May 3, 2006: Texcoco: Flower vendors come in during morning hours to sell flowers as they've always
done. They are evicted by the mayor. The flower vendors go to the mayor to demand an explanation and the mayor tells them
that he does not want the marketplace dirtied up, and that Walmart is planning to build there. Eight vendors remain indignant,
and the police are called in to forcibly remove them. There is a clash, and support is called in, both by the police, and
the campesinos. The People's Front in Defense of Land is called in to support their compaņeros.
The clash intensifies, and some fifty people are arrested.
May 4, 2006: Five THOUSAND agents from the State Police (Mexico) and Federal Preventive Police descend
upon San Salvador Atenco at dawn. In this clash, some 217 people are arrested. There were 47 documented cases of sexual abuse
and rape of men and women. Five foriegn women are arrested and deported, but not before they were each sexually assaulted
and raped by the police on their way to Santiaguito prison. A fourteen-year old boy, Javier Cortes, was killed by a police
.38 after the boy happened upon an agent hiding behind a dumpster. Cortes was on his way home from a local bakery and trying
to avoid the clash. A twenty-year old economics student from the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) was
struck in the head by a tear-gas canister round, launched from a police-issue 37mm riot gun.
The Backlash: The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and it's spokesman for the The Other
Campaign, Delagate Zero (Subcomandante Marcos) were in Mexico City at the time of the incident. Delegate Zero went to San
Salvador Atenco and repudiated the Fox regime, as well as the corporate media who were complicit in ordering the attacks on
innocent civilians. The Other Campaign is halted until the political prisoners are released. The Sixth Intergalactic Commission
calls for mobilizations worldwide in protest of this heinous act by the Fox regime, the governor of the State of Mexico, and
the police commanders.
Updates- Twenty-six prisoners remain in Santiaguito Prison and the Federal Maximum Security Prison
near Mexico City. Three police officers came forward and testified that, in the classic "guerra sucia" (dirty war), the orders
came from above to beat, arrest, and humiliate everything in their path. Mobilizations continue in support of the political
prisoners and families who were brutalized at the hands of the Mexican state.
IN MEMORY:
This morning, June 7, 2006, 20-year old UNAM economics student Alexis Benhumea passed
on to The Place of the Sun, after being in a coma since May 4, 2006. He stood in solidarity with the People's Front in Defense
of Land (FPDT), and during the struggle in San Salvador Atenco, he was struck in the head by a police-launched tear gas grenade
canister that left parts of his brain exposed.
May the Divine Women accept his tonalli into their care, and may he find rest in the Place
of the Sun.
His death, his activism, and his voice will not be lost in vain. The struggle continues,
the voices are louder now than ever. And we will keep up the struggle.
Goodbye, compaņero, but only for a little while here. One day we will meet and talk
about those days and roads where we all tried to make this world a better place.
Always shall we remember you, never shall we forget you, and never will we forgive the
bad government of Mexico for this heinous act.
From the desert of the Other New Mexico
Matlactli-Tecpatl Mixcuauhtzin, Cuauhocelomeh, Tzompanteuctli
