“The earth which saw us be born, which gives us life, and finally we rest in it eternally.
That is why we are all the colors which we are, all the languages which our
hearts speak, that is why we are peoples, we are tribes, and we are nation.
We are the guardians of these lands, of this country Mexico, of this continent,
and of the world.”
(EZLN, August
2014)
To the National and International
Sixth Declaration
To the peoples
of the world who resist, flowering rebellions
The plunder of
what we are as native peoples is the pain that reunites us in the spirit of the
struggle that today we memorialize in our compañero David Ruíz García, who died
sharing the pain of the brothers and sisters of the Zapatista Army of
National Liberation due to the murder of compañero Galeano and to make us one
in our history and our hope.
The death of
the compañero, who is reborn today in-collective of 28 peoples, colors, and
languages reunited in the Zapatista Caracol of La Realidad inspires in us as
native peoples a joy of finding ourselves, of knowing ourselves to be alive as we
the peoples are alive, the languages, the collective history that is made
memory, resistance, and congruence toward our mother earth as it is the earth which
also is alive and we owe ourselves to her.
The struggle
that we are is diverse and the enemy we call plunder because it is what we see,
we do and live every day, in a collective manner as is corn, as is compañero
Galeano, as is compañero David, and as are our brothers and sisters from whom
life has been snatched in this war of extermination.
It is so
diverse that plunder, that has only one name, and is called capitalism.
From the
beginning capitalism has grown from PLUNDER and from EXPLOITATION. PLUNDER and INVASION,
are the words that best describe what they called the conquest of America,
plunder and theft of our lands, of our territories, of our knowledge, of our culture.
PLUNDER, accompanied by wars, massacres, prison, deaths and more deaths, which
are made collective life because here we are the peoples that we are, that we
continue being.
After the War
of Independence, the emergence of the new nation, the liberal reform, and the
Diaz dictatorship, Mexico was born ignoring our peoples, through constitutions
and laws which privatized our lands and intended to legitimize the pillage of
our territories. Thousands of our brothers and sisters, dozens of our peoples
were exterminated through military campaigns and their massive banishment.
In spite of
one million indigenous and peasants dead during the revolution, the agrarian
laws which arose afterward were inspired by Venustiano Carranza and Álavaro
Obregón, the murderers of Emiliano Zapata, with the purpose of protecting the latifundios,
preventing the return of the communal lands, waters, air, and mountains of the
peoples and converting the communal property into ejidal. That is to say they
have wanted to kill us time and time again, kill us as peoples and kill us in
the individual sense. And after so much death we continue being the alive and
collective peoples.
The response
to the plunder and to the extermination were rebellion and resistance. Hundreds
of rebellions in Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Nayarit, Jalisco,
Guanajuato, Michoacán, Querétaro, Veracruz, Mexico State, San Luis Potosí,
Hidalgo, Morelos, Puebla, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Yucatán, Campeche, and Quintana
Roo, and notably the Zapatista revolution; they challenged the colonialist
society, all occurred after the liberal reform, detonating the armed movement
of 1910 and defending with arms possession of communal land until the times of
agrarian reform and the Cardenista oil expropriation.
At present the
neoliberal capitalists, with the support of all the political parties and the
evil governments headed by the criminal and paramilitary boss Enrique Peña
Nieto, are applying at great scale the same policies of plunder which the
liberals of the nineteenth century applied, the Carranzas or the Obregons,
being propped up by militarization and paramilitarization, advised by the
American intelligence bodies, in those regions where the resistances are
confronting plunder. Just like the governments of those times, the current
governments are turning over our territories and the goods which are in the
name of the Nation to the great national and foreign businesses, seeking for
the death of all the peoples of Mexico and of our mother Earth, but death among
our peoples is reborn in collective.
We reiterate
that our roots are in the earth, and the wonders that we portrayed in the Tata
Juan Chávez Alonso Seminar in August of 2013, are our pain and our rage; from
where our determination and our rebellion are born. Which are our unrenouncable
struggle and our own life. They are wonders which continue to be as alive as in
that time and which in addition have multiplied with new forms and in new
corners, which are made struggles and resistances in which we see errors which
are reflected in the mirror which are:
Mirror 1: In
the Nahua Coast of the state of Michoacán the ambition over natural resources
has been motive since the year 2009 for 31 murders and five disappearances at
the hands of the Knights Templar who depend on corruption in the structures of
the evil government, who have protected the plunder of communal lands by
alleged small property-holders who are at the same time heads of organized
crime in the region, the legal pillage of minerals and precious wood to later
be exported by transnational Chinese companies from the ports of Manzanillo and
Lázaro Cárdenas which the evil government administers and its corruption which
has left a wave of grieving, of pain, brutality in the face of which the
community of Ostula has reinforced itself with the growing rebellion which
allows it to maintain safety and stop the pillage of its resources. All this
while the evil governments do not stop threatening to dismantle indigenous
self-defense as a right, to imprison or kill the community leaders, which is a
warning of destruction.
Mirror 2: The
Nahua and Totonaco territory of Totonacapan, Veracruz is found destroyed by the
ports, the release of vented gas, toxic runoff from damaged pipelines which
have devastated the region’s sources of water. All this as part of the Chicontepec
Paleocanal Project, now named Tertiary Oils of the Gulf where 29 oilfields are
exploited over a surface area of 3875 square kilometers, where they are
exploiting 1,500 oil wells in 14 municipalities of the region, killing rivers
and streams due to hundreds of leeks originating in 2,220 repairs which they
have done until the year 2010, there exists the menace of 33 thousand repairs
according to information from the National Commission on Hydrocarbons. There
they have made fractures with the detonation of dynamite and hydraulic
fracturing (fracking) in 1,737 wells in the whole zone. In that same strip they
also have granted numerous mining concessions which put at risk the territory’s
integrity.
Mirror 3: The Wixárika
People although they are wedged between the boundaries of the states of Jalisco,
Nayarit, and Durango, have a continuous territory and their autonomous organization
is strong and ancestral. Today they confront onslaughts from various
simultaneous fronts, from long-standing agrarian invasions in which despite the
return having been ordered in favor of the community of San Sebastián
Teponahuaxtlán, it has not been executed due to the vagueness of borders
between states. Their territory is being crossed by roads whose objective is
the plunder of the region’s natural resources as is the case of the community
of Santa Catarina Cuexcomatitlán which since the year 2008 through strong
mobilizations stopped the imposition of the Amatitán-Bolaños-Huejuquilla
Highway and currently the Jalisco state government has refused to repair the
damage caused to their forest, to their communal route, and to their sacred
sites in spite of the community having obtained favorable judicial resolutions.
In the state
of Durango, the Autonomous Wixárika Community of Bancos de San Hipólito
continues in its long struggle for the recognition of its ancestral territory,
exercising autonomy as the only way of continuing to exist as native people.
The territory
for our peoples is not only agrarian but ceremonial and for the Wixárika people
the principal sacred site is found in the Wirikuta desert, San Luis Potosí,
which in addition to being threatened by 5 mining companies which have in their
power more than 78 concessions, in it the pillage without any authorization of antimony,
uranium, gold, and silver in the zones of San José de Coronados and la Presa
Santa Gertrudis, in the municipalities of Catorce and Charcas.
Mirror 4: In
the municipality of Villa Guerrero, Jalisco, the autonomous Wixarika- Tepehuana
community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán which in spite of having a viceroyalty
title since the year 1733, has not been recognized in its territory and on the
contrary, the area which has always been theirs has been put to the mercy of
chiefs and governments. The forest is cut, the territory invaded, and their
sacred sites destroyed, like Colotlán Peak, where the evil government has given
its approval and money to the landowners for them to use thousands of carved
ceremonial stones as rock barriers for supposed soil protection work. Which not
only is plunder but genocide.
Mirror 5: In
the Tehuantepec Isthmus, where the Ikoots and Binniza people from the
communities of San Mateo del Mar and San Dionisio del Mar, as well as the Juchitán
people and the Álvaro Obregón colony; the businesses Endesa, Iberdrola, Gamesa,
and Unión Fenosa Gas Natural Fenosa, Demex, subsidiary of Renovalia Energy, Electricte
de France (EDF), Eolicas del Sur, Zapotecas de Energía, Grupo Mar, Preneal,
Ener green Power, are plundering communal lands and destroying sacred sites in
this whole region, where more than 32 thousand hectares have been occupied in
an illegal manner where they have installed 1,600 wind turbines in Juchitan and
Unión Hidalgo for the Biiyoxo and Piedra Larga I and II wind farms on communal
lands since the year 2001, at present the assembly of villagers in Unión
Hidalgo, is opposed to the expansion of these wind farms on communal lands Palmar,
El Llano, the protected mangrove areas in the south of manglar communities.
