Farewell...

"The heart is below and to the left"

Five years of bringing you zapatista-inspired rebellion on Turtle Island and throughout the galaxy comes to a close. The rebellion continues.

In this final post we'll look back on some of the blog's highlights over the years, bring you up to speed on where things are at with the zapatistas, and point towards my next directions on this journey.

Over 17 years since their uprising and first appearance on the public stage, and over 27 years since their founding, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) continues to creatively struggle for a new world -> most recently through lending their support, in word and action, to the first mass movement to end the war on drugs, Mexico's Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity.

The over 1,000 zapatista base communities in Chiapas continue building their autonomous institutions, slowly but steadily improving their daily lives in spite of continued repression from all levels (municipal, state and federal) of the Mexican government and all parties in power. In the past year alone they have issued 11 denunciations each relating to some aspect of the counterinsurgency campaign against them. An observation and solidarity brigade with the zapatista communities is currently underway. The brigade, organized by the Network Against Repression and for Solidarity along with other members of the Other Campaign, is documenting and will disseminate information both on the attacks against the communities as well as their progress in building autonomy.

After two years of silence, zapatista Subcomandate Marcos began a public correspondence this year with Mexican sociologist Don Luis Villoro. This dialogue has drawn in many others, including Javier Sicilia, the inspirational poet of the movement against the drug war. Marcos mentions Sicilia and the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity in his latest letter to Villoro, to which he receives a reply from Sicilia himself. You can read a translation of their correspondence in English here. To read Marcos' entire letter in Spanish, released just a few days ago, which details the latest goings on in Chiapas and Mexico (meanwhile managing to mention Obama and Hillary Clinton), click here.

What will come next for the zapatistas... and the rest us?

Following an internal consultation with the over 200,000 members of the zapatista communities in June of 2005, the EZLN released their Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, which was a record of their experiences up to that point and an invitation to publicly join them in building a national and global movement against capitalism “from below and to the left.”

A little over a year after the release of the Sixth Declaration, I began this blog to accompany that initiative from here in New York City... and we've covered much ground together. The first stories came from my extended stay in Oaxaca working for Narco News at the beginning of 2006. Those were the early days of the Other Campaign and many months before the city and state would explode in open rebellion against a tyrannical government. Those first stories of Mexico were soon accompanied by breaking news and calls to action, political analyses, profiles of people and movements, and even the uncovering of buried histories. First from the Levant, then the US and beyond -> a galaxy in rebellion, seeking greater freedom, justice and democracy.

One of the most important contributions made here has been our coverage of Movement for Justice in El Barrio, an immigrant-led community-based organization in NYC's East Harlem that has led many valiant struggles to not only defend their own territory but also to defend fellow members of the Other Campaign. Zapagringo has provided more in-depth coverage of their remarkable work than any other source (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14) including their efforts on behalf of the zapatistas, Abahlali baseMjondolo (the South African Shackdweller's Movement), the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala, their remarkable contributions (1,2) to the campaign Freedom and Justice for Atenco, and -most recently- their bold, global leadership in the successful struggle to free the political prisoners from San Sebastián Bachajón (1,2,3). That's at least 22 stories on Movement for Justice in El Barrio. The publication of this farewell message was delayed as I was informed that this was the first place people were going for information on San Sebastián Bachajón... and that I needed to post on the victory. It's a sweet note to close on, and the struggle continues. I hope that others will continue to carry the torch even as I change gears. Reach out to Movimiento at movementforjusticeinelbarrio [at] yahoo.com to support and stay abreast of their work through their mailing list.

Our coverage of Movement for Justice in El Barrio has perhaps only been rivaled by our early coverage of Oaxaca. A certain sector of New York City exploded in rage when long-time local activist Brad Will was murdered in the suppression of five-months of popular control in Oaxaca City from June to November of 2006. Having met and interviewed many of the highly diverse organizations and activists in Oaxaca at the beginning of 2006 (1,2,3) and already mobilizing in NYC against repression of the Other Campaign, it only made sense to step up to support the mobilizations that began here with Brad's murder that October (1,2,3)... and to support the ongoing action of his family and friends. El Enemigo Común (inspired by and building on the work of Simón Sedillo) continues to be the first place to look for up-to-date coverage of the ongoing struggle for freedom in Oaxaca.

The breadth of struggle that we've covered here over the past five years is considerable, and gives some idea of the distance covered by the word of the zapatistas (the best account of their public history, Gloria Muñoz Ramirez's "The Fire and The Word", has just been published in Farsi). Some of the most consistent international links highlighted here are those with Palestine (1,2,3,4 + Slingshot Hip Hop 1,2,3,4,5) and South Africa (1,2,3,4,5). With such a wide ranging geography, Zapagringo has drawn a readership from across the globe, with a consistent readership over the last two years (I can't track further back) hailing from throughout Europe (especially Germany, Russia, Netherlands, UK and France) and Canada, as well as South Korea, Iran and China... and countless other countries in fewer numbers.

With such a global readership, it makes sense that one of our top three most-read posts is our publication of Kolya Abramsky's article, "The Bamako Appeal and The Zapatista 6th Declaration: Between Creating New Worlds and Reorganizing the Existing One"... or as I provocatively titled the post, World Social Forum vs The Intergalactic. It's a compelling look at global processes of struggle through a zapatista lens. And if you enjoyed that piece I recommend you also check out, "Gathering Our Dignified Rage: Building New Autonomous Global Relations of Production, Livelihood and Exchange," which he wrote in the lead up to the World Festival of Dignified Rage, which was co-hosted by the zapatistas and gathered people from across the globe for 11 days in three locations in Mexico around New Years '08-'09.

The heaviest readership without a doubt has come from within the US. Over the years I've prioritized illuminating the links between the zapatista struggle and our work here in the States. The connections made range from the early, foundational piece "Enter the Intergalactic" to a look at the relationship between zapatismo and the movement to abolish the prison industrial complex; from publishing the first ever biography of the New Afrikan revolutionary Kuwasi Balagoon to current debates within the community organizing left. It comes as no surprise then that another of our top three most-read posts is the online publication of Paula X Rojas' "Are the Cops in Our Heads and Hearts?," which was originally published in the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence collection, "The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex."

What has been surprising, though, is that this blog's top post is also it's most personal (Again, this is measuring from the past two years or so -> I can't believe what's been accomplished with such a limited understanding of the medium... I clearly don't even know how to "tag" things). The most-read story over the past couple years on Zapagringo is the piece we collectively wrote from the Challenging Male Supremacy Project. And this is the direction in which my work is deepening.

My main motivation for closing the blog, and stepping away from other work I've been holding for a long time now, is to more deeply enter and focus on building transformative justice responses to violence against women, queer and trans people, and children. I've actually landed here through my engagement with the zapatistas.

If you're interested, keep an eye out for continued events I'll be producing through my paid gig with the Foundry Theatre; such as a dialogue series this spring (April 2012), which will bring together social justice organizers from across the city, and world, to "show-and-tell" about their work on various themes. Another Politics is Possible (1,2,3,4,5,6) will be part of a forthcoming book project, Regeneración Childcare NYC (1,2,3) will likely be writing something collectively as well, and Secret Survivors (also here) will be coming out with a documentary and toolkit based on our live performance.

The main thrust of my work, however, will be in building transformative justice, through the Challenging Male Supremacy Project in NYC, and nationally in coordination with and through generationFIVE. This focus will include a deepening engagement with generative somatics and will bring to bear what I’ve learned and continue to learn from the zapatistas and other struggles throughout the world. It's from this place that I'll add my grain of sand to this struggle between humanity and "the empire of money," the fourth world war.

If you're looking for information on the zapatistas, on related struggles around the world, or even on the work I'm directly involved in, look no further than the links to the right of this post.

A special thank you to all those friends and compañer@s who over the years have intentionally given your words and work to this project: Al, Alex, Andre, Andy, Another Politics is Possible, Anwar, Ashanti, Boston Interpreters Collective, Carwil, Casa Atabex Aché, Challenging Male Supremacy Project, Chris, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Cory, Dan, Fernando, Francesca, Grace, Greg, Karl, Kaya, Kazembe (soon to be a papa!), Kolya, Kristen, Left Turn Magazine, Mandy, Matrix Magazine, Matt, Max, Midnight Notes, Movement for Justice in El Barrio, Paula, Prita, Regeneración Childcare NYC, Rethinking Solidarity, Simón, Steve, Tessa, Toussaint, Trip and Upping the Anti.

Thank you for joining me on this journey readers and, most of all, people in struggle.

That’s farewell… at least for here, and now :-)

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All Bachajón Prisoners Are Free!

