| |  | | Nearly 30 years ago, on January 1, 2024, the Zapatista Indigenous movement initiated their revolutionary uprising “against oblivion” from the mountains of southeastern Mexico. Formed 10 years earlier in the Indigenous regions of Chiapas, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) took root from consultations with some 500 Indigenous communities in the area struggling against the forces of dispossession, cultural annihilation, state terror, and neoliberal extractivism embodied in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), inaugurated the same day the EZLN declared war against the Mexican state. The war lasted less than two weeks, but the revolutionary promise embodied by the Zapatista liberation movement is very much alive and ongoing, as are the enduring forces of violence and dispossession that continue to target Indigenous peoples and territories across the wider Latin American continent. “Zapatismo not only placed the debate on autonomy at the center of its political thought and practice,” writes Raúl Zibechi for NACLA on the occasion of the 30th anniversary. “It also demonstrated the leading role of Indigenous peoples, who are the most prominent subjects of the fight for autonomy.”  This week, Zapatista communities in southern Mexico are preparing to receive—with cumbia, theater, dance, and artisan crafts—hundreds of friends, allies, and compañerxs de lucha to honor the 30-year legacy of the movement and prepare for a new phase of struggle, announced by the rebel Subcommander Moises in a series of comuniqués first released on November 6. In part, the EZLN has decided to dissolve its good government councils and autonomous municipalities, created as organizational structures of self-governance two decades ago, and replace them with thousands of grassroots structures called Local Autonomous Governments (GAL) more equipped to withstand the “destructive madness” of corporate and military incursions.
But the shifts signal something far deeper than organizational restructuring: “The Zapatistas made these decisions considering a horizon of 120 years, or seven generations,” writes Zibechi. “Noting that the future will bring wars, floods, droughts, and diseases, the EZLN states that ‘in the midst of collapse, we have to look far ahead.’”
On Thursday, the Zapatistas released a statement outlining new visions for the concept of “the commons, or “non-property ownership,” in which extensions of recovered territory will be defined as shared lands that are “neither private, nor ejido, nor communal, nor federal, nor state, nor corporate, nor anything else.” They are, quite simply, común. The movement arrived at this vision after deep reflection about the past, about what came before the time of “darkness, death, destruction,” concluding that the ills of the world “came with private property.” Zibechi asks us to think about the ongoing legacy of Zapatismo not in terms of direct influences and commands, but in “in terms of confluences, since groups asserting autonomy as a political practice have been developing and growing around the world.” Zapatismo provides a point of reference around three central pillars: the rejection of state power, autonomy and self-governance, and a “way of understanding social change as the construction of a new world, rather than transforming the existing world.” These tenets have managed to inspire a generation of diverse groups that had grown weary of traditional leftist concepts like “class struggle” and the “proletariat.”
As we prepare to welcome a new calendar year, we invite our readers to reflect on what the construction of new worlds may look like for a future that defends life, memory, and dignity. “There are no recipes or manuals,” writes Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, “because what works for one may not work for another. The global ‘common’ is the sharing of stories, of knowledge, of struggles.” It is about “going through the night, and reaching that morning, 120 years from now, where a little girl begins to learn that being free is also about being responsible for that freedom.” |
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| | In solidarity,
NACLA staff |
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| | SUPPORT NACLA IN 2024 Did you know there is more than one way to donate to NACLA? Moving into the new year, we’re grateful for one-time donations of any size. There are also other ways to give that go a long way in supporting NACLA's long-term sustainability.
