[Originally published in Spanish by the EZLN
Translated by irlandesa, based on transcription of recording]
Translated by irlandesa, based on transcription of recording]
Words of Comandanta Rosalinda in Oventik, August 9, 2003
Very good afternoon to all the compañero and compañera support bases. Men, women, children, young persons, old ones, of all the peoples and all the municipalities of zapatista areas.
We are gathered together here today in this place of encuentro, and I would like to speak a few words to you, compañeros and compañeras.
Today we are demonstrating, one more time, that we – those of us who are here, and also those who could not come – that we are strong enough to fight.
We realize that we have already been resisting in this struggle for ten years. Even though we have suffered, we are indeed willing to continue fighting, because we know we can.
All the zapatista municipalities and communities have been demonstrating this for ten years, and they are good, marvelous, because they know how to fight and resist. And we must go on demonstrating, through our struggle, our resistance. Even though the bad government wants to defeat us, they cannot, because we, the zapatistas, know now how to organize and work. We have the strength to continue fighting for our rights and to build our autonomy.
That is why I want to tell all the compañeros and compañeras of all the zapatista areas, of all the peoples and cities of all of Mexico and of the world: do not be discouraged, do not be frightened by the threats and persecution of the bad governments, because our struggle, our resistance, has already grown greatly. There are compañeros and compañeras throughout the world.
Our main weapon now is our resistance and our organization of all the peoples. That is why we are learning to build our autonomy. We have already been able to build our Autonomous Municipalities everywhere, and now we have the Good Government Juntas. With this, we have taken one more step. That is why it is the moment to be motivated. Now is the time to be even more motivated to do all the work, because that is the way we shall move forward in our resistance and be able to build our autonomy.
The bad government ignores us. So let them just have their stupidity. Because a bad government is never going to let us. The only way to achieve what we need is to organize ourselves well, to be strong in our resistance in Autonomous Municipalities. But, in order to do that work, all of us need to participate, we must all be self-motivated. The women cannot be left behind. Only in that way will our struggle be able to triumph.
Those are all my words.
Democracy, Liberty, Justice.
From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.
By the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee –
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico, August 9, 2003.
Muchas gracias, compañeros.
Comandanta Fidelia’s Words in Oventik, August 9, 2003
Comandante Brusli’s Words in Oventik, August 9, 2003
Words of Comandante David in Oventik, August 9, 2003
Very good afternoon, sisters of the Mexican people and of the world.
Sisters:
We would like to speak these words to you from my revolutionary sisters of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, who also send you their very special greetings.
Sister women: I would like to say these little words to you. Today we are calling on the Mexican people, the men, demanding our respect as the women we are. We are not only going to demand it – since we are not going to ask for favors or plead – this is going to be compulsory.
Because, sister women, you know quite well that women are there, in the countryside and the city. They are working, their rights are being violated. They do not respect them. That is why, today, we are inviting the women of all Mexico and the world, and all the women in the cities, and those who are in the unorganized corners, those who are not listening to us but whom my voice shall reach. We are going to make our respect as the women we are compulsory, even if they make their sad little face.
Because there are still many parts of Mexico where we, the women, are being mistreated, despised, exploited. They say that we are not any good, that we are worthless, that we do not have any rights. But today the time has come, we are going to do it, it will be compulsory that they respect us.
I am not scolding them, listen carefully, it is called obligation, respect for us as the women we are.
And so I am sending you very special wishes from my revolutionary sisters of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, from the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee, from the Mexican southeast and from all of Mexico, where there are also zapatistas, because they are everywhere.
Gracias, sisters.
Comandante Brusli’s Words in Oventik, August 9, 2003
Good afternoon to all brothers and sisters.
Today, August 9, 2003, as a response to the political class’ plans to fragment the country, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation is calling on the people of Mexico to move forward with the Plan La Realidad-Tijuana. For which, we are proposing seven common accords and seven national demands:
First accord: Reciprocal respect for the autonomy and independence of social organizations – of workers, campesinos, indigenous, women, old ones, homosexuals, lesbians, transsexuals, sex workers, young working persons, children, neighborhoods, teachers, small shop owners, debtors, artists, intellectuals, religious persons – for their processes and decision making methods, for their legitimate representatives, for their aspirations and demands, and for the accords which they reach with their opposition parties.
