Comandanta Miriam:

Compañeros and compañeras, I am Comandanta Miriam, and the other commanders present here are: Comandanta Hortensia, Comandanta Susanna and Comandanta Yolanda. I speak on behalf of our support bases, men, women, children and elderly of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

To the people of Mexico
To the peoples of the world
To the alternative media who are present
To the Indian National Congress

Compañeros and compañeras of the Other and of the Sixth, national and international,

As the Zapatista National Liberation Army we make our own all that is happening in every corner of our Mexican homeland, because we all suffer the same problems, dispossessing us of our mother earth, air, water, and natural resources. But the bad neoliberal governments and transnational corporations rule with money, and therefore impose projects of death in our territories. But as original peoples and owners of the natural resources, we have to defend them in any way possible, whatever the consequences, because we live and breathe with our mother earth.

But the bad governments and transnational corporations want to take control of what is ours, and when we defend it, they persecute, imprison and kill us. They accuse us of being lawbreakers and condemn us to many years in prison, as if we were criminals. But they are the real murderers, criminals and traitors. They are free, as if all they have done to us is not a crime, because of the laws they have, which protect them.

So we want to tell the bad governments and to make it very clear that now we will not, as indigenous people, allow them to take away our mother earth and natural resources.

We as Zapatistas fight for our 13 demands for the Mexican people, and we fight for autonomy where the people command and the government obeys. To achieve this requires awareness, will and sacrifice, and resisting all kinds of attacks.

Compañeras and compañeros, brothers and sisters, to reject all the plans of death imposed by the neoliberals, it is necessary to organize, to unite our forces, our pain, to unite our rebellion, and to struggle for democracy, liberty and justice.

From CIDECI, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.
This is all our word. August 18, 2013.