Opening Plenary words of the Comandantas and Comandantes
Originally published in Spanish by the EZLN
*************************************
Translated by irlandesa
Words Spoken by the Comandantas and Comandantes at
the Opening of the Plenary Meeting,
Words from Comandante David
Compañeros and compañeras, indigenous brothers and sisters from
In the name of the CCRI-CG of the EZLN, we have the
following to say:
As indigenous of our country,
From the Conquest to our time, they have humiliated
us, they have silenced us and they have tried to exterminate us, but they have
taught us, over long years of pain and suffering, to resist. That is why they
have not been able to extinguish our struggle, our resistance, our rebellion
and our indignation against injustice and subjugation.
The fury and rebellion of the indigenous peoples of
In the case of our beloved country
Many thousands of indigenous died during the
Conquest, and hundreds of thousands were enslaved.
During the War of Independence of eighteen hundred
and ten, led by Padre
It is exactly today,
Thus there was no liberty or independence for the
indigenous, only their masters and lords were changed.
We were not included in the laws that were drawn up
during those times.
Then the Revolution of 1910, and it was also us, the
indigenous and campesinos,
who gave the most blood and lives for land and liberty, because it was our
indigenous and campesino
brothers who fought with valor and heroism, without fear of losing more than
their own lives.
But after that revolution, there
still was not any land or liberty for the indigenous and campesinos. Those
who assumed power in the name of the revolution after the assassination of our
General Emiliano Zapata also forgot about the
indigenous. They drew up laws like the Constitution of 1917, and we were not
included or recognized in that Mexican Constitution either.
As indigenous and campesinos, we are still the same
or worse than jodidos,
because we do not have the right to anything, not to land, health, education,
food, a dignified life or to being respected.
And so struggles and revolutions have taken place,
and we indigenous and campesinos
have always stayed the same. Always set to one side, always marginalized and forgotten.
Compañeros and compañeras, brothers and sisters,
we can no longer allow this sad history that we have been suffering for
centuries to keep repeating itself. We cannot allow them to keep mocking us.
All indigenous and campesinos, and all honest men
and women who inhabit our Mexican Patria, our continent and our entire world,
have the right and the duty to change this reality and to build a new history,
the history of humanity, the history of the world.
That is why - through this struggle the Zapatistas
are engaging in and this great movement we are building with all the indigenous
and campesinos
- we will no longer remain excluded, we will be an
important part of history and of nations.
That is why it will be what it will be, and we will
conquer the place that belongs to us and which the indigenous, the campesinos and
all the exploited deserve. The struggle is ours, the Patria is ours and history
is ours.
Words of Comandanta Esther
Good evening, Compañeras and Compañeros.
In the name of the Clandestine
Revolutionary Indigenous Committee-General Command of the Zapatista Army of
National Liberation.
We would like to say a few words to all the women
who are here and not here, those who have joined the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona. We must continue
fighting as women in order to defend our rights, because for more than 500
years the bad leaders and the powerful have denied us the right and the place
which belongs to us as persons. And they have treated us like objects, and they
imposed that on our fathers and grandfathers. That is why now some of our fathers,
brothers and husbands tell us we are useless, and that we are only good for
taking care of children and taking care of the home and that we are weak, that
we do not know how to think or to make decisions. These bad ideas have kept all
the women in the countryside and the city dominated.
But this is not true, we
women can indeed organize ourselves, hold positions and make decisions, just
like men. That is why I am telling you that we shall keep fighting together to
defend the rights we deserve as women and as human beings.
If we do not do anything, our daughters and
granddaughters will continue to live the way it is now in our country, because
the majority of women are not taken into account, we are not respected,
we do not have dignified work. That is why many women leave to look for work in
other countries like the
But this situation in our country cannot continue
like this if we want women to have secure work, a fair salary, dignified and
respectful treatment.