Second accord: Promotion of forms of self-management and self-governance throughout the national territory, according to each of their means.
Third accord: Promoting civil and peaceful rebellion and resistance in response to the regulations of the bad government and the political parties.
Fourth accord: Lend total and unconditional solidarity to the one who is attacked, and not to the aggressor.
Fifth accord: Form a network of intercommunity basic commerce and promotion of staple foods in national shops, giving preference to small and mid-sized business and informal commerce.
Sixth accord: Joint and coordinated defense of national sovereignty and direct and radical opposition to impending privatizations of the electric industry, oil and other natural resources.
Seventh accord: Form a network of information and culture, and demand truthful, complete, timely and balanced information from the media. Create local media, and establish regional and national networks for the defense and promotion of local, regional and national culture and of universal arts and sciences.
These are the seven demands which we are proposing:
First demand: The land belongs to the one who works it. In defense of ejidal and communal ownership of the land, and the protection and defense of natural resources. Nothing without the knowledge and prior consent of the inhabitants and workers of each place.
Second demand: Dignified work, a fair wage, for everyone.
Third demand: Dignified housing for everyone.
Fourth demand: Free public health for everyone.
Fifth demand: Low cost food and clothing for everyone.
Sixth demand: Free secular education for children and young people.
Seventh demand: Respect for the dignity of women, children and old persons.
The EZLN is calling on independent social organizations of the State and of the political parties to discuss and to approve and expand on this national plan.
Democracy, Liberty, Justice.
From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.
Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee –
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico, August of 2003.
Gracias.
Comandante Tacho’s words in Oventik, August 9, 2003
Campesino brothers and sisters of Mexico:
The serious situation which is confronting us, the campesinos of Mexico, is becoming more and more critical.
We, those who make up the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, are speaking to all of you, you who are the legitimate owners of the lands which we make produce.
Brothers in the history of our country, Mexico: our work, our production, our lands, have often received public recognition for the position occupied by campesino production, the result of our work, sweat and effort.
Campesinos have occupied, and continue to occupy, very important positions in everything we produce, because of its fundamental importance in the nutritional life of the Mexican people.
The dishonesty of past bad governments, and of those currently in office, have not recognized campesinos for the importance of our work.
These bad governments have done the complete opposite, and they have mocked us.
We campesinos have been dispossessed of our lands by the judicial police, by other police forces and even by the federal Mexican army.
They have held us captive with credit and with extremely high interest rates.
They have tried to take away from us what they never gave us.
Everything they have done against us is in order to keep the rich happy and their interests secure.
They mock, and they continue to mock, those of us who are campesinos.
These bad governments know quite well that the recognition of the positions which we occupy in our production belongs to us, the producer campesinos, because we are the ones who know how much it costs to make the land produce.
We are the ones who deserve to travel to other sister countries in order to ask for their help in improving production, because they have advanced knowledge regarding production in the countryside.
Instead of the unremitting big lies which the governments have told, and continue to tell, with falsehoods and deceptions in other countries, saying that there is no poverty in Mexico, that there is no unemployment, that they are a government of the people.
We, the campesinos, know that those are absolute lies.
Campesino brothers, these last years the bad governments have tried to deceive the people, and they have especially tried to keep the campesinos happy with the pathetic Procampo, with paltry Progresa or with the discredited small shops.
The underlying problems of the campesinos have not been resolved by all these various deceptions, mockeries and incompetence.
What these governments are interested in is filling their pockets and getting richer and richer at our, the campesinos’, expense, and that is why we are forced to fight, in response to the lack of attention to campesinos and the countryside.
That is what they have been doing ever since the traitor Carlos Salinas de Gortari changed Article 27 of the Constitution, leaving campesinos unprotected.
Because, previously, all aspects of campesino life and our lands had been protected.
