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The Other Campaign in the North of Mexico: Saying “Oaxaca” from Above and Below
Subcomandante Marcos holds up police catrridges during rally in San Salvador Atenco
" 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-México
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 compañero and compañera , 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
TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO: TO THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD:
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