The EZLN has lifted the “Red Alert” that was put in place in Chiapas during their internal consulta last month and have reopened Zapatista communities to the various NGOs and solidarity organizations that have worked with the territory. The “Red Alert”, issued as a precautionary measure, came as the EZLN debated a new political strategy. A lengthy new communiqué from Subcommandante Marcos outlines a new strategy, provides further clarification of how the Zapatistas see the world and their place within it, and explains the lessons the lessons that they have learned in their struggle against neo-liberalism.

The communiqué outlines the following steps that will be taken:

In the world…

1. We will forge new relationships of mutual respect and support with persons and organizations who are resisting and struggling against neoliberalism and for humanity.
2. As far as we are able, we will send material aid such as food and handicrafts for those brothers and sisters who are struggling all over the world.
3. And to all of those who are resisting throughout the world, we say there must be other intercontinental encuentros…everyone will hear and jot down in their notebooks the words of resistance from others, so then everyone can go and talk with their compañeros and compañeras in their worlds.

In Mexico…

1. We are going to continue fighting for the Indian peoples of Mexico, but now not just for them and not with only them, but for all the exploited and dispossessed of Mexico, with all of them and all over the country. And when we say all the exploited of Mexico, we are also talking about the brothers and sisters who have had to go to the United States in search of work in order to survive.
2. We are going to go to listen to, and talk directly with, without intermediaries or mediation, the simple and humble of the Mexican people, and, according to what we hear and learn, we are going to go about building, along with those people who, like us, are humble and simple, a national program of struggle, but a program which will be clearly of the left, or anti-capitalist, or anti-neoliberal, or for justice, democracy and liberty for the Mexican people.
3. We are going to try to build, or rebuild, another way of doing politics, one which once again has the spirit of serving others, without material interests, with sacrifice, with dedication, with honesty, which keeps its word, whose only payment is the satisfaction of duty performed, or like the militants of the left did before, when they were not stopped by blows, jail or death, let alone by dollar bills.
4. We are also going to go about raising a struggle in order to demand that we make a new Constitution, new laws which take into account the demands of the Mexican people, which are: housing, land, work, food, health, education, information, culture, independence, democracy, justice, liberty and peace. A new Constitution which recognizes the rights and liberties of the people, and which defends the weak in the face of the powerful.

Read More: Subcomandante Marcos - This is What We Will Do and How We Will Do It