*In charge of the Working Group for Communication of the Monitoring Commission of the National Indigenous Congress.
October was painted in colours. The rainbow, symbol of unity and the struggle of the Andean peoples, was multiplied throughout the days of the second National Indigenous Congress in the Zocalo of Mexico City, and the scarves of seven colours carried by Fabiola Pijal and Lourdes Tiban, the special guests from the CONAIE, the Coordinating Group of Indigenous Organizations and nations of Ecuador, reflected the atmosphere and the diversity that was present there.
Three issues were dealt with in seven working tables:
1. The comprehensive rebuilding of the indigenous peoples within the
struggle for free and autonomous self-determination;
2. The renewal and strengthening of the National Indigenous Congress;
and,
3. The joint struggle of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, the
continent and the world.
The storm clouds, which some were predicting, failed to unleash tempests. With great effort, and overcoming many difficulties and everyone paying their own way, one by one the 525 delegates were arriving, from 102 organizations, from 20 states in the Republic, in addition to the participation of representatives from Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Panama, Guatemala and El Salvador. From the north and the south, they were responding to the call of the conch, the bells and the voices, which, for four days, flooded the capital Zocalo, until they burst forth in the slogans which resounded on October 12 in the heart of the Patria. From the most distant and critical positions, as well as from those closest to the CNI's daily activities, was heard the need for strengthening unity, consolidating the organization and building consensus.
Organizations with a national presence participated, such as the National Organization Of Women, the CNPI, the ANIPA, the CIOAC; regional organizations, such as the Guerrero Council 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance, the Mayan Peninsular Forum, the Agrarian Indigenous Zapatista Movemnet, FREPOSEV, UGOCEP, FEDOMEZ, of Veracruz, the Council of the Otomi Naiton, the Union of Huicholas Indigenous Communities of Jalisco, the two Purepecha Nation Organizations, the Emiliano Zapata Union of Comuneros, the Coordinator of Nahua peoples of Morelos, OIDHO, CIPO-Ricardo Flores Magon, UNOSJO, UCIZONI, CIUX, CROIZ, UCD, Xi'Nich, Services of the Mixe People; and local organizations and authorities such as those of the municipality of Copalillo, Rancho Nuevo de la Democracia, Las Abejas de Chenalho, Kinal Antzetik, Tarahumara, Movement of Zapatista Artisanal Indigenous, the Coordinator of Organizations of the Magdalena Contreras, the Councils of Chilapa, Xochistlahuaca, Chilpancingo, Amuzgo, Lars-ez, Chocolteco Indigenous Municipal Council, UPIM, APIMO, Atlapulco, Purepecha de Nurio Communities, the Cantera, Tehuixtla, Yalalag, San Juan Cotzocon, Yax Kin, Macuspana, CDP Zaragoza, among many others.
The final document, titled "Second Declaration Never Again a Mexico Without Us," evoked that founding spirit of the CNI in October 1996, which was presided over by the legendary Comandante Ramona, and can now be summed up in the phrase: "for the comprehensive rebuilding of Our Peoples." Because it is in the "social, economic, political, cultural and spiritual rebuilding of our peoples and cultures" that there will be a future possible for Mexico. Because this indigenous rebuilding is considered a part of the path "towards the true rebuilding of our Patria, full of hope, for everyone," as the document says.
The result of debates and accords in four National Assemblies and three Reflection Workshops for Strategic Planning, carried out between 1996 and 1998, the comprehensive rebuilding of the indigenous peoples means "full consciousness, responsibility and profound decision-making of the historic task which belongs to us to promote, with all our means" and "to open those spaces which make and strengthen us as peoples and fill us with life" on the three following levels:
"On the community and regional level: because that is where we are born and we are formed in the beginning of the life which our elders bequeathed us; we make our community; we make service; we make respect; we make ourselves source and spring of our people.
"It will be these spaces where we must build, day by day, the autonomy for which we all yearn.
"On the state and national level: because here we are creative word, we are project, we are an immense net which allows us to relate to each other and to interact with each other, we are tributaries of the great river of hope of our peoples and of the entire Patria; this Patria which will end as long as we are still alive.
"This is the space where we join together, where we are one, where we are Congress.
"On the international level: because the creative dignity, the purposeful building, the opening to the others and to all, the also different, is the true border between the future and the forgetting.
"This is the space where we are hope and project for a new humanity, because the struggle of our peoples is not against one particular govenrment, but rather against a globalizing system which is trying to eliminate us from this planet. This struggle with and for the new humanity makes us brothers between peoples.
This historic demand melds history and future, by joining "our voices, minds and hearts in one singularity, as our fathers and grandfathers taught us, as those whom we honor today, as always," and it joins the indigenous struggle with that of all Mexicans, since, "by affirming our identity we affirm everyone's; that of those who, with great hearts and firm steps, wish to build a large house where all of us, all whom we are, will all fit. We affirm our existence, standing and moving, and we affirm that we will not renounce our central struggle for autonomy, for exercising our right to the free self-determination of our peoples. We will never let die - not today or ever - the new fire which has ignited our peoples since antiquity; since the sun was born from the night and set on high in order to light the paths of our peoples."
The path which the CNI has traversed since October 1996 is clear, and even before that, since the Permanent National Indigenous Council, ratifying that: "the San Andres Accords are our word and we will not abandon it. We ratify that the initiative for constitutional reform, proposed by the COCOPA, includes the most essential of San Andres, and that the constitutional recognition of our full collective rights will not cease to be the central focus of our struggles and concerns, beyond political or electoral times.
