughout the country. To organize to stop the advance and inauguration of megaprojects such as the misnamed Mayan Train, the Morelos Integral Project, or the Transisthmian Corridor is also to defend water, diversity, community, land, and dignified life.
A few months before another six-year term of bad government comes to an end, in the face of the multiple evidence that while the capitalist hydra is the one who governs behind any color, any party, the call of the peoples marks a course and a destiny of dignity. The war in Mexico is a war against life. Its actors are the organized crime groups, the repressive bodies of the State, both formal and informal, the political class as a whole, and the State and its institutions that live off corruption. A Capitalist Narco-State, as the CNI comrades say.
Already in 2017 the peoples of the CNI called us to “dismantle the power from above and reconstitute ourselves not only as peoples, but as a country, from below and to the left, to join together in a single organization in which dignity is our last word and our first action. We call on you to organize ourselves and stop this war, to not be afraid to build ourselves and sow ourselves on the ruins left by capitalism.” To build ourselves and sow ourselves on the ruins left by capitalism. From autonomy, self-determination, commanding by obeying and the defense of Life, it is time to stop this war.
It is for all of the above reasons that the people and organizations that sign this document call to join the Global Action to stop the war against the peoples of Mexico and the World, towards the Zapatista peoples and the original peoples of Mexico, holding forums, leafleting, painting or any action that contributes to denounce the war against the peoples.
Stop the war against the peoples of Mexico and the World!
Stop the war against the Zapatista peoples!
Stop the war against the original peoples of Mexico!
Long live the Life that resistance creates!
Original text here: https://www.congresonacionalindigena.org/2023/10/05/pronunciamiento-del-espacio-de-coordinacion-nacional-alto-a-la-guerra-contra-los-pueblos-zapatistas-ante-la-convocatoria-del-12-de-octubre-dia-de-la-resistencia-y-la-dignidad-indigena/
English translation by Schools for Chiapas.