Rising from the Shadows, Zapatistas in Northern Mexico
by Brenda Norrell
MAGDALENA, SONORA, Mexico – Subcomandante Marcos urged Indigenous in the United States and Mexico to rise up as warriors from the shadows and defend their lands and people from the corporate and political greed that is advancing as a death march.
“We were already dead and we were called upon to become warriors, according to our legend”, Marcos told O’odham and others gathered here during the Other Campaign’s tour of Indian country in northern Mexico on Oct. 21.
Speaking in poetic verse in the border region, Marcos told how the Zapatistas emerged in Chiapas, dying to live again.
“We were dead, we became what we are: shadows. And in a strict sense we are that: ‘shadow’s warriors or warriors of the shadows.’
“And January 1, 1994, on the wall of a bank in San Cristóbal de las Casas, appeared a sign that we painted which said: here we are the forever dead, dying again, but now to live.
“And that was the message that we were giving to the rest of the world: that in this country and on this planet, one had to fight and be willing to die to be able to survive.”
During the gathering here at the Rancho el Penasco biodiversity ranch, Marcos described his journey from the bordertown of Sonoyta, Mexico and how he crossed the border briefly into the United States. He described the harsh dangers for those crossing the Sonoran Desert on foot and how the Minutemen and Migra (Border Patrol) are waiting.
“A little while ago when we were coming here, we crossed the border, there in Sonoyta, we crossed over on the other side and later we returned because we had to come here. But the big extension of the desert was seen and I was thinking – I imagined what all the compañeros from the Karavana – what it was going to mean crossing that desert, without food. If the heat or the cold doesn’t kill you, the Minutemen kill you, or the ranchers, or the motorcyclists, or La Migra. And no one was going to take count, not even the university studies. If we, as Indian people, do not unite…”
After meeting with the Kumiai and Cucapa, Marcos announced a continental gathering to bring together Indigenous from the far north and far south, to be held in northwestern Mexico in 2007.
“We are proposing a continental gathering of all the original peoples of these lands, in October of the coming year, when 515 years of the ‘discovery’ are completed. Now it was good! Five-hundred years are enough to show that they couldn’t.
“And if the governments of the United States or Mexico didn’t see us when we were few, we will see if the world doesn’t see us when all the Indian peoples of this continent – from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska – unite and begin to tell of all the injustices and struggles. And that gathering is going to be in Northwest Mexico, near the border – which does not exist for us – in other words near the O’Odham, Navajo, Cherokee, Cucapá, Kiliwa, Yoreme, Yaqui land, where we have been all these days.”
After listening to the concerns of O’odham, Mayo, Navajo and Purepeche during the evening listening session, Marcos said corporations and governments are attempted to make garbage heaps of Indigenous lands.
“You know that they are converting our lands, besides, into their garbage can: we are their garbage dumps. Toxic wastes and nuclear wastes, are not going to the residential zones, not in New York or Washington; they are going to Indian lands.
“And land is like the human body; one cannot inject poison into one part without affecting the rest. They think that they will only poison O’odham and Navajo land. They are going to poison everything and they are going to destroy it.”
Marcos said that all land dies the same way.
“What we are proposing here is that we have to unite as Indian peoples. Land dies the same way in O’odham, Navajo, Cherokee, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Purépecha and Náhuatl territory, and we must unite, but not only in Mexico, but on the whole continent.”
Marcos warned the Indigenous speaking out here – O’odham, Mayo and Yaqui -- that the government in the state of Sonora, Mexico, would attempt to buy the people off to silence them.
“It is going to declare that it will resolve the Indigenous problem; it is going to seek you out and it is going to invite you to the big hotels; it’s going to give you good food, and it is going to put papers in front of you to sign. It is going to give you some aid and some credit. But nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to change in your territories”, Marcos said.
Marcos’ comments came after O’odham spoke out against a planned hazardous waste dump in O’odham territory near their ceremonial site of Quitvoac, Mexico about 40 miles south of the border. The Mexican government kept plans secret for one year before a whistleblower exposed plans for the dump, which is now being protested in the U.S. and Mexico.
Marcos urged the people of the color of the earth, with the hearts of corn, to unite.
“We are Zapatistas. We live in the last corner of this country. We are of Mayan roots. We are people of Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Tojolabal, Chol, Zoque and Mam roots.
“And it is our custom at times to speak, when we speak with other Indian peoples, to use a symbolic language with tales and legends – sometimes we speak about our history, our goals, with tales, legends and symbolic language, and in this time that we have this message for the O’odham and Navajos and Cherokees, we take this root.
“To pass on this message that the Compañeros sent me to tell you, we will use that resource.”
Marcos then shared with the people gathered here, Indigenous from the United States and Mexico and activists from both countries, the message that he brought from the chiefs in the south.
