From: From:CECILIA RODRIGUEZ

                            basic demands
 
          -------------- Enclosure number 1 ----------------
                    La Jornada, January 20, 1996
 
"They haggled with us on fundamental issues," stated a
communique
 
Communique from the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine
Committee--General Command of the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation
 
San Andres Sacam Ch'en de los Pobres
 
January 18, 1996
 
To the people of Mexico:
 
To the national and international press:
 
To the peoples and governments of the world:
 
Brothers and sisters:
 
This delegation of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation,
present in this first part of the resolving plenary of the table
on Indigenous Rights and Culture, states the following:
 
First.- The rising up in arms of an army of indigenous was
necessary.  The war, the death, the suffering of our companeros,
was necessary so that today the federal government commits, on
paper, to push forward the recognition of our existence and our
rights.
 
It should be cause for national shame that only in the last
decade of the 20th century, almost 200 years after our country
was born, has the government begun to show signs of recognizing
our existence and our rights.
 
The recognition of our right to free determination, to our
autonomy, to our right to freely associate, to apply, in our own
spaces, indigenous laws regarding the concepts of people and
territory; our right to a political representation nationally and
at the states' level, and certain basis for a judicial pluralism.
 
But at the same time the federal government has haggled with us
over a series of fundamental demands.
 
The rising up in arms of an army of indigenous people was
necessary in order to make ourselves heard and so that the most
basic demands of the indigenous people and of all the people of
Mexico open up even slightly the spaces for being heard.
 
Second.- One of the principle causes of the uprising of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation has been the oppression,
injustice and marginalization in which we the indigenous peoples
of Mexico have been submitted.  We decided to take up arms
because the voices of our peoples were not being heard, because
our demands were not being addressed, because the law, when it
was applied, was used only to persecute us and repress us and was
never used to achieve justice for us.
 
We rose up to demand a justice that did not simply achieve some
certain remedies, but rather a justice that can only be achieved
with a profound transformation of political, social and economic
relations.
 
A transformation that could not be limited to the indigenous
people nor to Chiapas. A transformation that has to include the
entire Mexican society, all of its structures, all of its forms
of existing.
 
We are absolutely convinced that without national democracy,
without liberty and justice, it will not be possible that we, the
indigenous people, occupy the place that belongs to us.
 
Third.- In this resolving plenary of San Andres Sacam Ch'en we
did not come alone.  We came accompanied by the intense
mobilization of the indigenous peoples in many forums, community
assemblies, meetings at the state and national levels,
discussions in universities and in the press.  We came with the
force of the National Indigenous Forum convened by the EZLN
during the first days of this year. With the force of more than
500 delegates coming from 178 indigenous organizations, members
of 32 indigenous peoples. We also came with the committed support
from our advisors, honest men and women from all sectors of
Mexican society, indigenous and non-indigenous, who brought here
the best of themselves and of the others who could not be here,
determined to add their efforts to ours.  We came with this force
and even with all of this they haggled with us on our demands.
 
Fourth.- Now we are going to the consultation, to hear the word
of our peoples regarding these commitments and proposals, but we
say this clearly: words and commitments that are proposed as
serious and firm will be useless if the harassment of our peoples
and other peoples in other states persists; if throughout Chiapas
the will of the people continues to be denied and the
post-electoral conflicts, against all reason or justice, are
prolonged; and if public forces continue to be used to remove our
indigenous brothers and sisters who through their own decision
and organization seek respect for the will of the majority.
 
The signs of reducing tension must be full lighted so that they
reflect that the government is determined to advance along the
paths of the dialogue.  The signs, with actions, must be fully
lit so that they allow the realization of the consultation with
our peoples.  The government has now the opportunity to continue
with determination to open new paths, new doors.  The government
has the possibility to demonstrate that war is not the road.
 
Democracy!
 
Liberty!
 
Justice!
 
Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee--General Command
of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
 
Mexico, January 1996
 
 
 


From: Joshua Paulson

Posted by: William McLaughlin

On Usenet group: alt.activism



FOURTH DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE

TODAY WE SAY:
WE ARE HERE
WE ARE REBEL DIGNITY, THE FORGOTTEN OF THE HOMELAND

January 1, 1996


"All those communities, all those who work the land, all whom we invite 
to stand on our side so that together we may give life to one sole 
struggle, so that we may walk with your help.
	We must continue to struggle and not rest until the land is our 
own, property of the people, of our grandfathers, and that the toes of 
those who have paws of rocks which have crushed us to the shadow of those 
who loom over us, who command us; that together we raise with the 
strength of our heart and our hand held high that beautiful banner of the 
dignity and freedom of we who work the land.  We must continue to struggle 
until we defeat those who have crowned themselves, those who have helped 
to take the land from others, those who make much money with the labor of 
people like us, those who mock us in their estates.  That is our 
obligation of honor, if we want to be called men of honesty and good 
inhabitants of our communities.
	Now then, somehow, more than ever, we need to be united, with all 
our heart, and all our effort in that great task of marvelous and true 
unity, of those who began the struggle, who preserve purity in their 
heart, guard their principles and do not lose faith in a good life.
	We beg that those who receive this manifesto pass it on to all the 
men and women of those communities."

Reform, Liberty, Justice and Law
Chief General of the Southern Liberation Army
Emiliano Zapata
(original Zapatista manifesto written in nahuatl)

TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO:
TO THE PEOPLES AND GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD:
BROTHERS AND SISTERS:

The flower of the word will not die.  The masked face which today has 
a name may die, but the word which came from the depth of history and the 
earth can no longer be cut by the ears with its cannons.
	Our fight is caused by hunger, and the gifts of the bad 
government are lead and paper for the stomachs of our children.
	Our fight is for a roof over our heads which has dignity, and the 
bad government destroys our homes and our history.
	Our fight is for knowledge, and the bad government distributes 
ignorance and disdain.
	Our fight is for the land, and the bad government gives us 
cementaries.	
	Our fight is for a job which is just and dignified, and the bad 
government buys and sells our bodies and our shames.
	Our fight is for life, and the bad government offers death as our 
future.
	Our fight is for respect for our right to sovereignty and 
self-government, and the bad government imposes laws of the few on the many.
	Our fight is for liberty of thought and walk, and the bad 
government builds jails and graves.
	Our fight is for justice, and the bad government consists of 
criminals and assassins.  
	Our fight is for history and the bad government proposes to erase 
history.
	Our fight is for the homeland, and the bad government dreams with 
the flag and the language of foreigners.
	Our fight is for peace, and the bad government announces war and 
destruction.
	Housing, land, employment, food, education, independence, 
democracy, liberty, justice and peace.  These were our banners during the 
dawn of 1994.  These were our demands during that long night of 500 
years.  These are, today, our necessities.
	Our blood and our word have lit a small fire in the mountain and 
we walk a path against the house of money and the powerful.  Brothers and 
sisters of other races and languages, of other colors, but with the same 
heart now protect our light and in it they drink of the same fire.
	The powerful came to extinguish us with its violent wind, but 
our light grew in other lights.  The rich dream still about extinguishing 
the first light.  It is useless, there are now too many lights and they 
have all become the first.
	The arrogant wish to extinguish a rebellion which they mistakenly 
believe began in the dawn of 1994.  But the rebellion which now has a 
dark face and an indigenous language was not born today.  It spoke before 
with other languages and in other lands.  This rebellion against 
injustice spoke in many montains and many histories.  It has already 
spoken in nahuatl, paipai, kiliwa, cucapa, cochimi, kumiai, yuma, seri, 
chontal, chinanteco, pame, chichimeca, otomi, mazahua, matlatzinca, 
ocuilteco, zapoteco, solteco, chatino, papabuco, mixteco, cucateco, 
triqui, amuzzgo, mazateco, chocho, ixcaateco, huave, tlapaneco, totonaca, 
tepehua, populuca, mixe, zoque, huasteco, lacandon, mayo, chol, tzeltal, 
tzotzil, tojolabal, mame, teco, ixil, aguacateco, motocintleco, 
chicomucelteco.
	They want to take the land so that our feet have nothing to stand 
on.  They want to take our history so that our word and we will be 
forgotten and die.  They do not want Indians.  They want us dead.
	The powerful want our silence.  When we were silent, we died, 
without the word we did not exist.  We fight against this loss of memory, 
against death and for life.  We fight the fear of a death because we have 
ceased to exist in memory.
	When the homeland speaks its indian heart, it will have dignity 
and memory.

