Funded by the Spanish Crown and bankers in Geneva, Christopher Columbus brought “civilisation” to the Caribbean islands. A stand out feature of the admiral’s diaries was the word gold, written 139 times and 51 times the word god.

500 years after… on the 12th of October 1992 more than 9 thousand indigenous people protested at the 500th Anniversary celebrations in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. The National Campesino Independent Alliance, Emiliano Zapata (ANCIEZ in Spanish) arrived in the middle of the night. They stood out for their discipline, they acted like an army and in fact that’s what they were. There were guerrilla commanders positioned all over the city, ready to respond in the event of any repression. They were members of the National Liberation Forces who two years later would reveal themselves to the world as the Zapatista Forces of National Liberation (the EZLN). With sticks and sledge hammers, some of the protesters smashed up a statue of the Spanish invader Diego de Mazariegos. When the police attempted to arrest them they were showered with stones. Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos filmed the protest.

In the early hours of morning on January 1st 1994, when the EZLN rose up in arms, to us, two important symbols of struggle stood out. The first was the continued resistance against the War of Conquest that this October turns 516 years since its beginnings. The second was the impact that it would have on the celebration of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which at this time represented the maximum achievement of the neoliberal politics of global capitalism.

Since its public appearance, the Zapatista struggle is anticapitalist and anti-neoliberal. The difference between the EZLN´s path compared with other guerrilla movements and social movements is shown in the construction of Caracoles Zapatistas in 2004. These autonomous communities, which were formerly called Aguascalientes, are a giant step not only for Zapatista organisation but are also an example for the entire world. They show how peoples´ self-determination, with our own forms of government, education, health systems and security, can work.

The Zapatistas demonstrate by example how we can construct and live autonomy, within a world dominated by Capitalism that seeks to destroy indigenous peoples and their Cosmo vision. To be indigenous in America is to live in exile in ones own country. Language is not a signal of identity but rather, a curse. It doesn’t make us stand out, but rather is the source of discrimination.

The cry: “no to Capitalism!” Is the essence of Zapatista communities, but not only Zapatista communities. What is it that makes the Zapatista proposal different? Why is it that capitalism attacks us, separates us from the wealth we produce, and denies us our identity as subjects even though we say that we are opposed to this system? We believe that the autonomy exercised in the Zapatista Caracoles isn’t only based in this “no to capitalism” but above all the development of another way of doing politics is fundamental. The Zapatistas are constructing other social relationships; today they are prefiguring the society that we want to build after overturning the capitalist system.

The Zapatistas have achieved an outstanding level of communication with Mexican and also international communities. International gatherings in Zapatista territory have become spaces for exchange between those who attend. The first Intergalactic gathering inspired the World Social Forum phenomenon has sadly become a space for those who move in spaces of the elitist, reformist “left”, institutions and NGOs… at least that’s what we saw with our own eyes last year in Mexico City.

Following the creation of the Caracoles, came the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle from which a national movement called the Other Campaign was born. Well, that’s what it’s called for the moment. This movement takes another step in the struggle against Capitalism. It’s a movement that struggles against the discrimination that capitalism generates. A struggle to unite or reunite elements that capitalism has divided. Another way of organising, respecting one another. We believe that the Sixth Declaration is an important part of anticapitalist theory that deserves serious analysis, above all in current times when so called “leftwing” governments seem to be in fashion all over the world. This false left works towards and aspires to take control in a politics from above, a politics of domination; that is to say, it comes from a place far from the grassroots.

From below and to the left, a new way of doing politics is being built. It is anticapitalist in essence, and this requires a difficult process with its ups and downs. For workers, anarchists, sex workers, campesinos, students, communists, retailers, and a never ending list of diverse groups to meet and articulate a shared politics is not an easy task, but it’s not impossible.

