It is a truly exciting (and tiring) time of year for everyone in the Chiapas Peace House collective. We now have nine volunteers, most of them recently arrived, which has created a very dynamic space. We have used this as an opportunity to strengthen ourselves as a collective and launch new projects and activities. Some of the ideas we’ll be working on over the next few months include hosting film debates to generate funds and publishing a local zine in Spanish.

It is a truly exciting (and tiring) time of year for everyone in the Chiapas Peace House collective. We now have nine volunteers, most of them recently arrived, which has created a very dynamic space. We have used this as an opportunity to strengthen ourselves as a collective and launch new projects and activities. Some of the ideas we’ll be working on over the next few months include hosting film debates to generate funds and publishing a local zine in Spanish.

Over the last month, our focus has been on the political prisoners on hunger strike demanding their release from unfair imprisonment. It started off small, with only direct supporters such as Pueblo Creyente and La Otra Campaña. Groups of family, friends, and supporters worked hard staging demonstrations, distributing information, and visiting the strikers in prison. Soon after, NGO’s, civil associations, religious institutions, and major news sources joined in. Now, more than a month later, a Reconciliation Table has been convened and strikers are being released.

However, the struggle is far from over. It is obvious that the outcome will be largely based on who wins the information war. The government has gone as far as insinuating that the prisoners are responsible for their own deaths. They have made big shows of prisoner releases and commended themselves on their liberal ethics, being ‘different’ than the previous administration. Protesters and strikers have responded by constructing coffins and banners reading “This is how the government wants us”.

So, in line with all that is currently happening in Chiapas, we chose “Repression of Social Movements” as the topic for this month’s newsletter.

“Zacario Hernandez Released from Prison” by Loren Guerriero gives us a general overview of the beginnings of the hunger strike leading up to the release of the first striker, Zacario.

“The Other Campaign declares April 3rd International Day of Action” by Kristin Bricker covers the fight to release the hunger strikers leading up to now.

“We Are of a Very Different Constitution” by Leila Saraiva documents an interview we conducted with Jorge Salinas Sardón, former prisoner of the Atenco conflict.

“Cesare Batistti and the Forty Years of ‘68” by Leila Saraiva tells the story of Cesare Battisti, an Italian social activist who has been persecuted or held prisoner his whole life for his political involvements 40 years prior.

In addition, two volunteers who recently participated in CAPISE brigades, Alyne Gonçalves and Cassio Brancaleone have written an account of their experiences interacting with persecuted social fighters in Zapatista communities.

Similar repression is also a daily reality in Oaxaca and along the border. On April 7th, in San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, two young women, broadcasters on the newly-opened community radio “The Voice that Breaks the Silence” were assassinated. One of CASA Chapulín’s volunteers had recently visited the radio and met the young women. Anna-Reetta Korhonen interviewed the director of the community radio for more information.

On April 19th, former CASA Chapulín volunteer Patrick Lincoln and the Virginia-based activist network to which he belongs, The People United, is scheduled to cross the desert from Mexico into Arizona without carrying government-issued identification. The activists aim to expose the harsh and unjust reality of a border where human beings die in the desert, while products move freely across. Addressing the vast disparities of wealth and power, they say, not militarizing the border, is the task at hand.

Engaging these injustices is difficult at times, but it has brought the members of CASA together in solidarity and collective action. It is challenging to wrap this letter up with so much unresolved. Life and death decisions are being made every day, and the outcomes will have an effect on all of us. We all hope for the best.

In Solidarity,

The CASA Collectives
Chiapas and Oaxaca, Mexico