Fund Bronx-based artists, "Rebel Diaz," to Play on Black Mesa



A film by Misha Scott from 2012. Misha created this small project while staying on Clarence and Mary Lou Blackrock's lands in Cactus Valley, Big Mountain. Misha wanted to convey Mr. & Mrs. Blackrock's story about their choice to resist federal government order to relocate. Traditional Dineh knowing their ancient existence realized that the coal company were involved deeply.

SINCE 1974, Public Law 93-531 (the relocation law) has forcefully relocated tens of thousands of Dineh (Navajo) and several hundred Hopi people from their ancestral homeland in Arizona. Generations have been impacted by the loss of grazing areas and the intentional break up of this community. This is the largest relocation of Indigenous people in this country since the Trail of Tears and it is ongoing. This corporate colonialism was falsely presented to the outside world as a land dispute between the Dineh and Hopi.

This genocidal policy was crafted by government agents and energy company representatives in order to gain access to the mineral resources of Black Mesa – billions of tons of low sulfur coal. For over 30 years, traditional Dine’ at Black Mesa have lived in resistance, steadfastly refusing to relocate as strip-mines rip apart their sacred lands and generating plants poison the desert air.

Led by Big Mountain/Black Mesa community members and in collaboration with organizers from other front line resistance communities, Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) is coordinating a land-based gathering on Black Mesa from June 3-9th. A Black Mesa community member is using a four directions planning model to guide the process of shaping the goals, conversations, projects, and structure of the gathering. A family who has been resisting forced relocation for over four decades due to Peabody Coal Mine's operations has offered to host the gathering. Work such as rebuilding roads, hogans, corals, shearing and herding sheep, and planting corn will connect participants to resistance based in a traditional, land-based lifeway.

Through centering the Big Mountain/Black Mesa struggle for self-determination, cultural survival, and the right to remain on ancestral homelands, the aim of the gathering is to link this struggle to other social, racial, environmental, migrant and climate justice movements. Members of Black Mesa/Big Mountain resistance community have asked the theme and practice of decolonization frame the work parties, workshops, discussions, art and cultural sharing. By fostering creative, spiritually and culturally grounded modes of coming together, we hope to generate tangible cross movement connections toward a common struggle.
Groups involved in the planning process/ planning on attending range from Palestinian Youth Movement, (Un)Occupy Albuquerque, Hawaiian Sovereignty movement, Ka Lei Maile Ali'i, Radical Action for Mountain Peoples Survival, Seventh Native American Generation (SNAG), Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, Sixth World Indigenous Peoples Organization.

Funds raised here will help bring Bronx-based grassroots hip hop artists and youth organizers, Rebel Diaz, to Black Mesa for this gathering to play a show and collaborate on a song about the Black Mesa struggle. 

Now go to the link to contribute:
http://www.rockethub.com/projects/25738-fund-rebel-diaz-to-play-on-black-mesa

Global Wars & A Broken Sacred Hoop at Big Mtn.

Global Wars and the Broken Sacred Hoop at Big Mountain

By Bahe “Kat” Katenay, May 1, 2013

Today, we all live in a world that is in turmoil and in constant war. But unfortunately, this world or “our world” is not new to this kind of atmosphere of instability. World history and religious accounts like the Bible have shown examples of such chaotic and brutal human existence. All the news about today’s wars are quite new to us citizens on Turtle Island (so-called America) because ‘normally’ wars were fought elsewhere. The many aspects of “U.S. sponsored interventions” in the last half-a-century with economic and military aggressions have only brought wars to the streets of Turtle Island. Network media has influenced majority of society to ignore any other probable facts about these secret international affairs.

Secondly, there is that state of the world that has institutionalized destruction of the environment and indigenous cultures, and this is taking place at an alarming rate and all because of the growing demands for industrial consumption. That is a war on planet earth’s eco-systems and on the few remaining land-based human cultures and religion. It is a war because riot police and counter intelligent agencies are implementing a state of seize on something that was known as “guaranteed constitutional and civil rights.” Citizens try to mobilize to bring attention to the injustices and the industrial threats, but their “freedom” to do so are overridden by corporate justices of tear gases, silencing of the message, marginalization, and even brutality of imprisonment and mental tortures.