The final video by Movement for Justice in El Barrio about the political prisoners of San Sebastián Bachajón

What began as a struggle to free 10 political prisoners, then dropped to six, then five, then four... has finally concluded with all prisoners free. You can find earlier coverage here (1,2). This comes fresh on the heels of a major victory in court for Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African Shackdwellers Movement, whose struggle we have supported (1,2,3,4) and who has also connected directly with Movement for Justice in El Barrio. Below is a recent article from La Jornada and further down is a message from Movement for Justice in El Barrio celebrating the freedom of all the prisoners of San Sebastián Bachajón!

They Free the Last 4 of the "Bachajón 5"
The campesinos remained prisoners more than five months in the prison of Playas de Catazajá, accused of the murder of an Agua Azul ejido member.

Hermann Bellinghausen,
July 24, 2011
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas.
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee

The last four of the “Bachajón Five” were liberated this Saturday. The campesinos, adherents of the Other Campaign from San Sebastián Bachajón ejido (Chilón Municipality), who remained prisoners more than five months in the Playas de Catazajá prison, accused of the murder of an ejido member from Agua Azul (Tumbalá), and of alleged crimes related tp protests at the Agua Azul crossing in the first week in February. Although the serious charges turned out to be false, the indigenous men remained incarcerated as “hostages” of the government, according to what the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) has been maintaining.

Juan Aguilar Guzmán, Jerónimo Guzmán Méndez, Domingo García Gómez and Domingo Pérez Álvaro, who several times denounced mistreatment by authorities of the Social Re-adaptation Center for the Sentenced Number 17, are now in their community. On July 7, Mariano Demeza Silvano was released, a prisoner in the Villa Crisol (Berriozábal) re-adaptation centre for minors.

It’s appropriate to remember here that this persecution against the indigenous men happened within the context of a conflict in San Sebastián Bachajón over the ejido owners’ ticket booth at the access to the Agua Azul Cascades, an important tourist attraction in the state’s northern jungle. The ticket booth, installed by the ejido members, was attacked by members of the PRI and PVEM (Colosio Foundation), who “acted destroying and robbing whatever was in their way,” and they violently appropriated the spot for themselves at the beginning of February, with the backup of the Federal Army (Ejército) and the police who have remained stationed there ever since.

In those acts Marcos García Moreno, from the aggressor group, lost his life, and the Other Campaign members were blamed, “when it really was the ‘ideology’ of the Secretary General of the Government,” they said, upon denouncing the attack as a “product of the private meetings” between officials and officialist [pro-government] ejido owner.

The incarceration of the indigenous men originated dozens of protest actions at consulates and embassies of Mexico in Europe, the United States, South Africa, Australia and Argentina for several months, besides mobilizations in Chiapas and other parts of the country.

On the Chiapas Coast, Other Campaign protests were repressed and gave way to new incarcerations, although for just a few days.

Movement for Justice in the Barrio, of the Other Campaign in New York, which animated and diffused these solidarity protests and played a determining role in their organization, confirmed last night the liberation of the Tzeltal campesinos, and today Frayba, in charge of their legal defence, confirmed it.

____________

The Bachajón 4 are Free!
[from Movement for Justice in El Barrio]

We rejoice in El Barrio, New York for the liberation of the 4 political prisoners of San Sebastián Bachajón.

Movement for Justice in El Barrio, The Other Campaign New York, would like to share with everyone the great news on the liberation of fighters for justice who endured unjust convictions imposed by the bad government of the repressive Governor of the PRD Juan Sabines and repressive PAN President Felipe Calderon for pure revenge, only because they resisted and defended their land and their autonomy as indigenous peoples.

They had to endure five months of an unjust imprisonment.

Their resistance and courage has been for Movement for Justice in El Barrio a inspiration and a powerful reason to keep fighting.

In El Barrio, New York, we celebrate because we know that this was not a triumph of the rule of law that does not exist in Mexico, rather one for the organizing and mobilizing of our brothers and sisters, ejidatarios of San Sebastian Bachajon and our comrades of good heart in Mexico and all over the world.

We embrace you too and celebrate you all.

With the spirit of "an injury to one is an injury to all," together we fought and accomplished the liberation of our brothers from San Sebastián Bachajón.

¡Viva las y los ejidatarios de San Sebastián Bachajón!

¡Viva el EZLN!

¡Viva La Otra Campaña!

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Zibechi on Bachajón & Zapatista Prisoners

Third video message from San Sebastián Bachajón

The struggle to free the five remaining political prisoners of the Other Campaign adherent community San Sebastián Bachajón continues, along with the struggle to free the recently dispossessed and imprisoned Zapatista support base Patricio Domínguez Vázquez. One of the most recent steps in this struggle was the "5 MORE Global Days of Action for the Bachajón 5", which took place from April 24-28, and the "Global Day of Action for the Zapatista Political Prisoner" on April 29, both convened by Movement for Justice in El Barrio. Leading up to the days of action, groups from India, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, Slovenia, France, Austria, Canada, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Dorset and Glasgow, the United States and from throughout Mexico confirmed their participation. Hermann Bellinghausen reported yesterday in La Jornada that there were demonstrations in 33 cities in France alone (really?!), and in 20 other countries.

This struggle is taking place concurrently with rapidly rising civil resistance to that US-backed war against the Mexican people often referred to as the "War on Drugs." Convoked by poet Javier Sicilia, whose son and six others were recently murdered and falsely tied to organized crime, a march from Cuernavaca to Mexico City began today and will be joined by actions throughout Mexico and the world in the days ahead. The Zapatistas, and many other members of the Other Campaign, are actively engaging the initiative. In this letter to Javier Sicilia, Subcomandante Marcos describes the action the Zapatistas will be taking in Chiapas. Here in NYC, Movement for Justice in El Barrio will be bringing the heat to the Mexican Consulate tomorrow followed by a march from the Consulate to the United Nations organized by other folks on March 8th.

It's all very exciting and necessary, yes, but to bring us back to the theme of this post -> here are some sage words from compañero Raúl Zibechi...

Montevideo, May 2, 2011

Dear compas from Movement for Justice in El Barrio and The Other Campaign New York:

The only crime the people of the San Sebastián Bachajón ejido have committed is that of wanting to live in their lands—the lands of their grandparents, of their most distant ancestors—which now risk being appropriated by the multinationals of money and death. The five from Bachajón, imprisoned since February 3, like Patricio Domínguez Vázquez, who was detained in mid-April in the ejido Monte Redondo of Frontera Comalapa, are victims of the political class that works in the service of multinational corporations.

Today’s war is for the land: To appropriate the life that it provides for and reproduces, and for this reason, the indigenous peoples and campesinos are the primary obstacles that must be done away with. Ever since capital decided that everything is a commodity for doing business and accumulating more capital, no space on earth remains – not even the slightest corner – that can free itself from this ambition. In order to seize the land, they unleashed what the Zapatistas have termed the “Fourth World War.” In Latin America this war lies in the displacement of millions of people from roughly one hundred million hectares in dispute. The huge open-pit mining projects; the monocropping of sugarcane, maize, and soy to produce gasoline; and the planting of trees to create cellulose are all killing life and people from South to North.

In some cases, such as Patricio’s, where not only was he imprisoned, but his house was burned down and destroyed because, in reality, they wanted him to abandon his land. That is the war that has existed for 60 years in Colombia, which allowed more than four million hectares to pass from the hands of the farmers to those of the paramilitaries, since they are offered as a form of security by the multinationals. A war to expel farmers – over three million in the last twenty years – in order to free up territories so that they may be converted into spaces for the speculation of capital. In Colombia, the territories of the war coincide precisely with the territories that the big mines and infrastructure megaprojects desire.

The same thing is taking place throughout the entire continent. The Brazilian government is turning the Amazonian rivers into cheap energy sources for the big businesses from Brazil and the North. It is constructing enormous dams that require ten, fifteen, and even twenty thousand poorly paid and miserably housed workers: They are the new slaves for governments obedient to capital. When they rise up, as they did in Jirau (in the state of Roraima) last March, they become labeled as “bandits.”

What is most painful, and most revealing, is how the political class that once claimed to be of the Left unites with the perennial political class of the Right in the displacement and imprisonment of indigenous peoples and farmers, and in doing so, demonstrates that they are all the same in their attack against those from below to make businesses for those from above. And they use “ecological” arguments because they learned the politically correct excuses to downplay displacement.

From this corner of the continent, I join you all in New York who are carrying out the campaign to free the Bachajón 5 and Patricio. Movement for Justice in El Barrio, who I was able to meet in January 2009 at the Festival of Dignified Rage in San Cristobal de las Casas, shows that community solidarity and camaraderie know no borders, and that we cannot hope for anything from those from above or their institutions. We only depend on ourselves.

