>I thought some of you might be interested in this. So lets see how it
>shakes out.
>
> Steve Gotzler
>
>
> July 1, 2005
> Please Distribute Widely
>
> Read this declaration in The Narco News Bulletin:
>
> http://www.narconews.com
>
> ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION, MEXICO.
>
> (SIXTH DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE)
>
> (Translated by Narco News)
> VI. HOW WE ARE GOING TO DO IT
>
> And, well, this is our simple word that we speak to the humble and
> simple people of Mexico and of the world, and it is through this word
> that we now call:
>
> The Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.
>
> And here we are to say, with our simple word, that:
>
> The EZLN continues its commitment toward an offensive cease-fire and
> will not attack any governmental force nor carry out offensive military
> maneuvers;
>
> The EZLN continues, still, its commitment to insisting on the path of
> political struggle with this peaceful proposal that we now make. As
> such, the EZLN will continue in its belief in not making any secret
> alliance with national politico-military organizations nor those of
> other countries;
>
>
>
> The EZLN reiterates it commitment to defend, support, and obey the
> Zapatista indigenous communities that create it and that are its
> supreme command, and, without interfering in its internal democratic
> processes and in the measurement of its possibilities, to contribute to
> the strengthening of its autonomy, good government, and improvement of
> living conditions.
>
> That is to say, what we are going to create in Mexico and in the world
> we will create without weapons, through a peaceful, through a peaceful
> civil movement, yet without ignoring nor abandoning our communities.
>
> Therefore:
>
> In the world...
>
> 1. We will build more relationships of respect and mutual aid with
> people and organizations that resist and fight against neoliberalism
> and for humankind.
>
> 2. In accordance with our abilities we will send material support such
> as food and crafts to those brothers and sisters who struggle
> throughout the world.
>
> To begin, we are going to ask the Good Government Council of La
> Realidad to lend us the bus named "Chompiras" with a capacity of
> something like eight tons, and we will fill it with corn and maybe with
> two tanks, each with two liters of gasoline or oil, depending on what
> is called for, and we are going to deliver it to the Cuban embassy in
> Mexico to send to the Cuban people as aid from the Zapatistas during
> the United States' blockade.
>
> Or perhaps there is a place closer to here where we can deliver it
> because it's a long trip to Mexico City and what happens if the good
> bus "Chompiras" breaks down? We would be in bad sorts. And it would
> stay that way until the harvest that right now is growing green in the
> cornfield and, if they don't attack us, we will send corn on the cob in
> the months to come which doesn't ship well in the form of tamales, so
> it's better to send it in November or December, the people say.
>
> And we will also make a deal with the women's crafts cooperatives to
> send some knits to the Europes that might already not be a Union, and
> maybe we'll also send some organic coffee from the Zapatista
> cooperative so that they can sell it and make a little money to pay for
> their struggle. And if it doesn't sell, well, they can always make a
> little coffee and discuss the fight against neoliberalism, and if it
> gets cold they can cover themselves with the Zapatista knittings so
> that they won't fade of color after being stonewashed.
>
> And to the indigenous brothers and sisters of Bolivia and Ecuador we
> will also send a little non-transgenic corn but we still don't know
> where to send it so that it arrives at its destination but we are ready
> to send this little bit of aid.
>
> 3. And to everyone throughout the world who resists we say that there
> have to be other intercontinental gatherings, even if there is only
> one. Maybe in December of this year or in January of next year, we have
> to think about it. We don't want to give an exact date, or place, or
> decide who comes or how it is done, because this is about making
> horizontal agreements among us all. But we don't want it with a stage
> from where just a few speak and everyone else listens, but, rather,
> that there not be a stage, that it all be at ground-level, but well
> ordered because if not well organized there will just be a lot of noise
> and no one will understand the word. And with a good organization,
> everyone can listen, and they can write down in their notebooks the
> words of resistance that others tell so that later each participant can
> talk it over with their colleagues in their worlds.
>
> And we think that it ought to be in a place where there is a very big
> prison, because it could be that they repress us and jail us, and that
> we not all be on horseback but, rather, prisoners, but, in any case,
> well organized. And from there in jail we can continue the
> intercontinental gathering for humankind and against neoliberalism.
>
> So, in the future we will announce how we can come to agreement on
> this. Well, that is how we think about doing what we want to do in the
> world. On to the next point...
>
> In Mexico...
>
> 1. We will continue fighting for the Indian peoples of Mexico but not
> only for them nor only with them, but, rather, for all the exploited
> and dispossessed in Mexico, with all of them, and throughout the entire
> country. And when we speak of all the exploited of Mexico we are also
> speaking of the brothers and sisters who have had to go to the United
> States to seek work in order to survive.
>
> 2. We are going to listen to and speak directly, without middlemen nor
> mediations, to the simple and humble Mexican people, and depending on
> what we hear and learn, we will construct, together with these people
> who are like us, humble and simple, a national fight plan, but a plan
> that will, clearly, be of the left, which is to say anti-capitalist, or
> anti-neoliberal, or which is also to say in favor of justice, democracy
> and freedom for the Mexican people.
