Long live the triumph of the people of South Africa and Brazil! Español
To the people of Mexico, South Africa, and the world;
To the national and international press;
To the Zapatista National Liberation Army;
To the Popular Revolutionary Army;
To the African National Congress, Congress of South African Trade Unions, and South African Communist Party;
Comrades:
We of the CCDN/FVLN celebrate the tenth year in which the neoliberal flood tide, which began with the fall of the Soviet Union, began to recede.
The EZLN/FZLN, as well as the ANC/COSATU/SACP, don’t need us to remind them of their achievements and continuing struggle.
But perhaps the rest of the world, including some within our movement, need this moment to reflect on this turning point in human history.
With the disappearance of the USSR, the world’s only remaining superpower seemed to hold the world in the palm of its hand.
It tightened its grip, and the excluded of the world, those whose only crime is being different, slipped between the claws of the Power.
Ten years after two centres of indigenous resistance triumphed, one in South Africa, one in the Mexican Southeast, we are painfully reminded, again and again, that these two triumphs, great as they were, were but two pinpoints of light on a darkening firmament.
We celebrate the 20th year of Zapatista resistance, and 10th year of the Zapatista uprising, yet reflect that much needs yet to be done, if Mexico is ever to become a country in which many countries fit.
We celebrate the 10th year of the end of apartheid in South Africa, but reflect that, in many ways, the scars of apartheid still disfigure a country whose rulers tried to rigidly separate the countries of which it was composed.
We celebrate the victory of the Brazilian Workers’ Party, but recognise that it, too, is but a momentary triumph, and that the PT will face the same neoliberal opposition as do its predecessors in Mexico, South Africa, and elsewhere.
We see the foundation of the World Social Forum as a hopeful sign that the voices of the excluded of the world can effectively counter the deafening din of the neoliberals.
However, we must also bear in mind that, since 11 September 2001, we have witnessed the rise of fascism in the United States of America, where it is more dangerous than in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other country where it has been opposed by the USA…precisely because the USA is so powerful.
Unlike in Yugoslavia, Iraq, or Afghanistan, fascism has a long way to go before it triumphs in the USA…which makes our opposition to it all the more meaningful and urgent. Fascism has never been a popular concept in the United States of America…will the continued “war on terrorism” erode the North Americans’ distaste for dictatorship in their own country? Are we witnessing “Weimar Amerika?”
With the collapse of the Irish/British and Palestinian/Israeli peace processes, the world is a dangerous place…and the United States Government is doing everything in its power to make it even more dangerous, even as it insists that it’s doing the opposite. Those who call for the invasion of Syria, Iran, and North Korea, and who seek to prepare for the invasion of Saudi Arabia and destabilisation of France, are dissatisfied with the inability of the Bush Administration to crush resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan, even after Saddam Hussein is captured. The momentum towards invasions of Syria, Iran, and North Korea has been lost, due to this continued resistance, and those who advocate such invasions are wondering what must be done to regain their deadly initiative.
They are equally alarmed by the increasing strength of the European Union, and the lessons the African Union, League of Arab States, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, South Americans, etc. may be drawing from the success of the European Union.
Those who seek United States domination of the world have made it clear to everyone that they will stop at nothing to achieve that end.
The terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, served their interests perfectly. Will there be more terrorist attacks in the United States shortly before the elections of 2004? Will the fascists of the United States think they need another “Reichstag Fire,” in order for their faction to triumph at the polls…or dispense with elections altogether, in favour of what General Tommy Franks, commander of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, has called “military rule” in the United States?
Legislation enabling unlimited surveillance in the United States has already been passed: will legislation enabling indefinite detentions pass in the United States?
Every year, those in whom power abides in the United States meet informally at the Bohemian Grove, Northern California: will the Bohemian Grove be remembered in the same way as is the Wannsee, Berlin, because of some “final solution” promulgated there?
We have always maintained that neoliberalism is an unstable, contradictory form of capitalism, which will always be under attack by both progressives and reactionaries: we now see it being swept away by those who, infuriated by our resistance to neoliberalism, openly seek our destruction, in order to enslave the world, without the fig-leaf of “equality” that neoliberalism uses to hide glaring injustices. The sophisticated swindlers of neoliberalism are being rapidly replaced by the ruthless, bloodthirsty killers of fascism. If they triumph in the United States, the US, like all fascist states before it, will be permanently at war against the world, which will then have no choice but to deter, contain, and ultimately force the US to collapse, as did the Soviet Union: our efforts, in addition to opposing neoliberalism and fascism in Mexico, extend to the anti-neoliberal and anti-fascist struggles in the United States, as half of Mexico is still occupied by the United States, and a fascist United States not only threatens Mexico, but the world, with death and destruction.
Long live the resistance of the Zapatista National Liberation Army and Front!
Long live the triumph of the people of South Africa and Brazil!
Down with the neoliberal foxes and fascist monsters that prey upon the lives of the people! (to paraphrase the Symbionese Liberation Army…we still haven’t figured out where “Symbion” ever was, but they did make a good slogan or two…)
Liberty! Justice! Democracy! Human Rights!From the Mexican Northwest, Insurgent Subcommander Angeles, Branch of Liaison, Communications, and Investigations, Clandestine Commando "Division of the North" (Villista National Liberation Front).
© 1997 villista@iname.com
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