INPI Occupation, Mexico City
March 6th and 7th, 2021
Ninety-six indigenous and mestizo women from the countryside and the city came together. Binnizá ‘, Ñuu savi, Mazahua, Nahua, Nhönhö / Otomí and Totonaco originary peoples attended, from the states of Veracruz, Mexico City, State of Mexico, Hidalgo, Querétaro, Oaxaca, Jalisco, Puebla, Morelos and Chiapas, as well as compañeras from Brazil and Kurdistan.
From the occupied building of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), a space of resistance and rebellion where the traitors of the indigenous peoples have pretended that they want to listen and support us, we join the struggle of our Otomí compañeras1, who are tired of knocking on governments’ doors, one after the other, and especially the current government, so deceitful and full of lies. They are tired of suffering so much discrimination and repression.
We declare ourselves against the war being waged on our brothers and sisters of the EZLN, against the murders of defenders of our Mother Earth like our brother Samir, against the megaprojects and other “death trains”. Instead of building hospitals, schools, markets and houses that our communities need so much, they build commercial and tourist plazas like the one in Santiago Mexquititlán, in the state of Querétaro, the hometown of our Otomí compañeras who are currently resisting through the INPI occupation.
In all regions of our country, the situation continues to be very difficult and even worsens for the defense of our territories, our waters, our forests, our lives, all of humanity and the whole planet. All the rights that our grandparents achieved with Zapata are now being trampled and destroyed by the powerful bosses of this patriarchal capitalist system. Women’s living conditions get worse all the time, and we see that, at the international level, Originary Peoples all over the world are experiencing more and more dispossession, destruction, exploitation and repression. To the point that with their insane megaprojects and their lust for wealth and power, the powerful are threatening the very existence of humanity on the planet.
Faced with this global war of extermination against our peoples, including our Zapatista brothers and sisters, we see how important it is for the peoples of the world to join together in struggle from below. It is particularly important for women to come together to learn, to speak about the owners of the companies that come to destroy us, who are often from other countries, to share what we have in common, to strengthen our struggles, to open new paths, and to sow the seeds of a dignified life for the peoples and for us women. The strategy of the powerful is to use fear to individualize us, to discriminate against us, to humiliate, criticize and threaten us, to buy us out with their money and their programs, to make us sick, divide us, beat us, rape us, kidnap us, kill us. We suffer armed attacks in our communities, they turn us women into spoils of war. Our response is collectivity and community, from the smallest corner of the world to the whole planet. Now with COVID it is more difficult for us, and with the strategy of fear that they use to try to paralyze us and to make us think that our fight is less important. But we have decided to wager for life. Despite the fear, we chose to continue, weaving alliances that reinforce our hope and strengthen us as we construct the other worlds we dream of.
We celebrate the greetings from our Kurdistan comrades. It fills us with courage to see how, from the Zapatista autonomy to the Rojavan autonomy, together women find ways out of patriarchal violence, even in the midst of the war. It is important to share not only what oppresses us, but our common dreams and the anti-patriarchal alternatives that we are building. Above all, by educating girls and boys, and through our healing from experiences of violence, we have to promote new structures of social relations, without powers of domination.
The Zapatista women are showing us that we can create other paths, other ways of life, that our destiny is not written. Rather, with our hands, with our struggles, we fill with possibilities the construction of other possible worlds, with respect for differences, beliefs, colors, sexual preferences. We connect from our geographies to make it possible.
We protest so that the defense of the territory does not turn into a death sentence for us, and we demand clarification of the murder of our compañero Samir Flores Soberanes.
We demonstrate to demand the truth regarding the forced disappearance of our 43 students from Ayotzinapa.
THEY WERE TAKEN ALIVE, WE WANT THEM BACK ALIVE
STOP THE MEGAPROJECTS OF DEATH
NO MORE GOVERNMENT COVER-UPS OF FEMICIDES AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.
NOT ONE MORE MURDER.
UNTIL DIGNITY BECOMES A HABIT
FOR A WORLD WHERE MANY WORLDS FIT
THIRD NATIONAL MEETING OF WOMEN, CALLED BY THE NATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONGRESS – INDIGENOUS GOVERNMENT COUNCIL. (CNI-CIG)
WOMEN FROM THE OTOMI INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY RESIDENTS OF MEXICO CITY, MEXICO, IN RESISTANCE IN THE OCCUPATION OF INPI.
1Compañero, compañera, compañeroa. Compañero (male) and compañera (female) and compañeroa (gender non-binary) have no exact translation in English. They lie somewhere between “comrade” and “companion.” In a political context, the term generally refers to someone who belongs to a particular organization or movement. For the CNI, CIG, and EZLN, “compa” is often used for short and refers to someone in the movement.
English translation by Sexta Grietas del Norte. Original Spanish: DECLARATORIA FINAL DEL TERCER ENCUENTRO NACIONAL DE MUJERES DEL CONGRESO NACIONAL INDÍGENA CONSTRUYENDO RESISTENCIAS ANTIPATRIARCALES TOMA INPI, CIUDAD DE MEXICO / 6 Y 7 DE MARZO DE 2021.