Salud,
Raúl Zibechi

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Days of Action for San Sebastián Bachajón

UPDATE Apr 10: The Other Campaign adherent community of San Sebastián Bachajón took back control of their toll booth on Friday but on Saturday were again forcibly displaced by over 800 members of the police and military. In addition to the remaining five political prisoners being held in miserable conditions, the community is now also concerned with the disappearance of three members during Saturday's raid. It is in light of this that Movement for Justice in El Barrio has called for 5 MORE Global Days of Action in Solidarity with San Sebastián Bachajón following the first five they successfully convened from April 1-5.

UPDATE Mar 10: Movement for Justice in El Barrio has just confirmed that five of the ten prisoners have been released. The other five are still being held so let's keep the pressure on to free them ALL!

Convoked by Movement for Justice in El Barrio, events and actions are being held around the world today and tomorrow to demand the freedom of the political prisoners of San Sebastián Bachajón and in honor of the women of the Other Campaign. Groups from South Africa, Puerto Rico, the Phillipines, Austria, Morocco, France, Scotland, Germany, Colombia, London, Barcelona, Dorset, Argentina, New York City and various states in Mexico -including the community of San Sebastián Bachajón- have confirmed their participation.

Four of the ten prisoners have just been freed -> Let's keep it going! You can learn more and spread the word about this struggle through the video message above.

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Zapatista Spring

The Chiapas government has launched another wave of repression against the Other Campaign in that state. Movement for Justice in El Barrio has convoked a Worldwide Day of Action. It is within this context that Subcomandante Marcos has broken two years of silence with "About the Wars, Part 2" - the first fragment released of a letter to sociologist Luis Villoro.

This blog has often been a place to explore the ways and meanings of solidarity. From pieces such as Rethinking Solidarity to my own ruminations to Simón Sedillo's thoughts coming out of his years in Oaxaca. Whereas much of my concern has been with the work we do closer to home, this chapter below (from the forthcoming book) explores the dynamics of solidarity as an Irishman spending extensive time in Latin American peasant communities... here in the Zapatistas' autonomous municipalities:

Zapatista Spring: Anatomy of a Rebel Water Project
by Ramor Ryan
from the Institute for Anarchist Studies' Perspectives

“Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is in solidarity, it is a radical posture.”— Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Roberto Arenas is a small tseltal(1) community of twenty-three subsistence farmer families located in the Chiapas Lacandon Rainforest, a six hour drive from the nearest major commercial center, the market town of Ocosingo. The occupants, adherents of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN, its Spanish acronym), formed a nuevo poblado, a new community, here about three years ago. The land makes up part of the territory that was taken over or 're-cuperated’ by the Zapatistas in the midst of the January 1st 1994 uprising, as the land owners fled and the rebels took control of the zone. Under the mantle that the land is owned by those who work it, the Zapatistas began slowly dividing out the vast swathes to Zapatista militia and support base families – usually landless indigenous peasants or campesinos who previously labored on large fincas under difficult conditions. About 300,000 hectares of land were recuperated by the insurgent Zapatistas after the tumultuous state-wide uprising. The newly formed community of Roberto Arenas, fell under the jurisdiction of the Francisco Gomez Autonomous region, a self-governing Zapatista municipality where there is no state authority and, as the sign entering the municipality announces, “Here the people govern and the government obeys!”

Like hundreds of other little villages dotted throughout the region, theirs is a community characterized by pastoral simplicity. The roughly hewn, earthen floor dwellings are scattered around the undulating hills, and converge on a grassy community plaza with a muddy basketball court, flanked by a couple of rustic wooden structures that serve as church, community hall, and school. Although the community would probably be considered to exist in extreme poverty by any standard indices, they are poor mostly in the sense that they lack buying power—surviving on less than $2 a day. Nevertheless, all vital needs of daily life are satisfied with farming and the natural resources around them, and only a small part of their needs are satisfied in the market. Roberto Arenas is a frugal rather than impoverished community, it is self-sufficient in a traditional way, and would only approach extreme poverty if they lost the forests, rivers, and commons that are part of their home.

Like most other indigenous settlements in the region, Roberto Arenas has no electricity or potable water. Water for washing is hauled from the jungle river and drinking water is carried from a small water-hole 1 kilometre away. There are few latrines, and, as is customary, adults and children alike mostly use the natural surroundings. Almost all water sources are contaminated by human and animal feces. Waterborne illnesses affect the population (predominantly children) including those related to amoebas and giardia, and there is a threat of cholera and typhoid. Lack of potable water sources increase the risk of scabies infection, lice, salmonella, ascariasis and enterovirus diarrheas.

Good, sweet water is available from an abundant freshwater spring 2 km up the mountain, but is unattainable as the villagers lack everything they need to pipe it into the community. The cost of basic materials like pipes and tools is beyond the community budget, and they lack the technical know-how to implement such a project. Historically, generations of colonizers of the Lacandon jungle dealt with this problem by taking basic precautions like adding iodine or boiling the water—but these are inadequate. Some communities would make do with the most basic of water systems, budget allowing—a makeshift concoction of pipes connected to the nearest water source. If the community was fortunate it might get some institutional support from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), charities, or church organizations. In a region where the government does nothing to provide basic services, water systems are few and far between. The lack of this basic necessity, added to the long list of communities’ grievances and the injustices suffered, ultimately resulted in the Zapatista uprising. Off the political map in the eyes of the state, they are ignored and cast into the void. So, typical for the region, Roberto Arenas has received no institutional support from either government or NGOs.

Without government or state, how does political autonomy work in the Zapatista zone? How do the people organize to get things done, like realizing a water system for the community? In Roberto Arenas, like all Zapatista villages, the community assembly—with representatives from each household—meets in the community hall, weekly—or more frequently if there are things to decide. Together they determine the manner and method of developing their own village, taking into account what resources are available. Decisions are made by the assembly, preferably by consensus. If there is a split and no clear decision, the debates and discussions go on until the assembly reaches a consensus. Occasionally, this can take days on end. This is participatory democracy in action, warts and all.

This kind of assembly-based decision-making process is not unique to the Zapatistas: indigenous communities throughout the region have always worked like this, most likely since pre-colonial times. It is in this forum, that all the major decisions concerning the community are taken – from land issues to community development, to justice—and are then passed on to the relevant commission for fine tuning. The decision to join the Zapatistas and go to war on January 1st, 1994 was taken in such an assembly. And if asked what influence the EZLN has had on the traditional community assembly procedures, compañeros and compañeras will mention how more women and youth are now involved in the decision making than before. Previously the assemblies were dominated by older male members but with Zapatista influence, the old patriarchal ties are not as binding.

So it was that Roberto Arenas decided that their biggest priority was getting a fresh water supply. This necessity was prioritized over other pressing needs, like electricity, new work tools, a hammock bridge to span the river that separated them from the dirt road, and the construction of a church building.

The assembly nominated three water “commissioners” to investigate the matter and to petition the local autonomous council for help and support. The three made their preliminary survey of what would be needed and walked the arduous mountain paths through the jungle, arriving at La Garrucha, the regional autonomous municipality center. They attended the weekly council meetings— or juntas— overseen by the council representatives there by rotation, and attended by community members from any of the several hundred communities in this particular autonomous municipality (one of seven throughout the Zapatista zone of influence). This system of local governance is part of their aspiration to organize in a participatory manner, from the bottom-up instead of the top-down. The Zapatista slogan— to lead by obeying— captures this concept.

The de-facto autonomy of the Zapatista zone is a result of the never-ratified San Andreas Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture negotiated between the EZLN and the Mexican government in 1996. Under provisions of the agreement approved but never sanctioned by the government, majority indigenous municipalities would be granted limited autonomy over land, habitat, exploitation of natural resources, the environment, education, health, and agrarian policies. Authorities and municipal posts would be designated by traditional usos y custumbres(2) instead of being divided up among political parties. In response to the government’s betrayal of the San Andreas agreements, the Zapatistas set up autonomous structures without official state authorization. Such pirate action has resulted in a burgeoning and successful system of rebel autonomy that exists under the constant threat of dismantlement by the Mexican Army.

The three compas of Roberto Arenas patiently wait their turn at the autonomous municipality seat of La Garrucha, prosaically entitled the Good Government Council “The Path of the Future” Caracol. The wait could be days as the business of the municipal council is long and complicated, but eventually they will present their petition. The various representatives listen, take note of the petition, and discuss the project. Everything is taken into account and the three compas return to their village to await the outcome.