In order to achieve this, time is
necessary, and sacrifice, responsibility, patience and resistance. Like
this work and organization we are beginning together, there will be many
problems and obstacles. But we cannot leave the struggle because of this,
because it is not about just trying it for a while. It is going to take years
to achieve what we want, and because of that we must be firm and strong and
always seek solutions to the problems we will be encountering.
That is why it is now the hour to unite our
strengths in order to achieve our objective. Courage, then, compañeras,
workers, teachers, doctors, artists, lesbians, intellectuals, young people,
housewives and all sectors of society. Do not become discouraged,
because there is no other path left to us than that of continuing to fight
together, men, women, young people, girls and boys, old ones, so that we may be
taken into account in our country Mexico.
But we also want to talk a bit about the struggle of
indigenous women. We, as indigenous women, are also struggling for the same
circumstances, because we suffer from triple exploitation, for being women, for
being indigenous and for being poor. Because we are women, they do not take us
into account, we are humiliated, despised. Because we are indigenous, we are
discriminated against because of our clothing, color, language and cultures.
Because we are poor, we do not have a right to health, to education, and they
forget about us. That is why we decided to organize and to fight together in
order to get out of this situation. It does not matter to us if there is
persecution, incarceration, kidnapping, even death if it is necessary. In spite
of all this, here we are, and we shall continue fighting, and we are not going
to surrender nor sell ourselves for the little bit of charity the bad
government gives, let alone to hold some government position.
Thank you to the struggle that gave us this space to
participate, to unite our strength and to struggle together, men and women,
because without the men or without the women, the struggle would not move
forward. That is why the participation of everyone is very important, without
distinction as to race or color.
Lastly, I just want to tell you to join our
strengths together in order to achieve democracy, liberty and justice for all.
Words of Lieutenant
Colonel Moisés
Garrucha Meeting
Good evening to all the compañeros and compañeras, and
so, as compañero
Subcomandante Insurgente
Marcos said, I am speaking in the name of my compañeros and compañeras from
the political-military wing. The compañero and compañera comandantes and comandantas are the organizational political part, those who
guide us on our path of struggle. We are the soldiers of the people who left
our fathers and mothers and everything. There are insurgent compañeros and compañeras who
have now left their families forever, because they died while carrying out
their duties. Those of us who are still alive are striking blows against the
bad government, the exploiters, and we are not going to stop striking out at
those bad, exploitative governments. We, the insurgents and insurgentas, are here out of
conscience. The great payment that we will receive someday is that of one day
seeing these people - which are called
You have seen that while fighting, we have spoken
truly and clearly about how they exploit us, how they humiliate us, and by
organizing against that, and by fighting against that, repression comes. They
do not want us to learn to make a new politics and another way of doing
politics. That is why we are defenders of our organized peoples who are
struggling politically.
It is exactly what we are doing now with these
peoples who are here and those who are not here now, we want to fight
politically and peacefully. We are not a militaristic army,
we use arms to defend ourselves, in order to conquer liberty, justice and
democracy.
Politically we understand that the people of
We had to form an army of the people in order to
make it real and make democracy really of the people. We are very otherly,
it is a different kind of army, crazy but good for the people.
Willing to go all the way, to die
if it necessary, by the people and for the people and of the people of
It is easy to give orders, but we did not do it like
that, because it would not be a democracy that way, they were consulted as to
whether they were in agreement with the initiative. With this new plan we are
carrying out, together now, in the Sexta, there is
something I would like to tell or recount to you. It is not very easy for me to
tell you, but that is how it is when you really fight and one is willing to go
all the way. That is what I want to talk to you about, but I'll see if I can.
I, Lieutenant Colonel Moisés,
came to the mountains to prepare myself to be an insurgent, and - as it is when
someone arrives to be part of the insurgent ranks - you learn, and later you
are given command responsibility in order to teach others. For many years, my
commander was our unforgettable Compañero Subcomandante Insurgente Pedro.