 

 

 

Finally, the third stage of wars is within us. We have each become so individualistic that we reject the old human practices of collectivity and following the foundations of faith. We may think that this is not as dangerous or as destructive as militarily-executed wars, but they are. I am absolutely not talking about so-called terrorist or those mental disorder induced rage, but I am talking about our inner self, our soul perhaps, are altered by pop culture, mass media, materialistic comforts, and institutionalized racism. It is probably not appropriate to use the so-called Native Americans as an example, since they are less than one percent of the U.S. population, but these indigenous communities’ integrity and natural pride has all been conquered within a span of a half century. These former red nations of Turtle Island have adapted to the American identity and on a daily basis, they celebrate this (foreign) military culture and consume America’s artificial illusions. Individualistic based wars within these small grouped communities promote progressive tribal members to invoke subtle forms of prejudice on those who try to advocate for the purity of traditional culture and ritual practices.

 

 

Another extension of this individuality based war are those based on faith of a superior race and which is not new at all either. However, as far as America is concern, I would have to say that (they) do have a legitimate claim about what “America” should be. The U.S. constitution and its Bill of Rights were designed primarily for the white colonies and for its big white government. “We the People” did not mean Africans or the Indians (colored people) and so the U.S. declaration of independence established barriers of segregation so that, colored people can be considered as and treated accordingly as the inferior races. This particular conflict or war is intensifying because of the unfortunate (fortunately maybe to many) circumstances that the U.S. government has been faltering on its superior race obligations. On this continent, the intensification of this uprising has a hidden effect, and it ‘maybe’ played out in certain and current political activities like the legislations for gun control and immigration.



Obviously, much discussion and debate can be elaborated on but this Blog has been dedicated to the point of view from, perhaps one lone aboriginal habitant of Turtle Island, or from a larger representation of indigenous existence. And back to northeastern Arizona at a place called Big Mountain, where there are at least 100 - 300 of us who still proclaim our intimate and ancient bond to the natural forces of earth, sky and air. We still remain after thousands of our fellow Dineh have been relocated or killed off by the US’s psychological warfare policies. We still walk upon earth’s enduring natural beauty and tending to the little culture and rituals that has been spared by America’s war and industrial machines. There are also about 40 non-Natives supporters that come here on a yearly-seasonal base to help the old Dineh who cling on to what the U.S. government considers as illegal like having livestock, dry farming and residing on lands of their birth. And 40 years before, Big Mountain had prospered with a total population of nearly 5,000. Now the ancient cultural and ritual ways, the language, the family teachings of honor, and a few down-to-earth, Dineh Christians are rapidly disappearing.

The struggle at Big Mountain is now so minute compared to other indigenous culture-based and land-based resistance like Chiapas and South America’s indigenous movements. However, my home, Big Mountain, now holds a self-destructive element, which does not have to do with American patriotism, but it has to do with narrow mindedness toward false luxuries. This self-destructive element creates a struggle within a larger struggle that is already weakening. It is like a body struggling against a disease but then there is a certain organ inside the body that is infected and it struggles to maintain a function. The U.S. Public Law 93-531partitioned these Dineh and Hopi lands, here, and it only has one sole purpose, which is to extract coal for America’s addiction to electricity. And this is the implanted virus. Dineh who falsely feel they have escaped the forced relocation policies are ignorantly chosen to forget about their own elders’ struggle a few miles away. These Dineh, despite claiming themselves as religiously committed by chanting “To All My Relations,” they now reject vigorously the calls and reasoning from those in resistance. I, as a longtime spokesman and ethnographer for the traditional resistance, have only become the enemy among my own peoples. My voice of sovereignty and survival are like venom to them just because they fear the laws of the U.S. war machines. War brings complex decisions between primary and instant objectives and how to execute them, but still we are all on the same donkey, neither a camel nor boat.

