Director of NOTICIAS:

The Social movement of the Peoples of Oaxaca, united in the APPO (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca), attracted many thousands of men and women to participate in the opportunity to fight for just and honest causes and the construction of a better world. It also attracted men and women in search of power, money and fame by means of social movements. Even during the months in which the mobilization of the people of Oaxaca in the streets, the massive marches, the taking of radio stations, public offices and the installation of the barricades, some of them maintained their aim for power. The brutal repression that we all lived through in November of 2006, and above all the closeness of the electoral process (in October and August) of this year stirs the visceral appetites of those ambitious for power.

At the core of the State Assembly of the APPO of 10 and 11 of February we, together with some companions of different organizations, collectives and colonias, maintained a strong position to prevent the violation of the principles of the APPO. Above all we tried to avoid the movement, the bloodshed and the suffering of all the Oaxacan people from being used by those who, in that same Assembly, asked that the APPO participate in the elections to a Congress for which, months earlier, we all asked that it would disappear. A resistance that initiated the hatred and rancor of these individuals, who saw their ambitions endangered.

It was in this same assembly when señora Guadalupe García Leyva of the 2 of March Collective and connected with the Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR) accused me in front of everyone of being a police agent and a thief and declared that I am being investigated.

The following days other members of the FPR, such as Florentino López Martínez, Zenén Bravo Castellanos, Gustavo Adolfo, and individuals tied to this organization such as señoras Fidelia y Belem, in meetings with men and women who bravely took part in the Barrikades de Simbolos Patrios and the Colonia of Santa Maria, repeated this accusation against me, and also strengthened it by showing a video.

The rumors and harrassments against me went on increasing and in large number to the point that on 13 April I was arrested violently in Llano Juárez Park, held incommunicado and beaten for some hours, and then finally taken to the UMAN–PGR (Mixed or Combined Unit for Attention to Narcotics Retailing–Federal Attorney General) where they made up a crime against me of possessing and selling drugs. Later I was taken to the prison of Santa Maria Ixcotel, where they informed me that I am the subject of another penal process for sedition, criminal association and arson.

In the morning of 15 April, before the mobilization of my family, friends and the people in solidarity, the same señora Guadalupe García Leyva announced at the IAGO [Graphic Arts Institute of Oaxaca] that I was freed at 9 that same morning, which obviously wass false and clearly intended to sabotage the march demanding my liberty.

Now, still imprisoned, I know that the aggressions and citations of these individuals continue; they are making rumors circulate, as befits dishonest people who don’t speak the truth, that my arrest and imprisonment is a farce put on by the government. Facing the impossibility of doing more damage to me, they are going after my family and friends. On the 1st of May it was again this señora Guadalupe García Leyve who claimed that the hooded youths who painted graffiti were members of the VOCAL group (Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Liberty), in which I also participate.

My arrest and that of all the companions who remain in prisons of the state and the country are the direct responsibility of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz and his government, but these individuals, hiding behind the discourse of revolution, are still more despicable, living in the lowest scale of human dignity, that of traitors to the people.

It has been difficult for me to denounce these actions before this moment and I kept quiet for months. I understand perfectly the motivation for these attacks. They are attacks of hatefulness of a group of individuals and an organization, the FPR, that have in common the search for power in the coming elections. The names of some of them are in the lists of deputies of the coalition PRD-PT-PC (Democrtic Revolutionary Party-Workers Party-Communist Party), against the resistance of many of us, companions who are participating in the movement. We have shown from the beginning that the Assembly of everyone, the APPO, the blood of the 23 fallen, the suffering of more than 500 arrested, and the 40 of us that are still in prisons of Oaxaca and the Nation, might be used, not only for asking the exit of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz and a profound change in our state, but also so that they may win, through the institutions that they earlier refused to recognize, political power, recognizing en route the actions of the government of Ulises Ruiz, and at that, the most corrupt if possible, of his institutions, the State Electoral Institute, the place of fraud.

At times I’ve said it to these individuals face to face and today in front of all of you, brothers and sisters of Oaxaca, that those individuals don’t have the moral stature to share the struggle of a dignified, brave and honest people, as we, the Oaxacan people are. They have preferred the dirtiest, most underhanded and treacherous methods for getting their way, whether by means of jail or terror and defamation of companions like me.

