Angry White Kid

100 Days in Detention: Free the Hikers

There are events being held around the U.S. and internationally. Check out the list here.

Two of my good friends are currently being detained in Iran's Evin prison. This Sunday, November 8, will mark 100 days since Sarah and Shane, and their friend Josh, have been held since allegedly crossing into Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan while hiking in the area.

To mark the occasion, to show support for the hikers and their families, and to raise funds for the efforts to free them, myself and friends of Josh are organizing a vigil and fundraiser.  If you're in the NYC area, it'd be great if you could come to one or both.
 
On Sunday, the vigil will run from 4:30 to 5pm at the arch in Washington Square Park. We'll then head to the Town Tavern at 134 W. 3rd St. (between 6th Ave and MacDougal - right by the W 4th St. subway), from 5 to 8pm.  We're asking for a $5+ donation, and inside there will be $3 draft beers and $4 well drinks.  We'll also have petitions to sign, material for sending letters to Sarah, Shane and Josh, a raffle, some food, and other good stuff.
 
Please come if you can and feel free to invite others. For more info on Sarah, Shane and Josh, see Free the Hikers.

Race or Class or Both? A response to MC Serch

Early this year I started working with author JLove Calderon on a multimedia project she started called Till the White Day is Done. Part of that effort was her interview with MC Serch (of 3rd Bass and executive producer of Nas' Illmatic) and my response to it. Below are both the interview and my brief response. Hopefully we'll be producing more of this in the future.

In the interview, MC Serch comments on the role of both race and class in analyzing the causes of injustice and inequality.  He comes clearly down on the side of class trumping race, stating:

“We have to look at economics and see where it plays, and not race. Because now more than ever the guy with the most money wins.”

“I find it idiotic when people say, ‘It’s a black and white issue.’ It’s not.  It’s a poor or rich issue.”

Without a doubt, Serch is right that class is tremendously important.  It goes without saying that with enough money, a person can have access to almost anything.  But an important aspect of looking at the differences and inequalities between the working and middle classes and the upper and ruling classes, is the racial makeup of those classes.

Numerous studies have shown both that the wealthiest Americans are almost exclusively white and that on average, whites are wealthier than people of color.  For example, a 1997 paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, of all places, points out that the richest 1 percent of U.S. households own 33 percent of the wealth in the U.S.  And of that richest 1%, 92.1% are white.

Thomas Shapiro, director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, writes that in 2007, white households had a net worth that was $142,600 greater than black households, up from $100,700 in 1997. Shapiro states that “the racial wealth gap [is] a fundamental axis of racial inequality,” and that these numbers show “a firmly embedded racial stratification.”

Following Serch’s suggestion, by looking at these numbers to see who the guys with the most money are, the answer is definitive: the white guys.

Most white people reading this are probably wondering, “Well, if white people are the rich ones, then where’s my share?”  That’s a fair question, because obviously most white people are not rich.  But the fact still remains, even if we’re not rich, on average we still have more resources and wealth than people of color do, simply because we’re white.

At first glance, that last sentence doesn’t make very much sense.  A more in-depth explanation will have to wait for another blog post but the brief explanation is this: The reason white people across the board have more money is because for hundreds of years, the U.S. economy was built along racial lines designed to favor whites at the expense of all others.  Through the mechanisms of genocide, slavery, exclusion acts, Jim Crow laws, and redlining and other racist financial practices, whites amassed wealth, reinvested it and passed it on to their children; while entire segments of the population, especially blacks, were barred from owning anything and the wealth they did produce was taken from them.  

Stretch that out over 400 years and it’s easy to see why whites as a whole are in such a better financial condition.  That legacy of unequal wealth distribution and white supremacy is why in 2009, it’s still the case that the wealthiest people in the U.S. are almost all white, and that whites across the board are wealthier than any other racial group.

Update on Oct. 2 political prisoners in Oaxaca

October 16, 2009
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

On the morning of October 11, 2009, after more than a week of remaining kidnapped by the system of injustice which reigns in our state, 10 of our 13 comrades who were arrested on October 2 gained their conditional freedom after a process plagued with irregularities and violations of their individual rights, but with the latent risk that if new elements are gathered they may again be subject to arrest, for which we ask all to be alert of any attempt to deprive them of their freedom.