What hope is there now? We have held such hopes for the last 40 plus years, but we asked why? Our most recent histories was that the imperial Europeans came with their weapons of mass destruction against our weapons of little or no damage. I have stood with my traditional Dineh and my traditional Hopi neighbors, and we have survived somewhat. Now the war has come to me personally, it comes against my disciplines of Dineh tradition, against my family and against my hopes. I am sure some of you may share this same experience of the threats, the misunderstanding and the ignorance from your own kind, and especially when you think that you have sacrificed enough for the healing. One can only stand strong and maintain humble thoughts before the Creator, and try as hard as possible to not be overcome by the colonized minds. Though, it is the End either in Biblical term or in terms of indigenous prophecy we have to accept those terms. We cannot resort to some temporary relief from techno-drugs or indulge in certain desires and there will be no escape. However, there is still that hope to collectively and in faith stand up to the war policies against the earth and to the greed of progressive tribal puppet governments. Relatives, the alternative path to peace and balance may still await.

© sheepdognationMedia, byk, 2013       

The Forgotten "1973 Wake-Up Call" as Modern Dineh ("Navajos") Prefer Colonized Dreams

IN HONOR OF DINEH WARRIOR'S SACRIFICE IN MARCH OF 1973,

LARRY CASUSE.

 

The same time that the Wounded Knee 1973 battle, between the indigenous Red Nations of the Western Hemisphere and the U. S. Corporate Military, was taking place in South Dakota. Larry and his brother decided "enough is enough!" and they declared war on the City of Gallup's corporate racism. Please, read for yourself the forgotten stories of Indian Pride below, articles from the "Navajo Times."

  

 

Big Mountain SDN Survival School, 20 Year Anniversary

All distracting politics aside, It's A Matter of the Future Generations! Re-occuppy the Ancestral Homelands, it's Their Future! SDN Survival School, not controlled by the state but a sovereign right.

https://vimeo.com/54057878

Useless Politics Aside: Now, Its A Matter of the Future Generations! Pt.2

Big Mountain Dineh Country, Black Mesa, AZ - Of all the political activISM and some with lies about solidarity, love, peace, liberation, and elders especially in regards to the Big Mountain, the indigenous struggle that were based on sovereignty and wisdoms of the earth are not honored but instead are ignored. This being committed by both indigenous and non-Native volunteer "activists." What should be more alarming to the faith of indigenous sovereign survival is that the future generations and the innocent little ones are being left out of the whole picture of activISM! Every protest actions or outlining of politic strategies are normally designed for older teens, other categories of youths, urban Indians, and for American Indian minded registered voters.

There are no events of cultural empowerment and inspiration that I hear about that are geared toward the little children, our indigenous children. Sure I hear about school programs that are overseen by foreign governments and states. In terms of resistance and de-colonialization, adults and urban youths are all focused on or distracted by confronting the policies of injustice and racISM elsewhere but are not being carried out on the ancestral lands that we still occupy.

Today, a very few of us are putting together a two and half day gathering and celebration that is completely focused on the little children who are descendants of and/or related to the Big Mountain Dineh resistance to coal mining, global warming, genocide, and laws of relocation. On behalf of the few remaining elders in resistance and extended family members that value the continued occupation of our ancestral territories, I ask you to continue reading this very important information about supporting this celebration of: aboriginal status, treaty rights status and two days dedicated to the our little ones. Among the few activities provided for them they will be assisted to be creative and learn about who they are and where they come from. [Nbyk, Sheepdog Media]

August 2012


RE: October 6 – 7, 2012 Big Mountain Survival School Remembrance Gathering

Dear Friend,

You are receiving this letter because, in some way, we are connected through the Traditional Dine/ Hopi resistance to the desecration of Black Mesa.

