Sisters, brothers and sisters of the world
We are the original peoples, nations, tribes and neighborhoods that make, with organization, the National Indigenous Congress – Indigenous Council of Government; we speak with the collective struggle of those who in our geographies have not stopped dreaming in extensive territories, in collectives of dozens, hundreds or thousands of families that make what we call community. We speak to each other with our struggles to defend life and in that language we understand each other, because it is the one that opens the door to see and understand each other.
In the midst of the storm made pandemic, which is capitalist and patriarchal, the original peoples of the CNI and the CIG, we are in the indigenous regions of our country, resisting, building and being networks when we are separated. When we meet we are congress, from where we raise our eyes to see on the horizon that the storm will not calm soon, but will rage.
We are that word made of hope and struggle in the rebellious peoples and regions in Chiapas, Chimalapas, the Chinantla of Oaxaca, Costa-Sierra of Michoacán, Meseta-Lake and Cañada Purépecha, Sierra Juárez, Chontal of Oaxaca, Huasteca Potosina, Huasteca Veracruzana, the great Nayar, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Maya Peninsular, Yaqui-Mayo Territory, Mazahua-Otomi region, Mixe region, Montaña and Costa Chica of Guerrero, Otomí of Hidalgo and Querétaro, Southern Border, Mayo Territory of Sinaloa and Sonora, Lacandon Jungle, Northern Sierra of Puebla, Cholulteca region, Sierra Mazateca, Totonacapan region, Sierra Tarahumara, Los Tuxtlas region, Southern Veracruz, Sierra Cuicateca, Yucatán Peninsula, Sierra Negra, Mexico City, Central region of the country, Southern Jalisco and Colima, Baja California, Chapala Lagoon and Guadalajara City.
The mirrors of the CNI’s resistance speak collectively, as we are the peoples. And that is why we say that we constitute ourselves as a congress being together, from where our word is collective, just as our delegation for the Tour for Life speaks collectively, carrying a mirror with our hope directed to the world. In them, in them we are congress, so that new mirrors may sprout in their path where they look at us, and look at those who will give birth to a new world.
This, because we know that the ancient reflection that we follow is not immobile waiting, but moves with the rebellion of the peoples of the mirrors in which we look at ourselves, where we have found ourselves struggling in the solidarity of those who share the geography and the territory; That which the megaprojects of the bad government decided to dispute with blood and that is why, today, we see ourselves in the struggle of our sisters and brothers of the territories of Puebla, Morelos and Tlaxcala against the Morelos Integral Project, in Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche and Chiapas, where the bad neoliberal government wants to install its Mayan Train and in Oaxaca and southern Veracruz, which it wants to be handed over to transnational private capital through the transisthmian corridor.
While the powerful make us think that we oppose the construction of their trains, their thermoelectric plants, their highways, we see the living territory of which we are a part and the train is forgotten, thinking about the land that they are taking from us to hand it over to the owners of money, seeing the subsistence of indigenous peoples and ancient cultures threatened, living or dying with the water that is contaminated and depleted, seeing the jungles and forests that we have defended destroyed or for which we have been imprisoned, persecuted, disappeared or assassinated by the capitalist governments. That is what their megaprojects represent for us and we do not believe the lies they tell us. That is why mirrors move, come together and become new reflections.
So, the mirrors that we are made of the struggle have no borders or limits, they move on the land, the sea, through the air and through consciousness. The powerful do not see them because they only open with the key, the one that is understood in all the languages that make resistances and rebellions around the world. For some it is dignity, individual or collective survival, mother earth screaming for help, the ancestors dictating the steps of entire peoples.
Thus we have filled our rebelliousness with struggles, pain and mourning, but also with hope to see ourselves in what lies beyond borders and walls.
For this reason, the National Indigenous Congress – the Indigenous Council of Government continues to be a mirror that today walks, flies or floats around the world. In whose geographies are reflected the territories and resistances of our peoples; their rebelliousness and dignity made dreams that transgress borders. We are therefore determined to sustain, through struggle, a new world that renews every day the struggle for life, which is the reflection that emerges from the mirror, which has faces and is collective:
Mirror 1. Of the victims of war:
Capitalism, its intrinsic corruption and the war on which it depends to survive, has left a trail of desolation, pain, despair and longing for justice. Thus thousands of dignified men and women have come together, who even without anyone’s help, despite the contempt of governments and the risk of searching with their own lives for those who are no longer here, do not stop shouting for truth and justice. They do not give up, they do not sell out and they do not get tired. It is the mirror of dignity, and of the greatness of the spirit.
