USA – Farm worker leader assasination

Letter of Vía Campesina North America

In the name of the member organizations of the La Vía Campesina North America, we send you a fraternal message of solidarity for the hideous assassination of Santiago Rafael Cruz, office manager of the FLOC in Monterrey, Nuevo León, and join together in the general demand for a quick and honest investigation to expose this terrible act and for the punishment of the true culprits.

The assassination of Santiago links to a chain of aggressions and attacks against the FLOC for its relentless defense of Mexican agricultural workers’ rights in the agricultural fields of the United States. But this condemnable act forms in addition part of the unleashed offensive against migrant agricultural workers and the campesinos who fight against poverty, marginalization, and exploitation in the countryside.  In this way the assassination is also an attack against our movement.

We are ready to offer the support and solidarity that is necessary so that this crime against the FLOC does not go unpunished and to stop any attempt to destabilize its just struggle for the rights of men, women, and child farm worker members of the FLOC.  

The coordination, together with the La Vía Campesina North American Region will be attentive to the investigation carried out by the mexican authorities, and we will continue communication with you in order to determine actions in solidarity and the necessary support so that justice is served and that attacks against the FLOC are stopped.      

Globalize the struggle, globalize hope!

Co-Coordinators of the La Vía Campesina North America,
Dena Hoff                                                       Alberto Gómez
National Family Farm Coalition,                       Unión Nacional de Organizaciones
USA                                                                Regionales Campesinas Autónomas, México   

April 11, 2007

Baldemar Velázquez
President
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Toledo, Ohio