Chiapas: SIPAZ event – 20 years accompanying lights of hope

SIPAZ Forum “20 years Accompanying Lights of Hope”

Photo @SIPAZ

On 27 and 28 November was held in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas the Forum “20 years Accompanying Lights of Hope” to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the International Service for Peace (SIPAZ). Those participating in the event included women and men from communities, organizations, human-rights centers, the academy, as well as activists, both from Mexico and other countries. By means of panels, the invited speakers shared reflections regarding their experiences, situating them also within an historical analysis incorporating the principal tendencies, challenges, and obstacles. The event stressed concern for the present situation in the country, given that participants agreed that we are in a war situation.

Two media based in the lessons learned through SIPAZ’s years of work in Mexico were presented at the event. One was a documentary, entitled “That the Heart Not Break. Non-Violent Struggles for Justice and Defense of Land,” produced in collaboration with the Koman Ilel community media collective. The video was presented with the participation of the involved communities and organizations: communities displaced below Tila and the Las Abejas Civil Society, based in Chiapas, along with the Council of Peoples United in Defense of the Green River (COPUDEVER), from Oaxaca. In parallel, the book Struggle with a Woman’s Heart: The Situation and Participation of Women in Chiapas (1995-2015), was presented and discussed. This volume brings together the major experiences and lessons from women’s struggle to participate and for gender equality.

For more information (in Spanish):

SIPAZ: 20 años acompañando luces de esperanza (EDUCA, 1 de diciembre de 2015)

SIPAZ has been nominated for the Human Rights Tulp award!

We have great news! SIPAZ has been nominated for the Human Rights Tulip, an annual award handed out by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs which stimulates the work of human rights defenders around the world. Out of more than 200 applicants, SIPAZ was selected to be one of the 30 nominees! Each year, the person or organization who receives most votes is awarded 100.000 Euros.

So please, we invite you to take a minute of your day and cast your vote for SIPAZ here:

http://www.humanrightstulip.nl/candidates-and-voting/sipaz

Note: voting can only be done this week from September 9-16 so VOTE NOW!

Thank you for supporting us!

SIPAZ is a candidate for the “Human Rights Tulip” award!

We have great news! SIPAZ has been nominated for the Human Rights Tulip, an annual award handed out by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs which stimulates the work of human rights defenders around the world. Out of more than 200 applicants, SIPAZ was selected to be one of the 30 nominees! Each year, the person or organization who receives most votes is awarded 100.000 Euros.

So please, we invite you to take a minute of your day and cast your vote for SIPAZ here:

http://www.humanrightstulip.nl/candidates-and-voting/sipaz

Note: voting can only be done this week from September 9-16 so VOTE NOW!

Thank you for supporting us!

Support our crowdfunding campaign: The making of a docu-flim on 20 years of peacebuilding by SIPAZ

SIPAZ accompanying a march of indigenous people in Palenque, Chiapas

Check the latest short video on the daily accompaniment work of SIPAZ
Please support our crowdfunding campaign, so we can finalize the complete version of the docu-film!

No amount is too small!

You can contribute your donation:
– Through Indiegogo by creditcard (Visa/Mastercard)
– Through Paypal:
http://sipaz.org/en/what-is-sipaz/how-can-you-help-us.html
– Or by sending a cheque to:
SIPAZ INC
P.O. BOX 20067
STANFORD, CA 94309, EEUU
From Holland? You can donate directly to our Dutch bank account at ING!
IBAN: NL75INGB0004602969
(t.n.v. Servicio Internacional para la Paz, o.v.v.: Crowdfunding Campagne)

Support the SIPAZ crowdfunding campaign ¨Sharing the fruits of 20 years of peacebuilding¨

Donate 50 USD to help us finish our docu-film and receive a colorful woven purse!!

Handmade by indigenous tsolsil women from the highlands of Chiapas, who survived a massacre in 1997 where 45 people were murdered. After these terrible happenings they have continued to organize themselves as a group called Las Abejas to fight for justice and to become economically independent by selling their woven products. SIPAZ has accompanied these women since two decades.

