Translated by irlandesa

Communiqué from the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee -
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico.

January 1, 2001.

Seventh Anniversary of the Zapatista Uprising.

Through my voice speaks the voice of the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation;

Indigenous Mexican brothers and sisters;

Brothers and sisters of Mexico and the World;

In this, the seventh year of the war against forgetting, we repeat what we
are.

We, we are wind. Not the breast that inspires us.

We, we are word. Not the lips which speak to us.

We, we are steps. Not the foot that walks us.

We, we are beat. Not the heart that drives us.

We, we are bridge. Not the lands which are joined.

We, we are path. Not the point of arrival or of departure.

We, we are place. Not the one who occupies it.

We do not exist. We only are.

We are seven times. We, seven times.

We, the mirror repeated.

We, the reflection.

We, the hand that is only opening the window.

We, the world called to the door of the morning.

Brothers and Sisters:

Seven have been the reflections which the ancient mirror has plucked in the
second century and the twentieth hundred which have ended.

In the first, we were wind from below, unexpectedly awoken. From very far
back in time, memory was made breath of fire. Fierce was the look and hard
was the path, we returned, then, as the dead of always, but this time in
order to wrest a place in life. With us, the mountain thus knelt down on
the land and blew our history through the streets where the tyrant dwells.

With the second reflection, we were lips for the word and ears for the
heart of the other. The fire remained quiet and the heart learned to
conjugate by broadening ours. Shield and blade thus made, the word
resisted in that way, and betrayal was rendered futile.

With the spark of the third reflection, we made agreement with the one who
governs so that we who are color and blood of the earth might have a
dignified place with everyone. The one who governed did not honor his
word. We, however, became bridge for other worlds. Thus we learned that
dignity is not the exclusive property of any nation, and that goodness has
many faces and speaks many tongues.

It was in the fourth reflection that those who govern and sustain us took
the first step. One thousand one hundred and eleven times our gaze looked
upon the solitude finally defeated. Nonetheless, the stupidity that
governs with blood wanted to block so much gazing. "Acteal" it is called
where they will still never close their eyes.

The fifth reflection was growing resistance, making it school and lesson
which gave direction. There, alongside the one who says he governs, war,
destruction, lie and intolerance. Here, quiet dignity, rebel silence,
self-governance.

The sixth reflection traveled much, five times a thousand, to all the lands
of those we call brothers. We asked of them, we listened to them. We held
our word so that it would become fruitful and, in its time, it might find
its time.

The seventh finally came, and with it, the one that was already tottering
fell. The other came, with many faces and without face, with name and
unnamed, and, completely anonymous, not the last, but indeed a ladder. The
one who never imagined that anything would be possible without his
tutelage, found himself alone and fell, to the regret of no one.

With the seventh reflection completed, the most old of the first ones spoke
to us through the mouths of our most recent dead. They spoke to us and
they told us that the seventh was the moment to return to the earth which
is growing upwards. Where the gentleman with much talking and little
listening has his palace. Where dwells reason which can guide the good
law. Where the other different is our equal. Where struggle is the bread
and salt of every day.

How can this government display itself in front of the eyes of the world as
long as this absurd and cruel situation continues? How can they speak of
"change", of "democracy", of "justice", if they are maintaining their
troops as an occupation army? The Federal Army should leave Guadalupe
Tepeyac, not because it is one of the requisites for the renewal of
dialogue, but because no one can speak of peace while the warlike actions
begun by the previous government continue.

Still remaining are the military barracks of Roberto Barrios, La Garrucha,
Cuxuljá, Jolnachoj and the Euseba River. In Roberto Barrios the army does
not only have a barracks. It is also maintaining a checkpoint day and
night which inhibits the movement of the indigenous in the area, thus
contradicting Señor Fox's statements and the government propaganda which
speak of the checkpoints having been suspended. The only purpose of the
military position of Roberto Barrios - as well as those of La Garrucha,
Cuxuljá, Jolnachoj and the Euseba River - is to threaten the zapatista
cultural centers which are close to those locations. They have no tactical
military, strategic, propaganda, social or economic value. Their only
purpose is to intimidate. And that, as has been seen, has been a failure.

Still remaining is the release of all the imprisoned zapatistas. In
Chiapas, Tabasco and Querétaro there are persons who have committed no
crime other than that of sympathizing with our cause. There can be no
dialogue if we zapatistas are criminals in the eyes of government justice.
Their release is fundamental for dialogue.

Still remaining is the constitutional recognition of indigenous rights and
culture. The so-called Cocopa law is not the result of a zapatista whim.
It was drawn up by senators and deputies from the four principal parties
registered as: PRI, PAN, PRD and PT. This law captures the essence of
what was agreed to at San Andrés, at whose table not only the federal
government and the EZLN were in dialogue, but also indigenous
representatives from all the country's ethnic groups, scientists,
researchers, humanists and law experts.