The good government committee of the autonomous municipality refer the case to their elected water commission and the options are weighed. The commission consults various parties including the local EZLN commander and clandestine committee members, and so, in the end, after the issue has been bandied around what seems like half the inhabitants of this particular region of the jungle, the community of Roberto Arenas is notified about the eligibility of their request. It’s a process similar to what happens anywhere in the world at a local council level, except for one significant difference: the state authorities have no involvement whatsoever; this is an autonomous process overseen by the communities’ people. There is no separation between who is governed and who is governing—they are one and the same. The various committees and bodies are overseen not by elected or appointed officials, but by members of the community, a duty performed by rotation. Here, in a place off the map, a nowhere of sorts, the people have adopted an enlightened form of governance. This is how an autonomous administration functions. This is peoples' power in action.

And, most significantly, for this particular little story, the decision for the community is… Affirmative! Yes to assigning a water project to Roberto Arenas! So the momentum to bring potable water to the isolated rural community on recuperated Zapatista lands begins. Now to find a way to make it happen!

Not surprisingly, the Zapatista autonomous municipalities are chronically lacking in funding and resources. Revenue comes from their own base—from Zapatista agricultural ventures like coffee or honey, from NGOs (local, national, and international) and from solidarity groups. In the case of getting water to a base community, the municipalities have a couple of options: A fairly basic project—a DIY job—can be self-financed, though is often only a temporary solution. A more sophisticated water system is very costly and requires local engineers and plumbers to be hired to oversee the project. Another option is to petition an NGO or solidarity group to support and realize a community water project.

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Spring Breakers Sin Miedo

A dark and humorous window into the truth behind the War on Drugs in Mexico... Just the latest from some of my dear friends from the 2010 School of Authentic Journalism.

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Greg Berger has been building the Revolutionary Tourist Project since 2003, and if my instincts (and eyes) serve me well, he may have had something to do with a crew called Los Detonadores whose recent intervention around the Mexican Bicentennial went viral throughout the country (here's the version with English translation).

In other zapagringo news, there are going to be a number of events in October here in NYC related to the Other Campaign. On Wednesday, October 6 an event The Struggle for Autonomy in Oaxaca: State Repression against San Juan Copala will be held at Bluestockings. On Wednesday, October 13 Movement for Justice in El Barrio is hosting a Victory Celebration for Atenco at Judson Memorial Church. And the most exciting Other Campaign news of October is yet to be released... so stay tuned!

Further south, news surrounding the "attempted coup" in Ecuador continues to flow. Here is an interesting, if informal, update that arrived in my inbox a few hours ago:

The situation in Ecuador today is further complicated by the disillusion that the very social forces that elected President Correa have with his actions in office. The CONAIE (Federation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), the leading national indigenous movement with strong alliances with labor and other social forces, held a press conference today to say that it is neither with the police forces nor with President Correa. The CONAIE and its hundreds of thousands of participants is not only responsible for Correa's election, but its mobilizations caused the rapid-fire resignations of previous presidents of Ecuador in this century.

The situation thus also shines a light on the growing rift in the hemisphere between the statist left and the indigenous left and related autonomy and labor movements. The CONAIE is basically saying to Correa, "You want our support, then enact the agenda you were elected on." Whether one sees this as a dangerous game of brinkmanship or something that actually strengthens Correa's hand by placing him in the middle zone ideologically, it is worth seeing this at face value and beware of getting led astray by some of the usual suspect conspiracy theorists of the statist left who are predictably out there barking that the CONAIE is somehow an agent of imperialism, dropping rumors of US AID funding but never seeming to exhibit the hard evidence. Sigh. What Johnny-One-Notes! They wouldn't know nuance if it slapped them in the face. For them, you either line up lock-step with THE STATE (if it is "their" state) or you're a running dog of capitalism. That kind of Stalinist purge mentality should have died with the previous century.

The CONAIE's grievances happen to be very legitimate. Of course, they do not justify a coup d'etat, but the CONAIE is not participating in or supporting the coup d'etat. It is saying to Correa; we'll have your back, when you have ours.

In a brief piece for the Guardian UK last month, Raúl Zibechi provides some context for the tension described above. A tension that is growing between the "governments of change" and the socio-political movements of the region. Here is the statement directly from CONAIE. And the future is still unwritten...

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'09-'10 Year in Review

four years. from below. to the left.

Inspired by the Zapatistas' Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle (or simply "the Sexta"), which they released five years ago, you find documented here some of the collective labor of international affiliates (the Zezta Internazional) as well as of the national movement of Mexican adherents known as the Other Campaign. You'll find many Zapatista-inspired intersections with other people and movements in the US and around the world, and the occasional piece coming from Oaxaca where I reported on the Other Campaign in early '06.

2006 was the year Subcomandante Marcos toured Mexico as part of the Zapatistas' participation in building the Other Campaign... with so many organizations, indigenous peoples, communities, families and individuals beginning to build the movement from throughout the country and beyond. It was the year that the autonomous municipality of San Salvador Atenco, on the outskirts of Mexico City, and the six month long commune in Oaxaca City were attacked by the government with more violence than anyone had seen in recent memory. The year that the US-backed candidate for president won the elections through fraud. The year Mexicans played a crucial role in the massive demonstrations of immigrant workers on this side of the border wall.
Here we are four years later... with a ramped up and murderous war on the poor and working people within Mexico funded to the tune of $1.4 billion by the US government under the guise of a War on Drugs, and the proliferation of laws such Arizona's SB 1070 on this side. But, in the words of FORMER political prisoner Nacho del Valle, "Who can imprison the fury of a volcano?"


A Run Down of Zapagringo's Fourth Season

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See You in The D!

People's Movement Assemblies on the Road to the US Social Forum in Detroit

It's that time of the year again, but not only is my favorite conference, the Allied Media Conference, coming around... but so is the US Social Forum. This second iteration of the USSF is coming to the AMC's hometown, Detroit, and their back-to-back! So that means basically that some of us are working our asses off right now :-)

It's exciting though, and you should check out the video above about the People's Movement Assembly process that is building toward and will culminate on the last day of the USSF. Yet one more innovation on the road to radical democracy, peoples power... whatever you wanna call it I think you know what I'm talking about ;-)

If you're gonna be in Detroit, come and find me! I'm involved in a bunch of activities through the different collective work I'm a part of and would love to connect... here's where you'll find me (and some other places I wish I could be too!):

ALLIED MEDIA CONFERENCE

FRI (6/18):
10:45a-12:15p - Power of Storytelling (with Secret Survivors)

SAT (6/19):
9-10:30a - Media Tools for Creating Safe Communities: A Science Fair (with Challenging Male Supremacy Project)

5:30-8p - StoryTelling and Organizing Project Partners Gathering

SUN (6/20):
10-11:30a - Safe in Our Skin: A Paradigm Shift

UNITED STATES SOCIAL FORUM II

WED (6/23):
10a to Noon - Secret Survivors: Using Theater to Break Taboos Surrounding Child Sexual Abuse

1-5p - Politicizing and Transforming Trauma: Somatics, Trauma and Transformative Justice in our Movements, Communities and Lives

THURS (6/24):
11a-Noon - Presentation of our new DVD "Paths to Transformation: Men's Digital Stories to End Child Sexual Abuse" and facilitated conversation about its use, in the Transformative Practices Canopy

Noon-1p - Networking session "How are we cultivating the capacity & commitment of men to challenge male supremacy," in the Transformative Practices Canopy

3-5:30p - Solidarity, not Intervention: Engaging the Iranian Protest Movement (Guest panelist on the possibilities and pitfalls of transnational solidarity activism)

FRI (6/25):
10a-Noon - Building an Intergenerational Movement for Collective Liberation: The Work of Childcare Collectives Across the States... and the Galaxy! (with Regeneración Childcare NYC)

3:30-5p - Challenging Men, Changing Communities: Organizing for Transformative Justice and Against Male Supremacy

SAT (6/26):
10:30a-Noon - Co-hosting a networking and skill-share session for childcare collectives at the Liberation Exploration Station (aka Left Turn Canopy)

Also keep an eye out for these workshops that I won't be able to attend:

* Two from Movement for Justice in El Barrio:
The Zapatista's Other Campaign Breaking Down Borders: Live Cross-Border Dialogue with Mexico
AND
The Zapatista's Other Campaign & The Fight Against Global Displacement

* A workshop led by LA Communities Organizing Liberation (LA COiL, formerly LA Crew), an organization with whom we (Another Politics is Possible) have just collaborated to create a pamphlet they will be distributing at the USSF:
Re-thinking our Vision and Organizing for a Better World

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Sleep Dealer & Movimiento

a still from Alex Rivera's Sleep Dealer

"Science fiction always tells outsider stories, with people coming into conflict with the system. But I wanted to create a science-fiction point of view that we've never seen before. We never see films about the future of Mumbai or Mexico City. Just yanking the point of view out of London, or New York, or Los Angeles and dropping it somewhere else is a powerful gesture." -Alex Rivera in Wired Magazine

Sleep Dealer is part of what I hope will be an upsurge of what we might call science fiction of the oppressed; an art form with quite old roots of course... in the US we might think of the the sci-fi writings of W.E.B. Du Bois at the turn of the last century or, more recently, Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames. Last year District 9 emerged from South Africa to huge commercial success and the Mother Continent is keeping it coming with Pumzi, a short from Kenya, debuting at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

I first met Alex Rivera while at Sundance in 2008. I was there as part of the team debuting Slingshot Hip Hop and Rivera was there to debut Sleep Dealer -> as the film's writer, director and editor, he took home two awards at the end of that week. And he has now generously lent us a copy of the film for a fundraiser for Movement for Justice in El Barrio's trip to Detroit for the US Social Forum later this month... I do hope you can make it!