				I

Brothers and Sisters:

On January 1 of 1995, after breaking the military blockade with which the 
bad government pretended to submerge us in surrender and isolation, we 
called upon the different citizen forces to construct a broad opposition 
front which would unite those democratic voices which exist against the 
State-Party System: the National Liberation Movement. Although the 
beginning of this effort at unity encountered many problems, it lives 
still in the thoughts of those men and women who reject conformity when they 
see their Homeland under the rule of the Powerful and foreign monies.  This 
broad opposition front, after following a route filled with difficulty, 
regressions and misunderstandings, is about to concretize its first 
Aproposals and agreements for coordinated action.  The long process of 
maturity of this organizing effort will bear fruit this new year.  We 
Zapatistas, salute the birth of this Movement for National Liberation and 
we hope that, among those who form it there will always be a zeal for 
unity and respect for differences.
	Once the dialogue with the supreme government began, the 
commitment of the EZLN to its search for a political solution to the war 
begun in 1994 was betrayed.  Pretending to want to dialogue, the bad 
government opted for a cowardly military solution, and with stupid and 
clumsy arguments, unleashed a great military and police persecution which 
had as its supreme objective the assassination of the leadership of the 
EZLN.  The armed rebel forces of the EZLN met this attack with serene 
resistance tolerating the blows of thousands of soldiers assisted by the 
sophisticated death machinery and technical assistance of foreigners who 
wanted to end the cry for dignity which came out of the mountains of the 
Mexican Southeast.  An order to retreat allowed the Zapatista forces to 
conserve their military power, their moral authority, and their political 
force and historic reason which is the principal weapon against crime 
made government.  The great mobilizations of national and international 
civil society stopped the treacherous offensive and forced the government 
to insist upon the path of dialogue and negotiation.  Thousands of 
innocent civilians were taken prisoners by the bad government and still 
remain in jail utilized as hostages of war by the terrorists who govern 
us.  The federal forces had no other military victory other than the 
destruction of a library, an auditorium for cultural events, a dance 
floor and the pillage of the few belongings of the indigenous people of 
the Lacandon jungle.  This murderous attempt was covered up by the 
governmental lie of "recuperating national sovereignty."
	Ignoring Article 39 of the Constitution which it swore to uphold 
on December 1, 1994, the supreme government reduced the Mexican Federal 
Army to the role of an army of occupation.  It gave it the task of 
salvaging the organized crime which has become government, and deployed 
it to attack its own Mexican brothers.
	Meanwhile, the true loss of national sovereignty was concretized 
in the secret pacts and public economic cabinet with the owners of money 
and foreign governments.  Today, as thousands of federal soldiers harass 
and provoke a people armed with wooden guns and the word of dignity, the 
high officials finish selling off the wealth of the great Mexican Nation 
and destroy the little which was left.
	Once it took up that dialogue for peace again, forced by the 
pressure of international and national civil society, the government 
delegation once again took the opportunity to demonstrate clearly its 
true motivation for the peace negotiations.  The neo-conquerors of the 
indigenous people headed by the negotiating team of the government have 
distinguished themselves by their prepotent attitude, their arrogance, 
their racism and their constant humiliation which pursues failure after 
failure in the different sessions of the Dialogue of San Andres.  It bet 
upon the exhaustion and frustration of the Zapatistas, and the government 
delegation placed all its energies to breaking the dialogue, confident 
that it would then have all the arguments in its favor for the use of 
armed force, securing what reason could not secure.
	Once the EZLN understood that the government refused to 
concentrate seriously on the national conflict which the war represented, 
it took a peace initiative in an attempt to unravel the dialogue and 
negotiations.  It called civil society to a national and international 
dialogue in its search for a new peace, it called for the PLEBISCITE FOR 
PEACE AND DEMOCRACY in order to hear national and international opinion 
about its demands and future.
