Sacramento Demonstration in Solidarity with Oaxaca Dec. 22, 3-6 pm (updated)

There will be a demonstration against the repression in Oaxaca this Friday, Dec. 22 at the Mexican Consulate in Sacramento, CA. from 3 pm to 6 pm at 1010 8th Street (close to J St.)

Afterwards, there will be hot drinks, music, a dvd about Oaxaca, and some friendly fundraising to send Mario Galvan to the Zapatista meeting in Oventic, Chiapas at the end of this month.

Bring treats, socialize and get up-to-date on what the Northern California Zapa groups believe that we, in Northern California can be doing as part of the Other Campaign.

Nancy Leman
at the ZSC office
The Zapatista Solidarity Coalition
909 12th St. #118
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 443-3424
zapa [at] zsc.org

From: chiapas95 [at] eco.utexas.edu
Subject: The Other Campaign in the North,words of delegates,Dec 06
The Other Campaign in the North of Mexico: Saying "Oaxaca" from Above and
Below

Words of Delegados Zero, One, Two and Three During the Conclusion of the
National Tour
By the Sixth Commission of the EZLN
Enlace Zapatista
December 6, 2006

This report appears on the internet at
http://www.narconews.com/Issue44/article2438.html

THIS IS SO OTHER AND SO BIG THAT IT DOES NOT FIT IN THE GEOGRAPHY FROM
ABOVE

WORDS FROM DELEGATE ZERO OF THE SIXTH COMMISSION OF THE EZLN.
DECEMBER 2, 2006. COPAI-Me'xico

I. The Other Campaign in the North of Mexico: saying "Oaxaca" from above
and below

Hundreds of people detained illegally, dozens of people disappeared,
tortures, searches, and beatings. Young men and women, indigenous people,
children, elders. In other words: the people of Oaxaca who come from
below. Above, there are the Federal Preventive Police, Ulises Ruiz's
paramilitaries, the mass media, the political class.

To be quiet in the face of this is to say "Oaxaca" from above, and to make
top-down assessments that are cheerful...and idiotic.

Because up above they are prepared to declare that everything has returned
to normal and that the "conflict" is controlled because "the leaders" have
been detained, as if this movement had "leaders" to be bought, imprisoned
or killed. They say that now we must look the other way. That is to say,
we must turn a steady gaze to those above, to the paraphernalia of
political power, to its simulations and its fronts, which command and give
orders while the true Power doles out the day's orders to its media,
pundits, announcers, artists, intellectuals, police chiefs, military units
and paramilitary.

To say "Oaxaca" from below is to say companero and companera, to draw near
to those who are persecuted, to mobilize our own forces to demand the
return of the disappeared and the release of detainees, to inform, to call
for international solidarity and support, to not be quiet, to speak of
this southern pain and to announce that it extends through the entire
country and beyond its borders on all four sides, as though it were down
below where pains walks, is named, spoken of and listened to.

Oaxaca is extending in pain, but also in struggle. Pieces of this people,
as if parts of a puzzle, are scattered throughout the national territory
and beyond its geographic limits, which, at least in the north, are more
ridiculous than ever.

During the two months that we spent walking in the different corners of
the Mexican north, Oaxaca appeared over after over. And it cloaked itself
in pain and rage, and it spoke to us and watched us.

And the Other Campaign listened and keeps listening; and it extends its
arms, as do the thousands of Zapatistas who blocked off the roads of
Chiapas on two occasions in solidarity with Oaxaca and the Others in all
of the corners of Mexico from Below, as well as the others in all of the
corners of the world. As they extend their arms. As they will keep
extending them even if no one pays attention; as we who are nobody will
not become a fragmented mirror.

In front of Oaxaca, for Oaxaca and by Oaxaca, we say:

COMMUNIQUE FROM THE CLANDESTINE REVOLUTIONARY INDIGENOUS COMMITTEE-GENERAL
COMMAND OF THE ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION (EZLN).
MEXICO

DECEMBER 2, 2006

TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO:
TO THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD:

SISTERS AND BROTHERS:

THE ATTACK THAT OUR BRETHREN, THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA, SUFFERED AND ARE
SUFFERING, CANNOT BE IGNORED BY THOSE WHO STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY, JUSTICE
AND DEMOCRACY IN EVERY CORNER OF THE PLANET.

FOR THIS REASON, THE EZLN CALLS EVERY HONEST PERSON, IN MEXICO AND AROUND
THE WORLD, TO BEGIN, FROM THIS MOMENT, CONTINUOUS ACTIONS IN SOLIDARITY
AND SUPPORT OF THE OAXACAN PEOPLE, WITH THE FOLLOWING DEMANDS:

FOR THE LIVE RETURN OF THOSE WHO HAVE DISAPPEARED, FOR THE RELEASE OF
PRISONERS, FOR THE WITHDRAWAL OF ULISES RUIZ AND FEDERAL FORCES FROM
OAXACA, FOR THE PUNISHMENT OF THOSE GUILTY OF TORTURE, RAPE AND MURDER. IN
BRIEF: FOR FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY AND JUSTICE FOR THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA.

