TO THE HONEST NEWS MEDIA:
Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca, June 4, 2009
Comrades, as you probably know, for more than 13 years in Mexico we continually see harsher forms and techniques of harassing, repressing, intimidating and disappearing different social and political leaders and opinion shapers in different regions of the country. But in the State of Oaxaca and its different regions and micro regions, these forms of State terrorism have been intensified with the imprisonment of the comrades from the Loxicha, Isthmus, and Mixteca regions.
For years, the government of the State of Oaxaca, in complicity with the federal government, has generated low intensity warfare against the indigenous communities of these regions that have gotten organized and defended themselves against the injustices committed by the different PRI governments imposed on them for 13 years.
Different social organizations, collectives, networks, and individuals from the Loxicha region and other parts of the State of Oaxaca stand in solidarity with these twelve comrades who are unjustly charged and imprisoned for belonging to the Peoples’ Revolutionary Army (ERP) with no proof whatsoever.
The Loxicha region, as many of you know, has a long history of struggle, and on many different occasions people have spoken out against the regional PRI fiefdoms. As of 1996, however, the State has dismantled the community organizations in the region through the use of paramilitary groups or the different police forces that exist in Oaxaca.
Oaxaca’s PRI government is afraid that the indigenous communities are capable of demanding their rights and, in so doing, pull themselves out of dire poverty. These communities have struggled against removal and the disappearance of their forms of social, political, and cultural organization, upheld by Common Law, which allows for the construction of autonomy and self-determination of the peoples of Oaxaca. This was seen in the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala, in the Mixteca region, where dozens of residents shed their share of blood, and in the well-known example of the two women communicators on the radio program “The Voice that Breaks the Silence”, Felicitas and Teresa Bautista.
We want you to know that the family members of the 12 political prisoners of the Loxicha region, along with other people from this part of Oaxaca, are setting out on a march to Mexico City to demand that the State and Federal governments free these unjustly imprisoned comrades.
The march will proceed through the communities and cities of Miahautlan, Ocotlan, some neighborhoods in the city of Oaxaca, Nochixtlan, Tlaxiaco, Hujauapan de León, and will then pass through Izucar de Matamoros, Puebla, before arriving in Mexico City. The March for the Freedom of the 12 Political Prisoners of the Loxicha Region will begin on June 8, 2009.
Along the way, various organizations, collectives, and groups will join the march in solidarity. Several organizations that are adherents to the Other Campaign will accompany the Loxicha comrades.
At various stopovers, forums will be held to discuss the details of the status of Human rights in our country, as well as the problems of political prisoners, land grabs, mega investment projects, and mining, among other issues.
We respectfully and humbly ask your solidarity with the Loxicha comrades who are traveling to Mexico City and also ask that you participate in the debates and forums in the communities and cities along the way. The marchers will be in Huajuapan de León on June 11th and will stay overnight at the experimental Normal School.
Please accept our thanks in the confidence that, as always, the brother and sisterhood that brings us together will be the response to our call.
Respectfully yours,
Omar Esparza Zarate
MAIZ
Fernando Urbano
CACTUS
Ricardo García J.
APIM.
Free all political prisoners! Cancel all arrest warrants! No more selective repression! Live presentation of all politically disappeared persons!
P.S. To receive more information from the Zapatista collective in Oaxaca and the family members that are heading up the mobilization, write to: omaresparza76@hotmail.com
P.P.S. As part of the pending commitments made by the Adherents to the Other Campaign in Oaxaca, we recall the words of Subcomandante Marcos, who was here a few years ago in the Antequera and proposed that the initiative to Free all the Political Prisoners in the Country should come from Oaxaca. Although the commitment has not been kept by the adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and the Other Campaign, just a few organizations here in the Mixteca of Oaxaca, the smallest and most humble, have not broken our word, and despite our limitations and problems, are following through with our commitment to stand by the Loxicha comrades:
Palabras Del Sub Marcos Y La Iniciativa De Libertad De Presos Politicos