Friday, June 11 at 6p in the LES

ROOFTOP PARTY & FILM FUNDRAISER
for MOVEMENT FOR JUSTICE IN EL BARRIO's
delegation to the US SOCIAL FORUM

beginning with
FOOD, DRINK and SPECIAL GUESTS

and closing with the groundbreaking work
of revolutionary third world sci-fi
SLEEP DEALER

Join us on the Bluestocking's Rooftop
85 Stanton St (and Orchard), buzz #6A
in Manhattan's Lower East Side

$10 door, food and drink by donation
(All funds raised during the party will go directly to support Movement for Justice in El Barrio's delegation to Detroit for the Second United States Social Forum)

More Info on the Film, the Movement and the Forum:

* Sleep Dealer
"Exuberantly entertaining, a dystopian fable of globalization disguised as a science-fiction adventure... Mr. Rivera — a brilliant young director — takes his audience into a future of “aqua-terrorism” and cyberlabor that I wish I could dismiss as implausible." A.O. Scott, New York Times

* Movement for Justice in El Barrio
"Best Power to the People Movement in NYC" -Village Voice
Check out an article on their recent Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement

* US Social Forum 2010
Another World is Possible, Another US is Necessary

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From El Barrio to San Juan Copala

UPDATE Jun 1: A caravan organized by the United for Human Rights Network, which is part of the Other Campaign, will be leaving from Mexico City to San Juan Copala on June 8.

A little over a week ago paramilitaries aligned with the ruling party in Oaxaca violently attacked a solidarity caravan that was attempting to break their blockade of the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala. Two were killed and many wounded. A national and international response quickly mobilized, and it will be crucial to build on this initial response in the days, weeks and months ahead. You can find the latest news at El Enemigo Comun, such as this call for a huge international solidarity campaign. There was a protest at the Mexican Consulate here in NYC last friday and here is a message from our compañer@s in East Harlem...

Message of Support and Denouncement
from El Barrio, New York, US

To our people of Mexico:
To the people of the World:
To the Other Campaign:
To the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca:
To Oaxacan Voices Building Autonomy and Liberty (VOCAL):
To The Center of Community Support Working United (CACTUS):
To Contralinea Magazine:
To the Zezta Internazional:

Accept this cordial greeting and very strong embrace on the part of Movement for Justice in El Barrio. We want to tell you that we, the simple and humble people of East Harlem, New York, are enraged about the repressive attacks that the compañer@s who were attacked had to face in Oaxaca, Mexico. It deeply fills us with pain and rage to know that the compañ@ros Beatríz Cariño Trujillo, from the Center of Community Support Working United (CACTUS) and Jyry Jaakkola, from the Organization Uusi Tuuli Ry (New Wind) were murdered and that compañer@s from the Caravan of Support and Solidarity with the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca were seriously injured.

We want to let you know, that as immigrants on the other side, we are aware of what happened and that we condemn the repression that they faced.

We also know about the repression that our sisters and brothers from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca are facing and we want to let them know that they are not alone. Here in New York, we are also adherents of The Other Campaign and we admire your dignified struggle. We also condemn the repressive attacks from the state that they face.

From El Barrio, New York, we denounce and condemn all the acts that occurred on the 27th of April and what the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca has had to face. We directly blame the paramilitary group UBISORT and the Mexican government, and especially the corrupt governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz who utilizes paramilitary groups to attack our beloved people in struggle.

As part of The Other Campaign, we know that this most recent attack is part of the repression that our compatriots who fight for our beloved Mexico face. We also know that the capitalist system and the political class of Mexico with its three political parties PRI, PAN, and PRD do this with the objective of crushing our dignified struggle. We know very well that this repression is happening in different parts of Mexico including our dear Zapatista sisters and brothers in Chiapas and our dear compañ@ros from San Salvador Atenco. Which is the reason that we are sharing these words from the other side, to let you all know that from here in East Harlem, New York we are going to support you and we will do everything necessary so that the day of tomorrow together we can achieve our liberation.

Sisters and brothers you are not alone, we are with you and we unite in a cry of rebellion and dignified rage.

If they touch one of us, they touch all of us!

Stop the aggression towards the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala!

Stop the repression in Oaxaca and in all of Mexico!

Long live the dignified struggle of those from below in Oaxaca!

Long live the dignified struggle of The Other Campaign!

Sincerely,
Movement for Justice in El Barrio

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3rd Anti-Displacement Encuentro in Harlem

Over 40 organizations from around New York City, and the world, attended the Encuentro

Movement for Justice in El Barrio hosted a very inspirational gathering about a month ago that I report on here. The piece was originally written for Desinformémonos, which is a new publication begun just six months ago by Gloria Muñoz Ramírez and an international team of media workers. Muñoz was the journalist who, following the 1994 zapatista uprising, moved to Chiapas to begin reporting from inside rebel territory. Building out from her "Los de Abajo" column in Mexico's La Jornada, Desinformémonos brings us dispatches, from below and to the left, from around the world...

A Convergence of Dreams
The Third Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement
By RJ Maccani
Originally published in Spanish in Desinformémonos

English version appears in The Narco News Bulletin

The invitation reads, “We propose a coming together, a convergence, to which we can all bring: our histories, what makes us different, and our dreams.”

And in February, rebel voices from throughout the world came together in East Harlem, New York at the Third New York City Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement. Hosted by Movement for Justice in El Barrio (Movement), more than 200 people and 40 organizations joined the gathering. Organizers in South Africa and San Salvador Atenco, Mexico were even in attendance, participating via free video calls over the Internet.

The atmosphere of the five-hour gathering fluctuated between festive, somber and combative. There were many roses, much chanting, tostadas and, yes, as is tradition here, a neoliberal piñata for the kids to break at the end of the night.

Inspired by the Zapatista practice of “encuentro”, Movement, an organization of over 600 immigrant and low-income families in East Harlem, sought “…to create an open, safe, and lively space for dialogue, sharing and learning from people who are directly affected by displacement.”

Or as Javier Salamanca of Brooklyn, New York’s Sunset Park Alliance of Neighbors put it, “We are here to see what is going on in other parts of the city, country and world.”

New York City is Not for Sale!

Near the beginning of the gathering, Movement’s Oscar Dominguez announced, “In the past two Encuentros we’ve introduced ourselves and identified our common enemies, in this Encuentro we want to talk about how far we’ve come.”

Movement continues to celebrate the fall of Dawnay, Day Group, a multibillion dollar, London-based corporation that intended to evict tenants from 47 buildings in East Harlem and raise the rent ten times over. After organizing an international campaign against Dawnay, Day, and winning a landmark legal victory against the company, Movement has now been forced to challenge opportunism within their own neighborhood:

“We have been organizing for justice, in our buildings, since before Dawnay, Day became our landlord. In fact, as tenants, we marched, protested and took legal actions against our previous landlord Steve Kessner until he fled East Harlem… With the fall of real estate giant Dawnay, Day group, the opportunistic Mark-Viverito and her lackeys want to claim that they support Dawnay, Day tenants, and that they have all along. We, the tenants of Dawnay, Day buildings, know this is a sham… Movement for Justice in El Barrio will continue the struggle for dignity and against displacement with more strength and energy than ever before. We will not be fooled, we will not be bought and we will not be moved.”

According to Movement’s community newspaper, councilmember Mark-Viverito has both led and voted for numerous development plans throughout Harlem that will displace thousands of tenants, small businesses and workers in favor of luxury apartments, private university expansion, and multinational corporations.

The problem of opportunistic politicians and their patron groups interfering with authentic community organizations was a common theme throughout the Encuentro. As Nellie Bailey of Harlem Tenants Council noted in her presentation, “Three or four years ago we decided not to accept money from elected officials. Being free of their influence is great. Non-profit organizations are increasingly becoming tools of politicians and developers. They are there to blunt the organic militancy of our groups.”

Moving the horizon of the Encuentro to the condition of the city as a whole, Bailey remarked, “Mayor Bloomberg is the richest man in New York City and the 17th richest in the world. He wants a whiter, richer NYC and he will use every means possible. On the other hand, the collapse of the real estate industry has given us room to breathe. What opportunities does this provide us?”