The only thing that change [to Article 27 of the Constitution] did was to benefit the interests of the rich. As our poverty increased, they could shove us aside in order to sell our ejidal lands to the rich and so we, the campesinos, would be slaves on our own soil.
Today we, the campesinos, are telling those who allowed the sale of ejidal lands through that law that for us, the campesinos, the land is our mother, and a mother is not sold.
And, for those who allowed the land to be sold through the laws, they are without a mother.
Our circumstances and living conditions have been getting worse because of the poor prices obtained for our products, which was caused by the bad governments of Salinas, Zedillo and Fox.
In addition, those tools, provisions and other materials which we, the campesinos, need in order to work, to produce, have become more and more expensive, and we are not able to buy the necessary minimum.
Campesino brothers, our circumstances are more and more serious.
What we buy is more and more expensive, and what we produce is sold for less and less.
Fox’s government continues doing the same as his predecessors. Those little governments spend their time traveling in other countries, in order to say that other wealthy people can come to Mexico to make their investments, that there is a good investment climate.
In other words, these very governments are allowing our country to be brutally looted.
But, on television and in the press, the governments are saying that the investors are going to create jobs, and that is a lie, because there is more and more unemployment, poverty and destitution in Mexico.
The government has no interest in improving the prices for our goods.
That is what Salinas did, as well as Zedillo, to say nothing of Señor Vicente Fox, who is following his predecessors’ plans and seeking the conditions for continuing to benefit the interests of rich Mexicans and foreigners and developing neoliberal plans in our country.
Our government’s disinterest in the countryside and campesinos is demonstrated whenever there is a natural catastrophe.
We know that there are means for fighting forest fires, but nothing is done, even though they say on television and in the press that they are prepared. The truth is they can’t even put out a spark.
The same thing happens with floods.
Not only are they unable to do anything, the truth is they aren’t interested.
It doesn’t matter to them if the selva or the forests are ruined. They are only interested in filling their pockets, and it doesn’t matter to them if we campesinos are more and more destitute.
Campesino brothers, we do not expect anything good from any of those old kinds of government.
There is only one path which remains for us to follow.
We have to organize ourselves in order to defend our lands together, anyplace, in any state in the Mexican republic.
To help each other with the problems we have.
To not trust our government, regardless of how new it is, since they have already proven themselves for 73 years, and it may be another face, but they are still the same.
Over the last few years, there has been more scarcity, more unemployment, more poverty, low prices for our products, more destitution, more dislocations, more repression, more militarization.
That is why, campesino brothers and sisters of Mexico, we are calling on everyone, as campesinos, to join together and to organize ourselves in order to defend our lands and to fight together for better living conditions.
We need all campesinos, we have to fight for ourselves.
Real and dignified changes which deal with the needs of the countryside will not come from any government or from any political party. The only path they have left us is that of organizing ourselves in resistance and rebellion. That is all.
From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.
Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee –
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico, August 9, 2003.
Words of Comandante David in Oventik, August 9, 2003
Words For Indigenous Brothers Who Are Not Zapatistas
I am going to speak a few words for those indigenous brothers who are not zapatistas.
Non-zapatista indigenous brothers and sisters who live in the towns, in the areas and in the rebel zapatista Autonomous Municipalities.
The Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee – General Command of the EZLN is addressing all of you in order to tell you the following:
It is not necessary to be zapatista in order to be served and respected by the Autonomous Municipalities in any part of our territory.
By being a member of the community or of the municipality to which you belong, you have the right to be served.
If you live in the same community and in the same municipality, you are brothers of raza, of color and of history, and there should not, then, be any reason for fighting and confrontations between brothers, because we suffer the same injustices of discrimination and humiliation. We are living in the same conditions of hunger and poverty. We suffer the same contempt, marginalization and ignoring by the bad government and the powerful, for being indigenous and the color of the earth.
What I am asking those who are not zapatista, those who are not in agreement with us or those who do not understand the just cause of our struggle, is that you respect our organization. That you respect our communities and Autonomous Municipalities and their authorities. And respect the Good Government Juntas in all the regions, in all the areas. Those which have been formally constituted today, witnessed by many thousands of indigenous and non-indigenous brothers and sisters in our country Mexico and in many countries throughout the world.