We continue demanding the absolute freedom of the three comrades who remain kidnapped in the Santa María Ixcotel prison, who are: SOLEDAD GUZMAN RUIZ, GABRIEL MIJANGOS MARTINEZ, and BERNARDO RAFAEL VASQUEZ REYES, as well as demanding their physical well-being inside of the prison as the entire time they have been inside they have been threatened and attacked.

We believe that the repression unleashed on the second of October and the days afterwards is part of a state strategy against the organized people, especially against the youth, who, for thinking, dressing and feeling differently are targets of all the police brutality, proof of which occurred on October 5, when the march demanding the freedom of the October 2 political prisoners made its way from Prepa 2 to the zócalo, two of our young comrades who were leading it were detained.  And Wednesday, October 7, the day a rally was held outside of the Ixcotel prison, a surveillance operation was deployed which consisted of patrol cars at the intersections around the prison where the police checked out who was going to the prison to attend the rally.  With this we confirm that we are living under a state of siege equal to that of 2006. For this reason we repudiate the ruling of the magistrates of the National Supreme Court of Injustice who have made themselves complicit with the true criminals and murderers (Vicente Fox, Enrique Peña Nieto, Ulises Ruiz, Franco Vargas, etc.). We demand a resolution that conforms to the law - just, ethical and honest.

We again show our respect for the freedom of expression to all those journalists who carry out their work ethically and professionally.  We repudiate the infiltration of pseudo-journalists who serve the government in order to attack the social movement.

We are in solidarity with the MEXICAN UNION OF ELECTRICIANS in their just struggle for workers’ rights and against the privatization policies of Felipe Calderón.

WE DEMAND:

1. THE ABSOLUTE FREEDOM OF GABRIEL MIJANGOS MARTNEZ, SOLEDAD GUZMAN RUIZ, BERNARDO RAFAEOL VASQUEZ REYES.
2. THE DROPPING OF THE CHARGES AGAINST THE TEN FREED PRISONERS.
3. AN END TO THE HARASSMENT OF THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT AND THE LIBERTARIAN YOUTH OF OAXACA.
4. THE INTERVENTION OF SECTION 22 AS THESE YOUTH ARE A VERY IMPORTANT PART OF THE PEOPLE WHO MOBILIZED WHEN THE TEACHERS ASKED THEM TO IN 2006.
5. WE DEMAND THAT THE SENSATIONALIST PRESS CARRY OUT THEIR WORK ETHICALLY AND HONESTLY.

WE’RE NOT ALL HERE, WE’RE MISSING THE PRISONERS
FREEDOM FOR ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS

CASOTA's One Year Anniversary

Our baby is all grown up. I wrote about CASOTA a couple times before [1, 2]. It's an autonomous space in the center of the city of Oaxaca that I, along with several others, helped get off the ground last year. This weekend it's celebrating it's one year anniversary. If you're ever down there, go check it out.  You can read more about CASOTA at its website.

Statement from the October 2 prisoners in Oaxaca

Versión en español después del link.

October 2, 2009, marked 41 years since the Tlateloco Massacre of hundreds of students by the Mexican army.  The massacre and the demand for justice are marked by marches all over Mexico every October 2.  They also incorporate demands around poverty, corruption, political prisoners and more.  Two of the three October 2 marches held in Oaxaca earlier this month were attacked by the police with at least 18 young people arrested.  They remain detained.  Below is a statement they released last week.  As well, the anarchist contingent of the Oct. 2 march in Mexico City was met with severe police brutality and arrests.

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

Free the Hikers: Month Two Vigil

September 30 will mark two months since our friends Sarah, Shane and Josh have been detained in Iran after media reports say they accidentally crossed an unmarked border while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan.

More than a dozen vigils will be held around the country calling for their safe and quick return. If one is near you, please come out and spread the word about it. Also, please sign the petition supporting their release and join the Facebook page to stay updated about the situation.

Free the Hikers!

The families and friends of Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, the three Americans currently detained in Iran have just launched a website: www.freethehikers.org.

Please help in spreading the word about this site and the situation of Sarah, Shane and Josh. Their families and friends want them all home safe and soon!

Along with notifying others about the site, you can join the Facebook group and if you are on Twitter, please use the hash tage #ssj.

Here's some more info on Sarah, Shane and Josh from the website:

Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd have been detained in Iran since July 31, 2009, when they accidentally crossed an unmarked border during a hiking trip in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. They were in a peaceful region of Iraq that is increasingly popular with Western tourists.

