Land and dignity - Imprisoned farmers' FAO statement (14/6/2002) | |
Via Campesina secretaria operativa/operative secretariat: Apdo Postal 3628 Via Campesina calls for participation in rally in Rome We expect national governments to move on these important issues and show their political will to come to positive changes regarding the democratic rights of our organizations and farmers rights to food production and access to productive resources. Via Campesina also takes up its three central demands related to productive resources that were communicated to our governments on the 17th of april, the international day of farmers struggle: Via Campesina will be in Rome with an international delegation of ca 100 personas. To contact Via campesina in Roma: To receive all information from the Via Campesina delegation during the FAO Summit please subscribe to our newsgroup by sending a blank message to: Land and dignity Let us not lose our memory - let us not lose our future - let us have Food Sovereignty for All! We - who cannot come to Rome to the World Food Summit: five years later - greet you! We - farmers, indigenous peoples and workers leaders who were chased away from our fields, pursued and now imprisoned - want to be near you because you sustain our causes. We are imprisoned in jail without future in the Philippines or in Bolivia, buried under piles of lies in prisons in Brazil or Indonesia, obliged to hide like thieves only because we have given voice to the hopes of those, in India, Africa, or wherever, that want a land where they can live and be free from hunger. We have been arrested and prosecuted only because we defend our right to live in dignity and produce adequate and sufficient food for everyone, beyond the control and the exploitation of a few transnational corporations and of governments that that impose their rules on the entire world. We are struggling for: We strongly want to sustain our thousand days of resistance, the thousands of voices that are crying out from each corner of the world to give courage and spirit to our hopes. For this we ask you to march in the streets of Rome on 8 June 2002, upholding our causes and shouting our cry: Tierra y dignitad Land and dignity So that the whole world will hear it and we will be less alone inside our prisons. 9 may 2002-05-11 Manolito Matricio (former member of KMP national council), Ruben Balaguer, Gelito Bautista, Eduardo Hermoso, Mario Tobias and Joshua Ungsod - Philippines Daniel da Costa Albuquerque, Jose Carlos Pio y Miguel Serpa da Luz (members of MST from the State of Sao Paulo) - Brasil Rais bin Amsar, Yusup bin Marsa, Asgari bin Arwa, Sarhadi bin Wari, Samsyuri bin Usma, Usri bin Karsi, Jamali, Warta bin Alias, Ahmad Nurjali (all members of Banten Peasant Union - an organization member of FSPI; they are all in prison in the Cibaliung village, Cibaliung sub-district, Pandeglang Regency, Banten Province) Indonesia Laskar Mohammad Khalilur Rahman and Dactar Md. Kabir (Bangladesh Krishok Federation; they have to go to court and are threatened with imprisonment) José Bové, René Riesel, Bernard Moser, Christian Brousse (Confédération Paysanne) - France Silvia Lazarte (national leader of Bartolina Sisa), Margarita Terán, Seider Emilio V. CH, Eugenio Abendano H., Lidio Julián Gomez, Ambrocio Leonard Peltier (First Nations Activist; he has been imprisoned for over 26 years; although the government has admitted that they have no idea who shot the FBI agent, Peltier is accused of killing; at a recent parole hearing Peltier was told that he would die in prison; now 57 years of age and in poor health, his long deserved freedom) - USA |