20 / octubre

Our previous meetings in Athens, Barcelona and Marseilles enabled us to get to know each other, to discuss and to move ahead with our solidarity initiatives. We think it is important to continue these discussions, which have been enriched by our previous exchanges of ideas.

We would like to propose that the next step be to deepen our reflection and better coordinate our efforts: whether through collective projects with the Zapatista communities, by our actions and solidarity in the face of repression in Mexico; or by building bridges between our local struggles and the struggles in Mexico.

With these thoughts in mind, we confirm our intention to organize, as we proposed, a meeting of Zapatista solidarity groups in Europe that will be open to any person who wishes to participate on 16–17 January 2010 in Paris, France.

SUGGESTIONS for Discussion Topics

Presentation: How do we experience and organize solidarity in our own areas of struggle and how do we function collectively, what are the basic principles?

How can we share information about our initiatives? How should we run the Europazapatista website (organization, topics, etc)? How can we exchange information about the projects we are working on?

How should we respond to and coordinate our responses to repression in Mexico? How can we coordinate our efforts when necessary: in the case of urgent, protest, collective actions, etc, and based on the suggestion made in Athens to activate and reinforce a network?

For example: How do we coordinate our actions to give more force to movements fighting to free prisoners in Atenco and elsewhere in Mexico?

Tierra y Territorio (Land and Territory), over here and over there

We think that these issues, which are a priority for the Zapatistas themselves, may be helpful for discussing our own experiences concerning struggles here in Europe and possible connections with struggles in Mexico.

We need to further explore our specific situations in all of their diversity and the many different struggles “from below and to the left” that are occurring locally around us.

As a result, we will be organizing a meeting in early December here in Paris on struggles in France on the theme of “Tierra y Territorio”. (e.g., on the issue of land: what kinds of struggles are going on around us in the places where we live? What does the concept of “territory” mean to us? How do we define and try to build our own autonomy?)

We think these preparatory discussions will enable us to better manage the limited time we have during these gatherings. It will help us clarify the ideas, situations and proposals of each of the participants.

We thus suggest that other groups organize local preparatory meetings of this sort in order to come to the European meeting in January with their own ideas and proposals.

We also suggest that everyone come with ideas and materials (leaflets, exhibitions, videos, in Spanish, if possible) concerning the local situation and struggles going on around them.

Preparation

Given the limited amount of time we have for collective discussion, we think it would be best to limit the presentations at the beginning of the meeting. In other words, ideas and proposals should be defined BEFORE this meeting in order to be able to identify the issues, discuss and make decisions and firm commitments with regard to concrete initiatives.

For this reason, we ask all participants to write up the presentations of their groups, collectives, local situations, etc. and send us the texts. We would like to make them accessible via Internet, perhaps on the Europazapatista site, if you think this is the appropriate place to post them, and if you agree with making them public.

Please let us know what your thoughts are on all of this, and if you have any criticisms or suggestions. For those who want to participate in the January meeting, we ask that, for logistical reasons, you tell us before the end of October and send us your texts and materials as soon as possible. We will forward them to the rest of the network and we hope to be able to use the Europazapatista website to make them all easily accessible.

We look forward to hearing from you,

In solidarity,

Comité de Solidarité avec les Peuples du Chiapas en Lutte (CSPCL)

PS: You can reply and sign up for the meeting at: cspcl@altern.org

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