From the Oventic Caracol, located in the municipality of San Andrés Larráinzar, the Zapatistas celebrated their 31st Anniversary with a Cultural Festival, theater and sports activities. Photo by Isabel Mateos Hinojosa/Cuartoscuro/La Jornada.
Tapachula, Chiapas. In commemorating 31 years of its uprising, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation assured that it is possible to build a new way of life and organization with resistance and rebellion.
“We discovered two weapons in the peaceful struggle, which are resistance and rebellion. We can achieve what we are going to continue from now on and we can say now that we have seen it, if peaceful political struggle is possible with resistance and rebellion, organization is needed for those two weapons” said Insurgent Sub-commander Insurgente Moisés.
From the Oventic Caracol, located in the municipality of San Andrés Larráinzar, the Zapatistas celebrated their 31st Anniversary with a Cultural Festival, theater and sports activities.
In front of hundreds of militia, support bases and EZLN sympathizers, Moisés issued a warning to defend the communities against possible attacks.
“It is not right that they want to kill us, that they want to wage war on us for building what is truth, freedom, justice and democracy for the people. But we also want to make it clear that we are also prepared to defend ourselves, we are not threatening, we are telling the truth, we will defend ourselves if they come to attack us, we are thousands of combatants,” he said.
Photo Isabel Mateos Hinojosa/Cuartoscuro/La Jornada
In this sense, the insurgent commander thanked those who have given their lives throughout more than three decades of struggle against the “capitalist system” and “bad governments.”
“We have already realized, we have already lived it and we are working on it, what we have now we did not get for free, the capitalist system did not give it to us, it is with the blood and life of our fallen comrades,” he stressed.
Insurgent Captain Moisés asserted that there is a responsibility for the current and new generations to continue building a new way of life and a new society based on collaborative production of the land and the care of it because with “bills and coins you will not be able to have a stew.”
From the southeast of Mexico he called for more meetings in which the forms of struggle, organization and defense that people in Mexico and the world have are shared so that the best ideas can be replicated in each “geography and calendar.”
“That is why now we have to make more efforts, more work and sacrifice for our own good,” Moisés stated in his speech.
He concluded that this new way of life and society is possible through discussion, analysis, sharing, opinion, study and decision-making of alternatives without capitalism.
“We invite with all our hearts to organize for the new life or for the new society that we can have, we Zapatistas are demonstrating that we can,” he emphasized.
Original article by Edgar H. Clemente at La Jornada, January 1st, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.