WE CALL FOR THIS INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO SAY, IN ALL WAYS AND IN ALL
PLACES WHERE IT IS POSSIBLE, WHAT HAS HAPPENED AND IS HAPPENING IN OAXACA,
EACH PERSON IN THEIR OWN MANNER, TIME AND SPACE.

WE CALL FOR THESE ACTIONS TO CULMINATE IN A GLOBAL MOBILIZATION FOR OAXACA
ON DECEMBER 22, 2006.

THE OAXACAN PEOPLE ARE NOT ALONE. WE MUST PROCLAIM THIS AND SHOW THAT IT
IS TRUE, BOTH TO THEM AND TO EVERYONE.

Democracy!
Liberty!
Justice!

By the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee-General Command of
the Zapatista Army for National Liberation.
Mexico.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, December 2006

II. 45,000 kilometers on the (OTHER) campaign trail

In its participation in the first stage of the Other Campaign, the Sixth
Commission of the EZLN traversed around 45,000 kilometers (47,890, someone
noted who was counting) in territory of what we can already call, with
familiarity of cause, effect and destiny, the Other Mexico: the one
belonging to those from below.

What we saw and heard overthrew something within the 31 states and one
Federal District, now that we find ourselves with compa~eros and
compa~eras from at least 35 entities: the 32 from the geography from
above, more from the Comarca Lagunera, the Huasteca, and that entity
creating its own identity to the north of the Rio Bravo.

The courage that drives the Other Campaign is so large that it does not
even fit within these borders: north of the Rio Bravo, there is another
Mexico.

"We will never lose. We are here. We will always be here," said a Chicana
girl who knows what she's talking about.

We heard and saw many Mexicos, with distinct colors and languages, with
different ways. And together we realized that all of them make one speak
of pain and act in rebellion.

On foot, on motorcycle, on horse, on bicycle, in car, on train and on
boat, we traveled 45,000 kilometers of a very other campaign trail and, to
use the words of an indigenous Rara'muri woman in the Sierra Tarahumara,
"we saw the sickness and there we found the medicine."

The pain burned bright with its own light, and the tree of resistance with
roots centuries deep in the below, began to twinkle.

We cannot continue to resist alone, each one on his or her own side. We
need to unite, for ourselves and for everyone.

Briefly stated, Mexico can only live as long as the Mexico from Below
lives.

And the Mexico from below can only live if the prisoners from Atenco are
released, as well as all the political prisoners across the country, all
disappeared are returned alive, and all orders for apprehension of social
justice fighters are cancelled.

III. Neither blue nor yellow, the Other North does exist

The four wheels of capitalism - dispossession, depreciation, exploitation
and repression - work to unite people below while polls and the wishes of
the blue and yellow divide people from above.

The Other Campaign has recovered this country, has rediscovered that the
north is also Mexico.

Here are a few samples:

Above, there is a line that unites Teacapa'n and Dautillo in Sinaloa, with
Isla Mujeres in Quintana Roo, and Puerto Progresso in the Yucata'n: to
Joaqui'n Amaro and San Isidro in Chiapas, Matamoros in Tamaulipas, and El
Mayor in Baja California.

In these eight corners of the Mexico from below, fishing families are
persecuted because of their work. This is how the criminalization of work
happens, under the cloak of caring for the environment.

The environmental policy of the neoliberal governments, as much the
federal as the state and municipal governments, is the destruction of
nature...or snatching it away from its legitimate guardians to hand it
over to the voracity of large corporations.

On the other hand, in three states - Sonora, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi'
- governed by the PRI, PRD and PAN parties respectively, it is already
clear what constitutes this "maintenance of macroeconomic variables."

In those states, one sees the destruction of the Mexican countryside and
its depopulation through the expulsion of millions of Mexicans to the
United States. And one sees the reconstruction of the old plantations in
the style of Porfirio Di'az, redoubling in size with indigenous migrants
from the southern and southwestern states of Mexico.

In Mexico, "modernity" means returning to the age of Porfirio Diaz.

IV. After the 20th century, above they continue with...the 19th century

The machine to make merchandise hides its cause but not its effect. The
powerful nucleus of the system is hidden behind the market and salaries:
that is, private control of the means of production and exchange.

The nine nations that are participating in the neo-conquest of Mexico are
comprised of banks, industries and commerce, all of it foreign. And their
armies of conquest and occupation are representatives, senators, municipal
presidents, local representatives, governors, presidents of the Republic
and Secretaries of State.