Territory defended by our compañeros of the Juchiteco People’s Popular
Assembly, Tehuantepéc Isthmus Assembly of Indigenous Peoples in Defense of the
Land and the Territory (APIITDTT).
In the same
zone of the Isthmus, the region of San Miguel Chimalapas and Santo Domingo
Zanatepec, Oaxaca, was invaded by three mining concessions granted in favor of
the Cruz Azul Cooperative in the mining plot which they call el Chincuyal, in
the Cascabel in the Mar de Cobre mining plot, and in the Zalamera Mine in the Jackita
subsidiary of the Orum Gold Corporation Mine, which cover an area of 7,310
hectares on our peoples’ plots. Where there is an invasion by the Chiapas state
government, wealthy ranchers, and by the Mexican Army.
To the north
of Tehuantepec Isthmus, in the south of Veracruz, the Nahua Popoluca in the Sierra
de Santa Martha, is threatened by a mining project which covers three
concessions called La Morelense 1, La Morelense 2, and La Ampliación which puts
the environment and the integrity of this indigenous zone at risk.
Mirror 6: In
the Ñatho communities of San Francisco Xochicuautla and Huitzizilpan, as well
as a sizable strip of Alto Lerma, Mexico State, they intend to impose the Toluca-
Naucalpan private roadway project under the responsibility of the company Autovan,
affecting a total of 23 km of forest in addition to the construction of thousands
of houses and golf clubs as part of a project called Gran Reserva Santa Fé.
This territory is defended by our brothers from the Front of Indigenous Peoples
in Defense of Mother Earth.
Mirror 7: In
the Nahua community of Tuxpan, Jalisco due to pressure from the evil
governments and the national and foreign investors, the indigenous people have
had to rent their ejidal lands to transnational avocado companies with
headquarters in Michoacán, and are plundered by foreign investors like Driscolt
and Aguacates Los Tarascos, which have caused a climate modification preventing
it from raining.
Mirror 8: The
Coca community of Mezcala, Jalisco, continues suffering and defending its
territory against the businessman Guillermo Moreno Ibarra who has invaded a
property in the forested zone of the community and preserving its possession
and ancestral property over the sacred Island which the evil governments only
see as a million-dollar business which it can put up for sale for the foreign
touristic businesses.
Mirror 9: In
the Chinanteco, in the state of Hanukkah, ecological reserves have been imposed
which wrest territorial control from the peoples, while at the same time the evil
government implements projects of destruction and death like the Tuxtepec-Huatulco
and the Chinanteco Touristic Corridor.
Mirror 10: In Huexca,
Morelos, Nahua zone in the east of the state, one of the two Geothermal
projects was imposed in the zone of volcanic risk which forms part of the
Morelos Integral Project, promoted by the company Abengoa and the Federal
Electricity Commission, with the support of the three levels of government, the
Mexican Army, and the state police. Likewise as part of said project they seek
to construct an aqueduct for the extraction of water from the Cuautla River,
which will affect 22 ejidos of the Ayala municipality.
Mirror 11: In
Amilcingo and Jantetelco, in Morelos, Nahua zone in the east of the state and
in the Nahua region of the Puebla Valley, in the communities of San Geronimo
Tecuanipan, San Lucas Atzala, San Andres Calpan, Santa María Zacatepec, San
Lucas Tulcingo, Santa Isabel Cholula, San Felipe Xonacayucan, Santa Lucia
Cosamaluapan, San Isidro Huilotepec, San Buenaventura Nealtican, San Juan
Amecac, and other communities in Puebla and Tlaxcala, they intend to impose a
160 kilometer gas pipeline in the zone of volcanic risk, also as part of the
Morelos Integral Megaproject, promoted by the CFE, the Spanish companies
Elecnor, Enagas, and the Italian company Bonatti. In all the communities the
three levels of government of said states have exercised a brutal repression in
the past two years.
