I would be back in the US by now, but something came up that made me stay here one month longer, until May 29th. Two months ago, in Santa Cruz, Tlaxcala, I met a girl, who now is my girlfriend.
She is from the state of Hidalgo, but currently lives in a town a little bit smaller than Walla Walla called San Salvador Atenco. Ten years ago, the federal government announced that they were going to expropriate the land of the small-farmers in Atenco and build a new airport. The farmers said NO, protested, and put a stop to the government’s plans. But on May 3rd and 4th, 2006, the governments of president Vicente Fox and governor Enrique Peña Nieto came back with a new wave of repression-bullets, torture, political prisoners, two assassinations, and 26 raped women.
At the moment, many of the farmers have sold their land to the government, but those from the People´s Front in Defense of the Land refuse to sell. Last week, on May 3rd and 4th, they put on several events to commemorate the terror that took place 6 years ago, to demand justice, in particular punishment of Peña Nieto, who will soon be elected president of Mexico. On May 3, I went to the presentation of a book, where the women of Atenco talked about their struggle for justice, which currently consists of bringing the accusations to the Interamerican Court of Human Rights in order to make more visible and intolerable the use of sexual torture as a strategy of government repression. On May 4th, I went to two marches, one in Atenco and another in Mexico City. In Atenco, we blocked the highway while several members of the group laid-out a vigil for Alexis, a 14 year old assassinated during the 2006 protests. Alexis no murió, Peña Nieto lo mató.
“I ordered the operation in Atenco, and I would do it again”
-Enrique Peña Nieto.
I raped, and I would do it again.
The farmers from Atenco carry their machetes as a symbol of their livelihoods and work.