One day he said to me - I do not remember the exact
date, but it was in 1993 - he said to me, or he called to me: "Moy, come here," and I went to where he was, in his
house, in one of the barracks we had, but this one I'm telling you about was
the "Collective" barracks. I came, and he said to me: "Listen, Moy, since we're going to go out in public now in order to
start our struggle for National Liberation, if anything happens or happens to
me, you'll be my second in command. I'm putting you in charge of the compañeros and compañeras and to
continue the fight, continue the work. Just like me," he told me,
"I'm the second in command for compañero Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos." What do you think happened? I
don't really feel like telling it, because it's not a story, it's not a story I
really want to tell, it's very painful and distressing and mixed up with anger
and sadness. When you are close to a compañero, and he's your commander, to see a faithful compañero die who
you have lived with for a long time is like something...no, better that I don't
tell you...
But our commanders, those who know how to honor
their given word, they honor it at first if circumstances allow, if not, they
fulfill their duty.
I remember the last time Subcomandante
Insurgente Pedro and Subcomandante
Insurgente Marcos saw each other, and I was there. I
personally heard the last directions Subcomandante
Marcos gave to Subcomandante Insurgente
Pedro. Sub Marcos said to Sub Pedro: "Pedro, you are my second, remember,
so be careful you don't die," Subcomandante
Marcos said, and Subcomandante Pedro answered:
"We'll take care of each other, compañero." Those were the last words exchanged between
Subcomandante Marcos and Subcomandante
Pedro.
Subcomandante Pedro
was very happy, I remember he gathered together the insurgent compañeros and compañeras of the
First Regiment, and he told us: "Compañeros, compañeras, now we're going to come out publicly, now
they're going to know who we're fighting for, the people of Mexico."
We have to organize with them, the workers, and then
he said, it's where I came from, because he was a
worker, he wasn't indigenous, but he turned into an indigenous person with us
and he died among the indigenous. A worker who was loyal to us is no longer
with us physically, but he dreamed this, what we are doing here, he dreamed of
being here with workers, campesinos,
indigenous, teachers, students, neighbors, artists, and many others, he told
us. This dream he dreamed, what he dreamed is what we are doing right now, and
that is why I am speaking for him, because for us he is not dead, just like the
great poverty and inequality we suffer have not died. For us he is not dead,
and we have even triumphed, for us he is not dead, because what has to be built
continues and we have even built what has to be built, for us he is not dead,
because he will live among the living of the peoples of free
As our commanders taught us, the one who follows,
follows, and in this case it fell to me to continue the work that was left when
compañero Subcomandante Insurgente Pedro
fell.
I also remember that I wanted to speak to compañero Subcomandante Pedro when I reached the place where he had
fallen, and I said to him: "What happened, Subcomandante,
what happened?" He answered me with a silence. It hurts to see and lose a
loved one of struggle who was at the same time your commander, but, as I told
you, those of us who continue, will continue.
That is how we were made, organized, as soldiers. We
are prepared for those events.
Like today, compañeros and compañeras. You know
several of the compañeros
and compañeras
comandantes
and comandantas,
but someday we will not see them again, according to our circumstances in the
struggle, the missions to be carried out, for the word given to struggle for a
free
Several of the compañeros and compañeras, comandantes and comandantas, are
going to go to work in the Other Campaign. They were asked to make the decision
to work in the Other Campaign voluntarily, because it is they and the people
who we take care of. We, the insurgents, are also going to go out, but not
voluntarily, by orders. If they say to us compañero, compañera, you're going to go out
to work in the Other Campaign, or they tell us, compañero, keep taking care of
our peoples and organize them better, the resistance, we will do that. Whatever
it is, we will carry out our orders.
Our duty is to carry out the exploration of the land
where we are going to take our compañeros and compañeras of our peoples, we are the soldiers, there are always those who go as vanguard. Vanguard is what
we call those who go on ahead and see what the land is like ahead that we don't
know yet. And the task of the one who goes as vanguard is to discover what is
there. Whether the land is swampy, rocky, thorny and other circumstances which
the vanguard observes, and he informs us of that so we know what to do and how
to do it.
We know you understand vanguard as being the person
who is going to lead, or those who know how to fight or the one who commands,
and that they are the only ones and they are right and those who know more and
who are, therefore, the leaders.