We, the zapatistas, are not going to attack anyone, nor impose anything on the brothers who are not zapatista. We will be respectful with all our indigenous brothers, without regard to their organization, their party or their religion, always and as long as they respect us and respect our communities, our Autonomous Municipalities and their authorities, so that our indigenous towns can exercise their rights to autonomy and free determination, as provided for in the San Andrés Accords, which was signed by the federal government and the EZLN, and made into the legislative proposal by the COCOPA in November of 1996.
But yes, we want to make it quite clear, that we will not remain with our arms crossed when our compañeros, our communities and our municipalities are attacked by any group of persons of any party or of any paramilitary group, because it is our right to defend our compañeros and to demand that they be respected.
Brothers and sisters:
Today, zapatismo is larger and stronger. Never before in our history have we had the strength we have today. For some time now, we have reached far beyond the boundaries of the southeastern State of Chiapas, and more, we have control even in communities where there are Federal Army and Public Security Police garrisons. Our word has also reached into the barracks and to those who inhabit them. We are not boasting, we are merely informing. As a sign of good will, and offering respect in advance to those who respect us, who are not zapatistas, they will not be harassed, persecuted or attacked at our initiative. We will give a sign.
In the name of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee – General Command of the EZLN, I am giving the following orders:
As of today, all those zapatista checkpoints that have been installed on federal, state and local roads and bridges will be lifted. And all charges to individuals on roads and highways within rebel territories will be eliminated.
Violations of this regulation should be reported to the respective Good Government Junta so that, pending confirmation, the individual may return the money and the individual or authority who has committed the offense may be punished. Only those vehicles will be searched which could be illegally transporting wood, drugs or weapons, the trafficking in which is strictly forbidden on zapatista lands.
In compliance with the demands of indigenous women, the confirmed introduction of alcohol into the communities will be punished by the seizure of the liquor and a fine to the vehicle’s owner. In order to enter the zapatista communities, the same criteria and methods will be maintained which have been operating up to this point, and which have to do with security and protection measures for the zapatista civil population. This is our word.
Democracy, Liberty, Justice.
From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.
By the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee –
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico, August 9, 2003.
Muchas gracias.
Words of Greeting and Farewell by Comandante David in Oventic, August 9, 2003
Good afternoon to everyone.
Compañeros and compañeras, support bases from all the rebel zapatista territories who are present at this historic event.
Compañeros and compañeras, members of the Autonomous Councils from all the Autonomous Municipalities.
Compañeros and compañeras, leaders of all the towns and regions.
Compañeros and compañeras from the Zapatista Front of National Liberation.
Brothers and sisters from national and international civil society.
Brothers and sisters from the national and international press.
Brothers all:
In the name of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee – General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, I am cordially welcoming you to this place of encuentro for all worlds. One of the dignified corners of our patria, today named: Caracol of Resistance and Rebellion For Humanity, Oventik, the Municipality of San Andrés Sacamch’en de los Pobres, Chiapas, Mexico.
We hope with all our hearts that you feel as if you are at home. Here is the home and the place for all of those who dream a more just and human world, where everyone can have a dignified place until the end of their lives.
Welcome everyone. Muchas gracias.
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Now it is up to me to address words of appreciation and farewell to national and international civil society.
To our brothers and sisters from all the countries in the world, which we call international civil society, who, without regard to risks, have crossed lands and seas to come and meet us in order to give us your support and solidarity.
To all of you, our greetings and thanks. Because you have understood that our struggle is not just for the zapatistas, or just for the indigenous of Mexico, but you know that our struggle is for democracy, liberty and justice for everyone. Our struggle is for humanity and against neoliberalism. For building a world where all worlds fit. For a world where truth and justice prevail, and not lies and the destruction of life.
