To the indigenous peoples of Mexico and the world
To the honest and supportive media outlets
To the dignified and heroic people of Oaxaca, Liberated Land
To the men and women who are familiar with our struggle, which is your struggle, the struggle of those from below, which is created with the strength, commitment and blood of our martyrs who have given life to the rebellion that we are…
To Bety and Jyri, and to his parents who have joined us from so far away and have listened to our small word
Sisters, brothers…
Our indigenous Triqui people continue to be attacked, there is no disastrous day which our people are not familiar with, the pain and rage are in our hearts, women, children, old people, men, all of us and them, suffer injustice from institutions, from paramilitaries, from the death of comrades who are merely counted as unending statistics. While the bank accounts of the pseudo-leaders of the left continue to grow, those of us from the Autonomous Municipality who use our words to denounce them only receive rhetoric and demagogic speeches, and we note the growing politics of paramilitarism which is nothing but a never-ending spiral of violence that condemns us to death.
How much more do we need to say that our struggle is for dignity, justice, freedom, work, respect? How much more do we need to call on the people who are silent and bowed? How much more so that they join the struggle for freedom, for respect for their rights, for autonomy and self-determination, to decide our destiny as indigenous peoples, to protest against the Mexican state which violates our rights!? What use are international treaties if an old and obsolete constitution does not guarantee the rights of the peoples of Oaxaca?
Today, after almost 518 years of displacement and discrimination, of genocide against our people, governments like that of Ulises Ruiz continue to repress us. It is enough to say that with their racist and discriminatory politics they seek to remove us from the public spaces because the Indians, the Triquis, we give Oaxaca a bad image. What will the tourists think? To protest is our right; however, we are not here because we want to be. Ulises Ruiz, like Jorge Franco and Evencio Martínez, knows that they are the ones who have set fire to our region and that we indigenous Triqui women are the ones who suffer the violence for which they are responsible, which is why we have nothing to celebrate as they have left us outside of history.
This is why we call on all the women and men of Oaxaca who have struggled against these tyrants, those who have lost their comrades, those who have taken to the streets to demand justice: to fight for dignity so that they do not silence us once again and to reinforce our encampment of Triqui women, mothers, comrades, wives, and children from a town that has risen up to shout – Enough! They want to do away with our encampment and we will not let them. If necessary, we will defend it with our lives!
Justice for Bety Cariño!
Justice for Daniela and Virginia!
Justice for Teresa and Felicitas!
Justice for Timoteo and Jyri Jaakkola!
To all of those who have given their lives to our struggle
To all our Triqui sisters and brothers
Women of the Encampment
Oaxaca de Juárez
September 2, 2010
Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala
