Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

EZLN communique on the death of Don Samuel Ruiz Garcia

UK Zap Sol | 30.01.2011 21:05 | Zapatista

The EZLN breaks a long period of silence to express their sorrow at the death of Bishop Samuel Ruiz, who walked alongside the poor and oppressed people of Chiapas for over 50 years. He followed Liberation Theology, defined as 'the preferential option for the poor'.


COMMUNIQUÉ FROM THE CLANDESTINE REVOLUTIONARY INDIGENOUS COMMITTEE - GENERAL COMMAND OF THE ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO


JANUARY 2011.
TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO:

The Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee - General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army expresses sadness and regret at the death of Bishop Emeritus Samuel Ruiz García.

In the EZLN there are people of different religious faiths and people of no faith at all, but the stature of this man as a human being (and of those who, like him, are walking alongside the oppressed, the dispossessed, the forgotten and the despised), calls for our word.

Although our differences, disagreements and distances were neither few, nor superficial, today we want to recognise a commitment and a path that is not only that of an individual, but forms a whole current within the Catholic Church.

Don Samuel Ruiz Garcia not only practiced Catholicism for and with the dispossessed, his team also trained a generation of Christians committed to the practice of Catholicism. He was not only concerned about the condition of poverty and marginalization of the indigenous peoples of Chiapas, he also worked, along with a heroic pastoral team, to improve their inhumane conditions of living and dying.

Those whom the governments deliberately forgot, in order to cultivate death, were given memory by life in the diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas.

Don Samuel Ruiz García and his team not only insisted on peace with justice and dignity for the indigenous people of Chiapas, they also risked, and are still risking, their lives, liberty and property on this path made hazardous by the arrogance of political power.

Even long before our uprising in 1994, the Diocese of San Cristóbal suffered harassment, attacks and threats sometimes from the Federal Army and sometimes from the state governments.

At least since the time of Juan Sabines Gutiérrez (remembered for the slaughter of Wolonchan in 1980) and through the time of General Absalón Castellanos Dominguez, Patrocinio González Garrido, Elmar Setzer M., Eduardo Robledo Rincón, Julio César Ruiz Ferro (one of the perpetrators of the Acteal massacre in 1997) and Roberto Albores Guillén (better known as "croquetas”), the governors of Chiapas attacked people in the diocese of San Cristobal who were opposed to their killing and running the state as if it were a hacienda from the time of Porfirio Diaz.

Since 1994, while working at the National Mediation Commission (CONAI), in the company of the women and men who formed that body of peace, Don Samuel came under pressure, harassment and threats, including attempts on his life by the paramilitary group so badly named "Peace and Justice."

And, as president of CONAI, Don Samuel also suffered, in February 1995, the threat of imprisonment.

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León revived the war against the Zapatista indigenous communities, as part of the strategy of distraction (which is still in operation now), aimed at hiding the serious economic crisis in which he and Carlos Salinas de Gortari had left the country.

At the same time as launching a major military offensive against the EZLN (which failed), Zedillo attacked the National Mediation Commission.

Obsessed with the idea of doing away with Don Samuel, the former president of Mexico, and now transnational employee, took advantage of the alliance which, under the auspices of Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Diego Fernández de Cevallos, had been forged between the PRI and the PAN.

At that time, in a meeting with the Catholic Church leadership, the then Procurator General of the Republic, Antonio Lozano Gracia, a PANista and fanatic of spiritualism and witchcraft (like that of Chambon), held a document in front of Don Samuel Ruiz García, with instructions for his arrest.

They say that the Procurator, a graduate of Occult Sciences, was confronted by the other bishops, including Norberto Rivera, who came to the defence of the holder of the Diocese of San Cristobal.

The PRI-PAN alliance (which was later joined by the PRD and the PT in Chiapas) against the progressive Catholic Church did not stop there. Since then federal and state governments have fathered attacks, slanders and attacks against members of the Diocese.

The Federal Army was not far behind. While financing, training and equipping paramilitary groups, they were promoting the idea that the diocese was sowing violence.

The argument then (still repeated by idiots writing for the left) was that the diocese had formed the grassroots supporters and the leaders of the EZLN.

An example of the wide range of these ridiculous arguments was when a general showed a book as proof of the links of the Diocese with the "lawbreakers" (“transgresores de la ley”).

The title of the incriminating book was "The Gospel according to St Mark" (San Marcos).

Today, these attacks have not ceased.

The "Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas" Human Rights Centre continually receives threats and harassment.

In addition to being having been founded by Don Samuel Ruiz García, and having a Christian inspiration, the "Frayba" commits the "aggravated offences" of believing in the Integrity and Indivisibility of Human Rights, in respect for cultural diversity and the right to Self-Determination, in justice as a prerequisite for peace, in the development of a culture of dialogue, tolerance and reconciliation, and in respect for cultural and religious diversity.

Nothing could be more annoying than these principles.

And this discomfort reaches as far as the Vatican, who are manoeuvring to split the diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas in two, so as to dilute the alternative option, that of, for, by and with the poor, in an agreement where money washes consciences. Taking advantage of the death of Don Samuel, they are reactivating this project of control and division.

Because up there they understand that the option for the poor will not die with Don Samuel. It lives and breathes in the whole section of the Catholic Church which has decided to follow the path that he preached.

Meanwhile, the pastoral team, and especially the deacons, ministers and catechists (indigenous Catholics from the communities) suffer slanders, insults and attacks from the neo-lovers of war. Power still longs for his days of dominion and sees the work of the Diocese as an obstacle to reinstating his “knife and fork” regime.

The grotesque parade of figures from local and national politics beside the coffin of Don Samuel is not to honour him, but to check, with relief, that he is dead; and the local media simulate sorrow when they are actually celebrating.

Above all these ecclesiastical attacks and conspiracies, Don Samuel Ruiz García and Christians like him, had, have and will have a special place in the dark heart of the Zapatista indigenous communities.

Now that it is fashionable to condemn the entire Catholic church for the crimes, excesses, commissions and omissions of some of their superiors...

Now that the so-called "progressive" sector delights in making fun of and deriding the whole of the Catholic church...

Now that everyone is encouraged to see in every priest a potential or active paedophile...

Now it would be good to turn around and to look towards those from below and find there those who, as they did before Don Samuel, challenge and defy Power.

Because these Christians believe strongly that justice should reign also in this world.

And in this way they live and die, in thought, word and deed.

Because if it is true that there are Marcials and Onésimos in the Catholic Church, there also have been and are Roncos, Ernests, Samuels, Arthurs, Raúls, Sergios, Bartholomews, Joels, Heribertos, Raymundos, Salvadors, Santiagos, Diegos, Estelles, Victorias, and thousands of other religious and lay people who, being on the side of justice and freedom, are on the side of life.

Among the EZLN, Catholics and non-Catholics, believers and nonbelievers, today we not only honour the memory of Don Samuel Ruiz Garcia.

Also, and above all, we salute the commitment of Christians and believers in Chiapas, Mexico and the World, who do not remain silent against injustice, nor remain inactive against war.

Don Samuel is going, but there remain many, many others who, in and for the Catholic Christian faith, struggle for an earthly world that is more just, more free, more democratic, that is to say, better.

Good health to all of them, because from their efforts tomorrow also will be born.


FREEDOM!
JUSTICE!
DEMOCRACY!

From the mountains of the Mexican southeast
For the Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee - General Command of the EZLN


Lieutenant Colonel Insurgente Moisés, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos


Mexico, January 2011


UK Zap Sol

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. Tru news — UK liberation theoligist
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech