Zapatista Comandantes Arrive at Mexico-US Border

t.t.Submitted by Gary on April 11, 2007 - 7:07pm.

Marcos: “We Will Come and Stay With You, Without Guns, Only With Our Words”

By Brenda Norrell, Special to The Narco News Bulletin
April 11, 2007

MAGDALENA DE KINO, Sonora, Mexico – Zapatistas’ Subcomandante Marcos and 10 comandantes from Chiapas arrived on their way to the Cucapá (Cocapah) Peace Camp and were welcomed by O’odham and friends in the state of Sonora.

Marcos said he will return here in less than two weeks to announce plans for the Intercontinental Indigenous Conference, planned for northwest Mexico for the fall of 2007.

Marcos said he hopes the Intercontinental gathering will “touch the hearts and recuperate the souls.”

“When Indigenous Peoples come together from all regions, they will realize that money means nothing when compared to the values of Indigenous Peoples,” Marcos said in an interview, speaking in Spanish and English.

The Zapatista delegation was enroute to the Cucapá Peace Camp in Baja California, in the Cucapá community of El Mayor, 40 miles south of Mexicali near the Arizona/California border. The camp has been underway since fishing season began in March and continues through May.

The delegation of Mayan Comandantes from Chiapas included four women and six men. Comandantas Kelly, Susana, Yolanda and Dalia and Comandantes Tacho, David, Eduardo, Guillermo, Emiliano and Masho.

Marcos said the Cucapa people have lived in their territory for 9,000 years and were fishing there long before Spain, the United States or Mexico existed.

“They take care of the land, the air, the water, trees, the natural world.”

“We are the Guardians”

Marcos said the government of Mexico has falsely accused the Cucapá of destroying the natural world. At the same time, the Mexican military pretends to be fighting the drug traffickers.

“The Mexican Army is not fighting against drug dealers. They are fighting against Indian people.”

“The Cucapá are doing the same thing they have been doing for 9,000 years. The Cucapa and other Indian people called for this camp in defense of nature. So they can fish without arrests or being put in jail,” Marcos said.

Marcos visited the Indian tribes in northwest Mexico during the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign in the fall of 2006. The neighboring Quilihua women had taken a vow to stop having children and become extinct rather than try to survive without their ability to fish.

“We said we will come and stay with you, without guns, only with our words,” Marcos said in the interview Sunday.

Marcos urged American Indians in the United States to unite with Zapatistas in the struggle for Indigenous rights.

Marcos said before the days of politicians and enterprises, Indian people were here.

“We, the Indian people, lived here on this land. The money people came and brought drugs, prostitution and all of the diseases of the money people,” Marcos said in English.

Marcos said the world has not responded to the suffering of Indigenous Peoples.

“The United Nations does not have ears to hear that pain,” Marcos said in an interview.
“It is a shame.”

Marcos pointed out that the Tohono O’odham people live on both sides of the international border, in Sonora, Mexico and in Arizona in the United States.

“But it is the same people. If the O’odham in Mexico and the O’odham in the United States come together, they can realize a force more powerful than money.”

Marcos said that even when Indian people have money, there are those that say, “An Indian is an Indian.

“No matter how much they say they love us, it is not true. They can not love us because of the color of our skin.”

Marcos called on Indigenous Peoples to claim their destiny as Guardians of the Earth. “Everything that is life will be killed. We must join the fight to save the earth. The gods gave us that mission. We must take care of the earth together, but with respect for our differences, Yaqui, Mayo Tzetzal. Each people have their own identity, depending on their culture.”

“The people with money said we are a barbarious people, but our people are people of peace. We fight only if they attack us. The government thinks we are failures, but they have to know that we are Guardians of this land.”

In the state of Sonora, south of the Arizona border, the Zapatistas were greeted by O’odham in Mexico, Lt. Gov. Jose Garcia, wife Maria and mother Elena Garcia. The delegation stayed at the ecotourism center south of Magdalena, Rancho el Penasco, Casa de Ecoturismo, where the Other Campaign stayed in October during the listening session with O’odham. During their overnight stay, Zapatistas rested and enjoyed meals of chicken mole, Sonoran tepary beans and dried beef.

