During the course of the month of January, several parts of a long communique written by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) entitled “Them and Us” were periodically released, being signed by Subcomandante Marcos. The second part of this document (“The machine in nearly two pages”) refers to the territorial looting against indigenous peoples being prosecuted throughout the continent. It speaks of the “kindnesses” of “brutal globalization,” as though a “merchant” be making offers to large firms. It suggests that everything can be had merely with a click (deforestation, the annihilation of the indigenous, the erection of financial paradises…), that is unless the poor organize themselves to destroy the “machine.”
The third part of the communique, entitled “The Overseers,” makes mention of a fictional meeting held in Mexico City between those who seek to control the people so that the “machine” previously described be able to function.
In chapter IV, Subcomandante Marcos stops speaking of the “logic” of those “from above,” instead giving space to consideration of the pain of those from below.
In chapter V, the EZLN reports that it will begin a new phase of action with nine points of action for society: “We know that this may seem like a farewell, but it is not. It only means that we have finished a stage in the struggle indicated by the Sixth [Declaration], and that we believe that there must be another way.” Here, the EZLN reiterates its distance from political parties and politicians: “We understand that there are those who believe that it is possible to transform matters from above without becoming yet another official from above. We hope that the consecutive disappointments do not lead you to become that which you struggle against.”
This final communique announces that the EZLN will no longer collaborate with those who have taken advantage of Zapatismo, nor with those who have wanted to show off with public acts without working from below or those who have fallen into fetishizing assemblies so as to promote their positions. It indicates that “[t]hose who hope for a new time of templates and large mobilizations, following this resurgence of the EZLN, with the masses awaiting the future of equivalents of assaults on the Winter Palace will be disappointed. It is better that you simply leave. Do not waste your time, and do not waste ours. The path of the Sixth [Declaration] is long-term; it is not for the dwarves of thought. For ‘historical’ or ‘contextual’ acts there are other spaces where you will surely find comfort. We do not want simply a change of government; we instead desire change throughout the world.”
For more information (in Spanish):
Comunicado completo del EZLN: ELLOS Y NOSOTROS. II.- La Máquina en casi 2 cuartillas. (22 de enero de 2013)
Comunicado completo del EZLN: Ellos y Nosotros. III.- LOS CAPATACES. (23 de enero de 2013)
Comunicado completo del EZLN ELLOS Y NOSOTROS. IV.- Los dolores de abajo. (24 de enero de 2013)
Comunicado completo del EZLN: ELLOS Y NOSOTROS. V.- LA SEXTA (26 de enero de 2013)
Para más información de SIPAZ:
Chiapas: release of new communique by the EZLN hours before the arrival of Enrique Peña Nieto to lands under its influence (22 January 2013)
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