“Our elders, our chiefs, say that the gods made the world, that they made the men and women of corn first. And they specifically put the heart of corn in them. But the corn ran out and some men and women didn’t get a heart. The color of the earth ran out, and they began to look for other colors. Then, the heart of corn touched people who are white, red or yellow. So there are people here who don’t have the dark color of Indigenous people, but they have the heart of corn, so they are here with us.
“Our oldest ones say, our chiefs, that the people who didn’t get a heart, took care of it later, they occupied the empty space with money, and that it doesn’t matter what color those people have, they have a heart that is the green color of money.
“And our old ones also say that, every once in a while, the land seeks to protect its children, the men and women of corn. And that a time comes – which is when the night is the most difficult – when the land gets tired and needs those men and women to help it live.
“They were killing our people with diseases; we were going to disappear, just like the Kiliwa people are disappearing, a few hundred kilometers from here where we are, where there are only 54 families left. And of them, only four speak the Kiliwa language here in Mexico, on this side.
“In the story that we are telling – or what they ordered us to tell you – the land protected us after the Spanish invasion, and it made us survive and resist the North American invasion, and it made us live. And after the invasion of money or big capital, the land that made us survive is at the point of dying, precisely because of those above. If you think that they are going to conform themselves to seeing us as poor people, without schools, without medicine, you are wrong: they want us to disappear completely.
“For entire decades we have been living with diseases, without education, scratching the earth to be able to take some produce from it. Now they also want that land. The Escalera Nautica will mean the total disappearance of the Yoreme, the Mayo, Cucapá and Yaqui peoples from the whole coast of Sinaloa, Sonora, Baja California and Baja Sur, for hotel and tourist businesses. There’s not going to be anything more than deceit from the government, for the Yoreme, the Yaqui, the O’odham, the Cucupá and the Kiliwa.
“The governments and those who lead them want that land to convert it into a commodity. If we permit that, this land is going to be destroyed. And that which protected us, that made us survive, is also going to die. And if that land and that world die, there will be no reason to fight, or to live, or to study.
“What we are proposing here is that we have to unite as Indian peoples. Land dies the same way in O’odham, Navajo, Cherokee, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Purépecha and Náhuatl territory, and we must unite, but not only in Mexico, but on the whole continent.
“They, those who are up above, have already shown for hundreds of years, for centuries, that the only thing that they have done has been to destroy the earth. No more – “no more that’s enough” – it’s sufficient. Now we have to take the land’s destiny and its defense into our hands. Don’t leave it one minute more in the hands of the rich.
“We, those who have the color of the earth and hearts of corn, without regard to our skin color – we have to do it, because if we don’t, the whole world is going to disappear.
“To the one who has money, what’s happening is not important. O’odham and Navajo territory is now a territory of death. Your fields, where your culture flourishes, are where poor Mexicans are killed, families who try to cross to the other side. The O’odham and Navajo people cannot permit that. You know that they are converting our lands, besides, into their garbage can; we are their garbage dumps. Toxic wastes, nuclear wastes, are not going to the residential zones, not in New York or Washington: they are going to Indian lands.
“And land is like the human body; one cannot inject poison into one part without affecting the rest. They think that they will only poison O’odham and Navajo land. They are going to poison everything and they are going to destroy it.”
Marcos said he came with an invitation for the people to join this movement.
“We wanted to invite you to join this movement, which is called the Other Campaign, so that as Indian peoples, the history of each 100 years is not repeated again. It is going to be repeated, but one part is going to change.
“In 1810, we struggled for independence against Spanish power; in 1910, against the landowner’s power. In 2010 – and even before – we will struggle against the power of money. But, differently than the 200 and 100 years before; now the Indian peoples will have to be respected. The same thing will not occur again: that another comes to power and the Indian peoples disappear again, or suffer the same poverty and scorn.”
Speaking after a traditional prayer, with a ceremonial fire burning nearby, Marcos said he came as a scout and the chiefs will follow him.
“We only ask you that, we are going to talk directly among ourselves and make an agreement. The next time that we come my chiefs will come, I will not come, they sent me first to see how it was. I report to them and then they will come, those that command me, because that is our way.”
Brenda Norrell
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report
Please also see:
"The Other Campaign in Sonora, our Struggle is for Humanity"
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Narco News
http://www.narconews.com/Issue43/article2216.html
"Marcos: forced labor camps in Sonora"
World War IV Report
http://ww4report.com/node/2681
"Marcos Revolutionizes Indigenous rights in northern Mexico"
By Brenda Norrell
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report
http://www.unobserver.com/layout4.php?id=2735&blz=1
"Zapatistas will defend Cucapa and Kiliwa people"
http://narconews.com/Issue43/article2205.html
"Subcomandante Marcos crosses into the US"
World War IV Report
http://ww4report.com/node/2671
'Corporism': The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization,
by Ken Reiner
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=885&blz=1
by Brenda Norrell
MAGDALENA, SONORA, Mexico – Subcomandante Marcos urged Indigenous in the United States and Mexico to rise up as warriors from the shadows and defend their lands and people from the corporate and political greed that is advancing as a death march.
