Letter to our Brothers and Sisters in Xoxocotla, México
Your struggle is our struggle
Oscar Olivera
June 7, 2007

Source: Ukhampache-Bolivia

Cochabamba - Sister and Brothers
COMMITTEE IN DEFENSE OF THE SPRINGS
Xoxocotla, Mexico

Dearest Sisters and Dearest Brothers,

Here in the heart of South America, in a very beautiful and dignified place named Cochabamba, we have received word about what is happening up there in the northern part of our América.

The news brought to us via our two Mexican brothers Luis and Greg makes us recall our own struggles, fought over seven years ago in November 1999 and April of 2000.

Ours was a difficult, tenacious struggle against the privatization of water and against the expropriation of our water systems. They wanted to take away our water sources; they wanted to destroy our ancestral ways of managing water; they even wanted to sell us the water that falls from the sky. “They” were the transnationals, the World Bank and the bad governments of that period.

We organized and we defeated them all—including the army and the police—though they killed several of our young and indigenous brothers. But we defeated them and so can continue building our lives, because without water, managing life would be impossible.

For this reason, from this place called Cochabamba (a name that comes from a Quechua word meaning “great lake”), we say to you that it is possible to overcome not only these powerful enemies, but also our own fear, which at times is what impedes our fight.

Above all else, your struggle is for life and for the dignity of our peoples. We are tired of the powerful’s authoritarian and criminal imposition of their interests on our lives because their interests are contrary to our own—to those of the simple working people who only want to live in peace, with joy, deciding our present and future among equals, collectively, and speaking with one another as brothers and sisters.

For this reason, from here, we (people just like you—short, brown-skinned, but most of all, fighters) say to you that your struggle is our struggle because all the worlds’ peoples are one single people, and because our enemies are all the same. We are ready to denounce what’s happening there in Morelos and, if necessary, to mobilize.

For now, this letter will be published in several languages and will travel the world via the Red Vida, a space in which fighters like you share stories and information. Soon, the world’s people will know what your struggle is about. And soon we will celebrate your victory, which will be ours as well.

Salud and Struggle, Brothers and Sisters.

On behalf of the National Coordinadora of Water,

Oscar Olivera
Spokesman