[COMM-ORG] March 8th Forum: The Other Campaign New York Supports Atenco

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

From: Movement for Justice in El Barrio 
<movementforjusticeinelbarrio at yahoo.com>


To our sisters and brothers of The People's Front in Defense of the Land:
To our zapatista sisters and brothers:
To our compañer at s in The Other Campaign:
To our compañer at s in the Zezta Internazional:
To our compañer at s who are adherents of the International Campaign in 
Defense of El Barrio and our allies all over the world:

We send a greeting of solidarity from the women, men, and children who 
are part of the Other Campaign, Movement for Justice en El Barrio, in 
New York. We are writing to tell you that on the 8th of March, 
International Women’s Day, we celebrated with various activities which 
we ended with the presentation of a video message that was sent 
especially to us by the members of the People’s Front in Defense of the 
Land, who have been brutally repressed for opposing the construction of 
an airport and for protecting displaced flower venders.

For us, it was very exciting to see this message addressed to us by 
these fighters for social justice, and, especially on International 
Women’s Day, to hear the words of the women fighters resisting the 
dispossession of their land. They spoke to us about the defense of the 
land and they sent a message of solidarity with our fight for dignity 
and in defense of El Barrio in New York. They showed us the lands of 
Atenco, where the government had wanted to build the airport, but that 
continues to belong to the farmers, even though their struggle has cost 
a lot of blood and many prisoners.

Our day of celebration started with a welcoming act in which we gave a 
rose to the women that joined us. Our compañeras spoke of the event 
“Mamá Corral” that meanwhile was being celebrated in Chiapas. In 
addition, our compañera Ana Laura shared some zapatista words with the 
description of the woman that “has no military rank, no uniform, no 
weapon. She is a zapatista but only she knows it”, and who “fights for 
democracy, liberty, and justice, just like the zapatistas”. “She is part 
of what the EZLN calls “civil society”, people with no party, people 
that do not belong to the “political society” made up of rulers and 
directors of political parties. She is part of this widespread, but 
real, part of society that says, day after day, “Enough!” She has also 
said “Enough!” “She is now a zapatista, has united her destiny to that 
of the zapatistas”, read our compañera. And, we asked for a big round of 
applause for all the
dignified women who fight.

Next, we described the World Wide Festival for Dignified Rage and we 
presented a video of our participation in it. It is a video where we 
explain why we were displaced from our Mexico and why we are now being 
displaced from East Harlem (El Barrio), why we are opposed to neoliberal 
displacement, and our forms of struggle: the International Campaign in 
Defense of El Barrio, the Consulta del Barrio, our horizontal and 
democratic way of organizing internally, and the Encuentro for Dignity 
and Against Gentrification through which we met with groups in other 
parts of the city in resistance. The video ends with a special message 
for the zapatistas and Atenco. This video message was also presented in 
San Salvador Atenco.

After this introduction, we explained some of what has been the history 
of years of incredible suffering for the people of Atenco in resistance, 
from the attempts to construct an airport that would strip the lands 
from the farmers without offering any other form of a dignified life, to 
the unheard of revenge through means of an act of repression by the 
government who to this day goes unpunished, to the sentence of up to 112 
years in prison for these fighters for social justice. “For us it is 
very important to tell this story” – said our compañero Oscar – “because 
it is what never gets out in the press or in the television, and we need 
for it to be broadcast.” We also presented a video that tells this 
history and the video message from the People’s Front in Defense of the 
Land to Movement for Justice in El Barrio.

Just as they are in solidarity with our struggle, we want to say to them 
that here in New York we, the men and women and children of Movement for 
Justice in El Barrio, know that what happened in Atenco is an operation 
of extermination of resistance and that we will continue pressuring 
until all the victims of repression in Atenco are liberated. Meanwhile, 
the attackers, the murderers, were practically exonerated. We know that 
an operation in which torture and rape are systematically applied cannot 
be a product of a few “misbehaved police” or soldiers “out of control”. 
We know that the governor of the State of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, 
admits to having ordered the operation and that he “would do it again” 
because he knows he will be exonerated, and we know that the presidents 
of the Republic, from then and now, are involved: that Fox took revenge 
for the failure of his airport project, and that Calderon hopes to use 
this to teach a lesson
on state terrorism to the movements that do not accept neoliberal 
dispossession.

We are with you. We ask all good-hearted people to join us in the 
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ATENCO in 
order to continue fighting until the 12 political prisoners are freed.


LIBERTY FOR THE POLITICAL PRISONERS OF ATENCO NOW!

Sincerely:


Movement for Justice in El Barrio

The Other Campaign New York