Wednesday, October 7, 2009
To the brave and conscious people:
To the democratic and combative teachers:
To the independent media:
To the Other Campaign:
Dear comrades, today we ask for your solidarity because we are a part of the social movement in Oaxaca, we are participants in the barricades, in the mega-marches, and in other forms of protest against the government. We are youth with the goal of completely changing this system and because of that we feel driven to continue fighting for the freedom that the brave people have instilled in us, that the people have seen arise in the majority of us, the prisoners from October 2, 2009.
We are active members of the movement where we join in and scream the slogans of freedom for political prisoners, for respect for the indigenous peoples and in defense of the earth which is as sacred and dignified as our lives which we have been building little by little, constantly struggling through the day, giving us strength to pick up a piece of paper and a pen which, like our lives, is so important because our paper is our life and the pen is what we do every day to work as always for a bit of bread and water, if we are able to get that much which is so necessary. Yet for the members of congress it is not so important, or for all of those who spend more than 2,000 pesos for food or those who want to increase their pay by more than 150%, which continues to increase the poverty in our Mexico with a hidden tax, saying that it is up to the poor to defend ourselves from the corrupt ravages of the major political, financial and economic (IMF, WB, IB) interests.
Because of this and more, comrades, we have decided to continue to support all those who need us and who we are able to help, even if it costs us our freedom. Because of this, comrades, we reiterate that now, by chance of fate, we need your support, whether it is communal, verbal, moral, economic, emotional. Whatever happens we will continue to resist because there is no other option for us, just like you who are on the other side of the bars, who in spite of having the word “freedom” in your mouths, on your lips, in your hearts, the reality is different. We are prisoners because every day that we breathe we have to risk our lives for a piece of bread which isn’t nearly enough. Every day it is more difficult to find that which we call food.
Because of this, comrades, we need your legal support in order to fight for our freedom, as none of us on our side have stopped fighting. Not only physically, but mentally we’ve had to be in solidarity together as the government, with the charges against us, wants to separate us and all of us who fight for a better world have to be strong. We are asking for the help of Section 22’s legal department, so that they may join up with the comrades who are monitoring our cases so that together they can mediate a solution and obtain our freedom which we lost last October 2 while we were remembering our comrades, who like us fought for a just cause, and lost their lives.
Because of this we ask for your immediate, kind and valuable intervention in our cases so that shortly we will again be in the streets enjoying the freedom that they so unjustly robbed us of. We know we’ve always struggled together, shoulder to shoulder. One of those struggles we’ve been through was the change in [the leadership of the teachers’ union] Section 22, the other was the second state congress of the APPO from which emanated many agreements, one of which was the immediate and unconditional freedom for all political prisoners of poverty and from the social movement in this country. We will continue advancing shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow. As well we need to understand and accept our mistakes. We should learn from them in order to continue moving forward, even though we may have to lose more comrades, perhaps kidnapped by the state or like the case in San Pedro Jicaya where we lost two comrades. And despite this we have not stopped fighting, just as we haven’t stopped fighting for the others who have died. Also we should keep fighting against the supposed Alliance for Quality Education (ACE) which is nothing more than the privatization of education. Because of this and because of so much more we must keep fighting.
A combative greeting from the comrades who are prisoners and as Mercedes Sosa said, “For the caged bird, for the fish in the tank, for my friend who is a prisoner because (s)he said what (s)he thought, I call you FREEDOM.”
FRATERNALLY,
POLITICAL PRISONERS FROM OCTOBER 2 LOCKED IN THE IXCOTEL JAIL
FREE POLITICAL PRISONERS
