El Enemigo Común

Starting around 10 o’clock in the morning on Sunday, December 13, the main plaza in San Salvador Atenco started to fill up with young people of all ages ready to move their bodies to the sounds of jarocho, trova, hip hop, reggae and, more than anything ska, ska, and ska! These festivities marked the end of a successful tour to spread information and build support for the 12 political prisoners and 2 politically pursued people from Atenco. They also marked the beginning of a new stage in the campaign to bring them home in 2010.

Comrades came from Oaxaca, Monterrey and several other states and countries, including Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and the United States joined in the campaign to learn more about it while enjoying the vibrant rhythms, hot or cool, of the trova from Chile, Cuban music with Radio Son, son jarocho with Los Cojolites of Veracruz, intense songs of Vicente Cayo and hip hop soul by the Chilean singer Moyenei. A lot of people also came mainly to hear some of the best-known bands in Mexico ––Panteón Rococó, Los de Abajo, Los Guanabana and the Cyberpachukote Sound System. Some already knew a lot and others just a little about the defense of these lands and the price paid for it, but everybody knew where they were headed and nobody has missed out on the fact that the word “Atenco” means “resistance.” Even though there was some impatience over the time spent reading statements, the rebellious spirit of the music was contagious, as was the solidarity shown by Roco, Odisea, “el Oso”, Dr. Shenka, and other musicians who got everyone jumping while they shouted out for the freedom of the prisoners and called on the crowd to express their feelings for Calderón and other known tyrants.

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Letter from Felipe Álvarez to La Jornada

Monday, November 9, 2009

Eight years after we began our resistance struggle against the invading, oppressive, killer system, I urge people to keep up the struggle. There’s no torture that can change the course of our ideals. They can chain my body but never my consciousness. And they can’t chain the dignity and spirit of our peoples who are struggling for what belongs to them either.

The government is still determined to dispossess us of what is ours and put all this at the service of empire, grabbing our lands, our water, oil, light and the little bit of wealth we have left.

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October 20, 2009

Brothers and sisters of Mexico and the world:

We’re sending you all the information we have as of now. On Thursday, October 15, 2009, our comrade Ignacio del Valle told us in a brief phone call that he and other comrades are on hunger strike in the maximum security prison where he has been kidnapped by the Mexican state.

This extreme measure is being taken to demand an end to the subhuman prison conditions to which our political prisoners are subjected in that dungeon: physical attacks, degradation, threats, humiliation, unjustifiable punishment, suspension of phone calls, suspension of visits, destruction of mail, theft of art and design materials and other measures characteristic of fascist regimes. The comrade has not been allowed to re-establish communications with his family members or lawyers.

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September-December 2009

September 7, 2009

To the national and international civil society

To the 218 civil society organizations of the Campaign for Freedom and Justice for Atenco

We who make up the Committee for Freedom and Justice for Atenco, the initiators of the campaign of the same name, together with the Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land in its just struggle for the freedom of 12 political prisoners, wish to convey this call to the people, families, collectives, organizations, movements, fronts, and the national and international civil society, and we ask all of you to pass it on to other hands, other peoples, barrios, work and study centers, communities and all those who struggle for freedom and justice. This committee is made up of 30 musicians, people of faith, communicators, actors and actresses, a dozen civil organizations in solidarity with this struggle, and human rights defenders, who, along with the Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land itself, wish to express the following:

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52 days after his transfer to Nayarit, Jacobo Silva Nogales is being held practically incommunicado.

Situation of Jacobo in Nayarit

Since he was taken to the Cefereso (Federal Social Rehabilitation Center) # 4 NW in Tepic, Nayarit on May 24, 2009 (52 days ago) he’s only been allowed to make a “one time” 5 minute phone call and receive one 40 minute visit in a small booth.

Visitors aren’t allowed to directly hand the prisoners a letter or written material, and there is no mail service at the prison where a visitor can leave mail for the prisoner. The reverse is also true. There is no way for prisoners to send out letters or written material. Prison authorities told family members that “letters can only be sent through the mail,” but this is a lie because experience has shown that they don’t get to the prisoner. Jacobo’s family sent him an envelope by Mexpost that contained several letters, but 49 days have gone by and they haven’t been delivered to him. The post office says that the envelope has been in Nayarit since June 5 and that mail service to the prison barely exists either because the prison refuses to accept the letters or because the messengers often have to wait for up to two hours before anyone waits on them. For this reason, almost none of the messengers want to deliver letters.

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