This is the present history that unites the north, center and south of
Mexico. The end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th have
returned:

* The dispossession of lands.
* The destruction of nature.
* The destruction of the social fabric.
* The destruction of the culture of organizing.
* Gender-based violence against women -domestic violence as well as
social, cultural and institutional violence.
* A lack of appreciation for elders, the elderly.
* The commercialization of childhood.
* The criminalization of youth.
* The privatization of higher education.
* The dismantling of the elementary and secondary education systems.
* The dismantling of social security.
* The destruction and reconstruction of labor conditions to return
conditions during the time of Porfirio Di'az.
* Pushing out street vendors and strangling small and mid-sized
businesses; to the benefit of large foreign commercial capital.
* Discrimination and repression against sexual difference, including
within the left.
* A perverse autism within the mass media.

"Hunger knocks us down, but indigenous dignity lifts us up," an indigenous
woman, chief of the Kumiai, told us.

In Mexico we work not to die and we die in our work.

V. We are who we are

The main body of the Other Campaign consists of indigenous people, youth
and women. All of them are workers, from the country and the city.

In the north we encountered Oaxaca in the Triqui, Mixtecs, Zapotecs; also,
in the Kumiais, Kiliwas, Kukapas, Tohono O'odham or Papa'gos, Comca'ac or
Seris, Pimas, Yaquis, Yoreme Mayos, Rara'muris, Caxacanes, Coras,
Wixaritari, Kikapoos, Maskovos, Teenek, Pams, Nahuas, Chichimecas,
Tepehuanos, and Guajirios.

In the indigenous peoples, tribes and nations of the north it is more
frequent to see women who are chiefs and leaders.

"We want to continue being who we are," an indigenous Rara'muri told us.
That could have been said by a young man, young woman, or woman.

"We want to spreading the word to give this world strength," said the
women, youth and indigenous in the north of Mexico.

VI. Below, a heart gets to know itself

The anti-capitalist struggle was not born with the Sixth Declaration and
the Other Campaign. It has followed and still follows many paths within
political, social and non-governmental organizations, indigenous peoples,
collectives, groups, families and individuals.

The Sixth [Commission] and the Other Campaign have been a call to find
each other, get to know each other, respect each other and unite together.

This is why we are inviting people to participate in the internal
consultation from December 4-10, 2006.

The Other Campaign is not another struggle from below; it is the struggle
of each of us, but extending to create other ties, those of solidarity and
support, those of similar pain and identical rebellion, those of respect,
those of differences becoming familiar and getting to know each other once
again.

The Other Mexico begins from below. And it does not end until it is
remade, because there is more yet to come.

The Other Campaign turns an Other face to those above and to their
mirrors. We will not come together or unite with them. Those who oppose
Caldero'n from above are not looking for a change in this country, but
rather to achieve Power. Those of us who oppose Caldero'n from below are
against everything that above simulates ideas and practices disdain.

The official will be defeated, as will the "legitimate"; it does not
matter what name is used by those who assume that everything will return
to normal and that decisions will be made from above for and against the
people from below in administrating the same nightmare that we are
currently suffering.

This country is full of corners, nooks and crannies.

From those corners - and not from the palaces, seats of government and
bunkers of the political class - another alternative will arise, grow and
come into being.

All of this country lives in a jail, but there are jails that are obvious
and these are the prisons. For this reason, the struggle for the live
return of the disappeared as well as the release of political prisoners
from Atenco, and now from Oaxaca, should be part of a national campaign.

In conjunction with this, national movements can be carried out to protest
high electrical costs, to defend and protect the environment, to promote
the informal and small business sector, and to boycott large corporations.

As Zapatistas, we are calling attention to the issues that the
anti-capitalist struggles of various groups as well as anarchist and
libertarian collectives have contributed through their own political
self-development.

In Chihuahua, we were told about the Tlatoleros, the indigenous messengers
who traveled to the different peoples inviting them to rise up against the
viceroyalty. In one form or another, we have been and will continue to be
these messengers.

While those who were looking above now return to the quotidian and
fashionable issues, the Other Campaign will look towards itself, define
itself and prepare.

Above, they are looking towards, speaking about and questioning what will
happen in 2012. Below, the Other Campaign will continue asking who and
what constitutes the National Program of Struggle, then asking about the
how and when. Then the calendar of those above will be broken and a new
one will emerge from below and to the left.

The hour has arrived. We will be who we are, but also better.

It is time to wake up.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Sixth Commission of the EZLN, Delegate Zero
Mexico, December, 2006

PS - In Shadow's windowless little room, the clock is the only way to tell
day from night. It is always early morning. Shadow now prepares to return
to the shadows who gave birth to him and who sustains him. He takes stock
and recounts. His broken heart, covered in scars and patches, repositions
itself. He casts out anchors and unfurls the sails. He carries another
country stuck to his feet, his skin, his ears and his gaze. He carries a
pain and a rage that do not fit into the words of every language. In the
mountains of the Mexican southwest, the collective brown heart who leads
is waiting to receive a response that it has known for centuries: it is
time for dawn to break, as it does naturally, meaning with pain and with
rage. Shadow knows what he will hear from the brown mountain who guides
him. Soothing the pain and giving hope to the rage, the mountain will say,
in an ancestral tongue: "Do not worry too much, do not be afraid; the
heart of our Patria is not sad, because there is more yet to come."