Café Libertad's history

Café Libertad Kollektiv was established on July 15th, 1999, to create a strong connection between developing a solidary economy and direct solidarity. The idea of importing Zapatista coffee from Chiapas originated from anarcho-syndicalist structures in Hamburg. The project aimed to support both union activities and the indigenous Zapatista movement's uprising in Chiapas, and later to create collective jobs.

The Zapatista co-ops' hour of birth dates back to the uprising of the indigenous liberation movement EZLN on January 1st 1994, when nearly a third of the Chiapas region was occupied. Since then, five autonomous regions have been established, developing a self-organised economy against globalised exploitation and postcolonial relations, independently of official authorities and institutions.

Café Libertad's history of solidary trade with Chiapas autonomous communities began with importing 8 sacks of raw coffee via a detour through the US. They stored these at home under their beds. Just a few weeks later, they could order fresh supply because solidarity with rebellious communities and sales of solidarity coffee exceeded expectations.

Subsequently, members of the local union group FAU founded the collective, working without pay to import and distribute Zapatista coffee beyond their immediate circle of friends and acquaintances. The collective launched a website informing FAU groups and EZLN solidarity initiatives about the project.

In Switzerland, comrades of the local solidarity group 'Direct Solidarity with Chiapas' established their own distribution structures and created Café RebelDía. Soon thereafter, friends and solidarity groups from Italy, Spain, France, Sweden, Great Britain, and Greece joined the project, importing their first coffee sacks via Café Libertad and later establishing their own projects. Over the years, a European network of solidary coffee projects has evolved.

Our funding supports not only coffee co-ops and Zapatista communities' autonomy, but also social and political movements worldwide. Furthermore, Café Libertad funding has supported workers on strike, helped distribute the Strike Bikes, and established independent production at the squatted Greek factory vio.me.

In 2007, the work collective transformed from a 'proprietor-run' general partnership into a cooperative to remove it from the private property market and legally collectivise it. Café Libertad has since been a registered cooperative and a member of the Central Association of Consumer Cooperatives (ZdK), a politically active organisation supporting the general idea, the interests and new establishments of small and medium cooperatives as a political and economic alternative.

Nowadays, Café Libertad Kollektiv imports and distributes coffee for the daily uprising not only from Zapatista communities but also from other rebellious coops, like the civil war refugees' project Finca Sonador in Costa Rica and the women's coop Aprolma in Honduras. Additionally, we - with other solidarity groups - are organising the distribution of Spanish anarchist CNT red wine or solidarity olive oil 'for the movement's gears' from Greece, among others.

At the same time, new questions and contradictions keep emerging: How are we organising the coffee coops' financing, and how are we setting prices for both small-scale farmers and solidary consumers? Which principles are guiding our cooperation with other groups and protagonists? How can our practice help overcome global injustice relations instead of justifying them anew as a more ethical type of capitalism and thereby merely perpetuating them in different terms?

Proximity and direct solidarity with indigenous and Zapatista communities, global networking with other projects and integration in social movements and mobilisations have been as important as Café Libertad's self-conception as a political project reaching beyond its own collective horizons.

In everyday life, this works as intended at times; at other times, it doesn't. Yet, despite the collective's crises, we see it as a positive success story that everyone has contributed to. Including everyone who has supported Café Libertad's idea in various ways, from the past to today. Or those enjoying a cup of coffee for the daily uprising first thing in the morning, to be wide awake when contemplating a world that is not unchangeable but needs to be reinvented again and again.