To the indigenous and non-indigenous brothers and sisters from all the states of our country that is Mexico, which we call national civil society, our special best wishes and thanks to you. We are certain that you have understood and embraced our cause. That you know it is not just for the zapatista indigenous, but for all the indigenous and non-indigenous of all of Mexico and the world. And that is why you have lent us your support, your solidarity and your accompaniment, risking your security, your lives or the loss of your jobs, to come here and meet with us, in order to learn about our resistance and the organization of our towns. And also so that you might share with us your experience, your resistance and your hope for a better life in the future.
It is because of that, national and international brothers and sisters, with your support and solidarity with our cause, that, along with you, we have made our resistance and rebellion great and strong. Because in you we have found thousands and millions of ears, voices and sincere hearts. It is for you, and with you, that we zapatistas continue to exist, even though the bad government has tried in every way to destroy us. But the supreme government’s attempts to do away with us will be in vain, because the resistance and rebellion of the Indian and non-Indian peoples of Mexico and the world will be greater and stronger every day. Because in you we have found support and solidarity over these last ten years of struggle for our rights, for defending and exercising our autonomy and free determination as peoples.
Democracy, Liberty and Justice for all.
We wish to continue fighting along with you for all these ideals and utopias . That is why I am telling you to continue coming, in order to teach us your ways and to share your experiences and your dreams, but also, and above all, in order to learn from us the good, and not the bad, about us. We wish to make our struggle, our resistance and rebellion, a small contribution to the larger struggle against neoliberalism and the globalization of death which is threatening all of humanity.
For humanity, against neoliberalism.
Viva the Zapatista Army of National Liberation!
Democracy, Liberty, Justice.
From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.
By the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee –
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico, August of 2003.
Muchas gracias, brothers and sisters.
Words of Comandante Omar in Oventik, August 9, 2003
Good afternoon, young people.
Good afternoon to everyone here. Brothers and sisters of the world and of Mexico.
Especially for the young people and for all those who are here and those who are not here but who are listening to us, close by or far away.
Especially for the young people and for all those who are here and those who are not here but who are listening to us, close by or far away.
We find ourselves in this place today, where, just a few hours ago, as you already know, the ‘Resistance and Rebellion For Humanity’ Caracol was born.
Revolutionary greetings to all of you, and we hope you are all fine but tired from the dance at this great, and so very important, fiesta, so that the tiredness doesn’t matter. It does make me jealous, though, since I can’t dance.
Young students, unemployed young people, from this planet earth and this country, Mexico, who are trying to continue studying in the universities, and they don’t accept you. If you finish your studies, you look for work and they don’t give it to you. And if they do give you a job, they pay you a pittance. And so there’s no opportunities, in education or in work. And they don’t respect the way you want to live your youth. They persecute you for being different. They want us to be already old so they won’t have to worry. They don’t want us, they hate us, but they’re afraid of us because we’re young people and we’re capable of organizing ourselves. And that’s where they’re wrong, because we won’t be old, because some die and others take their place. And so the struggle is always going to stay young.
What the governments, their teams of gangsters – which is what all the different kinds of businessmen are – do with our youth is to offer you work, but on a condition: that you obey them, that you remain in their service, and then they pay you just a crumb. That is how they take advantage of our youthful strength.
Brothers and sisters: here in Chiapas, in Mexico and in the world, we are demonstrating, as the young people we are, that we are indeed capable of organizing ourselves. It makes no difference what corner of the world we’re in to demand our rights and our own destiny, the future which we want, and in that way to further our culture, our way of being who we are, according to our town or group, depending on where we are.
Fight, along with us, the zapatistas. We are giving you an example that there is nothing that cannot be done. Fighting and resisting, there are no bombs or governments or money that can stop you. What the powers of money do is to trap you into stealing, drugs, alcoholism, prostitution, so they can say then that they killed someone who was a thief or put him in jail for so long. Not to mention when you just dress the way you like or defend your rights or your culture.
It’s time to wake up. Let us not die like the rich and the government want us to. And, if one must die, then it should only be while fighting, so that our death isn’t for nothing, but for a better future for those who are growing up, so they don’t suffer as we have. We must stand up and look straight ahead, like the revolutionary heroes said, one should die on one’s feet, and not on one’s knees.
