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Comandanta Ramona, 1959-2006, Presente! by
Andrew Kennis, 7 January 2006
An advocate for women’s rights
and artisanship, Ramona woke up yesterday feeling weak, but still
traveled from Oventic to San Cristóbal de las Casas. During the
course of the trip, she passed away. The last public appearance by
Comandanta Ramona came this past September, when she spoke in front
of the plenary sessions that were held to plan the Other Campaign
deep in the Lacandon Jungle, in the heart of Zapatista territory. Ramona was the first member of the
Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee (CGRI), the
leadership body of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN),
to have died since the end of their uprising twelve years ago. Her
struggle with cancer was a long one, in which she received a kidney
transplant in 1996 after extensive grassroots fundraising. Most
sympathizers consider the transplant as having brought her an extra
decade of life. As a result of her illness, Ramona made few public
appearances since the Zapatistas came into the public eye following
their uprising, but she nonetheless made her mark in a number of
ways within the influential indigenous rebel group and far beyond,
with its supporters. In 1993, Comandanta Ramona,
together with Major Ana María, extensively consulted indigenous
Zapatista communities (back then, still underground and not public)
about the exploitation of women and subsequently penned the
Revolutionary Laws of Women. On March 8 of that year, the
Revolutionary Laws were passed (in English, and in Spanish). Ramona was a petite, soft-spoken
woman charged with significant responsibilities, such as having been
entrusted with the military leadership in San Cristóbal during the
uprising in 1994. In February of that year and after the Zapatistas
called a cease-fire to the twelve-day long uprising in response to
mass peace marches, Ramona was the first Zapatista representative to
speak during peace talks with the government. Two years later, when
the Mexican authorities forbade the Zapatistas from participating in
the National Indigenous Congress in Mexico City, the frail and
ill-struck Ramona was asked to represent the Zapatistas. The plan
worked as the government conceded to Ramona and she went on to
represent the Zapatistas, speaking in front of 100,000 supporters in
Mexico City’s Zocalo during the important nation-wide indigenous
gathering. The Mexican government, baffled by
the popularity of a poor indigenous woman, made numerous attempts to
undermine her influence. In 1997, it went so far as to state that
the rebel leader had died and when she made public appearances that
proved otherwise, authorities accused the Zapatistas of having used
a “double.” Ramona’s death is reflective of a
health care crisis that the impoverished indigenous communities of
Chiapas continue to suffer from. In the highlands of the
southeastern Mexican state, where most of Chiapas’ indigenous
residents live, there are no hospitals. The state government has
promised for years to build a hospital in San Andrés Larráinzar
(the same town that peace accords between the Zapatistas and the
Mexican federal government were signed in 1996 but never
implemented). However, the promise to build such a hospital has not
been acted upon and Chiapas continues to lack crucial health care
resources in its remote regions. Only in San Cristóbal, which is
anywhere between two and twelve hours away from most indigenous
communities, can women access preventative studies that could save
the lives of women with early detections of cancer. In addition to
the lack of hospitals, medical costs are often prohibitive to many
of Chiapas’s poor and infirm. “Don’t Leave Us Alone,” translated interview of Comandanta Ramona from Doble Jornada (Original in Spanish) Source:
The Narco News Bulletin, http://www.narconews.com On
the occasion of the unexpected and painful death of
commander Ramona
We are in deep
mourning about the death of the Zapatista freedom-fighter Ramona. As
Kurdish women we would pronounce our condolences to all
freedom-loving people and in particular the Chiapas Community. Ramona
is a symbol for the women’s liberation struggle of suppressed
peoples. Her guiding role in the uprising of San Cristobal has made
clear to the world that women of all nations take their destiny in
own hand and do not surrender to injustice. The determination, the
courage and strength which commander Ramona - in spite of her sever
illness - has emanated in her struggle for freedom and human dignity
have shown that the desire for independence of women can be detained
by nothing. Her
insisting efforts for the draft and the implementation the
"revolutionary women's laws" of the EZLN shows that the
organized women’s struggle can create a revolution within the
revolution. As Kurdish women we know from the experience of our own
liberation struggle only too well how much strength and perseverance
this requires. Revolutionaries
like commander Ramona or Kurdish freedom-fighters like our comrades
Beritan, Ronahi, Berivan, Zilan, Silan, Nurcan and countless other
women fighters have proved with their personalities, their lives and
struggles that that women’s liberation struggle cannot be delayed
on "after the revolution", but has to start here and now.
Hereby these women have created the fundament of hope and courage
for millions of women, men and children in the whole world who are
in search of freedom, justice and human dignity. The
success of the "Other campaign " of the EZLN; the
realization of the Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan; the origin
of any ecological-democratic order which overcomes patriarchal
ruling structures will also be a result of the fight of these women
and will show that another world is possible! The
commander Ramona will live on in our hearts and struggles for
freedom, democracy and justice. Libertad,
Democracia y Justicia! Kurdistan
Free Women's Movement 9th
January, 2006 |