Having suffered a loss against Mayor Bloomberg last September in a struggle to stop the rezoning of their neighborhood, Salamanca of the Sunset Park Alliance of Neighbors asked, “How do we regroup and not react to the timetable that city council creates?”

Bailey encouraged those in attendance to not become complacent in the face of seemingly progressive politicians, “The US government is in crisis and we can’t look at this problem of displacement in NYC in isolation from everything else. We can’t talk about housing without talking about jobs and we can’t talk about jobs without a basic understanding of the Military Industrial Complex. We suffer the same fate regardless of who is in government. With Obama, we got our first African American president, but that can’t meet our basic needs.”

Tom Kappner, a member of the Coalition to Preserve Community and someone who has been fighting the expansion of Columbia University in West Harlem for decades, stood up from the audience to remind everyone, “Every time we engage in struggle with them, we gain power; eventually a trickle becomes a torrent. It pays to remain faithful. If you get strong enough, the politicians come to you.”

From South Africa to San Salvador Atenco, Our Fight is Worldwide

The first group to join the Encuentro through a video call did not need to be reminded of the need to build popular power, or the dangers of putting too much hope in politicians.

In a clip from the forthcoming film, “Dear Mandela,” Mazwi Nzimande of the South African Shack Dwellers Movement, also known as Abahlali baseMjondolo, illustrated that, “There is a new apartheid system that is operating in South Africa, and that apartheid system is between the rich and the poor.”

Legally institutionalized segregation, known as apartheid, divided South African society into three classes of racial stratification: white, colored, and black, each with its own rights and restrictions, until 1990 when the discriminatory laws began to be dismantled. Riding a high tide of struggle and hope, Nelson Mandela became the first black president of the country in 1994 and the African National Congress (ANC) has been in power ever since. In the sixteen years that have followed, the number of South Africans living on less than $1 a day has doubled.

According to Shamita Naidoo, a member of Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), 2005 was the year that the people in South Africa began successfully uniting to fight back against the neoliberal policies of the ANC government. In September of last year the ANC attacked the Kennedy Road settlement, a hub of AbM organizing, killing three people and displacing over a thousand. Over the two weeks that followed, thirteen Abahlali supporters were arrested.

The attack appears to be in retaliation for AbM’s organizing within the “No Land! No House! No Vote!” campaign against party politics in the country as well as their ongoing struggle against the Slums Act, which allowed for the possibility of mass evictions without the possibility of suitable alternative accommodation. A month after the brutal attack, AbM won a victory in South Africa’s highest court that declared the Slums Act unconstitutional.

When Movimiento’s Juan Haro informed AbM members Mazwi Nzimande, Zodwa Nsiband and Mnikelo Ndabankul that 40 organizations were listening to their presentation, Nzimande replied, “You are contributing something to everyone throughout the African continent.”

Reflecting on the ANC’s brutal attack against them in September, Ndabankul noted, “A lot of branches are joining AbM. Their goal was to get rid of the organization, but more people have joined and we are more popular.”

The AbM members told of their political prisoners’ ongoing troubles as well as the government’s initiative to clear out the slums in time for the World Cup games coming to Cape Town this June and July. Nsiband requested that Encuentro attendees, “Continue to support, spread news and put pressure on the South African government. Most things happening are not exposed because of the democratic façade.”

Nzimande concluded their intervention by stating, “We cannot do more than to be there for each other. Let us build this global alliance.”

Across the ocean from AbM, back in the Americas, the people of San Salvador Atenco, Mexico have also been struggling against a government who has tried to hide its brutality behind the image of an emerging liberal democracy.

As Diana Vega from Movement recounted while introducing them, “Displacement is happening all over. There is a group called the People’s Front in Defense of the Land (the Front). In 2002 they successfully defeated the Mexican government’s plans to kick them off of their land to build an airport. In 2006 they were attacked by the government and still have twelve political prisoners in jail today.”

In a video presentation in advance of their participation in the Encuentro, we watched footage of the Front’s groundbreaking victory in 2002, which set a precedent for social struggles throughout the country that the new Federal government could be defeated. We also saw the 2006 invasion of their community by 3,000 municipal, state and federal police, in which two boys were killed and two hundred people were imprisoned, most of whom were subjected to cruel tortures including the rape of 26 women.

Members of the Front were brought in through the video call in time to watch the portion of the presentation featuring footage of Movement’s peaceful occupation and shut down of the Mexican consulate in New York City less than a year ago.

Seeing the footage of Movement’s solidarity action for the first time, Trinidad Ramirez del Valle, a leader of the Front and wife of one of their twelve political prisoners, declared, “Distance, barriers cannot keep us from fighting back against so much injustice.”

Following an update on the Campaign For Freedom and Justice for Atenco, which completed its 12 prisoners/12 States tour involving “over 130 organizations of Mexican civil society in over 100 political actions, marches and meetings” in December and just gained the support of 11 Nobel Prize winners, Ramirez del Valle asked those in attendance to, “Send letters, support our actions and denounce what is happening.”

Another member of the Front added, “In addition to our political prisoners and the heavy repression, the government is launching an environmental project in order to take land and continue with the airport project. We continue informing people of the true intentions of the government.”

A third member, Marta Pérez, directly addressed the conditions of organizing in the US, “We know you are also rebellious in a country where the power of Empire is very great. We are certain that we are going to win in Mexico, in the United States and the world because of people like you.”

Haiti, a Rebel Country

One of the last voices to address the Encuentro was that of Dahoud Andre. A Haitian organizer with Lakou New York, Andre had just returned from his shaken homeland.

Not unlike New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, where elites demolished public housing, privatized public services and drove the black population of the city down to a fraction of its previous numbers, Haiti has become the site of a man-made disaster in the wake of the earthquake.

As Andre reported, “The US military took over the Haitian airport and would not allow aid to come in. We collaborated with the Movement of Dominican and Haitian Women to bring the aid in through the Dominican Republican and over the border to Haiti.”

In words that echoed sentiments heard throughout the Encuentro, he urged participants to, “Support local community groups instead of the larger groups, such as the Red Cross or the Clinton Bush Fund. These are the people responsible for destruction in Atenco, Haiti and Harlem. They will never do the right thing.”

Andre pointed out, “Almost two months after the earthquake the tragedy continues even though it’s not in the media. The biggest problem is shelter: 1.5 million people have lost their homes and are living in make-shift tents,” before reminding the crowd with a fitting close to the Encuentro, “Haiti is a rebel country. In 1804, the enslaved community militarily defeated their oppressors. We’ve supported liberation movements around the world. The US did not recognize us until 1865 and has never forgiven Haiti for what happened in 1804. We don’t expect friendship from our enemies, we expect it from you.”

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East Harlem and Atenco

Movement for Justice in El Barrio's Press Conference at the Allied Media Conference with Atenco's People's Front in Defense of the Land over the Internet

What Does it Mean to be Compañeros?

An Other Mexico, and World, is Under Construction between San Salvador Atenco and East Harlem
By RJ Maccani
Originally appeared on The Narco News Bulletin (February 26, 2010)
en español aqui

“Who can imprison the fury of a volcano, the silence of centuries that explodes in rage and pain?” – Ignacio “Nacho” del Valle, Mexican political prisoner sentenced to 112 years

For Mexico, 2010 commemorates 200 years since the War of Independence and 100 since the Mexican Revolution. But as Fernando Amezcua puts it, “Little or nothing remains to celebrate.” Amezcua was one of the 44,000 members of the Mexican Electric Workers Union (SME in its Spanish initials) who were put out of work when the current president, Felipe Calderón, issued an executive order in October that shut down the government-owned electric company, Luz y Fuerza del Centro, and sought to break one of Mexico’s oldest, largest and most combative unions. Amezcua continues on as SME’s “Secretary of the Exterior” and I met him just two weeks ago while studying on the Yucatán Peninsula with the 2010 School of Authentic Journalism. As he puts it in SME’s “Plan of the Insurgents”:

The Independence from Spain that two centuries ago cost so much of the first Mexicans’ blood (as always, above all that of the most dispossessed, of the indigenous, campesinos, craftsmen); the resistance against the US and French interventions, the nationalizations of the 20th Century such as petroleum and electricity, have been converted into a new large-scale national dependency on foreign powers, the sacking of our natural resources, and exploitation at the service of the big transnational corporations and international banks.

With this we are reminded that, since the founding of the country, a war has raged over two very different visions of Mexico. And in this symbolic year there is a gaping wound from this war that will be sewn shut, or torn ever wider. This wound is known as the case of Atenco.