Mirror 12: In Tepoztlán,
Morelos, belonging to the Nahua people, they intend to plunder the community’s
territory not only of its lands but of the territory’s biodiversity and millenary
culture with the widening of the Pera-Cuautla Highway, with which they have cut
down ancestral trees and sacred sites which remained in the territory over many
generations, intending with it the arrival of private businesses and
industrialization of the zones richest in natural resources of the state of
Morelos. The response of the evil governments was a smear campaign against the
native peoples to justify the plunder.
Mirror 13: In
Nahua territory of the community of Ayotitlan, in the Sierra de Manantlán in
the state of Jalisco, the pillage of millions of tons of iron and of precious wood
with support from organized crime has been done with murders and disappearances
of villagers and ejidatarios.
Mirror 14: In
the Nahua community of Zacualpan, and the state of Colima, in past months a
businessman with the last name Verduzco, with the complicity of the state
government and the Land Commissioner, tried to impose an iron, gold, and
magnesium mine in Cerro Grande, in whose forests the totality of the water
which is supplied to Colima and Villa de Alvarez; likewise on Cerro Grande the
government promotes programs for supposed ecological conservation, pretext with
which it has plundered the community of its communal water.
Mirror 15: The
community of Cherán, Michoacán on the Purhépecha plateau has suffered the
devastation and theft of thousands of hectares of forests, at the hands of
loggers linked to organized crime in complicity with the evil government,
exercised unprecedented violence against villagers; who have exercised their
ancestral right to exercise self defense of territory within a framework of
autonomy and free determination, have constructed their own way of governing through
customs and traditions.
Mirror 16: On
Maya territory in Campeche, plunder is disguised as rents on lands in the
communities of the Chenes region by groups called Mennonites, or the evil
government gives them money to reinforce the plunder of the territories, in
addition to imposing the planting of GMO soy crops. Meanwhile in the indigenous
regions of the so-called Mayan Riviera processes of privatization for national
and foreign touristic projects have accelerated, as well as the destruction of
innumerable sacred places.
The Mayan
people of Bacalar in the state of Quintana Roo, is suffering the imposition of
GMO soy crops which put their native seeds, health, and nutrition as a native
people at risk, by the companies Monsanto, Singenta, and Pioneer with the
complicity of the evil governments.
The Mayan
People of Yucatán is threatened by various megaprojects like the wind farm in Dzilam
de Bravo, the planting of GMO corn, the Transpeninsular train project, and the
real estate development which benefits a few corrupt businessmen and
politicians.
Mirror 17: In
the Tzeltal town of Chilón, Chiapas, they have intended to impose the
construction of the San Cristóbal-Palenque Turnpike on the community’s
territory.
Mirror 18: The
Nahua community of San Pedro Tlanixco in Mexico State, has been plundered of
its springs and water from the Texcaltenco River through concessions and
benefit of wealthy Agro industrial businessman from the municipality of Villa
Guerrero, which has meant prison for its community leaders.
Mirror 19: In
the state of Guerrero, the municipalities of Xochistlahuaca,
Tlacoachistlahuaca, and Ometepec, hundreds of Amuzga, Mixtec, and Afromestizo
communities are threatened by pipeline diversion work of the San Pedro River to
take it to the city of Ometepec, infringing on the basic right to life that we
have as peoples.
Mirror 20: The
Nahua community of Xoxocotla, in the Southwest of Morelos, in zones adjacent to
the sacred site called Xochiacalco, is threatened with the position of a mining
project which covers 7 concessions in 3 municipalities which cover an area of
15 thousand hectares in Xoxocotla, Temixco, Xochitepec, and Miacatlán, in the
communities Tetlama, Alpuyeca, Coatetelco, La Toma, Xochicalco.
Mirror 21: In
Yaqui territory in the state of Sonora, the ambition over the waters of the
Yaqui River have been the motive for historic aggressions against the tribe and
at present they intend to take the water toward the city of Hermosillo through
the Independencia aqueduct, in detriment to the Yaqui, as well as hundreds of
hectares of the Mayo Yoreme tribe and the farmers of the Yaqui Valley.
