to: All villages and communities, ejidos and ranches; social and civil organizations; regional, national and international organizations; individuals and collectives; men and women. All of you who are committed to the non-violent transformation of the economic, political, social, and cultural structures that perpetuate a system of injustice, exclusion, and violent, corrupt oppression in Mexico.

You are invited to…

“A Gathering of indigenous and rural communities and organizations in defense of territory, culture and strategic natural resources in the Lacandon Jungle” February 23rd (Arrival), 24th, and 25th, 2008 in the indigenous Tseltal community of Betania, Ocosingo municipality, in the ravines of the Lacandon jungle, Chiapas, MEXICO.

"SAY NO TO THE STRIPPING OF OUR LANDS, TERRITORIES, WEALTH AND NATURAL RESOURCES!

ENOUGH massacres, executions and violent expulsions from our lands!

ENOUGH EXPROPRIATIONS!

SAY NO TO THE PRIVATISATION AND COMMODIFICATION OF OUR MOTHER EARTH!

FOR THE RECOVERY OF OUR ROOTS AND HISTORY, IN A UNITED STRUGGLE OF ONE FORCE AND ONE HEART!

Delegates, authorities, ejidales y representatives of the supporting communities of Amador Hernández, the following regions: Sureste, Candelaria, Agua Azul, Avellanal, Patihuitz, Estrella (zona Peña) and Amador; the ejidos of Betania, La Soledad, Zapata, Candelaria, Salvador Allende, Calvario, San José, Zapotal, Velasco Suárez, Santa Lucía, Las Tacitas, Laguna Santa Elena, Patihuitz, Pataté, Macedonia, Capultepec, Pichucalco, Plan de Guadalupe, El Guanal, Amador Hernández and ranches within the area.

Partners:

Comité de Derechos Humanos Fray Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada (Committee of Human Rights Fray Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada) ; Comisión de Apoyo a la Unidad y Reconciliación Comunitaria (CORECO); (Commission in Support of Unity and Communal Reconciliation) Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste (MPS); Servicios y Asesoría para la Paz (SERAPAZ); (Services and Assistance for Peace) Consejo de Organizaciones Médicos y Parteras Indígenas Tradicionales de la Salud Comunitaria en Chiapas (COMPITCHSCCH); (Advice from Traditional Indigenous Midwifes and Medical Organizations for Community Health in Chiapas) Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas; (Human Rights Center Fray Bartolomé de las Casas) Enlace (Connect) Comunicación y Capacitación Misión de Ocosingo-Altamirano. (Communication and Training Mission of Ocosingo-Altamirano)

Since the 70’s, the interests of money and bad government have tried to take power over the natural wealth and territory of the jungle. For 30 years they have created favorable conditions for the extraction of timber, pulling off an immense fraud by decreeing the area the “Lacandon Community Zone”, and soon after, to disguise the offense as “green”, imposed the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. In this way, they violated essential rights to the land and territory. Then they started stripping the rights from our people, the Tseltales, Ch’oles, Tojolabales and Tsotsiles, who have been founded in the region since the 50’s and 60’s.

We responded by organizing ourselves, and united together in resistance to defend our rights. We founded the Quiptic ta Lecubtesel Union of Ejidos and the Union of Unions under a common purpose: Against the Opening of the Lacandon Jungle! The resulting united force obligated the federal and state governments to negotiate. Because of the injustice and the lack of response to our demands, many of us participated in the Zapatista armed uprising in 1994. Later, the same government dedicated themselves to dividing us, buying off and co-opting our leaders, squandering our resources for supposed “productive projects”, promoting the drug trade and then covering up their involvement, and inserting their political parties into our communities.

Starting in 1998, urged by the interests of foreign investment and new multinational capital (headed by pharmaceutical and biotechnological enterprises), the federal government, with the support of the Chiapas government, reinitiated their policy of stripping the Lacandon Jungle territory, using conservation and protection of the environment as a pretext. From that point on, they planned, rather openly, to cast out all the residents and communities from the jungle, in order to privatize and sell the valuable natural resources that exist in the jungle. In what we indigenous people refer to as the Mother Earth exist mountains with a grand biodiversity of plants and animals; forests and jungles that maintain the climate and produce oxygen, mineral resources to be found under the earth, swift rivers and rich freshwater springs.

To this end, the government has perpetrated violent expulsions, unfair relocations and the reactivation of paramilitary groups, not caring that their actions have reached the level of massacres, such as what happened in the village of Viejo Velasco in November, 2006. Additionally, they have come to introduce, promote, and tolerate drug cultivation and trafficking, in order to later connect and fault the communities, and in this way criminalize their struggle of peaceful resistance.

The most recent attempt at expulsion and violation of our rightful claim on land, territory, and management of natural resources was the decree passed to expropriate 14,096 hectares of jungle, scattered across 8 areas in the Ravine Zone. These acts were published on May 8th, 2007 in the Official Diary of the Federation.

Confronting this aggressive government campaign of intimidation and expulsion, with the active participation of many of the villages, communities, ejidos, and ranches in the region, we have been holding regional informational assemblies, rescuing our cultural heritage and roots, and recognizing ourselves as people of a single heart, in defense of the land and territory. We have been recognizing our right to manage, take advantage of, and guard our natural resources as a community, creating our first Basic Agreements, which are:

• To revive and recover a unified regional movement, starting in the community, in defense of the territory and its natural resources, in close collaboration with the word of God, so he can illuminate and accompany the villages and communities, indigenous and rural, who participate in the movement.

• To integrate all of the communities and ranches of the region into this struggle of one heart, being conscious that, if they don’t do it, sooner or later everyone will be affected, and stripped of their territory and resources.

• To not sell or negotiate the Mother Earth. To stop the relocations. The right to the land and territory will be defended by the united forces of all the communities. We will completely reject the decree of May 8, 2007 to expropriate our land, and reject all attempts to strip us of our communities and ranches.

The following are to be taken as PRINCIPLES of the movement:

1.- The Mother Earth, the indigenous territories and the natural resources (mountains, jungles, forests, plants, animals, rivers, and springs) are and will continue to be communal, for the indigenous people, farmers, and for all the Mexican people.

2.- The Mother Earth, the territory and its natural resources, cannot be commodities or used for private business. Through interpersonal exchange and solidarity, as indigenous Mayas, we know the land and resources are the foundation of life.

3.- The indigenous people and farmers have been and continue to be the agents of change and guardians of the land. Between us, we make communal decisions about its management and utilization, for the greater good and for the future of our people and the people of Mexico.

Under these principles, we have agreed to build a regional and national movement of struggle and support, and therefore have called this Gathering of indigenous and rural communities and organizations in defense of territory, culture, and strategic natural resources of the Lacandon Jungle In the Ejido of Betania, in the Ravines of the Lacandon Jungle Sunday, February 24th and Monday, February 25th, 2008 Arrivals Start on Saturday, the 23rd