Photo @ Víctor Camacho
Zapatista women stated in a communiqué that during International Women’s Day, on March 8th, that they will meet in their caracoles to talk and reflect on “the pain and rage we heard in the two women’s encounters” that they have organized in recent times.
In addition, after the invitation of the Brujas del Mar (Witches of the Sea) collective to a national strike on March 9th, “On the Ninth, No Woman Moves,” the Zapatista women reported that “we salute their initiative. We see it as something valuable, good, noble, honest and legitimate. And we will support it according to our ways. Because any woman, be it one, or a few, or many, who fights for life, should know that they are not alone. Because our thinking is that, if the absent, the murdered, the disappeared and the incarcerated should know that they are not alone, the living ones that fight should even moreso.”
They announced that “the compañeras who are in charge, whether of autonomous authority, of organizational command or military command or commissions of education, health, of ‘tercias´ and of all the work we do as the Zapatista women that we are, we will not attend our work (…) and as indigenous women are the majority in the Zapatista autonomy, that day Zapatista autonomy will stop.”
“On March 9th, many of us will not go to our villages, but we will stay and, at dawn on that March 9th, we will turn on thousands of lights. In the caracoles and in the Zapatista villages the light of women will shine.”
For more information in Spanish:
NO NECESITAMOS PERMISO PARA LUCHAR POR LA VIDA. LAS MUJERES ZAPATISTAS SE UNEN AL PARO NACIONAL DEL 9 DE MARZO (1 de marzo de 2020)
Mujeres Zapatistas se unirán al paro nacional en Chiapas (1 de marzo de 2020)
For more information from SIPAZ:
National: #UnDíaSinNosotras – National Women’s Strike Convened amid Controversy (February 28, 2020)
Chiapas: “Let’s Talk about Government Programs, Megaprojects and the Effects they Have on the Lives of Indigenous Campesina Women and Communities” Forum Held (February 28, 2020)
Chiapas/International: Second Encounter of Women Who Struggle Held by EZLN (January 13, 2020)
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