Three years on, one of the most significant achievements of the Other Campaign has been the creation of a space of convergence for everyone who doesn’t believe in the system of false electoral processes and false democracy. Although a specific organisational structure hasn’t been consolidated, knowing each other has permitted cohesion between diverse affinity groups. The Resistance Network against the Federal Electricity Commission in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tabasco and Chiapas. The National Indigenous Congress is consolidating its presence in the northwest of Mexico. The National Media Network is beginning to take shape. These are just some examples of coordination between diverse peoples, organisations and collectives that now exist or are strengthened as a result of the Other Campaign.

Creation of alliances, changing and transforming themselves, is a continuing process that at the end of the day has a common objective: to destroy the Capitalist system. The Sixth Declaration extends an invitation to create according to our own forms and practices, as the Zapatistas have achieved in their territory. Through autonomy, dignity and different social relations it is possible to deconstruct capitalism while attacking it simultaneously and tirelessly.

Dignity is a word that stands out in the Zapatista struggle. It’s a demand that has been denied not only to indigenous peoples. According to the Capitalist system, dignity is living in ones own house, owning a car, a job and a TV set. The Zapatista’s concept of dignity is the ability to speak ones own language without being looked down on as inferior, to simply be how we are and not be ashamed of our history, to develop when, and only when, everyone else has the same opportunity to do so. Dignity according to capitalism is won at the expense of everyone else, Zapatista dignity is won when freedom, justice and democracy exists for all of us.

Owing to their determined and important role in this struggle for humanity and against capitalism, our brothers and sisters Zapatistas are being attacked over and over again by the Federal Government under Felipe Calderon and the government of Chiapas state led by the institutional left the PRD, the Democratic Revolution Party, in the hands of Juan Sabines Guerrero. While it’s true that the counterinsurgency war against the EZLN has not ceased since 1994, the increasing paramilitary coordination, the use of so called “welfare” programs and neoliberal programs at state, regional and federal levels since 2007 – has been notable.

The federal government is increasing operations in the State of Chiapas, in line with the Plan Puebla Panama now called the Plan Mezo America, with the construction of super highways, tourism infrastructure, privatisation and
re-ordering land ownership. Part of this last aspect is the Rural Cities project, which aims to displace indigenous populations from their lands and to new regional cities where the government promises to provide basic services. And as the institutional left government, the PRD has said, now the government is going to teach its people “how to be citizens”.

Since 2005, with the North American Security and Prosperity Alliance and also with Plan Mexico, the USA´s war against terrorism is throwing its weight around in Latin America. Billions of dollars are being offered to Mexico for improved coordination with the US, for buying arms, and also training and intelligence for the Mexican Army. They are preparing to eliminate all of those who threaten the interests of capitalism and this doesn’t just mean those of us who organise against the system but also all of those whose simple existence, communities on their lands, is enough to be attacked.

On the 4th of June, more than 200 elements of the Mexican Army along with the Attorney General’s Federal Department, the Federal Investigations Agency, State and Municipal Police attempted to invade the Zapatista Caracol la Garrucha using the false accusation of drug trafficking in Zapatista territory and threatening to arrest members of three zapatista communities. This attack joins a long list of attacks that the Good Government Councils have denounced over the past year.

We ask you to keep informed and alert in case other attacks against the EZLN, don’t leave them alone. The repression they are suffering is the direct result of their dedicated struggle to construct a different world in which we are all free, where in reality we live their slogan “for everyone, everything”.

Speaking generally, in grassroots Mexico – or as we say, Mexico from below, there are many many diverse ways of struggling against capitalism. The community police in the State of Guerrero, the Oaxacan peoples rebellion, the example shown by our brothers and sisters held prisoners in Chiapas and Tabasco, whose hunger strike over March and April this year won the freedom of dozens of political prisoners. These are just some examples that require their own spaces in order for us to explain them with the detail they deserve. Our humble work as a collective is to attempt to document these struggles and make them known so that they are not forgotten, moreover so that they serve as examples for us to follow.

Regeneracion Radio.
Communication: Combating Power