	With the enthusiastic participation of the members of the 
NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, the disinterested volunteerism of 
thousands of disorganized citizens with democratic hopes, the 
mobilization of international solidarity groups and groups of young people, 
and the invaluable help of the brothers and sister of NATIONAL CIVIC 
ALLLIANCE during the months of August and September of 1995 a civic and 
unprecedented experiment was carried out.  Never before in the history of 
the world or the nation had a peaceful civil society dialogued with a 
clandestine and armed group.  More than a million three hundred thousand 
dialogues were realized in order to verify this encounter with democratic 
wills. As a result of this plebiscite, the legitimacy of the Zapatista 
demands were ratified, a new push was given to the broad opposition front 
which had become stagnated and clearly expressed the will to see the 
Zapatistas participating in the civic political life of the country.  The 
massive participation of international civil society called attention to 
the necessity to construct those spaces where the different aspirations 
for democratic change could find expression even among the different 
countries.  The EZLN considers the results of this national and 
international dialogue very serious and will now begin the political 
and organizational work necessary in order to comply with those messages.
	Three new initiatives were launched by the Zapatistas as 
responses to the success of the PLEBISCITE FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY.
	An initiative for the international arena expresses itself in a 
call to carry out an intercontinental dialogue in opposition to 
neoliberalism.  The two other initiatives are of a national character: the 
formation of civic committees of dialogue whose base is the discussion of 
the major national problems and which are the seeds of a non-partisan 
political force; and the construction of the new Aguascalientes as 
places for encounters between civil society and Zapatismo.
	Three months after these three intitiatives were launched, the 
call for the intercontinental dialogue for humanity and against 
neoliberalism is almost complete, more than two hundred civic committees 
of dialogue have been organized in all of the Mexican republic, and 
today, 5 new "Aguascalientes" will be inaugurated: one in the community 
of La Garrucha, another in Oventic, Morelia, La Realidad, and the first 
and last one in the hearts of all the honest men and women who live in 
the world.  In the midst of threats and penuries, the indigenous 
Zapatista communities and civil society have managed to raise these 
centers of civic and peaceful resistance which will be a gathering place 
for Mexican culture and cultures of the world.
	The new National Dialogue had its first test under the rationale 
for Discussion Table Number One in San Andres.  While the government 
discovered its ignorance in regards to the original inhabitants of these 
lands, the advisors and guests of the EZLN began such a new and rich 
dialogue that it overwhelmed the limitations of the Discussion Table in 
San Andres and it had to be re-located to its rightful place: the 
nation.  The indigenous Mexicans, the ones always forced to listen, to 
obey, to accept, to resign themselves, took the word and spoke the wisdom 
which is in their walk.  The image of the ignorant Indian, pusillanimous 
and ridiculous, the image which the Powerful had decreed for national 
consumption, was shattered, and the indigenous pride and dignity returned 
to history in order to take the place it deserves: that of complete and 
capable citizens.
	Independently of what arises as a result of the first negotiation 
of the agreements of San Andres, the dialogue begun by the different 
ethnic groups and their representatives will continue now within the 
INDIGENOUS NATIONAL FORUM, and it will have its rhythm and achievements 
which the indigenous people themselves will agree upon and decide.	
	On the national political scene, the criminality of Salinismo was 
re-discovered and it de-stablized the State-Party System.  The apologists 
for Salinas, who reformed and altered the Constitution now have amnesia 
and are among the most enthusiastic persecutors of the man under whom 
they acquired their wealth.  The National Action Party, the most faithful 
ally of Salinas de Gortari, began to demonstrate its real possibilities 
of replacing the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the summit of 
political power and demonstrate its repressive, intolerant and 
reactionary nature.  Those who see hope in the rise of neo-PANism forget 
that a substitution in a dictatorship is not democracy.  They applaud the 
