The Other Campaign Begins Anew

And the World of Reporting its Progress Also Continues

by Murielle Coppin

A Letter from Mexico

March 27, 2007

The Other Campaign began its second stage with the installation of international peace encampments in Huitepec, Chiapas (near San Cristobal de Las Casas) and in El Mayor, a Cucapa community of Baja California. This weekend, the comandantes and Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN, in its Spanish initials) left from their autonomous municipal seats to converge in San Cristobal. On Monday, March 26, 2007, the Sixth Commission of the EZLN left Chiapas toward the North of the country to comply with its promises.

The Narco News team closely reported the first stage of the Other Campaign and made a huge effort to cover the events related to it. Its reporters – myself included – would like to cover the next steps of the Other Campaign and the EZLN together with hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals that work intensely to reconstruct Mexico from below and to the left. We would like to bring our readers along throughout the entire process of the Other Campaign. Of course, our will to do so collides with difficulties. The Other Campaign is a struggle being waged throughout the country in all regions at the same time (only the Zapatista delegates will be traveling), and considering the size of Mexico you can imagine the costs of covering something this large. Together with transportation costs are those of food and lodging for our volunteer reporters who do this work purely because we want to tell the true stories of Mexico while in the commercial media there is no interest whatsoever in reporting about the forces that oppose the neoliberal economic system established in Mexico.

I have seen the work that everyone on the Narco News Team does – from the reporters to the webmasters, translators, photographers and documentary filmmakers – each day in order to put all the articles and translations on the web page of authentic news. We at Narco News are all on one team, and the truth is that we need resources at this moment.

That’s why we would like to ask our readers, who agree that independent journalism is an impressive source of information, to please open your wallets and help with what you can so we may continue this work of an “Other” journalism.

At the same time I would like to thank Al Giordano for the opportunity and trust that he gave me to cover Subcomandante Marcos and The Other Campaign as a reporter during the tour of the country in 2006. The constant frustration that I’ve had living and working in different communities throughout Mexico for years has become something positive to me for the simple fact that I’ve been able to meet people that also struggle, and to communicate what is happening in Mexico to the entire world through Narco News and its seven languages. Narco News and I hope to continue on this path and any economic support would help to ensure this and would be most welcome.

Donations can be made via The Fund for Authentic Journalism, the international non-profit organization that supports the expenses of the project, at the following link:

www.authenticjournalism.org

Or via snail mail, you can send a donation to:

The Fund for Authentic Journalism
P.O. Box 241
Natick, MA 01760

Sincerely,

Murielle Coppin