On another subject, I am telling you not to believe that the governments of the world or those who support globalization are going to improve the economy in the countries of the world. It’s not true. They are only going to steal from us in all of our patrias. That is why we need to join forces as young people, in some organization engaged in honest struggle, and then you’ll see that you can fight in this world and not remain silent out of fear. You have to be courageous, and not just to score. Don’t mind me, I’m joking.
Fight and keep on fighting, without stopping. Don’t surrender or sell out. That is how we will be more dignified for our peoples. Not for a position or money, but so that there will be a people with justice and dignity on this planet earth. The parties and the governments of the rich just want you to be resigned to everything, so that you’ll say nothing is happening, that everything’s going fine for the future of young people in the countries. That is why we say:
Fight and keep on fighting, without stopping. Don’t surrender or sell out. That is how we will be more dignified for our peoples. Not for a position or money, but so that there will be a people with justice and dignity on this planet earth. The parties and the governments of the rich just want you to be resigned to everything, so that you’ll say nothing is happening, that everything’s going fine for the future of young people in the countries. That is why we say:
Viva the rebel youth of the world!
Viva the rebel youth of Mexico!
Viva the Zapatista Army of National Liberation!
Vivan the Zapatista Caracoles!
Vivan the Rebel Autonomous Municipalities!
From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.
By the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee –
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico, August 9, 2003.
Gracias.
Comandante Zebedeo’s words in Oventik, August 9, 2003
Brothers and sisters:
Compañeros and compañeras:
After so many rumors that the EZLN was already finished, now you can see, here we are again, in the same struggle, improving the paths of resistance.
In the 20th century, they covered us up, by making us believe that the times of misery, poverty, paternalism, slavery and the Holy Inquisition had passed.
Today, great civil society still has the same sorrows. We saw the new century arrive with the same brutal contents as in the past.
These times of globalization are imposing a new Holy Inquisition in another way.
Today, the sins of poor people are not being paid with whips. We are paying with sophisticated weapons which have been specially made for those who rebel against globalization’s plans. All of us are paying for this, including children and old persons.
World globalization, with its new world order, is the same as saying: ‘World humiliation of the peoples of the world.’
Globalization, with its free trade treaties, World Trade Organization and NAFTA, are implements and means for destroying each country’s patrimony, sovereignty and culture.
We can no longer act as if we don’t see that this war, and globalization’s worldwide threat, is seeking humiliation and submission. Even someone who is illiterate could easily understand this situation.
The consequence of the evil – the parasite of world civil society – is that every day the poor are becoming poorer, and the number of unemployed is increasing by millions, leaving them torn of all hope.
This globalization has been thanks to its greedy plan. Because the peoples of the world are learning from it to fight, to resist and to organize themselves in order to put a stop to domination and invasion.
One can now read, and see, that the peoples of the world have stopped being spectators. As time goes by, they are becoming important actors in the building of a world where many worlds fit.
As is already known the world over, the globalization war of the bad governments has taken death and destruction quite far from here, to a place which was rich in the culture and history of humanity.
There, the Iraqi people are now demonstrating that the issue is not about changing local tyrants for foreign tyrants, but about uniting democracy and justice with liberty, sovereignty and independence.
The Iraqi people, resisting every day, are knocking down the already weak statue of the British-US military victory.
We would also like to repeat a greeting which we have already given before.
The greeting to the political and cultural struggle of the Basque people.
And I will clearly repeat: ‘To the political and cultural struggle of the Basque people,’ because then some journalists will come out with their lie that we support ETA, and even a nitwit who sings rock will say it.
And so we send greetings to the political and cultural struggle of the Basque people.
And especially now, whenever any person from that country is persecuted, harassed and treated with contempt in any part of the world.
We know that these are difficult times for those people, but we also know that they will know how to resist and be creative in order to get through it. We cannot do much, but we also are shouting, with hope, ‘Gora Euskal Herria,’ which will never be extinguished, not even in the prisons and the Spanish government’s torture cells. And we are saying it very loudly, so that person who is taking a vacation from his work of closing down newspapers and banning political organizations can hear it.
