Letter from political prisoners of San Salvador Atenco to the Commission

Brothers and Sisters of Human Rights groups of the European Union:

Here between these bars and walls, struggling not to play their game, we express ourselves with pen and paper, our only weapons along with our consciousness and thoughts. Brothers and sisters, despite the blows, the rape of our women, the rape of our brother, the killing of a boy, as they try to take away what is ours; here between the screams of the guards, the harassment from other prisoners, we try not to remember what they did to us, to forget the smell of blood, the screams, the blows, the threats.

I ask Peña Nieto (governor of the state of Mexico): how do you sleep at night, sir? How do you tell your children what you did to us? How can you deny the rape and the beatings that we suffered? How can you speak of a legal state without torture when the very images on the sold out television show how they physically and psychologically tortured us? How can you paint over and erase what you've done to us, what you've done not only to us but to our mothers, children, sisters, brothers, spouses? How can you face your boss, President Fox? Your children depend on you to grow, but if you were to tell you children what happened, they would be traumatized.

Brothers and sisters, from here your solidarity is fraternal, it reaches farther than the solidarity and has no name, it has no qualified adjective, thank you for your support and interest in our case, this goes beyond borders.

Greetings to all the people in solidarity and to the brothers and sisters on the other side of the world, their hearts beat with ours. Thank you for your support brothers and sisters.
We hope that the people in those far away lands hear our voice from the prison of Almoloya de Juárez.

Comrades political prisoners of San Salvador Atenco

29th of May 2006

P.S. Please check continually the irregularities and anomalies of our process and spread then around the world. We also want to let you all know we are on a hunger strike. Hopefully Peña Nieto doesn't have the behavior of steel chancellor of England (Margaret Thacher)
"Arise the consciousness, free the people"
When justice is done, there will be neither poor, nor rich, neither jails, nor laws.

Answer of Commission

Mexico City May 30th 2006

To the comrades prisoners of San Salvador Atenco

From the International Civil Commission for Human Rights Observation

We received your letter yesterday in which you greeted us and expressed your thoughts and words of condemnation of your situation. We want to thank you for doing so and to let you know that you words were not written in vain. You have impressed us in expressing the truth with your testimony and we recognize your firm conviction to struggle and to resist.
We want you to know that we have come here backed by the concern of many people and organizations of our countries that are informed of what happened in Atenco and have showed their interest in that we have direct testimonies of the people as you all have suffered grave attacks against the human rights of yourselves, your families, and your peoples.

We have the responsibility of collecting your denouncements. It is for this reason that we organizing a delegation of our commission to go to the two prisons to visit the prisoners, listen to them, talk with them about our commitment to their word being heard and explained to the world, so that the truth will be known and justice done. We do this for you all and for all the people in your country and in the world that believe that the defense of human rights is an obligation facing injustice and abuse.

We assume the commitment of carrying the urgency of the denouncements that we receive from you all as well as other people who are directly involved so that the people, entities, and organizations that give us their trust, react accordingly. We believe that is what will happen. We will inform you of all this and give you a copy of the report as well as the reactions it provokes.

On the day this letter gets to you, we will be in San Salvador Atenco, visiting you community, family, friends, and comrades to better understand the events in the place in which they occurred and we will do so taking into account your words to honor the truth and justice as virtues of the human condition that don't admit or tolerate that anyone's human rights be violated as is the right of everyone.

Please receive our plain and humble response with affection.

Sincerely,

The International Civil Commission for Human Rights Observation.