Sta.
Lucía del Camino, Oaxaca, 14th September 2004
Brothers and sisters,
The repressor government is worried and has begun a campaign to clean up the image of its heroic and valiant police who faced women and children during the eviction of the peaceful protest in front of the government buildings and the Church of St.Domingo. They have started sending pictures of some of our arrested brothers and sisters to the media from the e-mail address of the Ministerial Police (pm_pgje@yahoo.com.mx).
You don’t have to look hard to see that all the pictures have been tampered with to make it seem that the prisoners are all in a good state of health and have not suffered abuse. Without doubt it is the use of more or less light in certain points, profile shots and various other electronic tricks to make it seem that nothing has happened to them.
However, in spite of this "magic", it is in some cases impossible to erase completely the violence against our brothers and sisters, particularly in the cases of: Kalid, Dolores, Miguel, Reynaldo, Leonor, Gildardo, José, Margarita, Guadalupe, whose photos show evidence of bruising, despite everything.
The use of light makes it difficult to a certain extent to see the swelling and helps to hide the blows. They want us to believe that they haven’t been beaten. Now all we are missing is for them to show pictures of the poor policemen of the special forces who were hurt by the hordes of the CIPO-RFM! Then we will be the violent ones.
Take care that you are not surprised, that you let yourself be tricked. Look closely at the pictures and you will see the marks. Then ask yourselves if you can see something on the face, the part where they are least likely to be beaten, what can it be like for the rest of their bodies? Let us remember that they are trained to hit without leaving obvious marks. And what about psychological torture, which is more damaging than physical blows? What about threats and sexual assaults on our women? What is that?
Let it be clear: the police do not treat the poor and indigenous people with kid gloves. They only respect the big criminals, narcos and politicians.
For the re-organization and free association of our people
FOR THE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE OF THE CIPO-RFM (those who remain free)
ROSARIO GOMEZ
ELIZABETH PEREZ CRUZ
LEONARDO LÓPEZ SARABIA
Translation by nmcn/fdca