Mirror 22: The
Náyeri people, and the state of Nayarit have been the historic Guardian of the
San Pedro river, where their sacred site called Muxa Tena is, which today is
threatened by the construction of the Las Cruces reservoir.
Mirror 23: In
the state of Sonora, with the construction of the Los Pilares reservoir sacred
sites of the Guarijío will be destroyed.
Mirror 24: Bachajón,
Chiapas, Tzeltal people; are being plundered of their land, water, and culture,
due to the construction of touristic complexes on the Agua Azul waterfalls, in
addition to roads and hotels, through the repression of paramilitaries.
Mirror 25: The
Ch’ol de Xpujil people, and the state of Campeche was displaced from their
territory by the imposition of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve decree which
overlaid the community’s nucleus area which restricts absolutely its access to
the territory.
Mirror 26: In
Nahua and Totonaco territory of the Sierra Norte de Puebla in the
municipalities of Tlatlaqui, Zacapoxtla, Cuetzalan, Zoquiapan, Xochiapulco, and
Tetela, Zautla, Ixtacamaxtitlán, Olintla, Aguacatlán, Tepatlán, Xochitlán,
Zapotitlán, Zoquiapan, and Libres, capitalist projects of death seek to make of
themselves owners of each corner of territory, through open air extraction of
minerals and hydroelectric reservoirs. Today 18% of the territory in the Sierra
Norte de Puebla is granted in concession to mining companies, since the
government has granted 103 concessions to the Mexican companies Grupo
Ferrominero, Industrias Peñoles, and Grupo Frisco, as well as the Canadian
company Almaden Minerals. On the other side there are six hydroelectric
projects which would affect 12 rivers over a surface area of 123,000 hectares
divided between 18 municipalities.
Mirror 27: The
territory of the Kumiai people has suffered massive invasions resulting from
the lack of recognition, from the imposition of ejidos, and from the
declarations of national goods on their lands. In the last years wind farm
projects have been imposed on their lands and on the Kiliwa people’s territory.
Mirror 28: The
community of Nurío Michoacán on the Purépecha plateau was plundered of the greater
part of their territory by resolutions which at the time named the agrarian
authorities of Mexico State who caused numerous deaths due to confrontations
between neighboring communities.
Mirror 29: In
the communities of Bochil, Jitotol, and Pueblo Nuevo, belonging to the Tzotzil
people of los Altos, Chiapas, they denounce that there are dam projects which
threaten this territory.
These are the
plunderers that we suffer, which make us know ourselves in an emergency which
makes an attempt against our life and today we say to the powerful, to the businesses,
and to the evil governments; headed by the supreme criminal boss of the
paramilitaries Enrique Peña Nieto that we do not give up, that we do not sell
out, and we do not give in.
Our memory is
alive because we are it and we owe ourselves to it and signal that there is no
greater memory than that of our peoples, that as we meet today to see ourselves
one in the other and our struggle will not finish, if they have not killed us
in 520 years of resistance and rebellion they will not do it now nor never, those
of us who are peoples of corn, know that the milpa is collective and of
different colors, so different that also we want to name ourselves in one word
alone, rebellious and anti-capitalist, with those who are brothers and sisters
of National and International Sixth Declaration. Today like corn, we will renew
ourselves in our decision to construct from below and to the left a world with
room for many worlds.