new inquisition, which through a democratic facade, pretends to sanction 
with moralistic blows the last remains of a country which was once a 
world wonder and today provides the material for chronicles of police 
action and scandals.  A constant presence within the exercise of 
government was repression and impunity; the massacres of indigenous 
people in Guerrero, Oaxaca, and the Huasteca ratify government policy 
towards indigenous peoples; the authoritarianism in the UNAM toward the  
movement of those students wishing to democratize the College of Sciences 
and Humanities is a manifestation of the corruption which seeps 
into academia from politics; the detention of the leaders of El Barzon is 
another manifestation of treachery as a method of dialogue; the bestial 
repression of the regent Espinoza rehearses street fascism in Mexico City; 
the reforms to the Social Security law repeat the democratization of 
misery, and the support for the privatization of the banks secure the 
unity between the State-Party System and money.  These political crimes 
have no solution because they are committed by those who are supposed to 
prosecute; the economic crisis makes corruption even more prevalent in 
government spheres.  Government and crime, are today synonymous and 
equivalent.
	While the legal opposition dedicated itself to find the center in 
a dying nation, large sectors of the population increased their 
skepticism towards political parties and searched, without finding it 
still, for an option for new political work, a political organization of 
a new kind.
	Like a star, the dignified and heroic resistance of the 
indigenous Zapatista communities illuminated 1995 and wrote a beautiful 
lesson in Mexican history.  In Tepoztlan, in the workers of SUTAUR-100, 
in El Barzon, just to mention a few places and movements, popular 
resistance found representatives with great dignity.
	In summary, 1995 was characterized by the definition of two 
national projects completely different and contradictory.
	On the one hand, the national project of the Powerful, a project 
which entails the total destruction of the Mexican nation; the negation of 
its history; the sale of its sovereignty; treachery and crime as supreme 
values; hypocrisy and deceit as a method of government; destabilization 
and insecurity as a national program; repression and intolerance as a 
plan for economic development.  This project finds in the PRI its 
criminal face and in the PAN its pretense of democracy.
	On the other hand, the project of a transition to democracy, not 
a transition within a corrupt system which simulates change in order for 
everything to remain the same, but the transition to democracy as a 
reconstruction project for the nation; the defense of national 
sovereignty; justice and hope as aspirations; truth and government 
through obedience as a guide for leadership; the stability and security 
given by democracy and liberty; dialogue, tolerance and inclusion as a new 
way of making politics.  This project must still be created and it will 
correspond, not to a homogeneous political force or to the geniality of an 
individual, but to a broad opposition movement capable of gathering the 
sentiments of the nation.
	We are in the midst of a great war which has shaken Mexico at the 
end of the 20th century.  The war between those who intend to perpetuate 
a social, cultural and political regime which is the equivalent to the 
crime of treachery to the nation; and those who struggle for a 
democratic, just, and free change.  The Zapatista war is only a part of 
that great war which is the struggle between a history which aspires for 
a future and an amnesia which has foreign vocation.
	A plural, tolerant, inclusive, democratic, just, free and new 
society is only possible today, in a new nation.  The Powerful will not 
be the ones to construct it. The Powerful are only the salesmen of the 
remains of a destroyed country, one devastated by the true subversives and 
destabilizers: those who govern.
	Those projects which belong to the new opposition lack something 
which today has become decisive.  We are opposed to a national project 
which implies its destruction, but we lack a proposal for a new Nation, a 
proposal for reconstruction.
	Part, but certainly not all its vanguard, has been and is the 
EZLN in its effort for a transition to democracy.  In spite of the 
persecution and the threats, beyond the lies and deceits, the EZLN has 
remained legitimate and accountable and forges ahead in its struggle for 
democracy, liberty and justice for all Mexicans.
	Today, the struggle for democracy, liberty and justice in Mexico 
is a struggle for national liberation.


