[act-ma] Mexico Solidarity Network: Campesino Fight For Dignity & Democracy in Central Mexico 4/10

[Corry Banton]

"The campesino fight for dignity and democracy in Central Mexico"
with Luz Rivera Martinez of the Consejo National Urbano Campesino (CNUC)
Come hear the inspiring account of working class, peasant families struggling for dignity, autonomy, and true democracy in Central Mexico.
 
Sunday, April 10th  7pm
Lucy Parsons Center
549 Columbus Ave.
Boston, MA   
 
free & open to the public!


Luz Rivera Martinez will speak about her 20 years of experience constructing autonomy and resisting free trade. Luz is an inspiring speaker and her talk will have important lessons for anyone interested in women's, peasant, and labor movements.


Luz has been organizing with the Consejo Nacional Urbano Campesino (CNUC) in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala for over 20 years and will explain the long history of peasant organizing in Tlaxcala. During the Mexican Revolution support for Emiliano Zapata was strong in Tlaxcala, and in the 1930s many peasant communities organizing under the slogan of "the land belongs to those who work it" initiated the redistribution of the plantations their families had labored on as serfs for generations.


Luz established CNUC in the 1980s to coordinate resistance to the impending North American Free Trade Agreement, especially regarding its dismemberment of Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, which enshrined peasants' right to communally own lands redistributed during the Revolution.


As CNUC's lead organizer, Luz has worked tirelessly to protect peasant's rights and build inspiring, community-based autonomous projects. CNUC groups across Tlaxcala have built health clinics and taught traditional medicine to families. CNUC produces tons of organic fertilizer each year, lessening peasants' dependence on expensive chemical fertilizer. CNUC families also work with local teachers to include people's history and pertinent social issues in educational curriculum.


In addition to organizing for autonomy in healthcare, education, and agricultural sustainability, Luz and CNUC also accompany organized sex workers, a bus-drivers' cooperative, and the National Assembly of Braceros. CNUC is also a member of the Zapatistas' Other Campaign, an international network of organizations struggling against neoliberalism and for autonomy from the grassroots.
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