How And Why We Struggle (CODEP)

CODEP,  http://codepappo.wordpress.com/codep/   is the
Committee of the Defense of the Rights of the People based
in Oaxaca. It is part of the popular assembly movement (APPO)
and appears to be Magonista (anarchist) in thinking. At least
Ricardo Flores Magon (1) is on their banner and the following
statement seems very Magonist in content.  They are also linked
with a nation wide grouping,  the National Popular Power
Organization which appears to be made up of independent
trade unions and  anti-corporate globalism  groups. Translation
below by Larry Gambone 

We are associated with the line of democratic organizations
which do not reject any form of struggle, where the organized
and conscientious mobilization of the working people can
obtain the solution to our immediate demands. (1) We
want the transformation of this regime of misery and
oppression, to one where equality, justice, democracy
and freedom are really practiced. For us the alliance with
other organizations of the working people is fundamental
and for this reason we struggle for the greatest unity of
the democratic forces so as to push forward social
transformation.

 Our struggle was incited from the  beginning by the
injustices and atrocities  we suffered at the hands  of
the political bosses and by the impoverishing policies
of the government. We struggle for justice, democracy,
the equality of opportunity and conditions of development,
freedom and brotherhood between  human beings, men
and women. These values take body and form  in the
construction of  popular power and the autonomy that
is the exercise of self-management  by the oppressed,
operating in the economic, political,  social, and cultural
self- determined to end  inequality and social injustice.
The base of  popular power is the self-organization  of
the towns,  creating a network of economic and social
relations opposed to those of the present authoritarian
regime, becoming thus, within the capitalist society,
a germ of a new humanized society. To the extent to
which  people's power   is strengthened, the power of
the oppressors is worn away. 

We aspire  that these ideas will  take over as much as
possible in  the economic, political, social and cultural
activities of the territories where our organizational
work is developing, in this  long and permanent struggle
against the political bosses and their government.
As previously mentioned,  we have tried to make in reality
such  impelling productive projects  as   markets, ecological
recovery and restoration of lands, traditional medicine,
resuscitation of  culture, credit unions, the defense and
promotion of  human rights and the rights of Native Peoples,
recovery of  traditional forms of government (2) and an
impulse toward  a new system of  education. 

1. Magon is the major figure of Mexican anarchism and an
important actor in the Mexican Revolution of 1910 2.CODEP
has been involved in non-violent mass movements.
By “reject[ing] any form of struggle” they do not
mean “anything goes” or terrorism for example. 2.
These are of the local village council form and thus highly
democratic.