>
> 3. We will try to construct or reconstruct another way of practicing
> politics, in the spirit of serving others, without material interests,
> with sacrifice, with dedication, with honesty, a way that keeps it
> word, or, that is to say, in the same way that militants of the left -
> who were not stopped by violence, jail or death, and much less with
> offers of dollar bills - have done it.
>
> 4. We will also keep looking at ways to rise up; a fight to demand that
> we create a new Constitution, or, that is to say, new laws that take
> our demands, those of the Mexican people, into account, which are:
> housing, land, work, food, health, education, information, culture,
> independence, democracy, justice, freedom and peace. A new Constitution
> that recognizes the rights and liberties of the people, and that
> defends the weak against the powerful.
>
> Therefore:
>
> The EZLN will send a delegation to do this job throughout national
> territory, for an undefined period of time. This Zapatista delegation,
> together with people of the left who join with this Sixth Declaration
> of the Lacandon Jungle, will go to those places to where we are
> expressly invited.
>
> We also announce that the EZLN will establish a policy of having
> alliances with non-electoral movements and organizations that define
> themselves, in theory and practice, as of the left, according to the
> following conditions:
>
> No making of agreements from above to impose upon those below, but,
> rather, they should make agreements to advance together and to listen
> and to organize indignation;
>
> No to beginning movements that will be later negotiated away behind the
> backs of those who made them, but, rather, they should take into
> account, always, the opinions of those who participate in them;
>
> No to seeking little gifts, jobs, advantages, patronage, of Power or of
> those who aspire to it, but, rather, they should go farther than the
> electoral calendars allow;
>
> No to trying to resolve from above the problems of our Nation, but,
> rather, they must construct FROM BELOW AND FOR BELOW an alternative to
> neoliberal destruction, an alternative of the left for Mexico.
>
> Yes to mutual respect for autonomy and independence of organizations,
> of their ways of fighting, of their way of organizing themselves, of
> their internal decision-making processes, of their legitimate
> representatives, of their aspirations and demands;
>
> And, yes, to mutual respect and autonomy and independence and yes to a
> clear commitment of mutual and coordinated defense of national
> sovereignty, and with intransigent opposition to the attempts to
> privatize electricity, oil, water and natural resources.
>
> Here is the bottom line, as they say: We invite political and social
> organizations of the left that are not registered with any government,
> and individual people who believe in the resurrection of the left that
> do not belong to political parties recognized by any state, to meet
> with us in the time, place, and style that we propose, to organize a
> national campaign, visiting every possible corner of our country, to
> listen and organize the word of our people. This is, thus, another
> campaign, but a very different one, because it is not electoral.
>
> Brothers and Sisters:
>
> This is our word and we declare:
>
> Throughout the world we will build a bigger brotherhood with the
> resistance fights against neoliberalism and for humankind.
>
> And we will support, even if just a little, those struggles.
>
> And we will, with mutual respect, exchange experiences, histories,
> ideas, dreams.
>
> In Mexico, we will cover the entire country, through all the ruins that
> the neoliberal war has left, and for the resistances that, from the
> trenches, bloom.
>
> We will seek, and we will find, someone who loves these lands and these
> roots as much as we do.
>
> We will seek, from La Realidad to Tijuana, he and she who wants to be
> organized, to fight, to construct what may be the last hope for this
> Nation that has existed at least since the time when the eagle landed
> on a nopal cactus to devour a serpent, so that this nation does not
> die.
>
> We are going for another kind of politics, for a program of the left,
> and for a new Constitution.
>
> We invite the indigenous, the workers, the farmers, the teachers, the
> students, the housewives, the neighbors, the small property owners, the
> small businesspersons, the retired, the handicapped, the religious men
> and women, the scientists, the artists, the intellectuals, the youths,
> the women, the elders, the homosexuals and lesbians, the boys and
> girls, so that, individually or collectively, you participate directly
> with the Zapatistas in this NATIONAL CAMPAIGN for the construction of
> another way of making politics, of a program of national struggle that
> is of the left, and for a new Constitution.
>
> This is our word regarding what we are going to do and how we are going
> to do it. What remains to be seen is if you want to enter it.
>
> And we say to the men and women who have your thoughts well placed in
> your hearts, who agree with this word that we offer, and who are not
> afraid, or who are afraid but who have it under control, that you
> publicly say that you are in agreement with this idea that we are
> declaring and so that we see, once and for all, with who, and how, and
> where, and when, we will take this new step in the struggle.
>
> And while you think it over, we say to you that today, in the sixth
> month of 2005, the men, women, children and elders of the Zapatista
> Army of National Liberation have already decided and have already
> signed this Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, and those who
> know how to write have signed it, and those who don't know how to write
> have affixed their fingerprints, but the number of those who don't know
> how to write is already much smaller because education has advanced in
> this rebel territory for humankind and against neoliberalism, which is
> to say, in the heavens and on the earth of the Zapatistas.
>
> And that has been our simple word spoken to the noble hearts of the
> simple and humble people who resist and who rebel against injustice
> throughout the world.
>
> Democracy!
> Freedom!
> Justice!
>
> From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
>
> The Revolutionary Indigenous Clandestine Committee, General Command of
> the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Mexico, in the sixth month,
> which is to say in June, of the year 2005.