“We were already dead and we were called upon to become warriors, according to our legend”, Marcos told O’odham and others gathered here during the Other Campaign’s tour of Indian country in northern Mexico on Oct. 21.
Speaking in poetic verse in the border region, Marcos told how the Zapatistas emerged in Chiapas, dying to live again.
“We were dead, we became what we are: shadows. And in a strict sense we are that: ‘shadow’s warriors or warriors of the shadows.’
“And January 1, 1994, on the wall of a bank in San Cristóbal de las Casas, appeared a sign that we painted which said: here we are the forever dead, dying again, but now to live.
“And that was the message that we were giving to the rest of the world: that in this country and on this planet, one had to fight and be willing to die to be able to survive.”
During the gathering here at the Rancho el Penasco biodiversity ranch, Marcos described his journey from the bordertown of Sonoyta, Mexico and how he crossed the border briefly into the United States. He described the harsh dangers for those crossing the Sonoran Desert on foot and how the Minutemen and Migra (Border Patrol) are waiting.
“A little while ago when we were coming here, we crossed the border, there in Sonoyta, we crossed over on the other side and later we returned because we had to come here. But the big extension of the desert was seen and I was thinking – I imagined what all the compañeros from the Karavana – what it was going to mean crossing that desert, without food. If the heat or the cold doesn’t kill you, the Minutemen kill you, or the ranchers, or the motorcyclists, or La Migra. And no one was going to take count, not even the university studies. If we, as Indian people, do not unite…”
After meeting with the Kumiai and Cucapa, Marcos announced a continental gathering to bring together Indigenous from the far north and far south, to be held in northwestern Mexico in 2007.
“We are proposing a continental gathering of all the original peoples of these lands, in October of the coming year, when 515 years of the ‘discovery’ are completed. Now it was good! Five-hundred years are enough to show that they couldn’t.
“And if the governments of the United States or Mexico didn’t see us when we were few, we will see if the world doesn’t see us when all the Indian peoples of this continent – from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska – unite and begin to tell of all the injustices and struggles. And that gathering is going to be in Northwest Mexico, near the border – which does not exist for us – in other words near the O’Odham, Navajo, Cherokee, Cucapá, Kiliwa, Yoreme, Yaqui land, where we have been all these days.”
After listening to the concerns of O’odham, Mayo, Navajo and Purepeche during the evening listening session, Marcos said corporations and governments are attempted to make garbage heaps of Indigenous lands.
“You know that they are converting our lands, besides, into their garbage can: we are their garbage dumps. Toxic wastes and nuclear wastes, are not going to the residential zones, not in New York or Washington; they are going to Indian lands.
“And land is like the human body; one cannot inject poison into one part without affecting the rest. They think that they will only poison O’odham and Navajo land. They are going to poison everything and they are going to destroy it.”
Marcos said that all land dies the same way.
“What we are proposing here is that we have to unite as Indian peoples. Land dies the same way in O’odham, Navajo, Cherokee, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Purépecha and Náhuatl territory, and we must unite, but not only in Mexico, but on the whole continent.”
Marcos warned the Indigenous speaking out here – O’odham, Mayo and Yaqui -- that the government in the state of Sonora, Mexico, would attempt to buy the people off to silence them.
“It is going to declare that it will resolve the Indigenous problem; it is going to seek you out and it is going to invite you to the big hotels; it’s going to give you good food, and it is going to put papers in front of you to sign. It is going to give you some aid and some credit. But nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to change in your territories”, Marcos said.
Marcos’ comments came after O’odham spoke out against a planned hazardous waste dump in O’odham territory near their ceremonial site of Quitvoac, Mexico about 40 miles south of the border. The Mexican government kept plans secret for one year before a whistleblower exposed plans for the dump, which is now being protested in the U.S. and Mexico.
Marcos urged the people of the color of the earth, with the hearts of corn, to unite.
“We are Zapatistas. We live in the last corner of this country. We are of Mayan roots. We are people of Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Tojolabal, Chol, Zoque and Mam roots.
“And it is our custom at times to speak, when we speak with other Indian peoples, to use a symbolic language with tales and legends – sometimes we speak about our history, our goals, with tales, legends and symbolic language, and in this time that we have this message for the O’odham and Navajos and Cherokees, we take this root.
“To pass on this message that the Compañeros sent me to tell you, we will use that resource.”
Marcos then shared with the people gathered here, Indigenous from the United States and Mexico and activists from both countries, the message that he brought from the chiefs in the south.