We do not understand it like that, the vanguard for
us is like I just said, the one who goes to learn the land, unknown land for
us, and it is necessary to go to that land in order to advance the struggle, that is our work, the military, the exploration of
land.
We are already organized, reorganized and
everything, for this work. The leadership succession is already in place.
The work of the vanguard of exploring the land for
the Other Campaign has fallen to compañero Subcomandante Marcos. He
will be the first to leave, and, after him, we will also follow, taking turns
in order to do the work. Compañeros
and compañeras,
it has already been planned and decided.
The compañero second in charge to Subcomandante
Insurgente Marcos is now ready. He is being guarded
and looked after by us, the insurgents and insurgentas.
Compañeros and compañeras, the mission of
struggle has fallen to compañero
Subcomandante Insurgente
Marcos, we are entrusting you with very much. All you can do for his security, because
he is going to leave and be out of our control, but we will remain very alert.
We know who the ones are who want there to be
deaths, and that it would be better for them if those who are struggling were
to die, and especially, especially if it were the Zapatistas who were to die.
They are planning that, how they are going to kill us. That is why I am
entrusting you with so very much, compañeros and compañeras.
If that happens, our struggle will not be stopped, we are ready and prepared for that.
Listen well, compañeros and compañeras, our departure is political, ideological and
peaceful, our initiative does not speak with bullets, but with words and
thoughts and ideas.
Men and women of the national and international
press, well, we could also call you compañeros, compañeras, if you join the work of the Sixth Declaration.
But if you don't join, just be good communicators, say what is said, and don't
make things up.
Listen well, then, our compañero Subcomandante
Insurgente Marcos is going to depart, without arms,
he's going to go with only what God gave him, and our initiative is political,
peaceful, it's about ideas and thoughts and words.
Any attempt which the bad government and the
exploiters make to do away with the struggle is going to fail, that is why we
are staying, our liberation struggle will continue.
Compañeros and compañeras, compañero Subcomandante
is not going to lead the people, we are not commanding, nor do we believe we
are the vanguard of a struggle, that we're the best and the only ones. He is
not going to promote armed struggle, he is going for what the poor people of
He is taking nothing other our word, which we want
to join together with all our poor brothers and sisters in struggle in
We, the soldiers of the people, have nothing. All we
have is the aim of struggle, all of our equipment and arms are not ours, they
belong to the people, we take care of them and use them for the struggle.
And so compañero Subcomandante Marcos is
not taking anything. We trust in you, compañeros and compañeras, that you will be able to provide what is needed
for the work we are entrusting you with. Well, there are some little things
he'll be taking - you know which thing, right? - don't have bad thoughts. He's
going to take his pipes, chewed up, obviously, which is now part of his life,
his faithful compañera,
inseparable for him. He's also going to take his beat-up computer so he can
write us and tell us how his exploration of the environment is going. Today we
are entrusting you with what he's lacking in his work.
One more time we are telling you that we are not
going to provoke actions of war so there can be more deaths, not that, we are
not seeking that. On the contrary, we want living lives, not deaths.
Compañeros and compañeras, we are giving
everything: our top chiefs from our poor peoples, you will soon see, compañeros and compañeras.
Well, compañeros and compañeras, people of poor
Men and women, everyone, fight for this Patria, the
one that gave us birth and which others wish to take over. We will not allow
it, we will defend it as our loved ones fallen in battle have taught us. Today
it is up to us, no one will do it for us, except we
ourselves.
No one will come to liberate us from this ruinous
state in which the criminals have placed us.
March on then, compañeros and compañeras! Let us all go towards the liberation
struggle! Live for the patria or die for liberty!
Words of Comandante Tacho
Compañeras and Compañeros.
All those
who have joined the Sixth Declaration.
In the name of the CCRI-CG of
the EZLN and of the support base compañeros and compañeras of the rebel Zapatista peoples, we are speaking
our word.
