Zapatistas Illuminate Paths of Chiapas for Ayotzinapa

October 23, 2014

Research conducted collectively by Koman Ilel, Kolectivo Zero, Radio Ñomdaa and Más de 131.

Polhó, Chiapas. With candles, in silence, men, children and women of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) mobilized again for the students, families and teachers of the rural Raúl Isidro Burgos normal school in Ayotzinapa.

Photo: @Aldabi

As they said in the communiqué released on 19 October, they were "illuminating" the paths, standing on the hillsides in communities in the five regions in which the Zapatistas caracoles are located.

When travelling the roads of the region of Los Altos, groups of at least hundred people could be seen in Oventic, Polhó, Acteal and Yabteclum.

"Presentation alive of the 43 missing students, punishment of those responsible for the killings and the enforced disappearances," read one of the banners raised in front of the church at Polhó.

"We support the students, teachers and relatives of the Raúl Isidro Burgos normal school in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico," read another banner.

Photo: @Aldabi

In addition, the Zapatistas also demanded the "unconditional release" of Mario Luna and Fernando Jiménez, indigenous Yaqui prisoners in Sonora opposed to the operation of the Independence Aqueduct, who were arrested in September.

In the communiqué of August 19, signed by Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, the Zapatistas said:

"Although small, our light will be a way to embrace those who are missing today and whose absence hurts. Let this light show that we are not alone in the pain and anger which is seen in the lands of the Mexico of below."

"The rich man dreams of extinguishing the first light. It is useless, now there are many lights and they are all the first" says the Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, issued by the EZLN in 1996.

Photo:@Aldabi

Photo: @Aldabi

The Zapatista mobilisation was carried out at the same time, responding to the call of thousands of people who demonstrated in Mexico. From the Federal District panoramic pictures showed a huge slogan in white painted on the ground of the plaza of the Zocalo saying: "It was the state."

Members of the Indigenous National Congress read a declaration in the Zocalo, which was also signed by the EZLN, warning that they will continue mobilizing until the students of the normal school are found and the Yaqui Indians are freed. They branded the Mexican government as a "Narco State" and accused them of using "terrorism" against the population.

Also in San Cristobal de las Casas eight thousand people with candles mobilized demanding the safe return of the normal school students.

Meanwhile, Las Abejas de Acteal, Tsotsil indigenous adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, mobilized and issued a communiqué on 22nd October in which they compared the disappearance of the normal school students and the massacre of October 2nd, 1968, with the death of the children from the ABC nursery and the massacre of 45 people who lived among them on December 22, 1997, during the presidency of Ernesto Zedillo.

"We know the pain, we have lived it," their communiqué says, "we say again, with all respect, that today more than ever, we will not allow any more deaths, more massacres, more disappeared people in our Mexico."

@Aldabi

http://www.masde131.com/2014/10/zapatistas-iluminan-caminos-de-chiapas-por-ayotzinapa/