On this day, 6 January 2006, Tzotzil Maya Zapatista leader and women’s rights activist Comandante Ramona died in Mexico, aged approximately 47. Comandante Ramona was the nom de guerre of an officer in the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and who led the charge on San Cristobal during the Zapatista uprising of 1994.
On one occasion, suffering from kidney disease and having received a transplant, Ramona defied a ban by the government and attended a National Indigenous Congress in Mexico City. There, she addressed the crowd of 100,000 people, declaring “Basta!” (“Enough!”), and complaining that Indigenous people in her home village had to walk 12 hours to seek medical treatment.
Fellow Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos, later known as Delegate Zero, commented of her passing: “The world has lost one of those women it requires. Mexico has lost one of the combative women it needs, and we, we have lost a piece of our heart.”
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