Send your Solidarity Letters to Families of Mixtecan Political Prisoners

As the year comes to a close, I hope that all of you are finding love and companionship. With the passing of the winter solstice, I find comfort believing that as the days become increasingly brighter, empassioned light will continue to illuminate not only the Oaxacan stuggle for political, social and economic justice, but also all forms of resistance against racist, partisan and commerical interests.

TODAY IS SPECIAL. It is December 22, and actions of defiance, indignation and solidarity are occuring in Oaxaca, Mexico and around the world. Throughout the continents, people of conscious are marching, praying, singing,protesting, showing movies, signing petitions, and committing acts ofcivil disobience--demonstrating that the struggle for a just and dignified Oaxaca is GLOBAL.

http://nyc.indymedia.org/es/2006/12/80660.html
http://chiapas.indymedia.org/
http://www.elenemigocomun.net/
http://cml.vientos.info/node/7308

Tennesse and I are still in Huajuapan de León--a small city of about 40,000 residents in the heart of the Mexican Desert. It is also a center of the Mixtecan people, one of Mexico's largest indigenous populations. Huajuapan de León is a beautiful Oaxacan city, falling just east of the Puebla/Oaxacan border. High plane mountains, decorated with cacti many years older than myself, dominate the surrounding environment. We stand solidly on the dry earth of La Madre Tierra: blessed, humbled and priviledged to tell our neighbors' stories.

Just as comrades in all corners of the world today are protesting, Mixtecans have taken to the streets. Their demands are simple: freedom for Oaxacan political prisoners, the resignation of GovernorUlises Ruíz, and to live a just and dignified Oaxaca.

There are 23 political prisoners from this region of Oaxaca. 10 are from San Juan Diego--a small, very poor squatter community on the outskirts of Huajuapan de León (please read other blog posts to find out more about this barrio).

With so many of their neighbors, parents, children, brothers and sisters in jail, it is a difficult time for San Juan Diego. Celebrating Christmas is out of the question for many. Tennessee and I are hoping to organize a small Christmas celebration in San Juan Diego with some of the funds that many of donated tosupport this trip. We would like to bring with us letters from YOU...demonstrating the strength of solidarity networks regardless of political borders and language.

In this time of great struggle and political repression, supporting the families of political prisoners is absolutely imperative. Please send us your words so that we can share them with those of San Juan Diego. If you do not speak/write inSpanish, we will translate. (More to come about the March today in Huajuapan de León)

From the heart of the Mixtecan Desert!
¡Desde el corazón del desierto mexicano!