The three young Americans, all graduates of the University of California at Berkeley, are believed to be held in the Iranian capital, Tehran. They have not been charged with any crime, have had no contact with their families, and have not been granted their right to consular access.

Shane, Josh and Sarah care greatly about the world. They admire and respect different cultures and religions and share a love of travel that has taken them to many countries. That’s why they went to Kurdistan, not because they wanted to enter Iran.

The families and friends of the three hikers created this site to tell the story of Shane, Josh and Sarah and keep the world informed about their situation.

We hope the Iranian authorities understand that there’s just one reason why our children and friends happened to be in Iran: because they made a regrettable mistake and got lost. Please let them return home as soon as possible.

Cesareo Capriles’ legacy Part IV: To die free of pageantry

PART I
PART II
PART III

February 22, 2009
By Wilson García Mérida
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

He hated the Chaco war because it destroyed the climate of peace that the continuity of “Arte y Trabajo” required.  He tenaciously opposed the conflagration, leading a peaceful march on the 14th of September Plaza and was jailed for the crime of “treason to the homeland.”

After the war he dedicated himself to commerce and became associates with Alfredo Galindo Quiroga in order to open the “Cosmos” pharmacy, to the west of the Principal Plaza.  The revolutionary process that would culminate in 1952 with a particracy predestined to impose a culture of corruption in Bolivia scattered his “Arte y Trabajo” collaborators into various parties that destroyed their libertarian ideals (MNR, FSB, PIR, POR), and extinguished their passion for history.  An illness in his eyes condemned him to sightlessness, leading him to the decision to take his own life.

He was 70 years old when he did it, on July 4, 1950.  “He told me that he was going on a trip and he wished me luck, that he was satisfied he had me as one of his best friends,” recalls Efraín Vega, owner of a farm in Tablas Monte, Chapare, where he knew Capriles went to end his life, free of all funeral pageantry.

“He was terrified of funerals; he would see a burial and get out of there.  He said: ‘That is life’s ultimate farce.’ He was critical of the ostentation and spectacle that, according to him, made the fact of being buried repulsive,” said Don Efraín, when recalling that some days before his suicide, Capriles wanted to find out in what part of Tablas Monte Vega’s lands were.  “I asked him why he wanted to know and he told me that he wanted to go to ‘fertilize’ my lands.”  Don Cesáreo gave himself a double dose of morphine in the inhospitable forest of Tablas Monte, a lethal injection he obtained from his own Cosmos pharmacy.  No one saw him again.

Don Nivardo Paz Arze, an innate defender of Cesáreo Capriles, showed us the gold brooch with which the great anarchist ended his fascinating existence: “From Alfredo Galindo, his business partner in the pharmacy, I knew that he left a payment and receipt for the double dose of morphine that he took for this one-way trip.”  Even in his last days, his integrity and honesty was ironclad.

He left a complete collection of “Arte y Trabajo” with his friend Werner Guttentag, writing on the cover these words which gave flavor to his departure: “In the face of humanity’s stupidity, even the gods are impotent.”

Such was the example of the life and death of an authentic libertarian Cochabamban.

Wilson García Mérida is an independent journalist in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Director of the Servicio Informativo Datos & Analisis. His email is llactacracia@yahoo.com.

Conversations with Sandino

Below is my most ambitious translating effort to date, a lengthy interview with guerilla leader Augusto Sandino.  I believe a bit of background would be helpful.

These series of interviews took place in February of 1933, one year before Sandino was assassinated by General Anastasio Somoza on February 21, 1934, and one month after the inauguration of Juan Bautista Sacasa as president of Nicaragua and the accompanying departure of the U.S. Marines from the country.

The interviewer is Ramón de Belausteguigoitia (aka Ramón Belausteguigoitia Landaluce).  He was a Basque nationalist, publisher and writer.  Relevant towards the end of the interview is that Spain had recently become a Republic in 1931, the right was nine months away from winning a plurality in the November 1933 elections and the Spanish Civil War was only three years away.

Given the length, I've also put it into PDF form [download].  Be aware that given the age and formality used, the phrasing is a bit dense, and some of the ideas are outlandish and problematic, but I hope that people find it useful or at least interesting.

------------------

Conversations with Sandino
By Ramón de Belausteguigoitia
February 1933
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

Index:

1. The man and his ideas
2. Social issues
3. Spanish America, Central America and Spain

1. The man and his ideas

During the approximately two weeks that I was in the Army of Freedom camp, I didn’t cease to be in daily conversation with General Sandino, who from the first moment treated me with an altogether familial kindness.