Mirror 2. Of the peoples of the Isthmus:
In the territory, since long ago coveted by the government of the United States, in the so-called Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the bad government that calls itself 4T, shamelessly hands over to national and foreign companies the territory of the Zoque peoples of the Chimalapas, Ayuujk in the lower zone of the Mixe sierra, Binnizá in the coastal plain, Chontal in the border with the southern sierra and Ikoots in the coastal lagoon zone, facing the Pacific Ocean.
More than 50,000 hectares are invaded, with more than 2,100 wind turbines distributed in 29 private wind farms. Of these, 20 are owned by Spanish, 3 by French, 1 by Italian, 1 by U.S. and 1 by Mexican companies.
The bad Mexican government, serving its capitalist patrons, would like to see the entire Isthmus region as a commercial, energy, industrial and military corridor that allows the extraction and transformation of raw materials. To date there are more than 70 mining concessions totaling more than 135,000 hectares, in addition to the 6 industrial parks called Poles of Development as part of the mega-project called the Salina Cruz-Coatzacoalcos Interoceanic Corridor or Transisthmian Train.
With cynicism, inventing supposed consultation processes, a few months ago the bad federal government, through a simulation, approved the realization of the “Development Pole” in the area known as El Pitayal, which intends to dispossess lands of common use to put them at the disposal of big capital, for which reason the Binniza, Ikoots, Zoque and Mixe peoples are supporting the campaign “The Isthmus is Ours”.
Mirror 3. From The Peoples of the Volcano:
From our brother Samir Flores Soberanes, murdered by the bad government and its armed groups on February 20, 2019 in Amilcingo, Morelos.
The peoples threatened by the Integral Morelos Project (PIM), Nahua communities of Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos, are the mirror where the struggle against 2 combined cycle thermoelectric plants, 1 gas pipeline and 1 aqueduct is reflected, a project that includes the installation of a gas pipeline on the slopes of the Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl volcanoes, In addition to stealing the water with which they would be cooling the turbines from the ejidos of the municipality of Ayala, Morelos, where they would deprive the farmers who irrigate their crops with water from the Cuautla River, to produce onions, green beans, radish purslane, jicama, chili tomatoes, cilantro, sugar cane and rice, of their water.
The Huexca thermoelectric plant would pollute the environment with noise that rises to more than 110 decibels. The high school and kindergarten are only 150 meters away. In fact, in 2015 the first tests were carried out and in December 2020 the second tests began. In March 2021, fish were killed in the Papayos ravine.
This mega project is guarded by the National Guard and the Mexican Army, who have their barracks inside the facilities. In order to carry out their tests, they needed more than 150 pipes of water from a spa called El Almeal, located in Cuautla, Morelos. This water is potable and not, as the environmental impact statement says, that the water to be used will be wastewater.
Mirror 4. Of the peninsular Mayan people:
The Mayan people in the states of Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo, face a territorial onslaught never seen before, the fragmentation and dismantling of indigenous collective property, to make way for the petty interests promoted by the bad government of the 4T for its megaproject they call the Mayan Train, which is bent on converting the Mexican peninsular territory into industrial, urban and tourist corridors at the service of transnational capital.
The dispossession of ejido lands through speculation, privatization and commodification of ejido territory is leaving thousands of peasants without agrarian rights, while the agrarian censuses of indigenous peoples are being filled with foreign businessmen. Without any scruples, mega pig farms are being installed that threaten the sacred cenotes of the Mayan people. In Campeche, the fertile fields of the Los Chenes region are contaminated by transgenic and chemical crops, destroying thousands of hectares, and the treacherous word of the bad government means nothing more than guarantees for the lords of big capital.
In Calakmul, the bad governments imposed a Biosphere Reserve to limit the use and enjoyment of the natural resources of the people, but shamelessly grant all permits to destroy the forest for the construction of the Tren Maya megaproject.
The real estate frauds in areas of high biodiversity in Quintana Roo, which are part of the war between the powerful to dispute what belongs to us, devastated indigenous and peasant territories, threaten the important ecosystems of the region and steal land from communities throughout the peninsula.
The violence of organized crime to control the merchandise promised by the bad federal government, the so-called “Poles of Development” are penetrating the jungle and threatening the community organization as Mayan people.
Mirror 5. From Palenque, Chiapas:
In the area of Palenque, Chiapas, the communities of Puyipa, Arimatea, Santa Cruz, Naranjo, León Brindis, San José Babilonia, Nuevo Tumbalá, El Retiro, live the constant harassment and provocation of paramilitary groups, who have surrounded the compañeros of the Nuevo Camino collective, belonging to the CNI, sowing the fear of leaving their communities, at the same time that the bad government does not stop its work on the mega-project of death called Tren Maya. But neither will they stop the struggle of the people to defend the land.
