Statement for Life and the Commons: Zapatista
To the Zapatista Peoples
To the Assemblies of Collectives of Zapatista Autonomous Governments (ACGAZ)
To the National Indigenous Congress
To the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle (National and International)
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion
To the signatories of A Declaration for Life on the five continents
To human rights organizations and collectives
To all those who struggle and resist throughout the world
This November 2nd, with our organized dignity and our united hearts, we demonstrate to remember all those around the world who have fallen in the struggles for the freedom of their peoples and to demand an end to the counterinsurgency war against the Zapatista Peoples.
We denounce the fact that more than a month has passed since the Assembly of Zapatista Autonomous Government Collectives (ACGAZ) alerted us to the legalized dispossession process being carried out by all three levels of the corrupt government in the town of Belén, located in Caracol 8 Dolores Hidalgo, in the official municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas. To date, no solution has been offered to the EZLN Support Bases, to whom these lands legitimately belong. On the contrary, the narrative of land allocation/restitution continues, with the underhanded tactic of handing over property documents to outsiders for lands recovered by the EZLN since 1994.
The political class in power cynically claims that its Fourth Transformation (4T) represents profound change. But what we see in this attack is the continuation of old counterinsurgency tactics that the EZLN has faced since its armed uprising:
1) the creation of supposed agrarian conflicts to pit the EZLN against the civilian population, to whom Zapatista lands are offered as spoils of war,
2) the burning of houses, the theft of crops, and forced displacement,
3) intervention in their territories using the army, state and municipal police,
4) the use of the legal system to legitimize their crimes, and
5) the use of agrarian institutions to legalize land grabs.
This time, in a cynical and criminal manner, the aim is to halt the advance of the new proposal for the struggle for life that the EZLN shares with the world. A proposal they call: “THE COMMONS.” The Zapatista communities invite us to recognize that the land should not have owners, but rather caretakers. We are faced with the damaging effects inflicted on Mother Earth, which, coupled with the rise of organized crime violence and the increase in wars worldwide, have resulted in a dramatic situation of poverty and famine for the vast majority, while very few can enjoy what nature provides. We are facing the advance of destruction; this is the capitalist development model.
That is why THE COMMONS (El Común), proposed by the Zapatistas, invites non-Zapatistas who need to work the land to do so alongside them, changing the concept of ‘your land’ or ‘my land’.
THE COMMONS is a practice of SOWING.
IT SOWS MEMORY by recognizing that there was a time when the ancestors of the Indigenous Peoples, to whom the EZLN’s support bases belong, recognized the land as a shared resource. Work was done collectively, and its fruits were shared. They established their own rules for living together respectfully and with dignity.
IT SOWS MORE JUST WAYS OF BEING AND EXISTING IN THE WORLD by returning to a perspective, feeling, and thought that prioritizes collective life over the enrichment of a few.
IT SOWS LIBERATION because its practice is the seed of a different relationship between people and with Mother Earth. A relationship of caring, sowing, and sharing, without bosses or permission. With what grows there—cornfields, coffee, vegetables, livestock, education, health, women’s rights, etc.—life can be sustained without depending on the government and, increasingly, less on capitalism. In other words, it is about building a material foundation for true freedom.
It is this—the construction of ways of life and autonomous governments—that the corrupt government and other capitalist interests fear so much. Because the Zapatista Peoples are an example to humanity that it is possible to be free, to govern oneself, to defend oneself, to organize, to connect with others, through communal means, prioritizing dialogue, the building of agreements, and defending their territories from the plunder of extractive development and criminal violence. Zapatista Autonomy is an example that it is possible to build other worlds that resist capitalism, and that is why they seek to destroy it.
For all of the above reasons:
We reiterate that the lands of the town of Belén belong to the Support Bases of the EZLN, by ancestral right as Indigenous Peoples, because they recovered them in 1994, and because they are the ones who have cared for and respected them for more than three decades.
We demand an end to this legalized dispossession.
We condemn all counterinsurgency actions against the Zapatista Peoples.
We remain vigilant and invite all organizations, collectives, and people of good heart to continue protesting any attack on the EZLN and its Support Bases.
We declare that today, our living memory walks with a heart, steps, and direction deeply rooted in what the Zapatista uprising represents. What the Zapatista Peoples represent, and the generation of compañeras, compañeros, and compañeras who decided to say “Enough!” to imposed death and reclaim Mother Earth. Those who offered their lives as a thread for the living memory of our Indigenous peoples and future generations.
We invite you to seek ways to sow the seed of the COMMON in our lives, so that our comradeship may flourish. The struggle is ours, and so is the possibility of being free. The Zapatista people are not alone.
Our rage will not be silenced.
Our resistance will not be extinguished. Life does not surrender; our hearts and many more will make way for it.
For memory, for life, for the common good.
Original statement at Frayba, November 3rd, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=22490
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