Zibechi Reveals the Real Reasons for Secluding Patishtán and Sántiz López

** “Justice of those below will one day judge those above,” he says

By: Hermann Bellinghausen

The international campaign for the freedom of Alberto Patishtán Gómez and Francisco Sántiz López “shows the real reasons they are in prison,” the writer Raúl Zibechi expressed upon showing from Montevideo his support for the indigenous prisoners in Chiapas. “When those from below stand up, when the world’s poor say their word and organize themselves, they are systematically accused as terrorist and violent, and defamation campaigns are put into effect against them and they are thrown on top of the repressive apparatus,” he added.

On the eve of the start of the second worldwide week in favor of Sántiz López, EZLN support base, and the professor Patishtán, adherent to the Other Campaign, the Uruguayan analyst, a collaborator with La Jornada, points out: “When those above steal public funds, when the bankers appropriate everyone’s money and work, they are awarded with positions in bad governments and they use the money of the States to save their dirty businesses.

“That is the State’s justice, from the bad government, a justice that incarcerates Pachamama’s (Mother Earth) children, those who defend her and care for her, but sets free those who destroy her to use as merchandise. Those are not errors or deviations, but rather the true sense of the justice of the States: protecting those above and condemning those below. Two justices exist in this world: that of the governments and that of the people. The rich white lords execute the first protected by armed guards, which they enclose in palaces to make decisions. The second, the community makes its decisions in assemblies of the common people, who are the people of the color of the earth, where everyone can debate because they do not lack lawyers or specialists to distinguish good from evil.”

Meanwhile, collectives from Palestine and Switzerland announced that they add themselves to the actions that will be carried out starting this Friday in Mexico, India, Peru, Uruguay, South Africa, Canada, Brazil, the Spanish State, United Kingdom, Austria and the United States inside the second week of “Bringing down the prison walls.”

Midwives of a New World

In a message to the organizers of the protests before embassies and consulates in our country and abroad, Zibechi concluded: “They are two justices for two opposite worlds. Some day our justice will be able to judge those above; and that day those above will be condemned to living from their work, to taking care of the common good. They will be condemned to living like the 99 percent of human beings live. That day, which is not far away, we will remember brothers Patishtán and Sántiz López as two of the many midwives that made the birth of a New World possible.”