Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) Comunique

http://www.tierradentro.org.mx/?q=node/120

Comunique’ read by Comandanta Kelly, Sixth
Commission, Zapatista Army of

National Liberation (EZLN).

Sisters and Brothers of Mexico and the World:

Here in Chiapas we face a new offensive against the indigenous zapatista
communities, carried out by paramilitary groups affiliated with the PRI and
with the PRD, supported by the State government (PRD), the Federalgovernment
(PAN), by their land and agrarian offices, by the ex-landowners—who originally
stole their lands from our peoples—and by themilitary and police forces, in a
clear conspiracy to evict the zapatista communities from the land and
territories that were recovered with heart,blood, and death in 1994.

Here in Chiapas, though the struggle of thousands of compa~eras andcompa~eros,
members of zapatista militias and of our bases of support, we carried out a
genuine agrarian reform and agrarian revolution, based onthe Revolutionary
Agrarian Law of 1993. Thanks to this revolutionary recovery of land and
territories, today there are thousands of zapatista and non-zapatista families—who
before 1994 had been evicted from their land, their lives and their autonomy—who
now have land to work, land tobuild community, land for a better future. For
indigenous, peasant and other rural peoples, land and territory are more than
just sources of workand food; they also signify culture, community, history,
ancestors, dreams, future, life, and Mother Earth.

But today in Chiapas, just as in many other parts of Mexico and the world, Power
and neoliberalism are imposing a true counter-agrarian reform and counter-revolution.
Just like in Mexico and many other countries where agrarian reforms have been
carried out—whether from above, by revolutionary governments, or from below, by
social movements, or wherever

peoples defend their territories against privatization—they try to evict
communities from their lands and recovered territories, with their armies,
paramilitaries, privatizing laws, judiciaries and agrarian authorities,
political parties, false conservationist and environmental discourses,
biopiracy and GMO contamination, among other methods, all with the objective of
turning land, territories, biodiversity and life itself into mere commodities.

Here in Chiapas, as in the entire world, wherever
indigenous peoples,peasants, artisanal fisherfolk and other rural peoples
defend their right to land and territory, or wherever landless peoples struggle
for land and territory, we are under attack from Power.

In the whole world, it is the same story. Our struggle is your struggle. Gathered
here today in San Cristo’bal de las Casas, this 25 of March of 2007, we, the
Sixth Commission of the EZLN, with local, national and international members of
the Other Campaign, and national and international sister organizations, call
on and invite all organizations in Mexico and the world, to help us launch the
Global Campaign for the Defense of Indigenous, Peasant and Autonomous Land and
Territories in Chiapas, Mexico and the World.

We call for a global campaign of mutual support between rural peoples and other
peoples who support our rights and our struggles for the right to life and
dignity, and we call on all of us to join forces with each other, for example
mutual support between the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform of La Via
Campesina and this Global Campaign for the Defense of

 Indigenous, Peasant and Autonomous Land
and Territories in Chiapas, Mexico and the World.

Sisters and brothers, we invite you to add your local, national and international
names to this campaign, and to take on the commitment to carry out joint actions
of mutual solidarity.

The struggle for the defense of land and territory is the struggle for life and
dignity.

Behind us-you, stand you-we. [”Detras de nosotros, estamos ustedes.”]