We have spoken truthfully to
the political class and the leaders, we have clearly told them what they are
and what they are like. As for those who have felt hurt and offended by this,
they will certainly try to come after us, because they do not like anyone
telling them the truth. The politicians of the political parties who have been
in power have committed many crimes against the people of
As for the PRI, they are
responsible for their actions in the massacre of 1968, where people were massacred
for demanding their rights.
As they are
responsible for other repressions and persecutions of other social and student
movements.
In the countryside, the same
federal and state officials used repressive force in order to crush and
dislocate indigenous campesinos
in different parts of the country. But there was more, they also incarcerated
and assassinated campesinos
unjustly. They are still being deprived of their liberty, and they are in their
graves and in high security jails as if they were criminals, while the real
criminals continue enjoying their freedom with large quantities of salaries,
disguised as pensions.
This same PRI party, headed
by Carlos Salinas, made the reforms to Article 27 of the Constitution for the
purpose of burying the ideals of our General Emiliano
Zapata. All this was, and is, in order to carry out the neoliberal plans to
finish delivering our national sovereignty into the hands of the powerful
moneyed ones.
That is why we say there have
been many crimes. Because they themselves prepared this plan and right now they
are continuing to carry it out with the FTT, Plan
These treaties demand that
the Mexican government reform the laws which guarantee these plans.
This has been the dirty work
the PRI has been up to behind the backs of the Mexican people.
And to top it off, their
colors are those of our flag, and they say they are revolutionaries, but the
truth of it is they aren't at all.
Because
revolution means real change for the good of the people.
For them, on the other hand,
revolution means looting the wealth and selling off the patria.
Those who are continuing this
neoliberal plan, continue now with another color and
with another name, but they are carrying out the same plan, and it's the National
Action Party - PAN.
It is not true that it's a
government of change. Their plans are worse for our peoples, because once again
they are promoting structural reforms so they can continue selling off what is
left of the rest of our national sovereignty.
The change they told us so
much about is just promises. It would seem that more than 15 minutes have
passed, and the problems and demands of the people are still unresolved, just
as they were demanded before these last 5 years.
We cannot expect anything for
the people from these politicians and these political parties. They have sown
much despair, much mistrust, because we were once again mocked through words
and promises.
Because the current
government of that change did the same things as the previous ones did.
With Carlos Salinas de
Gortari and that dream of entering the first world and with his family
solidarity and with the
With
Vicente Fox with his opportunities with little shops and the famous change and
nothing.
And now
with this señor,
the commissioner for peace Luis H. Álvarez. The program is being used to wage a counterinsurgency
campaign accompanied by some corrupt persons who pass themselves off as leaders
and representatives of the PRI in different places in our region.
With the leftovers from
Martha Sahagún and from Vicente Fox when they travel
to other countries to lie in the name of the Mexican people that there is
democracy in
That business about poverty
being finished is just lies. Proof of that is that there is deep discontent
among workers in the countryside and in the city, and they are saying no to
privatization of electric energy and no to privatization of social security.
And what more can we say
about the PRD? We have a list of what they've done to us.
They deceived us that they
were a party of the left and that they were fighting for the demands of the
people.
We believed they were a
referent for opposition against the state party system.
But we realized we were
wrong, that it wasn't true.
Another thing they did was
that they made an agreement with the PRI, PAN and the PRD against the Cocopa law. If they were capable of doing that - after
centuries of our being denied - what would they do with the selling of our
national sovereignty?
In addition to this,
everything the PRD itself has done in other states, but especially in
Because of all this, we have
seen that the three main political parties have the same plans and interests,
but how good that they are doing that now.
That way the people of
But after this, when any of
these gentlemen reach power they forget everything, except the lucrative salary
they receive every month and everything they steal and keep until the end of
their term.
We are sure of all that, but
for the Mexican people they are demonstrating quite clearly to us that what
they are interested in is making money.