The Land Belongs to Those Who Work It

Less than eight years ago the people of San Salvador Atenco and other rural municipalities on the outskirts of Mexico City defeated the most important project of then-President Vicente Fox’s administration, the construction of the International Airport of Mexico City. It was an epic, ten-month battle between communal farmers “in defense of [their] mother earth” and a government intent on carrying out the development plans of national and international businessmen. It took on an even greater importance as the country was just coming out of over 70 years of one-party rule under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and the new government, headed by the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), was seeking to dispossess the campesinos even while it established this image of Mexico as an emerging liberal democracy.

The battle’s conclusion set a precedent for every other struggle in the country. In a public letter from Atenco’s People’s Front in Defense of the Land (the Frente) to the Zapatistas, they recounted, “It was then that we understood our role in history, we understood that things are not this way because someone decides, but that we too can decide what to do when faced with a decision from the powerful. When we prevailed in July and August of 2002 we confirmed what we already knew: “The government can be beaten.”

And just like their close allies, the Zapatistas, had done throughout Chiapas, they declared Atenco to be an autonomous municipality. Having kicked out their corrupt mayor as well as the police through the course of their struggle, they discovered that by making decisions in public assembly and organizing their own, community-based responses to violence in the town they achieved a level of democracy and safety well beyond what took place under the political parties.

Indeed, the struggle of Atenco was deeply inspired by the Ya Basta (“Enough Already”) of the Zapatistas of Chiapas who on January 1st, 1994 rose up in arms to win a free and democratic government for Mexico and realize the demands of the Mexican Revolution: work, land, housing, food, health care, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace. They did not achieve these objectives in that uprising, but the Zapatistas did succeed in inspiring millions throughout Mexico and the world. Thanks to their years of preparation, and the mobilization of their newfound supporters, the Zapatistas survived the government’s counterattack in those first days of 1994. In the years since then, they have peacefully constructed their own resolution to those revolutionary demands. In the over 1,100 Zapatista communities, which are grouped into 29 autonomous municipalities and five regions known as “caracoles,” over 200,000 of Mexico’s most downtrodden are leading the construction of their own political and judicial structures and educational, health, communication and economic development programs, and they are doing so while being subjected to low-intensity warfare, being surrounded by 50 to 60 thousand troops—roughly one third to one fourth of the Mexican military.

And so when the Zapatistas released their Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle in 2005, and began making preparations to defy arrest warrants and death threats in order to leave their autonomous territories and join with “the humble and simple people who struggle” in Mexico and throughout the world, the people of Atenco were already with them. That August and September, Ignacio “Nacho” del Valle, one of the great strategists and organizers of the battles of Atenco, and other members of the Frente attended in Chiapas to form the national initiative of the Sixth Declaration known as the “Other Campaign.”

Within this new struggle, the Zapatistas made it clear that they did not intend to lead, but rather to serve as facilitators of its creation and defenders of its core principals. Each adherent, be they a large organization or a single individual, was encouraged to define and defend their own place in the Other Campaign; To become like an embroidery, as Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos put it, “where each color and each shape has its place; there is no homogeneity, nor is there hegemony.”

As the first phase of their participation in building the Other Campaign, the Zapatistas sent Subcomandante Marcos on what they planned would be a six-month listening tour throughout all of Mexico. His tour began on January 1st, 2006, and was to coincide with the final six months of Mexico’s presidential election cycle and be followed, after the elections, by a delegation of indigenous Zapatista comandantes who would make longer visits to each part of the country beginning in September of that year.

An Injury to One is An Injury to All

From the beginning, adherents to the Other Campaign knew there would be repression. They were, after all, seeking to build a national force organized against the entirety of Mexico’s political class, including the self-described “center-left” Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and its presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who was favored to win in the July elections. Motivation for this grew both from the many experiences of corruption and betrayal at the hands of the PRD, as well as AMLO’s stated commitment to continue the neoliberal economic policies of his would-be predecessors.

By mid-February of 2006, over 1,000 political organizations of the left, indigenous groups and organizations, social, non-governmental and artistic organizations and collectives had publicly joined the Other Campaign. It was also at this time that human rights groups were already denouncing a nation-wide rise in actions of intimidation and political persecution against its members. Nevertheless by the time Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos, in his civilian role as “Delegate Zero,” rolled into Mexico City, he was greatly emboldened by what he’d experienced in his tour of Mexico’s southern states.

Speaking in front of the US Embassy to over 40,000 people during May Day celebrations, Marcos declared that the civil and peaceful uprising that the Other Campaign was building was going to “overthrow the bad governments… expel from our land the rich, who have turned not just people into merchandise but also our land, our water, our forests, our biodiversity, our history and our culture.” Members of Atenco’s Frente were serving as Marcos’ security detail during this historic visit to Mexico City. Just two days after this speech, they would also be the target of the Mexican government’s most brutal attack against civilians in recent memory.

On May 3rd, 2006, flower vendors from Texcoco, were attacked by police who sought to prevent them from setting up their stalls outside a local market, on a building site that was to become a new Wal- Mart shopping mall. The People’s Front in Defense of the Land, from Atenco, mobilized to support their compañeros from Texcoco. Following this initial conflict, 3,000 municipal, state and federal police, each under the control of one of the three major political parties (the PRD, PRI and PAN, respectively) violently raided the municipality of Atenco. It was an attack by the political class against the Other Campaign and a brutal act of revenge by the outgoing president against the town that had stood in the way of his great international airport project. Over two hundred people were imprisoned, most of whom were subjected to cruel tortures including the rape of 26 women. Mexico’s commercial media seized on the few images of protestor violence to justify and encourage the repression. The police killed a young boy, Javier Cortés Santiago, and a student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Alexis Benhumea Hernández.

Citing the Other Campaign’s commitment that “an injury to one is an injury to all,” Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos suspended his tour of the country to help mobilize the rest of the national and international network in support of Atenco. By the end of the month, adherents from all 31 States and Mexico City, as well as Mexicans “on the other side” (of the border) had organized and demonstrated multiple times in solidarity with Atenco. Furthermore, at least 124 actions in 52 cities in 24 countries around the world had also taken place.

A Common Enemy

One such organization that began mobilizing then was Movement for Justice in El Barrio (Movimiento). Movimiento is an organization of immigrants, the majority of whom are Mexican, and low-income people of color, in New York City’s East Harlem. I caught up with Movimiento’s spokesperson, Oscar Dominguez, recently to discuss their relationship with the Frente and Atenco over the past almost four years. Like most members of Movimiento, Dominguez had just gotten off of a twelve-hour shift working in Manhattan’s service industry when we met. He began by identifying their common struggle and common enemy:

We, from New York, had begun organizing ourselves for a dignified life and so that we would not be displaced from our homes, and saw that our problems were caused by the capitalists, the rich, the bad governments. And then we saw them [Atenco], and their struggle to stay on their land, the place where they live and their culture, what they are as communities. Thus we saw that in different places, different countries, our struggle is to live a dignified life. And for them the capitalists wish to kick them off of their land… Us here in New York, them in San Salvador Atenco, we are waging separate struggles but against the same thing. The problems that we have are caused by the same people, by capitalism.

Dominguez recounted how they first organized a protest in front of the Mexican consulate in NYC immediately following the attacks of May 2006 to demand that the Mexican government respect Atenco and to put them on alert that people here were watching what was happening. Movimiento also realized that the mass media from Mexico was being reproduced in their local media. The message their neighbors were getting was that “Atenco was a small group of troublemakers who were trying to impede the progress of the country because the airport was for the economic development of the whole country, not only the community, and this small group, with machetes in hand were impeding all of this.” The machetes, of course, are the Frente’s symbol of their struggle, their work in the fields, and their history. To combat the media disinformation, Movimiento created street theater, complete with props such as wooden prisons, which they took out to 116th between Lexington and Third Avenues in East Harlem.

Rough Road

And in this way, they began a compañerismo with Atenco’s struggle to free its prisoners that has endured a rough road in the intervening years. Shortly after the attack on Atenco in May 2006 came the June uprising in Oaxaca and the electoral fraud of the July elections. Some groups previously within the Other Campaign left around this time, as they believed its moment had past and that they would find more meaningful struggle in the Mexico City government-sponsored protests of the elections.

By the end of that tumultuous year, the six month commune in Oaxaca would be put down with even more force than the repression against Atenco, and the Other Campaign would find itself not as an independent force to the left of a “center-left” government led by the PRD and AMLO, but instead a highly visible target of the fraudulently-elected candidate of the PAN party, Felipe Calderón. And beyond that, the political class as a whole had shown that mutual corruption could translate into a closing of ranks, if only to stay propped up: The PAN provided support to the embattled PRI regime in Oaxaca in exchange for support in sustaining the presidential election fraud, and the PRD walked away with its own fraudulently won governorship in Chiapas.