The growing depth in the goodness of human spirit and the desire to maintain our movement unified has skirted around me, and also many other companions to remain silent, but the serious risk to the security and liberty of the companions of VOCAL and other companions motivates me now to break the silence. Besides, history puts each one in his place, and the moment has come to decide between continuing to be quiet to safeguard a battered unity, and of backing the people or denouncing publicly to not be complicit in our own misfortune and that of the remaining companions who are being marked. If we continue being silent we would be complicit in the handing over that this group, which today occupies the public voice of our movement, is making to the government of Ulises Ruiz.

Besides, it turns out to be worth serious analysis that none of the persons that today are publicly denounced, when still very visible in the media, suffered persecution by the government, much less jail. The case of Florentine López Martínez is worth mentioning. He was arrested two times. Officially he denounced it once and was freed in a few hours. One of the police who arrested, tortured and turned me over, confessed to me, in comparison to my case, that one time he arrested Florentino López Martínez in a Volkswagon Sedan car in San Juanito and let him go because “he got orders from above.”

I am deeply confident in you, brothers and sisters of the people of Oaxaca. I know that the social movement has given us political maturity and that our collective moral in the struggle is high, that this is safe because it has been shown, from repression and jail. But also it is safe from the treacheries and ambitions of the group. Like other social struggles in our history, the movement in Oaxaca is faced with conflict between ways of thinking, which is correct and healthy. I profoundly respect different forms of struggle, including the search for change by the electoral route, (omitted in spanish version published by Noticias: but not by political parties all of which have shown they share dishonest, corrupt practices and are in the service of the rich and powerful. I respect my brothers and sisters of the people who in an honest way believe in and pursue the electoral path.) What is damaging enough is that in the APPO, within the political current that seeks to gain power by means of elections, (omitted in Noticias: although there are honest and well intentioned men and women,) there are also some nefarious and contemptible men and women who are absolutely not different in their political practices from the criminals that are today in power. (omitted in Noticias: Their motivation to participate in this struggle is not protest against the form in which power is exercised by Ulises Ruiz and his henchmen but that they are not there, eating at the same table.)

I know beforehand that this denunciation breaks with all the forms of practicing politics, above all in my difficult situation. I know that the weak politicians that I denounce today, specialists in deliberate omission, lying and falsification, are able to and have every opportunity to be free to insult my words, including to use them in order to affect me even more in the process of obtaining my liberty. They already have good relations with the governor, and we have deliberately avoided having them. But I also know that we, the Oaxacans from “below”, are fed up with treachery. We are not disposed any more to serve as steps that a group of corrupt leaders use to gain power and forget us. The spirit of botherhood, solidarity, cooperation and mutual aid is what will in the end count for keeping this struggle alive and that will make possible obtaining our liberation of all the political prisoners of Oaxaca.

Besides, the true collective, rebellious and blunt force of this movement has been the thousands of teachers of the dignified section 22 and the hundreds of thousands of men and women who struggle daily.

The Indian peoples of Oaxaca and Mexico, inheritors of a tradition and culture of self-government that comes from millenia, have kept secure from deceptions and demoralization precisely because they know that never a single man or party could fulfill the dreams and aspirations of everyone, but that it is the participation of everyone through the communal assembly that guarantees respect for the wishes of the whole community.

The proof of this spirit is our APPO (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca), which reached a level of glory precisely at moments when the represenattives of the communities, colonias, collective organizations and regions were present. Today many have been frightened away precisely by the contemptible and mean practices of these individuals and organizations. We can still recover our assembly. We can return it to being guarantor of the dreams and aspirations of all and not only of the contemptible fever for power of some people.

The process of struggle and resistance in Oaxaca and Mexico is becoming stronger. It would be good for us to advance free of egotistical and ambitious individuals embedded in the bosom of the social movement. They could grow as cancers and sabotage our effort to attain justice, dignity and freedom for all.

They have learned to speak the same language as the government. Now the people who in autonomous and brave manner close streets and paint graffiti are criminalized as vandals, fools and delinquents in a manner indistinguishable between the government and these individuals.

The Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca is more than the State Council. We are those who make an honest struggle against Ulises Ruiz and the system in the streets. Even in prison where I find myself today, the APPO is present, because we are all the APPO.

To read the original Spanish version of Alebrije’s letter, please click here.