Sometimes the chief would call for me and other times I went to his house, watched over by his personal guard with machineguns in hand.  I usually awaited the general in a dark room next to that of the guards and he came in smiling, hugging me, as was his custom.

It was a simple room decorated with a calendar and a picture card which showed seal hunters in a tempestuous sea of ice shooting at those mammals that were alarmingly encircling the boat.  There was a bench and some chairs; normally on the bench sat some leaders who attended the interview in silence or soldiers from the camp.  In the corner one could see a pile of rifles.

The general sat in a simple rocking chair, which he rocked unceasingly.  It gives his oval yet angular face a certain kind of asymmetry that works, together with the commissure of his lips, to create strange variations in his face.  Frequently his eyes shine with a tender friendliness, but ordinarily they show profound depth; intense reflection.  His relaxed facial features, the strength of his jaw, open at an angle, confirm the impression that his messages are of a serene and affirming purpose.  His voice is smooth, convincing; no doubts in his concepts, and the words are precise, well-guided by an intellect that has thought through the matters it expresses.  It is his habit to rub his hands while holding a handkerchief.  Rarely does he change the serene tone of his voice. The impression that General Sandino gives, in both his appearance and in his speech, is of a great spiritual state.  He is, without a doubt, a practitioner of yoga, a pupil of the Orient. 

The topics of our conversation were varied and normally without much structure.  I have tried to frame them under distinct subjects, but naturally without any absolute defining of the concepts and phrases, so that the reader can penetrate the psychology of this extraordinary champion of freedom, who has been portrayed by many as a vulgar and ignorant man, something like the Pancho Villa of the Nicaraguan rebellion.  But this is absolutely false. General Sandino is a delicate and fine spirit, a man of action and a visionary, as we have already said, and even having had very limited schooling, he is an extraordinary person, apart from his role as liberator.

Acteal: Statement from Las Abejas Community on the release of paramilitaries

August 9, 2009
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell

Las Abejas [The Bees] Civil Society Organization
Sacred Land of the Acteal Martyrs, Chiapas, Mexico

To the Inter-American Human Rights Commission
To all Social and Political Organizations
To all Human Rights defenders
To all the people of Mexico and the World
To the National and International press
To the Other Campaign
To public opinion

In response to reports that have been spread by some media outlets that the Supreme Court is about to make a ruling that would allow the freedom of 40 of the paramilitaries responsible for the massacre in Acteal on December 22, 1997, we want to state the following:

We are the members of Las Abejas Civil Society, from the San Pedro Chenalhó municipality, Chiapas, and based in the Sacred Land of Acteal in the same municipality.

Our organization formed in 1992 to confront the repression that then-governor of Chiapas, Patrocinio González Garrido, launched against indigenous communities, among them our own community of Chenalhó that saw several of their founding members, among them the current President of the Board of Directors of Las Abejas, unjustly imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit.

Since our founding we have been dedicated to the defense of indigenous rights and to searching for a society where peace and justice reign.  We have always said that our struggle would be peaceful and we have practiced that.

When the EZLN uprising occurred on January 1, 1994, we saw what their demands were and took note that they were the same as ours.  As a result we decided to support their demands but we did not accept taking up arms and maintained our non-violent stance.  We joined forces with national and international civil society to demand that the Mexican government stop its war against our indigenous brothers and sisters.  We participated in the peace lines when the first talks took place between the Zapatistas and the government and later we participated with our delegates in the San Andrés Dialogues.

Later we discovered that in reality the government did not want a dialogue and while it spoke of peace, with its actions it promoted war through paramilitary groups.

In 1997, armed paramilitary groups appeared in Chenalhó. Through force they demanded that all the communities help them buy weapons and attack the Zapatistas.  If we didn’t accept taking up arms against the government would we possibly accept taking them up against our own indigenous brothers and sisters?  We refused to support the armed paramilitary groups that we saw clearly had the support of the government to get weapons, to be trained and to take violent actions.  We were loyal to our principles in spite of the threats and when we refused to support them, the paramilitaries kidnapped us, ran us out of our communities, robbed our harvests, took our belongings and burned our houses.  Because of this we became displaced, but we remained loyal to our principles of peace and non-violence.

It was while we were displaced that the paramilitary attacked on December 22, 1997 and the Acteal Massacre occurred, where 45 of our brothers and sisters died while praying and fasting for peace.

