To the Zapatista National Liberation Army
To the Peoples of Mexico
To the Peoples of the world
To the national and international Sixth
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion
The Coordination and Follow-Up Commission of the National Indigenous Congress- Indigenous Governing Council, informs that at the invitation of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, we have named and commissioned 13 compañeros and compañeras of the National Indigenous Congress and of the Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land and Water, to participate in the TOUR FOR LIFE in its first phase through the European continent. The compañeros and compañeras are representatives of our struggle from this country Mexico, of which we are originary, from geographies where peoples, nations, tribes, indigenous communities and barrios flourish.
We say we are ready to step on European lands, we have passports that document us as Mexican and that we obtained thanks to the support of “The Time of the Pueblos has Arrived” Collective, after almost all of the delegates had received rejections, more requirements, new rejections, and new requirements, all for being “extemporaneous”. Not all were successful and some communities will not be able to accompany us for said reasons.
So 13 delegates are going. Because we are extemporaneous, we had to work hard to prove we are Mexicans, even more so if we had a word to say, an ear to listen and a collective heart that feels for the rebellion for life by the Peoples of the world.
- We say to the bad government that we exist as Peoples before there was even a government, and that we demand the Secretary of Foreign Relations to abstain from obstructing in any way the mandate of the 177 companer@s members of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, that comprise the Listening and Word Unit named: “The Extemporaneous”. We particularly demand the expediting of 62 passports still pending.
- Today, on the eve of commemorating the day the invader arrived in Mexico Tenochtitlan 500 years ago, said he was the boss, and brought a Truth imposed by war and the death of thousands of compañeros and compañeras, we continue demanding justice for that crime. We want the guilty, who have neither our forgiveness nor forgetting, to pay.
We do not forgive, nor do we forget, the crimes of governments present and past, the dead and disappeared of the communities and Peoples of the CNI-CIG, the assassinations of the compañero zapatista Galeano, of Bety Cariño or of Samir Flores Soberanes; the dead and disappeared of Santa Maria Ostula, the dead of the Emiliano Zapata Popular and Indigenous Council of Guerrero, the massacres of Acteal and Aguas Blancas, the disappearance of the compañero Sergio Rivera Hernández and of the 43 of Ayotzinapa, the unjust imprisonment of our Yaqui brother Fidencio Aldama or of Fredy García Ramírez, leader of the CODEDI and the constant aggression by paramilitary groups in the service of those who take the land from us to turn it over to extractive companies that operate through megaprojects of death.
And we know that people mourn all over the country, in collectives that struggle for truth and justice in the face of these crimes that have been part of the war against life and that have not stopped looking for our extermination. That is why we continue demanding justice, even if five centuries have passed, despite the impunity in the face of massacres and crimes against humanity that persist for decades. They, the governments of above, would like us to stop looking for the disappeared, to forget the impunity for the guilty, to leave our lands. To them, we should not even exist.
FOR ALL THESE REASONS, WE HAVE DECIDED TO BACK THE NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR LIFE ADVANCED BY THE EZLN THAT WILL BEGIN WITH OUR PARTICIPATION IN THE SO-CALLED POPULAR CONSULTATION OF THE AUGUST 1ST “ACCORDING TO OUR EXTEMPORANEOUS WAYS AND CUSTOMS”, WITH THE GOAL OF SETTING OFF A MOBILIZATION FOR A TRUTH AND JUSTICE COMMISSION FOR THE VICTIMS OR HOWEVER IT MAY BE NAMED.
3. The invaders, and the governments in their service over the five centuries, thought they had annihilated us, but the Peoples were and are in the field, safeguarding hope, keeping the candles of life lit, as a fundamental mission that we share collectively. So today, looking below, we say that we did not believe the lie that came with the invasion, that claimed that our sacred land, water, forests and mountains are measured in money.
We did not believe that history should be told from the perspective of the invaders and their birth, growth, and expansion throughout the world. We did not believe that we were supposed to tell the lie as if it were our own, and in so doing accept a new present and future in which exploitation, displacement, contempt, and repression would be so quotidian that we would accustom ourselves to it in this country Mexico, and in all of our world.
And we did not believe that it was, then, nor is it now, the European Peoples who came to invade and sow disease in the body and in nature, but rather it was the capitalist lie that also invaded western territory, where they also made people believe that history should be told from the point of view of ambition and destruction, making invisible those who never ceased struggling.
They did not do away with us. All of us who are in resistance and rebellion remain, those who venerate Mother Earth, and who, five centuries later, not only have territory but protect it with our lives. We continue speaking our languages and dreaming collectively, recognizing ourselves in an Indigenous identity, and listening to the feeling of the ancestors. But above all, we are the ones who do not fear them.
As such, and considering:
-That the dispute over our territories is sharpened with the new face of the capitalist invader, who is still the same, but wears different masks of power, now extractive companies, mega projects of death, armed military, police and paramilitary groups or narco paramilitaries.
-That we are Originary Peoples who raise our voices and organize ourselves because we need to tell the true history, the one we have written for 500 years and that we will not stop writing until our world and our Mother Earth is liberated from the capitalist lie, which now threatens life in its entirety.
-That while governments, in the service of the invader, celebrate the extermination attempt, demanding apologies from the bad European governments in the service of the same invader, we are reminded that the extermination never ended, that it is pending because today, like never before, the capitalist lie needs life to turn it into merchandise and
-That we are perhaps facing the last hope we have as humanity to speak on behalf of the life of this our world; that the compañer@s delegates of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, of the National Indigenous Congress – Indigenous Governing Council, and the Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land and Water will take to European lands the listening and the word, because it is the moment to tell the truthful history from the perspective of the dignified thought of those of us who continue existing from below in a collectivity that we have constructed by struggling and organizing ourselves.
WE CALL
To the Peoples, nations and original tribes of Mexico and the world; to the organizations, collectives and collectivities that seek justice for the serious crimes that the governments of before and now have committed against the people, those who in search of justice for their murdered and disappeared walk the darkness of the bad government, who in the name of nature organize and fight from the countryside and cities, to participate in the
DISLOCATED ACTION
“500 YEARS AFTER THE START OF RESISTANCE”
ON AUGUST 13, 2021
In other words, we invite everyone, in their own forms and geographies, in small or large actions, to mobilize to commemorate the resistance and rebellion of our Peoples who have fought for 500 years for our own worthy and just causes, to reject the governments that serve the invader against the Peoples and nature, with an eye on hope and the seed of a living in a world that is alive and where all worlds fit.
SINCERELY
July 2021
For the Integral Reconstitution of Our Pueblos
Never Again a Mexico Without Us
Coordination and Follow-Up Commission
National Indigenous Congress – Indigenous Governing Council