We have already seen that the
PRD is no longer a party of the left, because when the Cocopa
law was voted on and approved, it made agreements with the corrupt PRI-PAN
parties, and they then showed us their complicity, and they did not pay any
attention to the need for so many years for the constitutional recognition of
indigenous rights and culture, it is not decades they have denied us, but
centuries. And the PRD did not pay any attention, and they betrayed the hope of
millions of Mexican indigenous, denying us our rights, our culture which
belongs to us as the Mexican indigenous we are, deceived by those parties and
those politicians.
And the
engineer Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas. One May 15, 1994, if I remember correctly, he also
committed himself to doing something for our demands and to being steadfast
with the Zapatista cause.
So, what can we expect of
these señors?
That is why it is worthwhile to join our forces and to fight together so the
impossible will be possible and to go to great effort to make another form of
doing politics.
That is all our words.
Thank you very much.
September, month of the
Patria
Words of Comandante Zebedeo
Compañeras and Compañeros
Everyone who has joined and
those who will be joining the Sixth Declaration of the Selva
Lacandona, in the name of the CCRI-CG of the EZLN and
in the name of the men, women, young people, children and old ones, support
bases, we address you.
Compañeras and compañeros,
we would like to tell you that in these almost eleven years of struggle against
the forgetting, against marginalization and against extermination, "here
we are." We have not surrendered, nor have we sold out. We will not sell
out, nor will we surrender, because we are quite convinced that out struggle has just causes for the poor of
The living conditions of
workers from the countryside and the city - and for the teachers, workers,
students, housewives, doctors, truck drivers, campesinos, day workers,
unemployed, indigenous, street children, religious persons, intellectuals,
homosexuals, lesbians and artists - are increasingly worse, with pain, poverty,
hunger, deaths from curable illnesses and contempt against this great majority.
While the exploiters
are increasingly fewer in number and richer, because they are hoarding the
wealth of our nation.
Faced with this
indiscriminate appropriation by the rich, we are obliged to speak our words in
this Sixth Declaration for the purpose of joining our struggles, in order to
walk together without regard to color, creed or race.
We are workers from the
countryside and the city who have the physical circumstances and the knowledge
to produce and to make what our society needs. Seeing this immense capacity of
the men and women of the countryside and of the city, we are capable of
creating wealth to support our country. That is why we believe that the
solution for this great injustice we are suffering is on our side and it is in
our hands, because we have already seen that we can't expect anything good from
the government.
Throughout these centuries of
mockeries and deceptions, the wealthy have enriched themselves at the cost of
the workers of the countryside and the city.
In the countryside we suffer
from low prices for our goods, and in the city they suffer from unemployment
and low wages.
On this long path, we have
all separately sought a solution, and the response to all of this has been
mockery, deception, repression, incarceration, torture and disappearances.
These black histories of
struggle which we have passed through were not the best path, and they should
not be repeated.
Do we have to repeat another
500 years of resistance against the forgetting and marginalization? Do we have
to continue to be willing to put up with more years of corrupt politicians and
those who sell off our Patria? If what they showed us was that when we fought
against injustices and for our rights we were accused and persecuted like
criminals and traitors to the Patria.
This is what really happened,
and it continues to happen in our country, and we should no longer keep
allowing them to continue with their projects of death.
Because the hour has come to
unite our forces, our struggles, our thoughts, our ideas, our hearts, our
faith, our hopes of some day experiencing a real change in our lives.
We know the risks and the
cost this can bring to us Zapatistas, but we have decided to take them.
It does not matter what
happens if that is the price that is needed for doing away with injustice.
We also recognize the
experiences of all your struggles, of all the organizations and the social
movements that each of you have had during this time which has now passed, and
we believe each organization had the capacity to plan and organize a movement.
You have had experience in
the organizational practice of each movement which each organization had, and
we must make these experiences greater from this day forward.
Once again we repeat our call
to struggle together in the face of a common enemy, taking into account the
long bridge of resistance and not falling into conformity, into competition,
into divisionism and into corruption.
We should never allow the enemy's
desires to be realized.
We should struggle and we
should impose the desires of the exploited.
These have been our words