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http://www.tierradentro.org.mx/?q=node/120 Comunique' read by Comandanta Kelly, Sixth Commission, Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Sisters and Brothers of Mexico and the World: Here in Chiapas we face a new offensive against the indigenous zapatista communities, carried out by paramilitary groups affiliated with the PRI and with the PRD, supported by the State government (PRD), the Federal government (PAN), by their land and agrarian offices, by the ex-landowners -- who originally stole their lands from our peoples -- and by the military and police forces, in a clear conspiracy to evict the zapatista communities from the land and territories that were recovered with heart, blood, and death in 1994. Here in Chiapas, though the struggle of thousands of compa~eras and compa~eros, members of zapatista militias and of our bases of support, we carried out a genuine agrarian reform and agrarian revolution, based on the Revolutionary Agrarian Law of 1993. Thanks to this revolutionary recovery of land and territories, today there are thousands of zapatista and non-zapatista families -- who before 1994 had been evicted from their land, their lives and their autonomy -- who now have land to work, land to build community, land for a better future. For indigenous, peasant and other rural peoples, land and territory are more than just sources of work and food; they also signify culture, community, history, ancestors, dreams, future, life, and Mother Earth. But today in Chiapas, just as in many other parts of Mexico and the world, Power and neoliberalism are imposing a true counter-agrarian reform and counter-revolution. Just like in Mexico and many other countries where agrarian reforms have been carried out -- whether from above, by revolutionary governments, or from below, by social movements, or wherever peoples defend their territories against privatization -- they try to evict communities from their lands and recovered territories, with their armies, paramilitaries, privatizing laws, judiciaries and agrarian authorities, political parties, false conservationist and environmental discourses, biopiracy and GMO contamination, among other methods, all with the objective of turning land, territories, biodiversity and life itself into mere commodities. Here in Chiapas, as in the entire world, wherever indigenous peoples, peasants, artisanal fisherfolk and other rural peoples defend their right to land and territory, or wherever landless peoples struggle for land and territory, we are under attack from Power. In the whole world, it is the same story. Our struggle is your struggle. Gathered here today in San Cristo'bal de las Casas, this 25 of March of 2007, we, the Sixth Commission of the EZLN, with local, national and international members of the Other Campaign, and national and international sister organizations, call on and invite all organizations in Mexico and the world, to help us launch the Global Campaign for the Defense of Indigenous, Peasant and Autonomous Land and Territories in Chiapas, Mexico and the World. We call for a global campaign of mutual support between rural peoples and other peoples who support our rights and our struggles for the right to life and dignity, and we call on all of us to to join forces with each other, for example mutual support between the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform of La Via Campesina and this Global Campaign for the Defense of Indigenous, Peasant and Autonomous Land and Territories in Chiapas, Mexico and the World. Sisters and brothers, we invite you to add your local, national and international names to this campaign, and to take on the commitment to carry out joint actions of mutual solidarity. The struggle for the defense of land and territory is the struggle for life and dignity. Behind us-you, stand you-we. ["Detras de nosotros, estamos ustedes."] -- To unsubscribe from this list send a message containing the words unsubscribe chiapas95 (or chiapas95-lite, or chiapas95-english, or chiapas95-espanol) to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Previous messages are available from http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html or gopher to Texas, University of Texas at Austin, Department of Economics, Mailing Lists.