“Our elders, our chiefs, say that the gods made the world, that they made the men and women of corn first. And they specifically put the heart of corn in them. But the corn ran out and some men and women didn’t get a heart. The color of the earth ran out, and they began to look for other colors. Then, the heart of corn touched people who are white, red or yellow. So there are people here who don’t have the dark color of Indigenous people, but they have the heart of corn, so they are here with us.
“Our oldest ones say, our chiefs, that the people who didn’t get a heart, took care of it later, they occupied the empty space with money, and that it doesn’t matter what color those people have, they have a heart that is the green color of money.
“And our old ones also say that, every once in a while, the land seeks to protect its children, the men and women of corn. And that a time comes – which is when the night is the most difficult – when the land gets tired and needs those men and women to help it live.
“They were killing our people with diseases; we were going to disappear, just like the Kiliwa people are disappearing, a few hundred kilometers from here where we are, where there are only 54 families left. And of them, only four speak the Kiliwa language here in Mexico, on this side.
“In the story that we are telling – or what they ordered us to tell you – the land protected us after the Spanish invasion, and it made us survive and resist the North American invasion, and it made us live. And after the invasion of money or big capital, the land that made us survive is at the point of dying, precisely because of those above. If you think that they are going to conform themselves to seeing us as poor people, without schools, without medicine, you are wrong: they want us to disappear completely.
“For entire decades we have been living with diseases, without education, scratching the earth to be able to take some produce from it. Now they also want that land. The Escalera Nautica will mean the total disappearance of the Yoreme, the Mayo, Cucapá and Yaqui peoples from the whole coast of Sinaloa, Sonora, Baja California and Baja Sur, for hotel and tourist businesses. There’s not going to be anything more than deceit from the government, for the Yoreme, the Yaqui, the O’odham, the Cucupá and the Kiliwa.
“The governments and those who lead them want that land to convert it into a commodity. If we permit that, this land is going to be destroyed. And that which protected us, that made us survive, is also going to die. And if that land and that world die, there will be no reason to fight, or to live, or to study.
“What we are proposing here is that we have to unite as Indian peoples. Land dies the same way in O’odham, Navajo, Cherokee, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Purépecha and Náhuatl territory, and we must unite, but not only in Mexico, but on the whole continent.
“They, those who are up above, have already shown for hundreds of years, for centuries, that the only thing that they have done has been to destroy the earth. No more – “no more that’s enough” – it’s sufficient. Now we have to take the land’s destiny and its defense into our hands. Don’t leave it one minute more in the hands of the rich.
“We, those who have the color of the earth and hearts of corn, without regard to our skin color – we have to do it, because if we don’t, the whole world is going to disappear.
“To the one who has money, what’s happening is not important. O’odham and Navajo territory is now a territory of death. Your fields, where your culture flourishes, are where poor Mexicans are killed, families who try to cross to the other side. The O’odham and Navajo people cannot permit that. You know that they are converting our lands, besides, into their garbage can; we are their garbage dumps. Toxic wastes, nuclear wastes, are not going to the residential zones, not in New York or Washington: they are going to Indian lands.
“And land is like the human body; one cannot inject poison into one part without affecting the rest. They think that they will only poison O’odham and Navajo land. They are going to poison everything and they are going to destroy it.”
Marcos said he came with an invitation for the people to join this movement.
“We wanted to invite you to join this movement, which is called the Other Campaign, so that as Indian peoples, the history of each 100 years is not repeated again. It is going to be repeated, but one part is going to change.
“In 1810, we struggled for independence against Spanish power; in 1910, against the landowner’s power. In 2010 – and even before – we will struggle against the power of money. But, differently than the 200 and 100 years before; now the Indian peoples will have to be respected. The same thing will not occur again: that another comes to power and the Indian peoples disappear again, or suffer the same poverty and scorn.”
Speaking after a traditional prayer, with a ceremonial fire burning nearby, Marcos said he came as a scout and the chiefs will follow him.
“We only ask you that, we are going to talk directly among ourselves and make an agreement. The next time that we come my chiefs will come, I will not come, they sent me first to see how it was. I report to them and then they will come, those that command me, because that is our way.”
Brenda Norrell
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report
Please also see:
"The Other Campaign in Sonora, our Struggle is for Humanity"
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Narco News
http://www.narconews.com/Issue43/article2216.html
"Marcos: forced labor camps in Sonora"
World War IV Report
http://ww4report.com/node/2681
"Marcos Revolutionizes Indigenous rights in northern Mexico"
By Brenda Norrell
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report
http://www.unobserver.com/layout4.php?id=2735&blz=1
"Zapatistas will defend Cucapa and Kiliwa people"
http://narconews.com/Issue43/article2205.html
"Subcomandante Marcos crosses into the US"
World War IV Report
http://ww4report.com/node/2671
'Corporism': The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization,
by Ken Reiner
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=885&blz=1