Who am I? My name is Martha Bourke and I have been engaged in raising public awareness of the ongoing issues at Black Mesa and supporting the resistance for 25+ years. First, through the Big Mountain Support Group that included: publishing the “Big Mountain News,” twice bringing caravans to the Spring Survival Gathering (1982 – 1986), assisted as a coordinator for the Weaving for Freedom Project - “Women in Resistance” (1986 – 1996), core facilitator for the Sovereign Dineh Nation (SDN) Survival School 1989 – 92, and helper on two delegations to the Peabody shareholders meetings (London, 1999 & NYC, 2001). In 2007, I raised the funds to provide a kitchen at the 30 year anniversary for the Big Mountain Resistance.

Today, I am reaching out to you to help support this October’s SDN Survival School. This is an anniversary of sorts; it’s been 20 years since the last Survival School. But I am raising funds/supplies with the intention of this being a NEW beginning.

The SDN survival school was a traditional and contemporary arts and crafts day camp that was held for several weeks each summer 1989 – 1992, and which was hosted by the SDN-Big Mountain Survival Camp / Resistance Outpost. We served 50+ children (including providing shuttle, snacks etc.), creating a space where families from “both sides of the fence” could experience multi-generational recreation in a culturally supportive context which provided respite from the stresses and divisions created by relocation policies. As well as develop opportunities where families on the Land, visiting family members and supporters could experience positive outcomes in the face of what continues to be the slow grind of Genocide.

A young woman, a mom herself now who saw me at this year’s Big Mountain Sundance, was reminiscing and told me, “I’ve never tasted a cheese sandwich as good as the ones you made at Survival School.” I hugged her close and said, “Sweetheart, it WASN”T the sandwich…it was the GOOD feelings!” In the few weeks that I have been working on this, here are some comments from people who participated as children between 1989 and 1992….

“Awee, I remember those times.. fun crafts and pottery making... my all time favorite was making masks.. n decorating em... also candle making on the roof of the underground storage room....”

“I think this might have been my initial inspiration for community based youth programs and youth empowerment. FUN TIMES!”

Each time I have been to Big Mountain in the past decade, more grannies are speaking English and less children refer to themselves as Dineh. Also more recently, numerous requests from some resister, family members about activities of this sort has made me feel committed, again, to make the SDN Survival School happen again. Thus, I look forward to once again work together with these Dineh and other new faces.

Support we are looking for:

Funds - for foods, art supplies, to haul firewood & water, rent a generator, canvas shelter,
Materials - Art supplies in general and specifically, watercolors, brushes, ass’t paper, beads, bath towels and straw mats for felting,
Instructors / Helpers - Folks who have a traditional or contemporary art/ craft/ skill to share either half or full day projects geared towards elementary, middle school and youths.

I have a gifted elementary art instructor (who has a history on the land) interested in doing watercolors and printmaking; paper and t-shirts. I’ve spoken with a Dineh from the land re: herbal knowledge and another Dineh person spoke with me about felting and beading.

Audio/Visual Assistance -We want someone to manage and setup for an outdoor movie night, or either taking complete responsibility or working with me (so I can know what is needed and try to get equipment here in Taos).

So this year while most will be enjoying a three day weekend in “honor” of Columbus…let us come together to Reactivate, Revitalize, Rededicate the sovereign oriented efforts of Dine land-base learning.

Who Is Invited: Non-Native volunteer and instructors, Dineh kids and youth with their families who are affected by relocation and cultural displacement. It is emphasized that you provide your own camping supplies and transportation.

Agenda Overview - Saturday Oct 6th will be devoted to crafts, games and a movie night. Sunday October 7th we will be ecological, culture hike to the original Survival Camp site and have more activities.

Twenty years after the last Survival School…..Twenty years after the great swell of awareness re: indigenous struggle in the face of the celebrating Columbus…..Won’t you support / join in honoring the Dine spirit of resistance…..


Contact: Martha Bourke - 575-758-7045

sdnsurvives@hotmail.com

Useless Politics Aside, Now It's A Matter of Indigenous Survival! Pt. 3

“Nomads of Papua”

An adventurous associate of my sent me a brief message [below] about his travels and making more short documentaries for French Television programming.


