A-Infos (en) Statement from Brazil of solidarity with Zapatistas

["Peregrine (David)" <peregrine@cybergal.com>]

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      A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
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Original sent by Pedro Ortiz <phortiz@hotmail.com> 20/5/98
Translated by Peregrine (David Short) <peregrine@cybergal.com>
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(ca) Comité São Paulo - Brasil
(en) Statement from Brazil of solidarity with Zapatistas.
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  We ask comrades and fellow list-subscribers to diffuse this material 
by all electronic and conventional media available.
  Many thanks to anyone who can translate it into English and other 
languages.
______________________________________________________________________

Committee of Solidarity with the Zapatista Communities,
São Paulo, Brazil.


  On the 5th of May, in the city of São Paulo, the “Committee of 
Solidarity with the Zapatista Communities” was launched in the 
auditorium of the São Paulo University Faculty of Law, with the 
participation of over 400 people, representing some 100 organizations 
of the local civil society.

  Among those present were Javier Elorriaga, the co-ordinator of the 
Zapatista National Liberation Front (FZLN), and Edur Velasco, also an 
FZLN leader.  Among the organizations of the Brazilian civil society 
that participated in the creation of the Committee were: the Landless 
Labourers Movement (MST, [Movimento Sem Terra]), the Workers Union 
(CUT), the Homeless Movement (MTST), the Union of People’s Movements 
(CMP), the United Black Movement (MNU), the Workers’ Party (PT), the 
Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B), The United Socialist Workers’ 
Party, trade unions, representatives of the student movement, women’s 
movement, anarcho-punk movement, the progressive church, Mps, and 
representatives of different popular groupings and movements.

  The committee presented their manifesto supporting the Zapatista 
communities and their initial solidarity actions, as demonstrations to 
the Mexican consulate in São Paulo, against the Mexican government’s 
policies in Chiapas.

  Javier Elorriaga and Edur Velasco took part in a week of activities 
organized by the committee, which included debates with different 
social groups, contacts with unions, with the MST and other popular 
organizations, and trips to other Brazilian States.  In Rio de Janeiro, 
the representatives of the FZLN urged for the creation of another 
committee of solidarity with the Zapatista communities and also 
travelled to the North of the country, to aquaint themselves with the 
reality of rural communities who had been suffering from the effects of 
drought for several months.  In São Paulo, they also took part in the 
book launch of “The Unbeatable Revolution”, an anthology of communiqués 
from Subcommander Marcos and the Zapatista National Liberation Army 
(EZLN), translated by the sociologists Massimo Di Felice (Italian) and 
Cristóbal Muñoz (Mexican).  The manifesto of the Committee of 
Solidarity with the Zapatista Communities follows this text.  
Distribute freely.  Thank you!

 MANIFESTO
-----------

  While the spokemen of capitalism in its current form, neoliberalism, 
are proclaiming its victory and decree the “end of history”, this same 
model condemns million upon millions of human beings to exclusion from 
the system of production and foments the growth of barbarism in many 
countries.

  Latin America is not immune to this tragedy.  The last 500 years of 
its history are full of massacres and oppression against indigenous 
peoples, blacks and the poor in general.  They are five centuries of 
exploitation and misery in the region, which today is presented as a 
deepening social abyss.

  At the same time, the history of the peoples of Latin America, which 
is not written solely in the official history books, is also a history 
of struggles and permanent resistence to the oppressors.
  
  In these times of globalization --or internationalization of 
markets-- and the formation of great economics blocs such as the 
European Common Market, the North American Free Trade Treaty (NAFTA) 
and Mercosur, which try to dominate the global scene, in many counties, 
social movements opposed to these models of vertical integration are 
gaining strength and launching alternatives to neoliberal policies.

  On the 1st of January 1994 --when NAFTA was just starting--, in the 
previously forgotten Mexican state of Chiapas, thousands of EZLN 
freedom-fighters (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional = Zapatista 
National Liberation Army) cried “¡Ya Basta!” (“Enough!”), and surprised 
the world with their lightning actions, their balaclava’d indigenous 
faces, and their weapons.

  Since then, Zapatismo has become a movement unprecedented in the 
recent history of the continent.  More than your average guerilla war, 
the resistence of the indigenous peasant rebel communities of Chiapas 
is inspiring millions of citizens in Mexico and the whole world, who, 
since January 1994 up to today, are in solidarity with the EZLN in 
their struggle for land, work, shelter, healthcare, education, food, 
indepence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace.  It is a movement 
that feeds our hopes and proclaims to the world “History has not ended”.
   This cry of “¡Ya Basta!” echoes through the outskirts of the great 
cities, through the countryside, through the first and third worlds, 
through sectors of society that will not yield to the neoliberal model. 
This is the same cry as that against the social exclusion in Brazil 
which unites in a single struggle urban workers, peasants, the 
landless, the jobless, the excluded, women, youth, blacks and 
indigenous peoples.  Because of this, we believe that, today, the EZLN 
and the MST (Movimento Sem Terra) are two of the most important 
people’s movements on the planet.

  The Brazilian people could not stay indifferent, the massacres of 
dozens of landless peasants two years ago at Corumbiara and Eldorado de 
Carajás being open wounds into which the recent massacre of 45 
indigenous Chiapans in Acteal rubbed salt.

  Because of all of this, we --comrades from different popular 
movements, civil organizations, left-wing parties, trade unions and 
other social organizations-- are united in the cry of “¡Ya Basta!” and 
propose that, together, we build the “Committee of Solidarity with the 
Zapatista Communities”.

  A committee made up of volunteers, with no-one in charge, which will 
include all comrades who identify with the struggle of the Zaptista 
communities in resistence, comrades who believe in the dream of a world 
of justice, equality and liberty, and who are prepared to make this 
dream come true: “A world where there’s room for many worlds”.

  
  This “Committee of Solidarity with the Zapatista Communities” 
proposes to:

* Study and spread the struggle of the Zapatista communities, organize 
political and material support, denounce and mount protests against the 
attacks of the PRI Mexican government, carried out by the federal army 
or paramilitary groups, against the EZLN and the indigenous peasant 
communities, such as the massacre of 22/12/97 in Acteal, Chiapas.

* Organize exchanges between Zapatista communities and Brazilian 
comrades who sympathize with their struggle, by participating in the 
“Civilian Peace Camps” and other solidarity actions.

* Support the Mexican Zapatista revolution, for humanity and against 
neoliberalism, exercising internationalism, supporting movements that 
struggle for the liberation of the oppressed across the world.

* Partipate in the “Intercontinental Solidarity Network, for Humanity 
and against Neoliberalism” and the “Intercontinental Alternative 
Communication Network”, as per the “Second Declaration of La Realidad” 
of August 1996.

For the fulfilment of the San Andrés Accords;
For the end of the Mexican Federal Army’s occupation of Chiapas;
For new peace negotiations;
For the punishment of all those reponsible for human rights violations 
and massacres of indigenous peasant villages;
For adhesion to the EZLN Declaration of Principles;
For Democracy, Freedom and Justice!

Committee of Solidarity with the Zapatista Communities.
São Paulo -- Brazil, May 1998.
_____________________________________________________________________

For further information, contact:
Pedro H. Ortiz <phortiz@sti.com.br> <phortiz@hotmail.com>
Beth Seno <eseno@usp.br>
For translation enquiries:
Peregrine <peregrine@cybergal.com>


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