Dear friends and comrades,
It makes us happy to speak again with each of you and express our love. We hope that
each of you find yourself well with your partners, with your children, with your
family. We hope that this terrible year has not damaged you too much, that it hasn’t
paralyzed your decision to live a free life, communally, and without injustices. All
of us, Manuel, Luisa, Ana Luisa, Tamara Sol, have stayed together and have been
helping each other not to fall in the face of so many atrocities committed against
so many of us, men and women who have continued to be persecuted by this system and
who now are in the dungeons of punishment solely because of a way of life, free from
hierarchy, which has made them dangerous to those whom govern this country. The same
has happened to our brothers, the Mapuche people.
We would like to bring up the assassination of our children Eduardo and Rafael,
because we know that many of us still don’t have a clear idea of what happened in
the end. The truth is that the miserable assassins were convicted.
Jorge Marin Jimenez was sentenced to 10 years and a day, for being the gunman who
killed Rafael. Alex Amber Hinojosa and Francisco Toledo Puente were sentenced to 7
years and a day. Supposedly they have been prisoners at Punta Pueco since September
of 2010.
We as family do not want to condone this sentence by accusing it of not being enough
time or not in accordance to the crimes committed. In comparison to the severity of
the sentences handed down against us, these criminals should be incarcerated for
life, but it’s not like that.
What we want to recognize from this fact is that we can arrive at this point thanks
to a permanent struggle we have created with all of you over the past 20 years,
along with the support from the human rights lawyers. This comforts us, and gives us
the strength to carry on, because we know the 29th of March belongs to the youth
combatants that today fight for a dignified life, free and just.
We stand with the young rebels who do not falter in front of the threats and
punishment but go out with their voices and spirits high, searching for different
ways to bury the permanent humiliation that we have suffered due to the state, a
system designed to crush us and make us disappear. We also herald new periods of
struggle and dignity, which tell us: Let’s go comrades! From this point we have to
continue!
We will continue to support and act in solidarity with them, feeding their strength
and bravery, their dignity and love!
There is much to do and all of the fallen and imprisoned require us to continue
despite the weariness in our bodies and souls. We have as an example the comrades
who are imprisoned in the COF, the women there have created a beautiful journal
inside, and with this we challenge everyone we meet outside, in “freedom,” to do
something, to denounce, to fight so our houses are not converted into true prisons
of passivity and conformity. Comrades, everyone can get their punches in!
We leave each one of you with a fraternal embrace and assurance that we are living
“in some plaza, in some street, in some march…”
LUISA TOLEDO S. MANUEL VERGARA M.
