What is the Sixth Zapatista Declaration? A Bit of History as the “Other Campaign” Begins in the City of San Cristóbal de las Casas

Reporting from Chiapas for the Amado Avendaño Figueroa Brigade
January 1, 2006

The sixth comes before the seventh and after the fifth. What was the Fifth Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle? Few remember, but the history of the Zapatistas is written through the declarations that the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) has released, beginning with the first: the declaration of war. The second: a call to civil society. The third: a call for the creation of a National Liberation Movement. The fourth: the formation of the Zapatista National Liberation Front. The fifth: the Consulta Nacional, the great dialog with all Mexicans except the government. And now, the Sixth, the initiation of the “Other Campaign,” the political struggle that exists outside the electoral farce.

In the words of Subcomandante Marcos, "Together, we’re going to shake this country up from below, lift it up, and stand it on its head."

Mexico's geographic shape resembles a cornucopia, the mythological "Horn of Plenty," but in reverse; the horn's fruits tumble out toward the United States of America, toward the gringos. It is a funnel shape, the top wide and the bottom thin. Chiapas is the country's "last frontier," the north being its "first" one. But on the other hand, Chiapas forms the crown of Central America, the beginning of the great nation; Chiapas is a strategic point for North American business.

The Sixth Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle proposes realizing a national campaign for the building of another way of doing politics, for a program of national leftwing struggle, and for a new Constitution.

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