The Zapatista delegation was followed by Mexican undercover police. Initially one vehicle from the state of Sinoloa was parked at the entrance to the center, but the number grew to six vehicles, including one local police vehicle, with four undercover vehicles following the delegation as they departed for Cucapa in the state of Baja California. Attacks on the Zapatistas by paramilitary forces have increased in Chiapas, where corporations seek to seize the land and resources.

Marcos invited the public to the gathering at Rancho el Penasco, Casa de Ecoturismo, 11 kilometers south of Magdalena on the highway to Hermosillo, on Sunday, April 22, 2007, to hear the announcement about the Intercontinental gathering to be held in the fall of 2007 in northwestern Mexico. Magdalena is a one and one-half hour drive south of Nogales, Arizona.

News reporter Brenda Norrell can be reached at brendanorrell@gmail.com
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MEXICO
Subcomandante Marcos: Capitalism’s ‘new war of conquest’

Federico Fuentes, 29 March 2007

Launching the second phase of La Otra Campana (The Other Campaign) on March 25, Subcomandante Marcos, the best-known spokesperson for the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), denounced “the current stage of capitalism” as a “new war of conquest”. He argued that “another world is possible, but only on top of the corpse of capitalism, the dominant system”.

The Other Campaign was launched in the lead up to the June 2006 national elections in Mexico, as an attempt by the EZLN to spread its influence beyond Chiapas by bringing together disparate social organisations outside of an electoral framework.

As part of the second phase, the EZLN has called on all organisations and individuals in Mexico and internationally to be part of a “Global Campaign for the Defense of Autonomous Indigenous and Campesino Lands and Territories in Chiapas, Mexico and the World”. Central to the second phase will be the tour by 15 EZLN representatives, including Marcos, in order to try and articulate a left front based on an anti-capitalist platform and outside of the system of political parties

“The indigenous peoples at a global level (who number more than 300 million) are located in zones that possess 60% of the natural resources of the planet. The reconquest of these territories is one of the principal objectives of the capitalist war.”

Marcos stated, “Latin America is now one of the new scenarios of this war of conquest and, therefore, the indigenous peoples of America will once again, just like 500 years ago, play the leading role in the resistance. But this battle will only end in definitive defeat if they do not ally themselves with the workers of the countryside and the city”, and other social movements such as those of women and young people, he added.

“In this war of conquest, the expeditionary forces in the majority of countries of Latin America are formed by the governments and the political class.” Marcos pointed to the exceptions — “Cuba, the growing defiance of Venezuela, and the to-be-defined specificity of Bolivia” — that stand in opposition to the rest of the Latin American governments, which Marcos regards as having “converted themselves into the captains of the reconquering of the territories that saw the civilisations of the indigenous peoples flourish on these lands”.

The Other Campaign takes place during a tumultuous political period in Mexico. Writing in the centre-left Mexican daily La Jornada on March 27, Luis Hernandez Navarro, a respected leftist political commentator, noted how the first stage of The Other Campaign had encountered “unexpected circumstances”.

“First, there was the repression in Atenco” — where police repression left dozens injured and many more imprisoned — “which obliged the temporary suspension of the national tour. Afterwards came the uprising in Oaxaca, which changed the dynamic of social confrontation in the country. Finally, it was faced with the electoral fraud and the triumph of Felipe Calderon.”

On June 14, 2006, protests by the teachers of Oaxaca for better wages and conditions turned into an outright challenge to the authority of the governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, due to his use of extreme repression against protesters. That day the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) was formed to oust Ruiz Ortiz, a battle, which although more subdued nowadays, has still not been completely extinguished.

The campaign against the electoral fraud that robbed AMLO — Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Calderon’s opponent in the presidential election — of the presidency, saw the biggest mobilisations in Mexican history, as millions poured out into the streets to defend democracy. The Other Campaign condemned the fraud but largely abstained from the campaign.

Navarro wrote that the EZLN’s decision to not participate in the action of civil resistance against the fraud alienated some of their supporters.

Also on March 25, the second assembly of the National Democratic Convention, formed out of the anti-fraud campaign, concluded in Mexico City reaffirming the campaign’s aim as the ousting of Calderon.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #705 4 April 2007.