I, as an indigenous being that face transition in this fast moving, fast deteriorating techno-modern world and as well as, a being witnessing his former land-base culture dying, I have some hope for planet earth when I see some isolated humans still living in balance and sustainably.

I shall only continue to hope and pray that there will be some sense of indigenous humanity left in this capitalistic monster, the US of A, when I am long gone. Meantime, I only pray for my own and my children’s positivity that we will carry on the natural fires, the prayer stones, the skill to make stone points and its arrows and bows, and to carry the knowledge of cooking over the right kind of wood charcoals and to make the proper prayers to the Great Grandmother Fire.

Finally, this quote:

“Another world, unsettling, the one from which they come probably.”

I am amazed that my fellow adventurer states this even as a French citizen and I feel that such a statement is so contrary to the American thought or the Native American thought of today. Majority of modern Native Americans think they only come for that materialistic consumer world and have no clue of ever coming from a natural, harmonized eco-system. –Nbyk, SDMmedia.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“Hello Kat,


“How are you?

“I just come back from Papua where people still cut stones like in Palaeolithic age

“Next year, I plan to cross Mexico on the "silver road" and to finish in the USA around Santa Fe. Maybe we'll meet again.

“Tell me more about the future of your people. How do you manage with the mine? How is it going for Mary Lou and Clarence?

“Cheers,

“Chris”

“Korowais live in trees, in high houses no car, yet on roads. No bike, yet workable tracks. Two legs to say that they are man and the conopée for skyline. Another world, unsettling, the one from which they come probably.”

http://www.christophe-cousin.com/

(Photographs from filming accomplished for documentary series “The New Explorers – Christophe Cousin in Papua.”)

Useless Politics Aside, Now It's A Matter of Indigenous Survival! Pt. 4

International Call for Solidarity with Zapatista Support Bases of San Marcos Aviles

Written by Jessica Davies, Thursday, 02 August 2012

“It is not only the task of the independent/alternative media to circulate the truth, but rather it is the responsibility of us all to do so.”


“Our compas from San Marcos Avilés are suffering this violence because they are indigenous, because they are Zapatistas, and because they have opened their own autonomous school."

Terror hangs in the air of San Marcos Avilés, a small indigenous Tzeltal-speaking community located in the highland region of the state of Chiapas, in southeastern Mexico. The women, men and children from the community have sent out an urgent call to the world for support, a call that echoes in our very heartbeat and demands our solidarity, “as if it were said in the very language of our being”.


This urgent message comes from the nearly 200 Zapatista support bases members (BAZ) in San Marcos Avilés, who are fighting to live according to their own indigenous culture and struggling for freedom, justice, democracy and a dignified life for all. But they are faced with men with firearms and other weapons who intend to eradicate all that the Zapatistas represent and believe in.

Background


The nightmare of terror began in August 2010, when the BAZ constructed a small wooden building to house their new autonomous school, named ‘Emiliano Zapata’. The Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Education System is, along with their other autonomous systems of health and collective work, one of the most well-known achievements of the organisation, and of crucial importance as the BAZ work towards the construction of their own autonomy. Not only can the children learn according to their own culture, knowledge, and traditions; wear their customary clothing, speak their own languages and eat their traditional foods; but they can also learn the truth about their own history and situation. Learning is a shared experience, enjoyed together, without competition, judgement, or hierarchy.

“We attach great importance to the autonomous school”, say the BAZ of San Marcos Avilés. “We want a good education for our children, good learning, a good example. We see that the government has its schools, but it is not good education, nor do they teach our children well; they do not provide good learning, and what they teach has nothing to do with us. So we opened our school ...”


The attacks on the BAZ began immediately after the construction of the school. Members of the Mexican political parties the PRI, PRD and PVEM, in armed “attack groups”, encouraged by the three levels of government, began to threaten and harass the community, attempting to rape the women, steal their land and possessions, and plunder their crops and livestock.

Within two months the attacks had reached such a level of violence that 170 BAZ, many of them women and children, were forcibly displaced from the community and had to take refuge on a mountain in the area. Here they lived exposed to the elements—under pieces of plastic sheeting, sleeping on the ground in the mud without any basic necessities, “we had no tortillas to eat; we had no pozol to drink”, through 33 days of wet, cold and hunger. During this period two of the women gave birth.