You can contribute your donation:
– Through Indiegogo by creditcard (Visa/Mastercard)
– Through Paypal
– Or by sending a cheque to:
SIPAZ INC
P.O. BOX 20067
STANFORD, CA 94309, EEUU

From Holland? You can donate directly to our Dutch bank account at ING!
IBAN: NL75INGB0004602969
(t.n.v. Servicio Internacional para la Paz, o.v.v.: Crowdfunding Campagne)

Support our crowdfunding campaign  

Learn more about why and how SIPAZ was created in 1995!

SIPAZ says Thank You!

Las Abejas de Acteal

SIPAZ: Documenting 20 years of peacebuilding in Mexico

SIPAZ is celebrating its 20th anniversary!

Support our crowdfunding campaign

SIPAZ was founded in 1995 as an international team of volunteers to reconstruct peace in the communities in the mountains of Chiapas. Today, we want to share the fruits of our work through a documentary film that showcases our experiences of 20 years of active non-violence in the south of Mexico. The women and men who appear in the film are indigenous campesinos from the southern states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero who share their strengths and weaknesses, as well as the difficulties they face as peacemakers in their rural communities. The film will be showcased during a day of celebrations in November.

Click here to learn more about the makings of the film and get enthusiastic to support us financially!

You can also contribute your donation:

– Through Indiegogo by creditcard (Visa/Mastercard)
– Through Paypal:
http://sipaz.org/en/what-is-sipaz/how-can-you-help-us.html
– Or by sending a cheque (mentioning “crowdfunding campaign”) to:
SIPAZ INC
P.O. BOX 20067
STANFORD, CA 94309, EEUU

Chiapas: EZLN and members of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) united against the plundering of their peoples

(@ SIPAZ)

Between August 4 and 9, there was held in La Realidad, municipality of Las Margaritas, the “First Exchange between the Zapatista Peoples and the Native Peoples of Mexico”. 1,300 Zapatista delegates and over 300 indigenous representatives from different groups of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) participated. On Saturday 9, they issued a declaration regarding the agreements of the Exchange to national and international adherents of the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle and a new Declaration on the plundering of indigenous peoples was read. It is signed by the EZLN and 28 groups of the CNI that participated in the meeting.

In the act of closure, they emphasized that: “the current political leaders are delivering territories and assets designated for the nation to the large domestic and foreign companies, seeking the death of all the peoples of Mexico and of Mother Earth”. The enemy, they reported, is the dispossession “that has a single name, and that name is capitalism.”

At the same time, through the reading of “29 Mirrors”, different situations of dispossession of indigenous peoples from across the country, as well as their experiences of struggle, rebellion and resistance were shared. In addition, they said: “These are the plunders that we suffer, we know ourselves in an emergency that threatens our lives. So today we say to the powerful, to the companies and bad governments led by the criminal supreme leader of the paramilitaries Enrique Peña Nieto that we won’t surrender, we won’t sell out, and we won’t give up. […] Like the corn, today we will renew ourselves in our decision to build from below and to the left a world where there is room for many worlds”.

Finally they informed that between December 2014 and January 2015 they will organize the “First World Festival of Resistance and Rebellions against Capitalism.”

For more information (in Spanish):

Declaración de la Compartición entre el CNI y el EZLN sobre el Despojo contra Nuestros Pueblos (Radio Zapatista, 11 de agosto de 2014)

Primera Declaración de la compartición del Congreso Nacional Indígena y el Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional sobre Represión en contra de nuestros pueblos (Radio Zapatista, 11 de agosto de 2014)

EZLN a Peña: “No nos rendimos, no nos vendemos y no claudicamos” (Proceso, 10 de agosto de 2014)

EZLN invita al Festival Mundial de Las Resistencias y las Rebeldias contra el Capitalismo “Donde Los De Arriba destruyen Los de Abajo Reconstruimos” (Pozol Colectivo, 10 de agosto de 2014)

For more information from SIPAZ (in English):

Chiapas: EZLN announces dates for the exchanges between Zapatistas and indigenous peoples of the CNI (June 12, 2014)

Chiapas: EZLN announces upcoming activities (June 10, 2014)