"Our full collective indigenous rights and their recognition are the horizon towards which we must guide the steps of our struggle during the next period; the next stage for our history to take; the path which follows next on that long road which we are not starting out on, because we only walk on the roads of those who came first, those who saw us born, those who put our feet on this earth.
"For this, we responsibly and actively assume our work of preparing, fostering and carrying out, together with other sectors of society, the National Consultation called by the EZLN, for the Recognition of the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples and an End to the War of Extermination, because they are our rights and our peoples who are at stake."
There is a clear consciousness of the direction and destiny of the indigenous struggle, but also of the fact that this is not just the struggle of the indigenous. That is the importance of sending out a call, to the indigenous authorities, organizations and peoples, "to assume, with commitment and a single heart, the labors and work of rebuilding that which belongs to us all," such as "all brothers of civil society to honor their hearts more fully and to walk with us, actively and creatively, in these noble and important works which will open the way to the true rebuilding of our Patria, full of hope, which is for all."
The final result, which can be heard in its entirety, is the reaffirmation that we are continuing as "brothers again in this our house of the Second National Indigenous Congress" in order to raise up our voice.
The greatest part of the debate turned on the issue of the rebuilding and strengthening of the National Indigenous Congress, nut just in the changing of names (it was decided to name a Provisional National Coordinator instead of the Monitoring Commission which has functioned since 1996), and not just for the change in persons and organizations which have most stood out in the connecting and calling of the CNI labors. The discussion once more centered around the concept of the CNI as a plural space of encounter, debate and accord for joint action, or as an organization with a defined structure with portfolio and legal standing. Apparently both proposals are complementary; however, there are those who see the need to formalize the leadership of the national indigenous movement, and others who see in the construction of new spaces, without personalized leaders or party structures, the way to make profound changes in the political and social system of our country.
Another focus of the debate was that of preferring the representation of the member organizations in these coordination spaces, leaving to one side a bit the validity of the arguments which can arise from organizations or persons who have not even tried to count with any numerical representation at all, but have instead offered some kind of service to their community or people.
As a result of this debate, it was concluded that there was an urgent need for regionalizing the CNI, encouraging that the most important points of debate and decision be made in the regional organizations, and that these, in their turn, bring the information and discussion down to the communities themselves. There are some outstanding examples of this, with solid regional organizations, such as the Union of Huicholas Indigenous Communities of Jalisco, who, for some years now, has fostered the coordination of the entire Jalisco Huichol people and their contacts with communities in Nayarit, Durango and Zacatecas, as well as their comprehensive struggle for the defense of their agrarian, political and sociocultural rights. But there are also experiences like those in Oaxaca, with important regional organizations, but who have tried for several years, without much success, to consolidate a state coordinating space. This is why a new perspective arose now for naming a National Provisional Coordinator, made up of two representatives, preferably authorities, for each one of the following five regions:
- 1. North and West
- 2. Center
- 3. Gulf
- 4. Oaxaca
- 5. South and southeast.
The fifty organizations which make up the ten Working Groups of the outgoing Monitoring Commission, which functioned from November 1996 until this Second Congress, are committed to supporting this new effort and putting their experience, work and current projects at the disposal of the National Provisional Coordinator.
The perspective on the future of the indigenous movement is not just in the year 2000 horizon, or in the approval of a constitutional reform, which, while still being a key element, is part of the political geographical and social map of Mexico on the eve of the bicentenary, for the year 2010. What nation will we have for all Mexico? What are the aspirations of the indigenous peoples and organizations in a process of intercultural change like the one that is being promoted? What old and new obstacles of the transnational and neoliberal capitalism will have to be overcome? These are some of the questions which remain within the concerns to be followed through in the third National Indigenous Congress in October of the year 2000.
Don Felix Serdan and Dona Aurora, Jaramillista standard bearers from Moreles of the CNI for Comandante Ramona in October 1996; Don Andres Flores, untiring Guanajuatense, who, at the age of 88, has travelled through Oventic and the various Aguascalientes, following the trail, as he has for years, of the zapatista struggle; Don Efren Capiz and Evita Castaneda, veteran Purepecha lawyers, Don Maurilio de la Cruz, president of the council of the elders of the Union of Huicholas Indigenous Communities of Jalisco, and many other elders, continue following with the march of their peoples. In a long walkabout, from the Monument to the Revolution in the Capital Zocalo, passing by the monument to Cuauhtemoc in the Paseo de la Reforma, and a stop in the Hemiciclo to Juarez, in order to receive the representatives of the main indigenous organizations of Latin America, Quechua women from the CONAIE of Ecuador, an Aymara representative from Bolivia and Peru, a Maya from Guatemala, Mapuche representatives from Chile and Argentina, Nahuas from the ANIS of El Salvador and Kunas from Panama, made up a multicoloured rainbow, which brought together dancers and mestizos from the Chichimeca Aztec tradition with social activists for the autonomy of the peoples and communities in a common struggle: the recognition of diversity and the respect for individual and collective rights in all nations.
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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN SPANISH IN MEXICO *********************************************** TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH BY irlandesa FOR THE FZLN AND NUEVO AMANECER PRESS ************************************************************ ___________________________________________________ NUEVO AMANECER PRESS- N.A.P.To know about us visit: http://www.nap.cuhm.mx/nap0.htm *When reproducing NAP's translations; please give credit* e-mails: amanecer@aa.net and amanecer@cuhm.mx