Chiapas/National: New EZLN Communiqué Clarifies Joint Proposal with CNI

Subcomandante Galeano (Photo@SIPAZ archives)

On November 17, 33 years after its foundation, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) published an extensive communiqué titled “A History to Understand”, in which it gives further details about the proposal of consultation with the peoples that make up the Indigenous National Congress (CNI in its Spanish acronym) to examine the convenience of naming a national council of government and an indigenous woman candidate for the 2018 elections.

Subcomandante Galeano clarified that, although the proposal was launched by the EZLN, “the CNI is who will decide whether or not to participate with a delegate of its own, and, if necessary, it will have the support of Zapatismo.” But, “No, neither the EZLN as an organization nor any of its members will run for a popular election position in the 2018 electoral process. No, the EZLN is not going to become a political party. No, the EZLN is not going to present a Zapatista indigenous woman as a candidate for the presidency of the Republic in the year 2018. No, the EZLN has not altered its course to any degree, nor will it continue its struggle along the electoral route institutional.” He ratified that “the EZLN does not struggle to take the Power.”

Subcomandante Galeano added that in making the proposal to the CNI, the EZLN stated “that it did not matter whether or not they won the Presidency of the Republic, that what was going to matter was the challenge, irreverence, insubordination, the total rupture of the image of the indigenous, subject to the alms and the image of pity so rooted on the institutional right and who, would say it, also on the left of ‘real change’ and its organic intellectuals addicted to the opium of social networks – that their daring would make the whole political system vibrate and that it would have echoes of hope not in one but in many of the Mexicans below … and the world.”

For more information in Spanish:

Comunicado “Una historia para tratar de Entender (EZLN, 17 de noviembre de 2016)

Lo importante es la insumisión, no ganar la presidencia con candidata indígena: EZLN (Proceso, 17 de noviembre de 2017)

 For more information from SIPAZ:

Chiapas/Nacional : Candidata presidencial “no es decisión de una persona” (Subcomandante Moíses) (15 de noviembre de 2016)

Chiapas /Nacional: Polémica después de la propuesta planteada por el EZLN y el CNI en octubre (24 de octubre de 2016)

Chiapas / Nacional : CNI y EZLN realizarán consulta para nombrar a una candidata indígena hacia las elecciones presidenciales de 2018 (15 de octubre de 2016)