“I speak for all my fellow women: we are suffering a lot with our children. They do not take us into account, they see us like animals, like dogs. So I was told when I had my son in the mountains. That's what really hurts in my heart. We hope to move the hearts of our fellow women when they see this video”.


When groups from neighbouring communities and the local Human Rights Centre assembled to escort the BAZ back to their homes, the BAZ found that their dwellings, belongings, plantations of corn, beans, bananas, sugar cane and coffee, and their few chickens and cattle, had been destroyed, plundered or stolen. Since that time the Zapatistas of San Marcos Avilés have lived in a state of trauma and terror, enduring constant threats, attacks, violations and insults. The emotional and psychological well being of the women, unable to provide for their children, is one of especially profound concern.

Statement from the Good Government Council (JBG) of Oventic


“We denounce,” they wrote in July, 2011, “the events now occurring in this community. …..Our compañeros and compañeras, the Zapatista support bases of San Marcos Avilés, are living in a very difficult situation, in their own community, caused by people affiliated with different political parties and by the authorities of the same community…… they are facing death threats, harassment, loss of their cultivated lands, and evictions from their own community, purely because they started to set up an autonomous education system for their people.

“The aggressors also put our coffee fields up for sale, at a price of 14,000 pesos per hectare, in order to get money to buy more firearms….. The amount of land our compañeros have now been deprived of is 31¼ hectares and 8,500 coffee trees; all of this is now in the possession of the aggressors from the political parties.


“In this situation of aggression, threats and theft of their land faced by our compas …..they have endured many injustices made against them and have shown great patience in not responding with violence. And neither have we….responded violently in word or deed to these attacks and threats, because the Zapatistas are people of reason and principles and we do not want to fight our own indigenous brothers and sisters. But the bad governors of our State and our country seek at all costs that among the indigenous we see our brothers and sisters as enemies and kill each other.

“The bad government has done absolutely nothing to resolve and prevent the serious problems which could happen in this community; what the state and municipal governments have done is to support and back the attackers so they can continue provoking, threatening and stripping our Zapatista support bases of their belongings. There are no signs of this aggressive and arrogant attitude of the bad governors and their people coming to an end.

“All the aggressions, persecutions and provocations are committed by those people affiliated to the different political parties, and by the paramilitaries supported, advised and paid by the municipal, state and federal governments who are the masterminds of these human rights violations.


“Our support base compas of the community of San Marcos Aviles …….have the right be in their own community and to work the land which belongs to them…….They should not think that they will stop the struggle of the Zapatistas for the construction of our autonomy and for national liberation with provocation, threats, assaults and persecution, because whatever the cost, and whatever happens, we will continue to go forward, as is our right…..And we demand that they [the BAZ] be respected and that their stolen belongings be returned to them”.
What are the Issues Here?


The words of the newly released Call to Action leave no room for doubt:

“We stress here that these attacks are not isolated incidents, but rather are integral components of the prolonged war of extermination that the bad government of Mexico, together with capitalist interests, has carried out for the past 18 years to wipe out the Zapatista movement and all it has given to the world.

“The objectives of this war have been and remain to continue the colonial project and destroy at any cost indigenous autonomy and resistance, and take over their ancestral lands, and in this way, exploit for the exclusive benefit of those from above the natural resources with which our Mother Earth provides us.

“Repression, violence, and death are meted out by the bad government of Mexico to those who resist this, who defend their lands, their identities, their cultures, and autonomy – their very existence.

“Our compas from San Marcos Avilés are suffering this violence because they are indigenous, because they are Zapatistas, and because they have opened their own autonomous school.”

There is also the issue of land, the most basic and essential resource, vital to people’s sense of history and identity, home of their ancestors, source of their culture, and means of their survival. In this case, the BAZ of San Marcos Avilés bought the land twelve years ago and have the title deeds to prove it. As throughout Zapatista territory, however, this does not stop the governments from giving the land to others in return for driving out what the powerful most fear: the threat of a good example.

