Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, November 4-17 2007
 
The representative from the Red de Defensores will:
- Discuss threats to indigenous communities, such as NAFTA, Plan Puebla Panama, and the agricultural crisis in Mexico.
- Discuss human rights abuses in Mexico, their relationship to neoliberal globalization, and how indigenous communities are working to end the abuses and impunity.
- Promote a sustainable model of international trade based on economic justice.
- Discuss the leadership of women in fair trade cooperatives as another example of indigenous Zapatista communities exercising autonomy.
 
Since the Zapatista uprising entered the world stage on January 1, 1994, (the first day NAFTA went into effect) the Mexican military and paramilitaries have waged a counterinsurgency war against Zapatista communities and Zapatista supporters and sympathizers. Thirteen years after the uprising, human rights abuses continue and the entire state of Chiapas is heavily militarized.  The Mexico Solidarity Network (www.mexicosolidarity.org) presents a speaker from the Red de Defensores Comunitarios por los Derechos Humanos (Community Human Rights Defenders Network, www.defensorescomunitarios.org) to discuss the impact of this “low-intensity” warfare, and what is being done on the ground to resist. 
 
The Red de Defensores  is a network of indigenous human rights observers from Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico.  The Red, founded in May 2000, is a non-governmental organization dedicated to the promotion and defense of human rights. The Red has developed an alternative model of human rights work in which community members who suffer human rights abuses at the hands of the army, paramilitaries, and the federal government assume control of their own defense. Self-determination and autonomy are the guiding principles of the Red de Defensores. The Red is currently made up of 25 community indigenous defenders from eight regions.  In each case, the community chose their representative to the Red in a traditional process that assigns “cargos” (tasks) to highly respected members of the community. All of the defensores live in threatened communities that have a history of suffering from human rights abuses.

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Free Trade vs. Community Resistance:

Zapatista Solidarity, the Other Campaign, and Alternative Economy

West Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, October 21 – November 4

 
The Mexico Solidarity Network presents Cecilia Santiago Vera, a social psychologist and adherent to the Other Campaign from Chiapas, Mexico.  Her work is focused on gender and intercultural studies and is community-based.  She has worked with displaced indigenous populations, particularly with women survivors of the Acteal Massacre and with other indigenous people who are survivors of state-sponsored military and paramilitary violence.  She is currently organizing with a group of adherents to the Other Campaign who are political prisoners in Chiapas.  As an adherent to the Other Campaign, Cecilia’s work focuses on organizing from the left and below.

In her presentation, Cecilia will:

• Discuss threats to indigenous communities, especially women, such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement, North American Free Trade Agreement, Plan Puebla Panama, and the corn and coffee crises in Mexico.
• Discuss human rights abuses in Mexico, their relationship to globalization and how indigenous communities are working to end the abuses and impunity.
• Discuss the 6th Declaration of the Selva Lacandona issued by the Zapatistas, in terms of how it relates to the development of alternative political systems and power relationships.
• Discuss the importance and political implications of the “Other Campaign” a national campaign of struggle initiated by the Zapatistas in which the Zapatistas are traveling throughout Mexico, to understand, listen and unite all of the struggles of the left and below of Mexico.
• Discuss the leadership of women in fair trade cooperatives
• Offer weavings and traditional handicrafts made in women's cooperatives for sale to raise money to improve living conditions in communities.

Neoliberal trade agreements such as NAFTA have disproportionately affected indigenous communities, campesinos, and women in Mexico.  Now, new plans such as Plan Puebla Panama, CAFTA, and the FTAA threaten these populations further.  But communities in Chiapas and all over Mexico are resisting the economic violence of these treaties as well as the militarization, paramilitarization, and privatization of resources that goes along with them.  When the Zapatistas made their public uprising on January 1, 1994 (the same day that NAFTA went into effect), they brought the struggle of indigenous communities in Chiapas to the world stage.  Today, 13 years after the uprising, communities continue to exercise autonomy and create alternatives to the neoliberal model under the Zapatista-initiated Other Campaign.