Letter from Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity Group to the Mexican Government and Res

We are writing to you again in order to denounce the lack of human rights in Mexico, the continuous harassments, threats, disappearances and abuses towards social activists. We feel disgusted by the news that arrives often from different human rights and social organisations in Mexico.

This is the first year since the terrible events that took place in San Salvador Atenco were broadcasted globally. We remember how disgusted we all felt when the footage of these events was televised across the world. We remember with pain the murders at the hands of the police of two youngsters, Javier Cortes and Alexis Benhumea. We remember our disgust at the first declaration of the women that were sexually abused and raped by the police during their illegal arrest. We remember with horror when we learned about the illegal arrest of nearly 300 people. We remember with anger the first images of the tortured and abused people that were arrested. We remember the politicians justifying human rights abuses with no concern at all about human lives. We remember the tears, the fear, the pain of the people from that town that only wanted justice and dignity. We remember... We remember!!!

A year on and the abusers are still free, while 29 people are still in jail facing long sentences for crimes they have not committed. However, this seems not to be the only case as time is running and we are getting closer to another 1st anniversary; the brutal eviction of the teachers from Zocalo in Oaxaca. Again more human rights abuses washed away by the ruling class and the mass media. And as well as a year since this event, it has also been a year of continuous abuses of human rights in Oaxaca, not only the city but also the whole State. How many threats to people by the police and the paramilitaries? How many lies from the mass media? How many disappeared people? How many tortured? How many abused? How many arrested? How many... How many more you need in order to get things your own way??? Unfortunately many, many more because where there is injustice there always be those struggling against it!!!

Moving into this year, while the abuses in Oaxaca go on, we learned about the people from Yucatan that were arrested for demonstrating against FECAL (Felipe Calderon New President of Mexico) and his boss George Bush during his visit to the area. Arrested and incarcerated for showing their opposition to the politics of these so called leaders who are just interested in their own profits. Meanwhile with a big smile from these politicians we have to hear things like; there is free speech, freedom of expression and no political prisoners in Mexico.

Furthermore, reading today's news we also learn that the Delegates and companions of the Other Campaign in Nuevo Leon, North-East Mexico, have been subjected to abuses by the Federal Army. Searched, interrogated and photographed for being part of a civil and peaceful struggle/movement. Of course the compañer*s of the EZLN, as well as the bases de apoyo (indigenous civilian supporters), know well what all this is about as they suffer continuous abuses in their communities at the hands of paramilitaries trained and armed by the Mexican regular army and under the orders of the political class. These abuses had happened for a long time but the most recent ones are those that affected the people in the North Zone and the Montes Azules area, Lacandon Jungle.

And we could continue here with more and more as we cannot forget those people that are in jail all over Mexico because of their political beliefs. Those who the government wants society to forget but cannot be forgotten. Those who struggle from the inside knowing the price to pay. Those whose families struggle to survive due to economic problems as well as due to the sorrow. Those that were arrested in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Yucatan, Tabasco, Veracruz, Morelia, Mexico city... Those who are inside for us and we are outside for them. Those who are them and at the same time are us!!!

A shame that the only way to assess these abuses is through the use of the International Human Rights Commission because the Mexican one cannot see more than what they are told they can see. A shame all those wasted trees used to print those lovely reports of the CNDH Mexico (National Commission of the Human Rights from Mexico) in which it seems that nothing is wrong in that piece of land. A shame the people of Mexico have to live with those abuses and feel impotent and hopeless because they know how it is. A shame that the new government had to celebrate its arrival to power by showing its power and brutality to the people with examples such as last year in Oaxaca or this year in Yucatan. A shame that... just a shame!!!

Having said all this we would like just to say to the Mexican government that:
We demand the immediate release of all political prisoners.
We demand the immediate cessation of military, paramilitary and police actions against civilians and social movements.
We demand the immediate cessation of threats, harassments and abuses against the people of Mexico.

To the people in the struggle for freedom, democracy and justice, wherever you are, inside their walls of shame as some of us refer to those centres, or outside, that:
You are not alone!!!