After the massacre of our brothers and sisters we kept our peaceful stance.  We refused to seek vengeance.  We continued to reject weapons.  We decided to seek justice through peaceful and legal means with the help of the Fray Bartolomé Human Rights Center, whose president is our bishop, Father Samuel. 

With the support of national and international civil society we pressured the government to punish those responsible for the massacre of our brothers and sisters.  The first arrests of a group of material authors occurred the same day we laid our loved ones to rest before the eyes of thousands of witnesses.  As a provocation, the murderers passed by the survivors in a truck belonging to the municipal president of Chenalhó, when the blood of the martyrs was still fresh.  Now the prisoners’ defense lawyers say that these paramilitaries should remain free because when we got the authorities to detain them there wasn’t an arrest warrant.  And such are their arguments to free them.

We got around 80 of the material authors of the massacre detained, along with the municipal president of Chenalhó who was one of their leaders.  But we weren’t able to get the intellectual authors either detained or investigated, as it wasn’t just the municipal authorities who supported the paramilitaries.  It was also the state and federal authorities.  We say that because we have seen it with our eyes and we know that it is true and as such we declare it.  Since then we have tirelessly publicly declared that there is not justice in the Acteal case and impunity continues.

Today, five months from the twelfth anniversary of the murder of our brothers and sisters we were informed with great sadness and indignation that the government is going to free 40 of these paramilitaries through a Supreme Court of Justice decree, that more appropriately should be called the Supreme Court of Injustice.  Faced with this news we declare the following:

1) It’s not true, as many media outlets are saying, that the Supreme Court decree is a step towards achieving justice for Acteal.  Rather it’s a step back from the little that has been achieved.  It’s a step forward for impunity.

2) They are saying that the PGR [Federal Attorney General’s Office] fabricated evidence against the prisoners and that what the Supreme Court is doing is just because there is no true evidence of the paramilitaries’ guilt.  This is not true either.  There is and there has always been real evidence which is our testimony of who we saw do the killing and we know the paramilitaries.  But the government (the Attorney General and the judges) has weakened our evidence.  They created holes in the case so that when this moment arrived the paramilitaries would be able to get out through these holes with the help of their lawyers and Supreme Court judges.  It’s the same thing they do so that the narcos go free.  The Supreme Court is not correcting the work of the PGR as they say.  It is completing the work they started so that the accomplices of the government can remain free.

3) They say that we haven’t presented proof of the guilt of the paramilitaries.  This is not true either.  We’ve presented proof not once but many times.  And 11 years after the murders in Acteal they continue calling on us to present our statements, because they tell the judge or the public ministry that something is missing from the previous time.  To the lawyers from CIDE we say that their clients are not the only victims of corruption in the justice system.  They have had those witnesses who saw their loved ones die repeat time and again the terrible story with all the pain it causes their hearts.  And in the end they say: “we need you to tell us again because the judge ordered a renewal of the proceedings.”  We know that this is called “psychological torture.”

4) The communities of Chenalhó are ill at ease because for days rumors have been circulating that when their friends get out the paramilitaries who have been free this whole time are going to get those who sent their friends to jail.  We hold the Supreme Court and all their accomplices, from Mr. Aguilar Camín, the CIDE lawyers and the government of Felipe Calderón responsible if the return of these 40 paramilitaries brings violence back to our municipality.  We hold them responsible for the lives of the witnesses and any criminal act that these paramilitaries who they say are innocent commit.

5) We call on the country’s highest authorities to reflect on what they are doing.  If organizations such as Las Abejas Civil Society, who reject violence as a means to defend our rights, tell them that the justice system and state institutions are completely on the side of the government accomplices, then, what path does that leave us?  What hope do the Mexican people have?  The government says that it is against violence but daily we see how it is the first to promote it.

6) In spite of this, we, the members of Las Abejas Civil Society declare that we are not going to take down our flag of peace and justice.  We are going to continue fighting in a non-violent way.  But we don’t have any faith in the government. Our faith is in the solidarity of civil society, in the blood of our martyrs which gives us strength to not abandon the struggle and in our god who is not deaf to the clamor of the poor and oppressed.

Yours faithfully,

The Voice of Las Abejas Civil Society
For the Board of Directors:
Sebastián Pérez Vázquez, President
Pedro Jiménez Arias, Vice President
Francisco Gómez Pérez, Treasurer
Francisco Pérez Gómez, Deputy Treasurer