Agro-industrial palm plantations are causing water shortages in communities near Palenque. Generating diseases and addictions and giving meaning to the urban and industrial objectives that accompany the mega-projects of the federal government.
Mirror 6. From the Nahua coast of Michoacán:
The community of Santa Maria Ostula, after decades of fighting for a stop to territorial dispossession on the Michoacan coast for supposedly small properties, which were violently sown by powerful caciques allied with organized crime groups, has suffered the murder of 35 communal members and 6 disappeared. Among them is the community property commissioner Francisco de Asis Manuel. In Ostula they are organized and guarding the peace against criminal, business or state groups that are trying, with the support of bad governments, to enter and bring violence and war back to this dignified territory that they want to see destroyed, desolate and privatized.
Faced with the back of the agrarian courts, which despite obvious technical arbitrariness, have not resolved the agrarian conflict, the Nahua people of Ostula ask the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation to take the case so that it can be judged by this, the last legal instance in Mexico, and that justice be done, guaranteeing that an indigenous people not be dispossessed due to proven technical errors in the measurement work that led to the presidential resolution, which titled the communal property of Ostula, and to the fraudulent definitive plan with which the communal lands were allegedly handed over. However, the Court also decided to turn its back on Ostula.
Mirror 7. From the autonomous territory of Azqueltán:
At the bottom of the Bolaños Canyon, demanding justice so that the cacique Fabio Flores Sanchez, aka La Polla, is punished, in the face of repeated attacks on the community members, in the face of the dispossession of Azqueltán lands that do not cease and while the state government of Jalisco issues apocryphal and fraudulent property titles, the municipal government of Villa Guerrero empowers the violence of the rich against the community, seeks division and sows discord.
Meanwhile, without taking steps back in the defense of their land and making autonomy grow as the only path, the Tepehuana and Wixárika community of San Lorenzo de Azqueltán, municipality of Villa Guerrero, Jalisco, defends with dignity their ancestral territory and germinates the dream of the autonomous clinic, calling compas, compas from all over the world with their conscience and solidarity, so that we learn that another world where we can live, decide and continue dreaming is urgent.
Mirror 8. From the Wixárika territory:
In western Mexico, the Wixárika people continue to teach us to care for and defend our mother earth, to walk with the ancestors sowing the world of hope, resistance and organized rebellion in their extensive territory, where they continue to fight for the recovery of their ancestral lands and hope to recover their territories in the autonomous community of Bancos de San Hipólito, Durango, and the invaded territory in Huajimic, Nayarit; territory that, in each case, represents more than ten thousand hectares that must be restituted and recognized to their legitimate owners. That is, the Wixárika people.
The bad Mexican government continues to try to steal and privatize the territory of the indigenous Coca community of Mezcala from a part of Lake Chapala and the island that was recognized in its presidential resolution and which it has defended since time immemorial. Currently this community is calling on the other communities of the Coca people to reconstitute themselves, with their identity and organizational tradition; without ceasing to fight for the restitution of 12 hectares of the land known as El Pandillo, invaded by the businessman Guillermo Moreno Ibarra and for the rest of the territory.
Mirror 14. From Chinantla:
In order to impose megaprojects in the Chinanteca region, in the state of Oaxaca, they submit the native peoples to accept ecological reserves that take away territorial control, highway, mining, tourism and hydrocarbon projects, at the same time encouraging division among the peoples due to non-existent agrarian conflicts or fabricated by the bad governments themselves, same that insist on the mercantilization of the agrarian lands through the PROCEDE or FANAR programs.
This is the case of the hydroelectric dam in the Cajonos River, the San Juan Lalana River and Ayotzintepec; the extractive mining projects in San Vicente, Arroyo Jabalí or the oil deposits in San Juan Martínez, Ayotzintepec and Monte Negro Jocotepec, as well as the use of water from the Papaloapan River for mining extraction or the soft drink industry.
Mirror 15. On dispossession in Puebla
The defense of water in the Cholulteca region, on the slopes of the Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes, in the state of Puebla, in the communities of Ometoxtla, Nextetelco, Almoloya, Cuanalá, Zacatepec, Tlautla, Coronango, Cuautlancingo, Xoxtla, Tepalcatepec, Cuachayotla, Atzala and Cuapan, is for life and against capitalism.
