On December 21 2012, the Zapatistas were in force. Throughout the state of Chiapas in Mexico, some 50,000 supporters of the indigenous Zapatista movement – the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (known as the EZLN – Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) – marched in silence through the rain, towns and cities, their faces covered with the legendary Zapatista pasamontañas and paliacates around their necks. This marked their largest mobilisation in five years.

It was the day of the ending of the Long Count Mayan calendar, and nearly two decades since the 1994 uprising of the Zapatistas when the group openly declared war “against the Mexican state” of the government of then-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, calling for Indigenous rights and autonomy through non-violent action and resistance.

What follows below is a copy of the poetic communiqué released by Subcomandante Marcos and a translation into English.

Photography by Noam Chojnowski and Text by Sophie Pinchetti

Communiqué of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee – General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Mexico.

December 21, 2012

To Whom It May Concern:

DID YOU HEAR IT?

It’s the sound of their world ending.

It’s that of ours resurging.

The day that was the day, was night.

The night will be the day that will be the day.

DEMOCRACY!

LIBERTY!

JUSTICE!

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

For the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous – General Command of EZLN

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, December of 2012