Urgent message from the Zapatistas of San Marcos Avilés

This video relays an urgent message from the Zapatistas of San Marcos Avilés. The Video is in Tzeltal with English and Spanish subtitles. Below, a message from the Other Campaign (La Otra Campaña) New York.

Compañeras and compañeros of the world,

We send big hugs from the Neighborhood Justice Movement, The Other Campaign (La Otra Campaña) New York.

By way of this letter we bring a new and extremely urgent video message to you on behalf of the Zapatistas from the community in resistance San Marcos Avilés.

In this message, our sisters and brothers from the community in Chiapas tell us through stories and by their faces full of emotion and rage about the history of the nightmare they are currently experiencing. This nightmare began after their autonomous school was opened in 2010. They denounce the constant aggressions and terror perpetuated by clash groups that are part and parcel of the dominant political parties in the region. They seek to crush the Zapatista movement and their struggle for justice, dignity and autonomy.

In this video message, the Zapatista compass from San Marcos Avilés also send messages addressed especially to women, political prisoners and to honorable peoples and communities from all countries. Our sisters and brothers call out for solidarity mobilizations and national and international support, because of the alarming continual increase in threats and aggressions.

After the production of this video message, particularly over the past few days, there have been more threats to the support bases for the Zapatistas in San Marco Avilés by the local political party-affiliated clash group. This group said it will kidnap the Zapatista community authorities and in this way it will forcibly displace the support bases of the ejido. Furthermore, to those who denounce these acts of aggression and harassment, this group has said that they will be jailed if they continue denouncing these acts. For all of these reasons, a whole-scale forcible eviction of the community is feared, similar to the one in 2010.

For more information and to support our compas from San Marcos Avilés, please write to laotranuevayork@yahoo.com