Around this time, Atenco’s political prisoners had been whittled down to 31, although this included three of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land’s leaders, Ignacio del Valle, Héctor Galindo and Felipe Álvarez, who were being held in a maximum security prison. And those staffing the encampment outside of Molino de las Flores prison, where the majority of the prisoners were being held, were down to five people.

While attending the School of Authentic Journalism last month, I also had the opportunity to interview Fernando León. León is a student at UNAM who has been directly involved in the case of Atenco since 2006. He recounted the governmental context of those difficult early days:

The legitimacy of Calderón from the very beginning was so limited. He supposedly won the elections with less than 1 percent more votes than AMLO. Calderón’s legitimacy was destroyed. What was the way to counteract this illegitimacy? The supposed fight against narcotraffickers and the war on drugs. From here the figure of Calderón has been one of military authority in the streets fighting the supposed evil of Mexico.

And Calderón wasn’t without help in his efforts to militarize the country. Shortly after he assumed office, the US government cooked up what it would eventually dub the Mérida Initiative, a drug war support package a la Plan Colombia. And in the intervening years, with millions of US tax dollars in tow, extrajudicial executions and human rights abuse have skyrocketed, while drug seizures have fallen and the drug war has grown from a regional into a national problem.

From early on it became clear that the true target of Calderón’s war was not drugs, or narcotrafficking, but Mexico’s social movements, and the poor and working classes in general. Although fourteen other Zapatistas, all indigenous commanders, were able to leave Chiapas in March of 2007 to visit the northern states of Mexico, they were met with increasing harassment, and by September of that year, the Zapatistas announced that they would be ceasing these tours and visits of the Other Campaign due to the increasing repression against their communities in Chiapas. But even as much of the public momentum of the Other Campaign has faded, the work that began in that space continues.

In Spite of the Difficulties

Along with numerous national and international initiatives in Mexico, groups such as Movement for Justice in El Barrio have also found ways to advance their struggles “on the other side.” At the beginning of 2007 they successfully kicked out the largest landlord in East Harlem, Steven Kessner, whom the Village Voice had dubbed one of the city’s “10 worst landlords.” A year after this victory, Movimiento began building their own “International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio” to challenge the London-based firm Dawnay, Day Group that had just taken Kessner’s place. They were able to build a multi-national network of allies and supporters that supported them in eventually seeing the fall of Dawnay, Day in East Harlem in October of last year.

In spite of all the difficulties, in many ways the People’s Front in Defense of the Land of Atenco has only continued to build in strength. Narco News’ Kristin Bricker and a journalist from Radio Chapingo in Texcoco met with Maria del Carmen Perez Elizalde of the Frente near the end of last year to discuss the case of Atenco today. Just twelve prisoners remain in jail, although the prison sentences they have been given are almost unimaginable in Mexico:

To Felipe [Álvarez] and Héctor [Galindo] they have given a sentence of 67 years in prison and to Ignacio del Valle they have given a sentence of 112 years, more than a century. And to the other [9] compañeros, 35 years. How is it possible that they have given more than a century? So much time in prison, right? When according to the government it is fighting against the narcotraffickers and they are only giving them 3 years, 5 years, 6 years and these are sentences that they never complete.

Just this past December the Frente and their supporters completed their 12 prisoners/12 States tour in which they “involved over 130 organizations of Mexican civil society in over 100 political actions, marches and meetings.” The tour culminated in a massive concert in Atenco wherein they announced that the next phase of the Campaign for Freedom and Justice for Atenco “consists in removing our prisoners from jail once and for all.”

And the Frente and Movimiento have remained compañeros throughout these years. Just over a year ago, while delegates from Movimiento were attending the First World Festival of Dignified Rage in Mexico, members of the Frente invited them to visit Atenco. It was there that Movimiento was able to screen its video message to Atenco, which featured many of its members who could not make the journey. The Frente responded to Movimiento with a video message of its own. This creative way of crossing the border to speak with each other “face-to-face” has been essential not only to their growing relationship, but to the overall dynamic of their struggles. As Dominguez of Movimiento puts it:

In May of 2006, it was Vicente Fox who was in government but now it is Felipe Calderón and he continues with the same policy. So we took over the Mexican consulate here to demand the freedom of the prisoners of San Salvador Atenco. In the video message of San Salvador Atenco to us, they told us that it gave them more energy to know that us in New York were watching what is happening with them and that we are helping them in our form, our style, at our pace. It gave us certainty that our struggles in different places have encountered each other. It is how we continue struggling, with more energy and we are confident that in time we will succeed in defeating the enemy that we have in common, which is capitalism and the bad governments. That capitalism is not only in Mexico, not only in New York, it is in all parts of the world and that the bad governments are servants of capitalism.

As for President Calderón? Fernando León, organizer in the Campaign for Freedom and Justice for Atenco, points out that:

The costs of this [drug] war, and what this war has produced, has become so real for the people who are in these situations that [Calderón’s] legitimacy is again being interrogated. The popular cry today is for the military to return to their barracks and that the supposed strategy of Calderón against narcotraffickers is erroneous. Even people within his own party and cabinet say that this strategy is wrong. And so it has had a very big political cost for Calderón. If in the first year or two of his presidency he was situated as a strong figure of authority, this popularity is every day declining more. The military soldiers in the streets provoke the human rights violations. The military only sees an enemy as an enemy to be killed. They are trained in this way and you cannot just tell them to not commit human rights violations because this is their agenda. And this has, in one way or another, fallen into the lap of Felipe Calderón.

The War of Visions Rages On, Compañeros

Legitimate or not, Calderón is not for the moment the most central governmental actor in the case of Atenco’s 12 prisoners. The Supreme Court of Mexico is currently considering the justice of their imprisonment. For this pending decision, León has two predictions:

One is that they are allowed to leave this year thanks to an opinion of the Supreme Court. And the other has to do with the fact that the situation of the airport remains open. That the National Water Commission (CONAGUA) is buying land and the airport project was never dead. This would be the other possibility, that the prisoners are kept inside so that the People’s Front in Defense of the Land remains focused on them and they don’t have all the power necessary to focus on the airport project. Also, we are in the year 2010, which is so symbolic. And some believe nothing will happen, and others want it to not just be symbolic, and the federal government is preoccupied with this and if the prisoners are released the Front can rededicate itself to the struggle they have always been bringing. These are the two possibilities: that they leave, as they should have never been prisoners in the first place, and the other that the revenge of the federal government continues, and the abuses continue.

The war of visions for Mexico rages on. Soon enough it will be time for the Supreme Court to decide for one or the other. Perhaps after last year’s opinion to free those convicted of the 1997 paramilitary murder of 45 unarmed indigenous parishioners in the village of Acteal, Chiapas, the Court will want to add some “balance” to its ledger and close the case of Atenco with freedom for the prisoners. Or perhaps it will tear the wound, and the gap between these two Mexicos, ever larger by closing the legal route for their release.

No matter the outcome, it seems clear that the Frente has its eyes on the horizon, and the calendar. As Frente member Maria Perez Elizalde told Bricker, “What is needed now is for Mexico to wake up in time and this is the principle struggle of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land. Beyond the freedom of the prisoners, beyond the defense the land, a very concrete struggle of the People’s Front is to wake up our brothers and sisters to what is going on. So that we don’t exchange our freedom or land for a few pesos. For a few pesos that you have today but tomorrow are already gone.”

Movimiento and the Frente still continue to find new ways to be compañeros. The most recent was “a simultaneous press conference in Detroit we did through the Internet with the compas of Atenco,” which Dominguez described to me, “so that they could speak for themselves to the media-makers of the left who were gathered at the Allied Media Conference. It was an honor for us that they joined us in this press conference because their struggle is enormous compared to ours. It gave us confidence to create bridges of communication between different struggles in different countries. It was very moving for the members of Movimiento.”

This Sunday Movimiento will extend these “bridges of communication” even further when they host their Third Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement. They will be joined by other organizations fighting gentrification throughout New York City and the region and by many more. Haitian organizers who have just returned from their shaken homeland will share their experiences. The members of the Frente will be present again, as they were in Detroit, through a live video conference. This time they will also joined in this way by Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African Shack Dwellers Movement. The nine political prisoners of Atenco who are being held in Molino de Flores prison in Texcoco have sent along a written message for the gathering. And surely the other three, Nacho, Hector and Felipe, leaders of the Frente held in the maximum security prison “El Altiplano,” will be present in the thoughts of many in attendance.

So, will Mexico be a country of compañeros, or Calderóns? An armored, open-pit mine and playground for the rich? Or a place where, as the Zapatistas say, everything is for everyone and many worlds fit? After all these years, the question has not yet been definitively answered; in 2010 these two Mexicos are in conflict, from East Harlem to Chiapas.

And how will we respond, dear readers? Will we be compañeros?


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