“THE HEART OF OUR MOTHER EARTH
LIVES IN THE SPIRIT OF OUR PEOPLES”
ANDIÜMAATS NANGAJ IüT MEAWAN NÜTs KOS NEJ ÜÜCH IKOOTS MONAPAKÜY (OMBEAYETS/IKOOT LANGUAGE)
NA MA JOIIY RA PUIY Y RA VENI GUI JIINI (OTOMÍ)
LADXIDO GUIDXILAYU NABAANI LU XQUENDA CA GUIDXI XTINU (DIIDXAZA/BINNIZA LANGUAGE)
I PUJUK’AL LAK´ÑA LUM KUXUL TYI CHULRL LAK LUMALO’ (CHOL)
TE YO TALN TEJ NANATIL LUM CUXUL SOL XCHULEL TEJ LUMALTIC (TZELTAL)
LI YOON JMETIK BALUMILÉ KUXUL XCHULEL TAJ TEKLUMALTIK (TZOTZIL)
JAS J’UJOL JAJ NANTIK LU’UM ZAK’AN JAB’AYALTZIL JAJ CHONA B’LLTIK (TOJOLABAL)
IN YOLOTL TO TLALTICPAC NEMI IEKAUILKOPA TO ALTEPEUAN (NAHUA)
TA TEI YURIENAKA IYARIEYA TAKIEKARIPA YEYEIKA (WIXARIKA)
U KUXTAL K-LÚUMIL TÍAN TI U YÓOL LE KÁAJILO’OB. (MAYA PENINSULAR)
JUCHARI MINTSÏTA P’ARHAKPINIRHU IREKASÏNI TSÏPIKUANIRHU JUCHARI IRETA (LENGUA PURE/P’URHEPECHA)
TU TLAL UI NANA IYULO ISTOK I TUNAL PAN CHINANKOME (NAHUA)
XNAKU KIN TSEKAN TIYAT STAKGNAMA CHI KGALHI LISTAKGNI NAK KIN PULATAMANKAN (TOTONACO)
BI MAMA NAX BI TZOKOY JEJPA NETZANKUYJO BI KOXEN KUMKUYDE KAY JENAN (ZOQUE)
UU JIAPSI Y iiTOM AYEE VUIAPO ITOM JIPSICO JIAPSA ITOM PUEBLOMPO (MAYO YOREME)
NA’ T’SATS´OOM TYUAA MAYA NA’ M´AA NAQUII´ NTAAYA JA NA NNA NCUEE (ÑOMDAA/AMUZGO)
ANDIÜMAATS NANGAJ IüT MEAWAN NÜTs KOS NEJ ÜÜCH IKOOTS MONAPAKÜY (OMBEAYETS/IKOOT LANGUAGE)
NA MA JOIIY RA PUIY Y RA VENI GUI JIINI (OTOMÍ)
LADXIDO GUIDXILAYU NABAANI LU XQUENDA CA GUIDXI XTINU (DIIDXAZA/BINNIZA LANGUAGE)
I PUJUK’AL LAK´ÑA LUM KUXUL TYI CHULRL LAK LUMALO’ (CHOL)
TE YO TALN TEJ NANATIL LUM CUXUL SOL XCHULEL TEJ LUMALTIC (TZELTAL)
LI YOON JMETIK BALUMILÉ KUXUL XCHULEL TAJ TEKLUMALTIK (TZOTZIL)
JAS J’UJOL JAJ NANTIK LU’UM ZAK’AN JAB’AYALTZIL JAJ CHONA B’LLTIK (TOJOLABAL)
IN YOLOTL TO TLALTICPAC NEMI IEKAUILKOPA TO ALTEPEUAN (NAHUA)
TA TEI YURIENAKA IYARIEYA TAKIEKARIPA YEYEIKA (WIXARIKA)
U KUXTAL K-LÚUMIL TÍAN TI U YÓOL LE KÁAJILO’OB. (MAYA PENINSULAR)
JUCHARI MINTSÏTA P’ARHAKPINIRHU IREKASÏNI TSÏPIKUANIRHU JUCHARI IRETA (LENGUA PURE/P’URHEPECHA)
TU TLAL UI NANA IYULO ISTOK I TUNAL PAN CHINANKOME (NAHUA)
XNAKU KIN TSEKAN TIYAT STAKGNAMA CHI KGALHI LISTAKGNI NAK KIN PULATAMANKAN (TOTONACO)
BI MAMA NAX BI TZOKOY JEJPA NETZANKUYJO BI KOXEN KUMKUYDE KAY JENAN (ZOQUE)
UU JIAPSI Y iiTOM AYEE VUIAPO ITOM JIPSICO JIAPSA ITOM PUEBLOMPO (MAYO YOREME)
NA’ T’SATS´OOM TYUAA MAYA NA’ M´AA NAQUII´ NTAAYA JA NA NNA NCUEE (ÑOMDAA/AMUZGO)
From La Realidad Zapatista,
August 2014.
FOR
THE INTEGRAL RECONSTITUTION OF OUR PEOPLESNEVER MORE A MEXICO WITHOUT US!
INDIGENOUS NATIONAL CONGRESS
Translated
from Spanish by Henry Gales.
Originally published on August 16th,
2014.
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