page last updated  7-6-2016

IF         160 Sunflower Lane Watsonville, CA 95076         Phone: 831-724-4108

About IF

IF is a nonprofit humanitarian, educational and social change organization located in the Santa Cruz, CA, area. We are a community of friends seeking hopeful alternatives to the violence, greed and destructiveness of our world. 
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Mexico:
Building Peace and Strengthening Faith through Non-cooperation
Update from Pietro Ameglio

IF continues to support the courageous work of Pietro Ameglio in Mexico and beyond.
IF's support has been integral to Pietro being able to devote himself full-time to nonviolence education and organizing. Pietro is one of the most important nonviolent activists in Latin America today in the specific sense of promoting both the study and the practice of active nonviolence. He has a sophisticated knowledge of nonviolence theory and history, and he combines that with a deep commitment to social justice and decades of front-line experience in nonviolent action. He is an inspiring and popular peace educator who walks his talk, who educates in formal settings as well as on picket lines and at mass actions. Here is his most recent update. He starts with some reflections on his October 2015 visit to the Santa Cruz area, where he gave a number of talks and met with a variety of groups.

 April 5, 2016
 
Dear Friends of IF,
It was a real pleasure to meet many of you again several months ago, sharing bread and the small miracles that the good spirit has made in our lives. There is no doubt that, in some way, our paths, and those of many who struggle and suffer for the building of peace, have converged in this life.
 
The situation of violence in Mexico has not improved. Now we are entering an important period because, with elections on the distant horizon, the political class must deliver now on the business they have with the transnational corporations who put them in Congress for that purpose. At the top of the list is the plundering of territories and natural resources taking place in the country. A year from now, the entire political class, and a good part of the rest of the country, will begin to concentrate on the upcoming presidential and state elections. During that period, they are going to be more careful about their public image. So now is when they are going to exert the most repression.
 
Recently two very harsh and repressive laws were approved. One is the Atenco Law in the State of Mexico (where president Peña Nieto is from). It authorizes the police to use lethal force in the repression of protests. In addition, the Chamber of Deputies (lower house of Congress) approved presidential powers to declare a suspension of constitutional rights and a state of exception if the president believes that “social peace” is threatened. The federal government also announced that it will not renew permission to operate in Mexico of the Grupo Interdisciplinario de Expertos Independientes (GIEI- Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts; the GIEI was created by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to carry out an independent investigation of the September 2014 disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa; the GIEI’s reports to date have presented extensive evidence disproving the government’s version of events). In other words, the truth about that genocidal action will never be known; total impunity. this has happened without any consultation with the citizenship. This is how our politicians are. Therefore we must promote non-cooperation.

In March we celebrated the 5th anniversary of the founding of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD), which is led by Javier Sicilia. That great mobilization and the hope it generated then have been transformed today primarily into more than 50 organizations of victims throughout the country that search for their missing loved ones who are among the approximately 32,000 disappeared and 103,000 killed.  Something very important has taken place, something that we promoted from the beginning of the MPJD. Today the family members themselves are doing the searching in clandestine graves. While this is very risky, it is producing more results. The families became tired of waiting for the government to help them search for and dig up their loved ones. Now some of them are doing it on their own, and this is an important step in their autonomous organization. We are supporting them in their process.
 
In Morelos, last year, thanks to the work of a mother who was looking for her son, a clandestine grave of the state government was discovered with 150 bodies buried without identification. Incredible! The government, just like the criminals, also has clandestine graves! And even now the struggle continues to identify the other 149 bodies (one of them was the missing son the mother was searching for.)
 
Another key element of the struggle of the family members of the disappeared is for their views to be taken into account in the writing of a national law regarding the disappeared.
 
Human rights organizations and civil society groups say that, in addition to the many murders of activists that continue to take place, there are currently 350 activists in prison, most of them for opposing large-scale projects of transnational corporations that threaten local communities. The January 2016 Amnesty International report on Mexico is titled: “Indolence of the Mexican government regarding the disappeared.” An April 2016 report from the Childhood Protection Network is titled: “Epidemic of Disappearances.”

