translated from Spanish: A second meeting of women in Zapatista territory

The denunciation of sexist violent practices and behaviors was one of the themes that dominated throughout the three days of the second international meeting of women fighting organized by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), in which more than 4 thousand women of different nationalities have gathered since last Friday, December 27 in the mountains of Chiapas in southeastern Mexico.
After the inaugural address, a member of the organization gave the microphone to the more than 4,000 visiting women who would like to talk about their experiences of violence. Gradually they began to take the floor. 
Although it was announced that this dynamic of open-to-denouncement microphone would happen during the first day, in the second day sharing ideas, experiences and solutions to violence against women and in the third to dedicate it to artistic activities, the allegations were not they stopped in the three days of the event organized in the so-called field the seedbed “Footprints of the walk of the comandanta Ramona”, in Altamirano, Chiapas.
One after the other, the testimonies accumulated during the three days, with rape and sexual abuse highlighting in number. Although there was also talk of the struggle for access to justice for mothers of women and girls victims of femicide and disappearance, economic and labour violence, discrimination and daily exclusion and stories were made known assaulted by state and criminal violence.
Already for the second and third days of the meeting, although the complaints continued, different meetings organized sporadically began to be held, unlike the first, in which at the beginning of the event they presented a program of activities. This time, the themes of the meetings, tables, workshops, depended on the initiative of the attendees, who at all times were protected by more than 200 rebel women and militiamen dressed in a green military-type suit, balaclavas, and who also wore tolets and bows.
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Thus emerged activities such as the conversation of victims of femicide and disappearance in State and Mexico City; The presentation table of artistic projects with feminist focus; Self-defense workshops; Talks on maternity wards; Sports and artistic activities and others in which the Zapatistas remained on the sidelines, as hosts, and without further intervention.
Other justice and support networks
During the second day of the meeting, relatives of victims in the City and state of Mexico convened a conversation. At first, Sayuri Hernandez, who is a lawyer and provides legal accompaniment to victims, reflected on the follow-up to the cases and the process of seeking legal justice: “Is that the justice we want and what do we want to do to achieve it?” he raised to the public. 
From their perspective, the creation of support networks is essential to building collective legal justice. For the families of the victims, she added, the accompaniment of writers, embroiderers, has been part of the justice they receive. 
Then several relatives presented their stories of search for justice, among them: Lourdes Arizmendi, mother of Dianey García, disappeared in January 2018, in the State of Mexico; Juana Garrido, sister of Viviana Garrido, who disappeared in November 2018, in Mexico City; Gilberta Mendoza, aidé Mendoza’s aunt, a student who was shot dead by a firearm inside cCH-Oriente in April 2019.
Among the public, some 60 women listened attentively to the experiences of the most recent cases to the most emblematic cases, such as that of Mariana Lima, whose case is already in court, and that of Lesvy Osorio, for which sentencing was recently handed down.
Later, in the main temple, another group of women who traveled thousands of miles from the department of Cauca, Colombia, took the microphone to give a message: “They are killing us, we need your help,” they told the public. The account of the recent assassination of his companion Cristina Bautista, defender of the territory and indigenous leader, accompanied by the singing of a fragment of the anthem of Cauca that they sang to end their call, caused the crying of several audience attendees. 
Throughout the meeting, this group exchanged contacts with defenders from the territory of other countries and spread as many times as possible the situation of violence in Cauca, the department with the highest number of assaults on social leaders, according to the We Are Defenders Program.
“As Zapatista women, we want to send a special hug to the families and friendships of missing and murdered women. A hug that will let you know that you are not alone, that, with our way and in our place, we accompany your demand for truth and justice. Because that’s what we meet, sister and companion… to seek ways of support and help,” the sister Amada read at the opening of the meeting.
A call for self-defense
For Dayra Fyah, self-defense begins before the blow you throw to contain an aggression. It all starts with feeling powerful and valuable. That’s why, as an instructor, she teaches her apprentices that self-defense is self-love and self-care. 
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Dayra is a 32-year-old rapper, inhabitant of Ecatepec, one of the two municipalities of the State of Mexico with the highest number of femicides in Mexico. In addition to giving self-defense classes, he holds violence prevention workshops in which he invites participants to analyze the rhymes of some rap songs and detect misogyny in them. Then, all together, rewrite those letters.