"We want there to be happiness in our lives and in the lives of our children. We want to have corn that is no longer stolen. We want tranquillity to be able to grow our pumpkins on our land. We want to find peace again in our hearts, and we want to eat with love what we have."

The Current Crisis

In recent weeks, the situation of threats and aggressions has intensified to the point where a repetition of the events of 2010, or worse, is feared at any time. The lives of the BAZ of San Marcos Avilés are seriously at risk, along with their dignified struggle for a better world.


Their urgent call for solidarity has been taken up by one of the most effective, experienced, admired and inspiring campaigning organisations struggling for justice at a grassroots level, the Movement for Justice in El Barrio (MJB), of the Other Campaign New York.

“Particularly in the past few days, more threats against the Zapatista support base members have taken place in San Marcos Avilés. The culprits remain an attack group of political party members, who have stated that they will kidnap authorities of the Zapatista community, and in this way, forcefully displace the support base members from the ejido. They have also made threats against those who denounce these acts of aggression and harassment, claiming that they will incarcerate them. It is feared that another wide-scale displacement of the community, similar to the one that took place in 2010, will occur”.

The MJB first released a powerfully moving and shocking video, in Tzeltal with Spanish and English subtitles, in which the compas of San Marcos Avilés tell their own story.


“They think we are worthless. They treat us badly, like animals. They do what they want with us. That is still happening now. When we sow our maize, we cannot take it home. They come to steal our beans, cane ... bananas, they steal everything. All we do is sow and work and there is nothing….

“We cannot enjoy the fruits of our labour with our children, because…members of the political parties PRI, PRD, and PAN are eating it ….on the orders of bad government.

“The parties do not want the Zapatista organization in the ejido San Marcos. According to them, we set a bad example. They showed they want the organization to disappear. We will continue our struggle, there is no choice, because we are not committing any crime ... because we have the right to struggle to be taken into account. Freedom, justice and peace is what we are asking for. But we are not afraid because we know quite clearly what we are looking for and how we want to live”.

This story evoked a response from all corners of the world. The MJB followed it up on July 27th, 2012, with the launch of a worldwide campaign: “Worldwide Echo in Support of the Zapatistas: Freedom and Justice for San Marcos Avilés and Sántiz López”

The campaign will be in two phases. The first, an intense period of education, dubbed “Walking the True Word,” of which this article is part, is to be followed by a phase of direct action.


The call also symbolically includes all Zapatista support bases, especially those from other communities which are also under attack. For this reason the MJB also calls for freedom and justice for the Zapatista prisoner of conscience Francisco Sántiz López, who has been imprisoned since December 2011 for crimes it has been proved he did not commit. Francisco comes from the community of Banavil, Tenejapa. In the video message, the BAZ of San Marcos Avilés call for the liberation of all political prisoners.

In true Zapatista fashion, the MJB call on the people of the world to set up Committees of the True Word, in whatever ways they can, in order to inform, educate and help raise awareness of the current situation of crisis in San Marcos Avilés. The Movement also undertakes to “share all reports we receive with the community of San Marcos, so that they know they are not alone”.

“We believe that the true word and knowledge are very important for the struggles of those from below—it is not only the task of the independent/alternative media to circulate truth, but rather it is the responsibility of us all to do so…..Education and knowledge are also tools and weapons in the struggle for justice, dignity, and democracy—they are nothing less than the forms in which we will construct this new world we seek.”

And in the words of the BAZ of San Marcos, "perhaps one day, together, we may attain what we are fighting for - that there be a dignified justice."

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW:



- Watch the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY-8CBt3Vkg

Show it to everyone you know. Organise a screening. Circulate it widely.

- Inform yourselves. Look at the website http://sanmarcosavilesen.wordpress.com/

Circulate the Call for Action to all your contacts and social networks.

- Set up a Committee of the True Word

Let the MJB know you have done so on

laotranuevayork(at)yahoo.com