SOLIDARITY WITH THE ZAPATISTAS AND THE OTHER CAMPAIGN

On Wednesday May 3rd, flower vendors in the town of Texcoco in Mexico peacefully protested against the clearing out of their business to be replaced by a corporate commercial center. The organization of people, called the People in Defense of the Land Front (Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra), were occupying a space in the Texcoco market when they were brutally repressed by 800 state police. While defending their space in the market, 2 people including a 14 year-old boy died and more than forty people were arrested. The peasant flower venders had been resisting eviction for weeks, while the area they were using was desired by local authorities for their own profit. This occurrence is one example of the numerous cases of land expropriation and suppression of indigenous rights that happens in Mexico as part of the larger agenda of neoliberal global trade.

This brutality also interrupts the Other Campaign, a six month speaking tour of Mexico by the Zapatistas to coincide with the presidential election. The Zapatistas wish to peacefully illustrate the danger of neoliberal policy and the fact that all presidential candidates in Mexico are coopted by this corporate globalization at the expense of political and economic autonomy. They are quoted as saying: “What we are going to do is ask you how your lives are going, your fight, your thoughts about how our country is doing, and about what we can do so that they don’t defeat us. What we are going to do is listen to your thoughts, those of the simple and humble people, and maybe we will find there the same love that we have for our country.”. The Zapatistas have consistently organized real alternatives to globalization in the independent towns and local economies within the state of Chiapas since 1994. The aim of the Other Campaign is to evoke true solidarity with their resistance against neoliberalism all around the world and in this way begin listening, finding points of agreement, and building a “national program of struggle” that they will follow through. They see this as a true choice for people within Mexico as opposed to the false choices of similar presidential candidates.

The Other Campaign is temporarily suspended in order to demand the liberation of arrested individuals and return of the market space to them in Texcoco. We the undersigned stand in solidarity with those who have been unjustly arrested as well as those who struggle against land expropriation and the increasing dependency of indigenous people on the corporate model of capitalism.

Darin Robbins
Corning, New York

SOLIDARITY STATEMENTS FROM THE STEUBEN COUNTY GREEN PARTY

www.steubengreens.org

The following are statements of solidarity with various movements and actions across the globe. Since we live in a time of historic events there is a need for people of like minds to express their public support for progressive causes. The Steuben County Green Party in New York state offer this service to those who wish to have their voices heard. If you would like to have your name added to a list of support for any of these statements then please send an E-mail to dcr420dcr@hotmail.com with the statement's title in the subject heading of the E-mail and include your name, city, state or province, and country of origin in the E-mail's body. You can also send this information in the comments. The people united shall never be defeated.