For dialogue and peace, during this seventh anniversary of the zapatista
uprising, we are calling on all the honest men and women of Mexico and of
the world, along with us, to demand that Señor Fox withdraw the Army from
Guadalupe Tepeyac, and in that way the indigenous, who have been living in
exile for almost six years, may return to their homes;

To demand that the military barracks which are threatening the indigenous
zapatista cultural centers, in La Realidad, La Garrucha, Roberto Barrios,
Moisés Gandhi and Oventik, be withdrawn once and for all;

To achieve the release of all the zapatista prisoners who are in jails in
Querétaro, Tabasco and Chiapas. Their release will be an act of basic
justice for our dead.

And already, many times before this 7, it was written:

"Come and see a wild nopal: and there you will calmly see a soaring eagle.
There he eats, there he grooms his feathers.

And with that your heart will be content:

There is the heart of the Cópil that you were going to wrench out,

There, where the water turns and turns again!

But there, where it was going to fall, you would have seen amongst the

Crags, in that cave between reeds and rushes,

That wild nopal has sprung up from the heart of Cópil.

And there we shall be:

There we shall await and meet all peoples."

(Taken from the Nahuatl poetry "Foundation of Mexico" in 1325)

Brothers and sisters:

Today it has been seven years of the war against the forgetting. Today,
the one who governs says he wants peace. The one who preceded him said the
same, and he did not do so, but rather tried to destroy those who defied
him by merely living.

That is why we wish to remind everyone, and the one who is government,
today, that there are still many injustices which must be put aright.

As a part of the signals which we are demanding for dialogue, we have
demanded the withdrawal and closing of seven military positions. Each of
them represent an affront to the desire for peace by the great majority of
Mexicans and hundreds of thousands of persons from other countries. The
withdrawal of the military barracks at Amador Hernández was a good sign and
a first step towards the dialogue table, but six positions still remain.

Guadalupe Tepeyac still remains. On February 10, 1995, the residents of
this community were stripped of everything they had by Federal Army troops.
Preferring exile to serving the occupation troops, the residents of
Guadalupe Tepeyac went to the mountain, and they are living there now. For
2149 days these Tojolabal indigenous have been forced to live and die far
from their lands. A result of the Zedillo betrayal, this injustice
continues today under Señor Fox's regime.

For dialogue and peace, on this seventh anniversary of the war against
forgetting, we are inviting everyone to accompany us to Mexico City, seat
of the federal Legislative Branch, and, for us, together, to convince the
deputies and senators of the justice represented by the constitutional
recognition of indigenous rights and culture.

Brothers and Sisters:

For many years, those who were the government took, and they helped
themselves to it, they tried to destroy the first blood of these lands.
Seeing how the most first seed abounded, they grew tired of fighting with
us with their most terrible deaths, and then the great gentlemen tried to
kill us with forgetting.

But we indigenous resist.

We resist unto death that which killing kills.

We resist unto death that which kills forgetting.

We resist unto death.

We live.

We are here.

So it has been ordered by our most first:

Our heartbeat unfolds in the 7.

It shall make echo

And bridge

And path

And place

And home

So that the first heart of this Patria might live,

So that silence shall never again be accomplice to crime,

So that the word is not lost amidst the noise,

So that solitude may be defeated and there be no borders for hope,

So that everyone's steps might have dignified path,

So that no one may be without place for sowing memory,

So that all may come and go, and that walls be not jail, but shelter,

So that this country called Mexico may never again forget those whom they
are for and with,

So that those who were previously outside and persecuted, might be within,
and with everyone, being who they are, but with everyone,

So that never again will a first of January be necessary which awakens and
returns memory,

So that the Mexican indigenous might be indigenous and be Mexican.

So it is ordered by our most first. It is 7 now. It is now the time of
the most small.

The time of the indigenous of Mexico.

Brothers and Sisters:

We are the zapatistas.

We do not conquer. We persuade.

We are not served. We serve.

We are not wall. We are bridge.

We do not dictate the steps, we, we are the most small.

Brothers and Sisters:

It has been 7. This year our steps grow wider. Like seven years ago, but
with words instead of fire, the hour of the Mexican indigenous is arriving
once again. From them, with them and for them, we are today once more
lifting the flag of indigenous rights and culture. We shall continue
fighting because Mexico shall never again walk in the forgetting. Because
the Patria will not again be synonymous with exclusion. Because the
morning shall find us alongside all the different ones.

VIVAN THE MEXICAN INDIGENOUS!

VIVEN THE EXCLUDED OF THE ENTIRE WORLD!

VIVA THE ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION!

VIVAN OUR DEAD FOREVER!

DEMOCRACY! LIBERTY! JUSTICE!

>From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

By the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee -
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

Comandante David

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