In this Zapatista territory, the bad government at its three levels, together with the owners of money, have tried to plunder this Nahua territory, with projects of death, such as the Morelos Integral Project, as well as the theft of water by the Bonafont company, or the contamination of the Metlapanapa River, which the bad government intends to implement through the industrial corridor Ciudad Textil Huejotzingo, which with plunder and corruption installed high tension towers and in 2019 intended to dump its industrial waste into the Metlapanapa River.
In the Sierra Negra, the Autlán mining company, with repression and alliance with criminal and governmental groups, imposes the Coyolapa-Atzala hydroelectric project.
Mirror 16. From the Nahua people of Tepoztlán, Morelos:
The Nahua people of Tepoztlán, in the state of Morelos, are subjected to rapacious processes of privatization of communal and ejido lands, at the same time that businessmen seek to take over the lands of Tepoztlán to subject them to real estate speculation and tourism and the construction of the La Pera -Cuautla highway. In addition to having occupied the territory in an illegal and disadvantageous manner, they have destroyed important forest areas.
Mirror 17. From the Nahua village of Ayotitlán, Jalisco:
In the Nahua people of Ayotitlán, in the sierra of Manantlán, Jalisco, the looting of millions of tons of minerals and precious woods, has been the engine of violence against community leaders, which has not stopped the organization in defense of the land of the Council of Elders and the ejido, who continue to demand, now from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, that they be given the lands that were legally recognized to them.
As in other parts of the country, the exploitation of natural resources, as well as the repression of the organization, are strongly controlled by organized crime groups.
Mirror 18. From the Nahua people of Zacualpan, Colima:
In the Nahua territory of the state of Colima, in the community of Zacualpan, the invasion by mining concessions, the impersonation of authorities with the endorsement of the National Agrarian Registry, and the theft of the water that rises in the spring that supplies the city of Colima and Villa de Alvarez, has led to the organization from below and the recognition of the assembly agreements that declare it as a mining-free community.
Mirror 19. Of the Purepecha territory:
The P’urhépecha people, who are located in the region of the plateau, the lake and the canyon; see their territory invaded by transnational agribusiness companies, which destroy the forests to put avocado plantations that overexploit the aquifers and enjoy the support of criminal groups, whatever the cartel in turn, according to the bad government that is being in power.
The bad government ignores and attempts against the autonomy of the communities with the use of public force to impose its partisan elections.
In Zirahuén, the State Attorney General’s Office persecutes the indigenous community to impose tourism projects; in Comuachén 30% of the territory has been lost due to the invasion of narco-agriculture; there are arrest warrants against comrades who defend their territory, as in the community of Santa Fé de la Laguna against the community member Jorge Ceja Ramos, as well as the murder of comrade Jesús Miguel Jerónimo, who as Chief of Tenure in the community of Ocumicho, was murdered along with his son in the year 2020.
Mirror 20. From the Nahua village of San Pedro Tlanixco, State of Mexico:
Since 1989, water has been blatantly stolen from the springs of the Nahua community of San Pedro Tlanixco, municipality of Tenango del Valle, in the State of Mexico, through concessions given by the bad government to agro-industrial flower companies, from the municipality of Villa Guerrero, which led to a terrorist repression by police groups towards the whole town, raiding houses and arresting innocent people.
This repression led to the imprisonment of community leaders Dominga González Martínez, Rómulo Arias Mireles, Pedro Sánchez Berriozábal, Teófilo Pérez González, Marco Antonio Pérez González and Lorenzo Sánchez Berriozábal for more than fifteen years, who after a tireless struggle are now free. But not thanks to the bad government, but to the national and international pressure that, from below, we undertook together with many others, to build justice with dignity and organization, with community radio and without ceasing to defend the water that is denied to the indigenous people, to give it fraudulently to national and foreign companies.
Mirror 21. From the Yaqui territory:
The Yaqui tribe, with a long resistance and ancestral rebellion, after opposing the theft of water from the Yaqui River, the basis of the tribe’s survival and agricultural production in the region, to take it to the urban-industrial corridors of Hermosillo, Sonora, is experiencing an invasion by the gas pipeline of the Sempra Energy Lenova company, which has used division and repression to imprison our compañero Fidencio Aldama Pérez, who, as part of the Yaqui traditional guard, was jailed for defending his people.