Whatever avenue you choose, we’re grateful for your support. Donate today or learn more by reaching out at info@nacla.org. |
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| | CALL FOR PITCHES NACLA is currently accepting proposals for an issue on disappearance in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Summer 2024 issue of NACLA Report, guest edited by Jorge Cuéllar, asks: ¿Donde están? For this issue, we are looking for pieces that address the issue of disappearance in new and thought-provoking ways. We are especially interested in contributions that give particular attention to responses to disappearance through activism, art, photography, and public education in ways that contribute to a region-wide analysis of this widespread phenomenon. Send us your pitches by January 4, 2024. |
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| | THE LATIN EAST COLLECTION A selection of materials from the NACLA archives highlights the connections between Latin America, Israel, and Palestine solidarity. Spanning the 1980s to today, these article are now available open access for a limited time. |
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| | | | NACLA Editors' Picks: The Best Photos of 2023 NACLA Staff | December 22, 2023 A collection of the best original photography NACLA published online in 2023, documenting struggles for memory, Indigenous rights, Palestinian solidarity, and defense of land and territory. |
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| | | | | | #NACLAFoto of the Week On December 20, thousands gathered in the streets of Buenos Aires and across Argentina to express their opposition to the economic shock measures implemented by the newly elected, libertarian president Javier Milei. The protests are reminiscent of Argentina's 2001 financial crisis, which broke out exactly 22 years ago. Image credit: Susi Maresca *To be featured in our weekly photography column, please submit a hi-res photo and a short caption to info@nacla.org. |
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CHILEANS REJECT DRAFT CONSTITUTION – Chileans have voted again against a new draft constitution, this time a far-right iteration that would have been more conservative than the existing Pinochet-era charter. In a referendum on Sunday, 56 percent of voters rejected the text dominated by the right-wing Republican Party leader Jose Antonio Kast, with 44 percent supporting the proposal. The vote came a year after the electorate rejected a progressive draft written in the wake of the 2019 popular uprising against rising inequality and economic precarity. President Gabriel Boric said Sunday night that his government won’t pursue a third attempt and will focus instead on pension and tax reform. Writing for NACLA, Nyki Duda notes that the results mark a muted victory for the left at a time of polarization and voter fatigue. “A victory in the referendum may well have propelled Kast to the presidency in the 2025 elections,” writes Duda. “Though it remains unclear what a loss will mean for the Republicanos’ prospects, Chile rejected their vision for the constitution.” |
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ANTI-AUSTERITY PROTESTS IN ARGENTINA – Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Buenos Aires yesterday to denounce austerity and deregulation measures being implemented by newly inaugurated President Javier Milei. Milei’s administration has announced $20 billion in spending cuts—equivalent to 5 percent of the GDP by 2024—and restrictions on public demonstrations that civil society groups call “criminalization of dissent.” In anticipation of the protests, the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello, warned on Monday that people who block the streets won’t receive the social welfare payments they rely on for survival, and those who take their children to protests will be reported to child protection services. In response, the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) tweeted: “We shouldn’t be criminalizing mothers and fathers who simply want better conditions for their families, or excluding those who are responsible for their care." -
GUATEMALA’S COURT BACKS ARÉVALO – Guatemala’s Constitutional Court issued an order to Congress to “guarantee the effective inauguration of all elected officials in the 2023 electoral process, in accordance with official rights and validation of results." The order is aimed at providing “definitive protection” to Arévalo, vice president-elect Karin Herrera, and the 520 representatives who were elected in this year's vote in the face of repeated attempts by the prosecutor’s office to undermine Arévalo’s victory and obstruct his inauguration on January 14. Writing for El Faro, NACLA contributor Vaclav Masek Sánchez warns of the consequences of Guatemala’s authoritarian turn: “Diplomatically, the ongoing coup attempt is threatening to send Guatemala forty years back in time, when our country held a uniquely infamous position among global human rights violators and governments failed to comply with the postwar democratic regime.” -
SURINAME’S EX-DICTATOR SENTENCED – The former dictator of Suriname, Desi Bouterse, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the killing of 15 political opponents during his military regime in 1982. Bouterse had previously been sentenced in 2019 and 2021 but he appealed both decisions; the court on Wednesday said the latest conviction is final and no more appeals are permitted. The former president continues to serve as chair of the National Democratic Party and has a loyal following of supporters that call him “boss.” He took power in a coup and ruled from 1980 to 1987, and then was democratically elected as president from 2010 to 2020. In a trial that first began in 2007, Bouterse and 25 other suspects were accused of executing well known lawyers, journalists, and a university professor in a colonial fortress in the capital of Paramaribo. -
REMEMBERING THE PANAMA INVASION – On December 20, 1989, the United States launched a “shock and awe” invasion of Panama, killing thousands of Panamanian civilians within days in attacks orchestrated by air, water, and land. Shortly before the 30-year anniversary of the invasion, in 2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ordered the United States to “provide full reparations for the human rights violations” committed, including “both the material and moral dimensions.” Codenamed “Operation Just Cause,” the 1989 invasion was ordered by president George H.W. Bush to protect U.S. interests linked to the Panama Canal, setting the stage for the “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq that would be carried out by Bush’s son, George W. Bush, in 2003. Grahame Russell, director of Rights Action, who was in Panama at the time of the invasion, has put together a selection of diary entries, news clippings, and reflections to mark the 34th anniversary. "The Panamanian struggle for truth and a measure of justice and reparations will continue. The U.S. government is not on the cusp of paying reparations, let alone admitting there was anything wrong with the invasion, let alone that there were any civilian victims… At a minimum, we remember." -
PARTIAL OPENING OF MAYA TRAIN – Mexico’s controversial railway mega-project, dubbed “Tren Maya,” opened partially to the public on Saturday with a 290-mile stretch between Campeche and Cancun. Once completed, the 290-mile line will link beach resorts with archeological sites on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has raced to finish the project before leaving office in September, saying the rest of the line will be inaugurated by late February. The Mexican government has dismissed objections by environmentalists, archeologists, and cave divers, who warn that the railway line passes through fragile ecosystems. Originally projected to cost $8.6 billion, the final cost is estimated to reach $28 billion and is touted by AMLO as “vital to national security.” See Dawn Paley’s article for NACLA on the frenzy of expropriations, forgotten promises, and geopolitical purpose of the contested megaproject. |
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