And now our word goes to Europe, to France.
At this time, we would like to send a zapatista greeting to the brothers and sisters in France, who are currently gathered together in a place called ‘Les Place’ in Larzac, France.
There are French campesino brothers there who are fighting against the globalization of hunger and GM crops and against the power’s war.
We send greetings to the Southeastern Collectives in Solidarity with Chiapas (Ariège, Aude, Bordeaux, Lot, Pau-Oloron, Tarn and Toulouse): to the Mut-Vitz Network of the Southeast; to Americasol; to the Support Committee to the Peoples of Chiapas in Struggle, Paris, and to the ‘Building a World in Solidarity’ association; to the National Campesino Federation and to all those organizations which are gathered there.
I do not know if they are listening to us right now, but I am certain that, even though they are far away, they will feel the embrace which the smallest of their brothers, the zapatistas, are sending them.
And, a little closer, to the southeast of our southeast, winds of support and hope are arriving from dignified Argentina.
We answer them with the humble wind which we are, and our embrace crosses all of Latin America just to say do not feel alone, with the words ‘brothers, sisters.’
And there are a people in the Caribbean who are in the sights of the war of world conquest, the people of Cuba.
Our admiration and our respect go out to those people, and we, small as we are, cannot do more.
We are also well aware that the plans to attack the island of Cuba are not lies.
But neither is the decision by that people a lie, the decision to resist and decide, without foreign interference, their fate. That, and nothing else, is sovereignty.
Brothers and sisters:
There is a country of noble and good people in the world.
Bad governs in that country also, but, beneath, rebel dignity speaks in Italian and thinks of the future.
The new worlds which are being built there and here are learning together to say ‘fratelli’ and ‘hermano,’ which mean the same thing in Italian and in Spanish, ‘tomorrow.’
And now we would like to send special greetings to the people of North America, who rose up from the rubble of the twin towers of New York in order to oppose a war which was driven by economic interests and hidden behind the pain and courage provoked by the attacks of September 11, 2001.
And we would like to send a very large embrace, as large as our hope, to the Mexican brothers who are suffering and working in foreign lands, not because they want to, but because the neoliberal dispossession has thrown them off their own lands.
Greetings, then, to the Mexican blood which throbs above the Rio Grande.
We would like to mention that in the coming days there will be a very important meeting in Cancun, Mexico.
And we are not referring to the meeting of the World Trade Organization, that body which commands the new world war against humanity.
No, we are talking about the meeting which will have people from all over the planet, in order to repeat the ‘no’ to the exclusionary world of money and to affirm that another world is possible.
It is our understanding that there will be a meeting from September 1 – 7 concerning alternative media and technology, and from September 8-9, a campesino forum.
And, on September 9, within a month, there will be mobilizations in Cancun and throughout the world against those who think they are the owners of the planet.
In September, the word of the zapatistas will go to Cancun and to the planet, in the method and manner which shall be decided.
Brothers and sisters:
We would also like to send greetings and to embrace, with special affection and admiration, all those worlds which there are in the world.
We do not know the countries, but we do know some people who are fighting in them, and we have learned, through their words and their actions, that dignity and rebellion have nothing to do with flags, languages, types of exchange and passports.
We are telling those different worlds that from here, from the mountains of the Mexican southeast, they are not alone.
Brothers and sisters:
Let us leave racism and exclusion behind, let us see a common path that will lead us towards the hope for a more human life.
In order to build this new world, it is necessary and important that all men and women make ourselves children of rebellion and resistance, and realize that our wages will be being the first to try out the modern jails built by the so-called governments.
Which will mean then, not to lose sight of the world-wide global monster.
And these have been our words, and what follows is dancing and struggling.
Viva world resistance!
Viva world rebellion!
Vivan the poor peoples of the world!
From Oventik, ‘Resistance and Rebellion for Humanity’ Caracol.
By the Clandestine, Revolutionary Indigenous Committee –
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico, August 9, 2003.
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