When Dayra showed up on the second day of the meeting at the table of feminist artistic projects, the audience asked her for a song. Without hesitation, the rapper improvised: “The street is empty, empty of empathy, and it is also mine, the street is also mine. At the outing of the banner: ‘Friend realize, we are already herds’. With violet fists, you know what you’re up against. We’re not violent, it’s self-defense.”
In his presentation, he explained the methodology of the “De reversa” workshops in which he works on the lyrics of the songs. These itinerant spaces, she explained, are aimed at a mixed audience and are not promoted as feminists because, although she believes that she does maintain a gender and anti-misogynous perspective, many people still reject everything that sounds like feminism.
She says that a few years ago she also refused to assume her feminist, especially since doing so within the rap scene meant excluding herself. But now he even sees it as a way to protect himself from possible reactions to his feminist work. “If it was not necessary to pronounce before, today is indispensable,” he said.
“Being able to tell a woman that she is powerful, that she is strong, that she can get out of certain situations makes me a person of risk towards her system and what they don’t want to change,” added only the vulnerability of using rap as an expr feminist political ion.
In the inaugural address, the Zapatistas also talked about self-defense: “We have to defend ourselves organized. Support us all. Protect us all. Defend us all. And we have to start now.”
Diversity of postures
Participants in the conversation on the abolition of prostitution convened on the second day of the meeting. The discussion remained tense for most of the two hours that lasted because it fluctuated between the participation of abolitionism advocates and those advocating regularization, both mixed feminist stances.
“We can’t be lukewarm, but that doesn’t mean we don’t listen to the other,” one intervened. “For me, abolitionism is a necessity, especially for impoverished women, we just want them to have the opportunity not to live off permanent rape,” another replied. 
Thus, those who served as moderators called for that space to be maintained to discuss abolitionist proposals and at another time could organize a new discussion those who had another opinion. They began to participate by saying their name and then, “… and I’m an abolitionist” to reaffirm their position. Women from Chiapas, Guadalajara, Sinaloa, Aguascalientes, Mexico City, Colombia and Brazil took part.
During the conservatory several ideas and proposals emerged. Here are some of them:
“We have to start by understanding that prostitution is a male privilege.”
“It is key to understand the context of Mexico of crime and drug trafficking.”
“Let the discussion focus on sexual exploitation.”
“There is no dignity in the commodification of our bodies.”
“We are here to create public policies not to have the option of prostitution, but other options.”
Minutes after the conversation on the abolition of prostitution ended, another group of women asked for the microphone in their temple to announce that the next day they would hold a table about prostitution and sex work.
Consideration of the various positions was also an appeal of the Zapatistas, who in their reception asked the attendees for respect for the difference in thought.
Healing and organization
Diana Itzu Luna belongs to several mixed political spaces for more than a decade, but a couple of years ago, she and other women activists from San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, decided to form a new group only of women from which they began to share experiences of violence within their own organizations. Thus came the idea of a collective healing exercise they called Moonroot, which consists of gathering each full moon to sing together.
“We realized that machismo and patriarchy we also live inside and sometimes it isor it’s what hurts us the most because we’re like we’re really out on the system and we haven’t been able to realize that it’s going through us within our collectives, organizations and networks,” Diana explained.
In the first women’s meeting convened by the Zapatistas, Moon Root attended with a huehue drum that they built themselves. Diana told how they position themselves around him and all beat him up, trying to harmonize. When some lack of rhythm or dissent from the rest, she said, it’s how they detect that there’s something to work with her and we talk about it. That exercise was carried out right there in March 2018.
But during the second meeting, a couple of Moonroot members decided not to attend. So Diana met with other women from different states and countries to continue to articulate a network of national and international organizations focused on analyzing how war affects women’s bodies and territory.
During the third and final day, Diana shared some of Moonroot’s reflections that speak of the process of collective healing among women who are accompanied by political processes and spoke to the members of the network about what she calls the snail’s dynamics, working in and out of political spaces. 
“The rapprochement between women is very important. We already saw that we cannot, alone, we are left with fear, anger and pain, but if we get together we all transform it into healing and political organization, which is what we do not want to abandon,” he chatted during one of the talks at the end of the meeting.
In the closing speech of the event, Comandanta Yesica reported that the proposals arising here will be shared among the more than 4,000 participants and organizers, so that they can be discussed and new ways to prevent sexist violence, with the idea that on 8 March 2020 all groups, groups and women’s organizations fighting are coordinated for the implementation of joint actions.
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Original source in Spanish

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