Mirror 22. From the Náyeri territory:
In the Náyeri territory, the Federal Electricity Commission intends to build the hydroelectric dam called “Las Cruces”. In 2014, the federal government announced the construction of this dam, which in an organized manner the peoples that inhabit the San Pedro Mezquital, Náayeris, O’dam and Mexicanero river basin, in the community of Presidio de los Reyes, municipality of Ruiz, Nayarit, have rejected, forming the Naayeri council, to prevent the destruction of 15 sacred sites and to stop the destruction caused by mining concessions and open-pit mining projects in the community of Jazmín de Coquito, against which they have filed legal appeals that have obtained judicial suspensions.
Mirror 23. From the Otomi community living in Mexico City:
Building solidarity, with consciousness and autonomy, the Otomí people residing in Mexico City have maintained a struggle against exclusion and racism that governments exercise and promote, in the face of demands for better living and working conditions for more than 25 years, so demanding justice for the Zapatista indigenous peoples, They took over the offices of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) indefinitely, creating a real space for the meeting of the peoples, a space of organized dignity where collective work is carried out and where the exemplary organization of our compañeros and compañeras of the Otomí people shines.
Mirror 24. From the dispersed territory of the Zoque people:
After the Zoque people of Chapultenango in Chiapas were displaced to different geographies of Mexico and the United States, after the eruption of the Chichón Volcano, which not only killed thousands of people, but was the guideline for an agrarian territorial reorganization based on the neoliberal privatization of the territory, the bad governments, without even asking the peoples, have implemented aggressive mining projects in the north of Chiapas and have intended to deliver important surfaces to various companies for the exploitation of hydrocarbons.
The emergency in the face of the real threat of destruction of the territory and the community fabric, is calling the Zoque people to reorganize with their roots dispersed in different regions, to look at their own organization that generates organizational spaces and awareness, such as the Zoque Seedbed in the city of Guadalajara, which brings together 54 families to build organization.
Mirror 25. From the Otomí people of Santiago Mexquititlán:
The Otomí people, in the community of Santiago Mexqutitlán, in the state of Querétaro, faced with the theft of water that the bad government has been carrying out, decided to take over the water well in neighborhood 4, defending their autonomy and community ways of life, which, faced with the gentrification and commodification of the territory for the implementation of tourist corridors, have had to face defamation, death threats, arbitrary detentions and actions of violent groups at the service of the governments.
Mirror 26. Southern Veracruz:
North of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in southern Veracruz, the Nahua and Nuntaj+uy or Popoluca peoples, in the Sierra de Santa Martha, saw their territory fragmented in projects of death such as mining concessions in the heart of the sierra, fracking in the plains and neighboring oil cities or wind farms at the service of urban and industrial capital; These are all aimed at destroying the territory, stealing and contaminating the rivers and springs, particularly the Huazuntlán River, and are met with organized resistance.
Despite the harassment by the bad governments to prevent the communities from complying with their collective decisions and assembly agreements, the Articulation Process of the Sierra de Santa Martha promotes autonomy through community health and communication, self-generation of electricity, vigilance and solidarity economy.
Mirror 27. From the Nahua people of Xochimilco and Milpa Alta:
In Mexico City, the native peoples of Xochimilco and Milpa Alta, same who preserve their identity, customs and organization, face real estate interests driven by governments that bet on the excessive urban and industrial growth that threatens the territory of forests, chinampas, the wetland ecosystem, as well as the lands destined to the planting of nopal and milpa; which constitute the main means of subsistence of thousands of families, make life possible in Mexico City and give meaning and identity to these peoples.
The mirrors of the world:
And in each one of them, in each mirror we see ourselves reflected in the collective of collectives that we are the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Council of Government, where flashes of resistance from all over the world shine, which open up for the peoples and people to see.
It is then that through the CNI-CIG Delegation for the Tour for Life, we seek the language that we understand around the world and that is the struggle for life, we see glimpses of the peoples of the countryside and the city, nations and tribes of the world, whom we have met personally, we have met in various geographies and we have expressed solidarity, respect and understanding, in person or from a distance.
We honor and salute the reflection in the mirror of the peoples who struggle for life. We honor that language of the universe and of our mother the earth, which contains, in the struggle that does not give up and the consciousness that grows, the keys to the mirror that we are.
P.S. The rulers at the service of power and the interests they pursue, the corrupt politicians who serve them, the caciques and the companies that are part of this war that extends throughout the indigenous geography of Mexico, have faces, names and surnames, which are also the reflection in the mirror.
ATTENTIVELY
OCTOBER 2021
FOR THE INTEGRAL RECONSTITUTION OF OUR PEOPLES
NEVER AGAIN A MEXICO WITHOUT US
NATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONGRESS- INDIGENOUS COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENT
Map Mirrors, download link https://cutt.ly/EE6Cq1u