				II

	Today, with heart of Emiliano Zapata and having heard the voice 
of all our brothers and sisters, we call upon the people of Mexico to 
participate in a new stage of the struggle for national liberation and 
the construction of a new nation, through this. . . .

FOURTH DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE

in which we call upon all honest men and women to participate in the new 
national political force which is born today: the 

ZAPATISTA FRONT OF NATIONAL LIBERATION

a civil and nonviolent organization, independent and democratic, mexican 
and national, which struggles for democracy, liberty, and justice in 
Mexico.  The Zapatista Front of National Liberation is born today, and we 
extend an invitation to participate in it to the factory workers of the 
Republic, to the laborers of the countryside and of the citys, to the 
indigenous peoples, to the colonos, to teachers and students, to the 
mexican women, to young people across the country, to the honest artists 
and intellectuals, to responsible priests and nuns, and to all the Mexican 
people who do not seek power, but rather democracy, liberty, and 
justice for ourselves and for our children.
	We invite national civic society, those without a party, the 
citizen and social movement, all Mexicans to construct this new political 
force.
	A new political force which will be national. A new political 
force based in the EZLN.
	A new political force which forms part of a broad opposition 
movement, the National Liberation Movement, as a space for citizen 
political action where there may be a confluence with other political 
forces of the independent opposition, a space where popular wills may 
encounter and coordinate united actions with one another.
	A political force whose members do not exert nor aspire to hold 
elective positions or government offices in any of its levels.  A 
political force which does not aspire to take power.  A force which is 
not a political party.
	A political force which can organize the demands and proposals of 
those citizens and is willing to give direction through obedience.  A 
political force which can organize a solution to the collective problems 
without the intervention of political parties and of the government.  We 
do not need permission in order to be free.  The role of the government 
is the prerogative of society and it is its right to exert that function.
	A political force which struggles against the concentration of 
wealth in the hands of a few and against the centralization of power.  A 
political force whose members do not have any other privilege than the 
satisfaction of having fulfilled its commitment.
	A political force with local, state and regional organization 
which grows from the base, which is its social force.  A political force 
given birth by the civic committees of dialogue.
	A political force which is called a FRONT because it incorporates 
organizational efforts which are non-partisan, and has many levels of 
participation and many forms of struggle.
	A political force called ZAPATISTA because it is born with the 
hope and the indigenous heart which, together with the EZLN, descended 
again from the Mexican mountains.
	A political force with a program of struggle with 13 points. 
Those contained in the First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and added 
throughout the past two years of insurgency.  A political force which 
struggles against the State-Party System.  A political force which 
struggles for a new constituency and a new constitution.  A political 
force which does not struggle to take political power but for a democracy 
where those who govern, govern by obeying.
	We call upon all those men and women of Mexico, the indigenous 
and those who are not indigenous, we call upon all the peoples who form 
this Nation; upon those who agree to struggle for housing, land, work, 
bread, health, education, information, culture, independence, democracy, 
justice, liberty and peace; to those who understand that the State-Party 
System is the main obstacle to a transition to democracy in Mexico; to 
those who know that democracy does not mean substituting those in 
absolute power but government of the people, for the people and by the 
people; for those who agree with the need to create a new Magna Carta 
which incorporates the principal demands of the Mexican people and the 
guarantees that Article 39 be complied with through plebiscites and 
referendums; to those who do not aspire or pretend to exercise public 
privelages or elected posts; to those who have the heart, the will and 
the wisdom on the left side of their chest; to those who want to stop 
being spectators and are willing to go without pay or privilege other 
than participation in national reconstruction; to those who want to 
construct something new and good, to become a part of the ZAPATISTA FRONT 
OF NATIONAL LIBERATION.
	Those citizens without a party, those social and political 
organizations, those civic committees of dialogue, movements and groups, 
all those who do not aspire to take Power and who subscribe to this 
FOURTH DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE commit themselves to 
participate in a dialogue to formulate its organic structure, its plan of 
action, and its declaration of principles for this ZAPATISTA FRONT OF 
NATIONAL LIBERATION.
	Today, this January 1 of 1996, the Zapatista Army of National 
Liberation signs this FOURTH DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE.  We 
invite all the people of Mexico to subscribe to it.


				III


Brothers and Sisters::
	Many words walk in the world.  Many worlds are made. Many worlds 
are made for us.  There are words and worlds which are lies and 
injustices.  There are words and worlds which are truths and truthful.  
We make true words.  We have been made from true words.  
	In the world of the powerful there is no space for anyone but 
themselves and their servants.  In the world we want everyone fits.
	In the world we want many worlds to fit. The Nation which we 
construct is one where all communities and languages fit, where all steps 
may walk, where all may have laughter, where all may live the dawn.
	We speak of unity even when we are silent.  Softly and gently we 
speak the words which find the unity which will embrace us in history and 
which will discard the abandonment which confronts and destroys one another.
	Our word, our song and our cry, is so that the most dead will no 
longer die.  So that we may live fighting, we may live singing.
	Long live the word.  Long live Enough is Enough!  Long live the 
night which becomes a soldier in order not to die in oblivion.  In order 
to live the word dies, its seed germinating forever in the womb of the 
earth.  By being born and living we die.  We will always live.  Only 
those who give up their history are consigned to oblivion.

We are here.  We do not surrender.  Zapata is alive, and in spite of 
everything, the struggle continues.

>From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Indigenous Clandestine Revolutionary Committee
General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Mexico, January of 1996

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