INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN

To the comrades of the Committee for Freedom and Justice for Atenco;

To the supportive comrades of Mexico and the world:

FREEDOM AND JUSTICE FOR ATENCO!- MEXICO
FREEDOM FOR ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!- MEXICO

An intense hug to all of you.

Insofar as possible, I’m following all the efforts undertaken to gain freedom and justice for Atenco and can’t find the words to thank you for embracing us with your strong solidarity. This fills us with dignity, strength, and hope.

The third anniversary of Red May is almost here. They overpowered us, but they’ve never defeated us; they’ve given us life sentences, oblivious to the fact that our spirit is still free and eager to keep struggling, yet we have too many reasons not to surrender in the face of prison bars and persecution.

The exoneration of the repressors by the system of injustice doesn’t mean that they are absolved by history or by the people. Luis Echeverría Álvarez, Enrique Peña Nieto, Ulises Ruiz, Mario Marín, and a long list of tyrants have been condemned by the people!

We know that the national situation is getting worse all the time, not only because of the international economic crisis ––a product of the insatiable voracity of the owners of money––, but also because of the deep entrenchment of organized crime in the State itself. And it’s precisely because we’re facing such difficult times that the organization and unity of people on the ground are all the more urgent and necessary.

Out there in the streets, the schools and universities, the factories and the barrios, you are organizing and arguing about what to do. Here, from our trenches in exile or in prison cells, we are standing strong in resistance, too. It’s in the struggle that we come together. In spite of distances, in spite of prison bars, we are together, with our faces towards the Sun.

Thanks to all of you in the far corners of the world for your voices and hands of solidarity. Thanks to all of you in the Committee for Freedom and Justice for Atenco.

América del Valle (politically pursued by the Mexican State), Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land

PD: Compañero Manu Chao. We are furious about the repressive State’s attempt to expel you from Mexico even though their agents finally had to desist in an effort to conceal their own incompetence. Your courage and steadfastness are a lesson to all of us who believe that solidarity carved out at the side of the people is a right and a duty that knows no borders and needs no permit. Atenco and México are your home, and the laws of the tyrants seek to silence you for simply defending your home with the truth. You are in our hearts and minds. Wherever you are, may the struggle continue because that’s what we’ve decided and because there are thousands of us and more...