Worldwide Echo in Support of the Zapatistas

INTERNATIONAL CALL TO ACTION:

“Worldwide Echo in Support of the Zapatistas: Freedom and Justice for San Marcos Avilés and Sántiz López”

July 27, 2012

To our sisters and brothers, the family members and allies of San Marcos Avilés: To our sisters and brothers, the family members and allies of Francisco Sántiz López: To our Zapatista sisters and brothers: To our compañer@s of The Other Campaign: To our compañer@s of the Zezta Internazional: To our compañer@s, adherents of the International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio and all our allies from around the world: To the Civil Society in Mexico and in the world: The following is an urgent call to action from Movement for Justice in El Barrio, The Other Campaign New York, to carry out the:

“Worldwide Echo in Support of the Zapatistas:
Justice and Freedom for San Marcos Avilés and Sántiz López”

SISTERS AND BROTHERS: From the brown heart of El Barrio, New York, receive affectionate greetings and an urgent proposal of struggle on behalf of Movement for Justice in El Barrio, The Other Campaign New York. The following is a new and urgent convocation to carry out the: “Worldwide Echo in Support of the Zapatistas:

Freedom and Justice for San Marcos Avilés and Sántiz López”

First Phase: Walking the True Word – August 2012

To all those who fight for justice, dignity, freedom, and democracy, and against oppression, violence, hatred, scorn, poverty, and terror that are the world of those from above…

To those who work to build another world, another communication, another politics, another knowledge, another culture, another history, another future… To those who search for and create our path by looking from below and to the left… who learn about life by listening to the wise words of the ancestors… To those who dream of freedom in all its resplendent colors…

To those who reject the injustices that, in every country, are imposed and called “economy” and “government”… To those who find inspiration, hope, resonance and reflection in the Zapatistas…

Today, with urgency, we are called upon to mobilize, with our whole being, solidarity and support for our Zapatista sisters and brothers of the community in resistance of San Marcos Avilés and for the Zapatista political prisoner Francisco Sántiz López: Responding to the numerous denouncements and calls issued by the Good Government Council of Oventic and the community of San Marcos Avilés, we stand in solidarity with them and add our echo to their dignified “ENOUGH!” against the recent attacks that the Zapatista support base members, the essence of the Zapatista Movement, are facing.

Particularly, this convocation seeks to anticipate and prevent further violence against San Marcos Avilés at the hands of local political party members who have, during the past few days, made renewed threats. These individuals are the “strong arm” of the region’s dominant political parties. They have of late revealed their plan to displace our sisters and brothers of the Zapatista support base. According to recent threats, these enemies of the people intend to kidnap Zapatista community authorities and, in turn, violently displacing other Zapatistas from their community. They have stated, additionally, that they will incarcerate anyone who continues to denounce these unjust aggressions.

We stress here that these attacks are not isolated incidents, but rather are integral components of the prolonged war of extermination that the bad government of Mexico, together with capitalist interests, has carried out for the past 18 years to wipe out the Zapatista movement and all it has given to the world.

The objectives of this war have been and remain to continue the colonial project and destroy at any cost indigenous autonomy and resistance, and take over their ancestral lands, and in this way, exploit for the exclusive benefit of those from above the natural resources with which our Mother Earth provides us. Repression, violence, and death are meted out by the bad government of Mexico to those who resist this, who defend their lands, their identities, their cultures, and autonomy – their very existence.

The Zapatista ejido and community of San Marcos Avilés, which is made up of Tzeltal indigenous people, has endured an unending nightmare of terror since 2010, when the community’s autonomous school, “Emiliano Zapata,” was constructed as part of the Zapatista Rebel Education System—constituting a major step forward in the community’s advance towards autonomy. During the past two years, this community has suffered various forms of extreme violence, including death threats, harassment, plunder, sexual aggression (including attempted rapes), forced displacement, and others, at the hands of members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and the Green Ecological Party (PVEM) of Mexico, and their armed attack groups.

Similarly, our compañero Francisco Sántiz López, also an indigenous Tzeltal-speaker and Zapatista from Chiapas, has remained unjustly imprisoned since December 4, 2011, for false crimes that he never committed. His only “crime” is that of being a member of the Zapatista support base. Today he remains a hostage of the bad government of Mexico in its war against all Zapatistas. It is clear that the violence exercised against both San Marcos Avilés and Francisco Sántiz López stems from that same source.

Recently, community members of San Marcos Avilés have reported that the threats against them have spiked at an alarming rate during the past few days. In light of these acts of violence and aggression, we would like to propose the following plan of solidarity and struggle, as part of the “Worldwide Echo in Support of the Zapatistas: Freedom and Justice for San Marcos Avilés and Sántiz López.” This campaign is distinguished for its “two-pronged” strategy, and will consist of two interrelated phases. …more