Remembering Acteal

Compañeros y compañeras,

Once again, the end of year holidays fesivities approach us. It is a
special time for many - time for family, for reconciliation, for
renewal, and for joyful celebrations within our communities.

Sadly, it is no longer any of this for a small Tsotsil community in
Acteal, Chiapas.

It is not now nor will it ever be thus for those 45 brothers and
sisters who seven years ago were cut down in the midst of their
communal prayers for peace. It will never again be a time for such
festivity for those ripped from their families by the bullets of
those cowardly assassins. There is no more time left for those 15
children, no more time for those 21 women, four of them pregnant, no
more time for the 9 men. Nor will it ever be the same for their
families who mourn their unbearable loss now, and who will continue
for the rest of their lives to grieve over the emptiness left by the
absence of their beloved brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, mothers,
fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers.

How many still suffer for such blind and murderous brutality, for
such beastly hatred, for so much denial of one simple dream that
promises us that another world is possible - Is this dream so
dangerous as to make it necessary to murder entire communities in
order to extinguish it? Who are those so terrified of this dream?
Those, who on that December day, seized the lives of women, men and
children with such total impunity, will one day be required to answer
these and many more questions. They and their masters, their
governors, their imperialist lords will be required to answer. We
must assure ourselves of this truth. One day soon justice will be
done.

And for so much barbaric inhumanity, for so much crime against the
people's dignity, for so much injustice against the basic rights of
humans, we all suffer. If we think this through, and search the depth
of our hearts, we discover that we all suffer because of this. We
are, after all, them, and they are us. We are one in the past, in the
present and forever; sharing victories, failures, dreams, love and
struggle; life and, too often, also untimely death at the hands of
assassins. Some of us pay with our lives for demanding our right to
dream, to love, and to pray for peace. Let us never forget those men
and those women who died for those rights.

For them, so cruelly massacred at Acteal on December 22, 1997, and
for many more stricken by hatred and for so much more suffering let
us cry. For they have earned our tears, companeros and companeras.
Without shame nor fear let us cry together. Not out of terror nor
because of weakness, but rather because of strength itself. Let us
cry out in hunger for justice. Let us cry out for the struggle that
catches fire in every loving tear that believes in all that can be
possible. Let us cry lest we forget, so that we can go on dreaming,
and go on struggling. We owe this much to the fallen. Forever live
their memory! Long live the struggle for the dignity of the people,
for humanity and against neoliberalism!