In our work, we have prioritized the formation of youth who are committed to peace and nonviolence and the network of like-minded community groups working with women (The Grail), with conflicted neighborhoods (PEACE-Tepito), and with spiritual themes. One important fruit of the work of recent years is the creation by one of our groups of students and professors at the UNAM (National Autonomous University) of a collective called Nos hacen falta (They are missed), which focuses on UNAM students who have been disappeared or killed in recent years as part of the so-called War on Drugs. In a press conference recently, they presented a list of twelve cases, four of which were documented in short videos (https://es-es.facebook.com/people/Nos-Hacen-Falta/100009316091031).

They are calling upon the university leadership, which is a fundamental part of that moral reserve that has not been adequately activated in Mexico, to remember that the missing students are part of the university community and to collaborate with persistence and clear support in the search for those disappeared and for justice for the murdered. They are also calling upon members of other universities in the country to make their own lists of victims and to demand that their institutions join the families in the search for the disappeared. This is an important action in the field of non-cooperation with the “normalization of institutional silence” regarding those disappeared or killed as a result of the violence.

Pietro Ameglio

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In a similar vein, it seems to me very important when the youth educate us adults. This includes, we hope, the Pope, who came to a country of 32,000 disappeared, 103,000 killed, and hundreds of thousands of displaced by the violence and did not meet publicly with any of the family members of the victims as a sign of support and a means of giving a voice to those families. The Pope’s visit did not seem to provide any support for building peace in a country at war. “Disappearing” the victims from his public speeches served more to legitimize the perpetrators. We were hopeful about the Pope’s visit to the tomb of Bishop Samuel Ruiz in Chiapas who offered his life to give “voice to the voiceless”, but in the end it seemed more like another missed opportunity.
 
However, “God has a strong sense of humor”, as Fr. Donald Hessler, indefatigable Maryknoll priest and promoter of nonviolence in Mexico, used to say. He always associated what the Virgin of Guadalupe asks of Juan Diego with the essence of  nonviolence: humility and audaciousness. In April, I was invited to the Vatican by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Pax Christi International for a conference on “Contributing to a Renewal of Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence.” Along with 1976 Irish Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, a great woman, I was asked to lead a discussion on “Experiences of Nonviolence: Inductive exploration of the experience of nonviolence as a spiritual commitment of faith and practical strategy in violent situations and different cultural contexts. What might we learn from such experience to provide soil for theological reflection and action planning?” It was a memorable experience to meet bishops, priests, nuns and lay people from all over the world who are deeply committed to walking with their people in war and war-like situations. And I think it was good that I was there to share our experience with the so-called “War on Drugs” and the many resistance struggle of communities defending their territory from extractive industries which, viewed from other parts of the world, may be difficult to understand. There were 80 invited participants, and the focus of the conference was to move the Catholic Church to renounce its Just War teaching and instead promote Just Peace. We hope that in some way, our work will be reflected in future statements and writings of Pope Francis. My observations were well received, especially when I spoke about the crucial role that the churches can play in restraining the forces of war if they leverage their moral power through public nonviolent actions rooted in strong determination to defend the victims and to champion justice.
 
Upon returning from Rome, I jumped right back into the work here. First I led a workshop on strategies of nonviolent resistance for a group of indigenous campesinos in Oaxaca who are mounting a fierce resistance against the violence of companies seeking to exploit the mineral, forestry and water resources of their territories.  Two days after that workshop, I began a workshop series for a group of 40 lawyers and conflict mediators from the Instituto Politécnico Nacional, the second largest public university in the country, as well as municipal ombudsmen from various parts of Mexico City who are responsible for defending citizen rights. It is challenging to work with campesinos one moment and then lawyers and municipal authorities the next, but these are doors that have opened quite a bit and opportunities we must take advantage of. I feel that we are in a somewhat providential moment, which is also very intense and demanding, and which could close quickly if the violence continues to grow.
 
Finally I would like to say a bit about the work of the Peace and Nonviolence Team, another group at the UNAM made up of former students of mine, whose work is expanding considerably along with the number of youth involved, a growing seed of nonviolence activism. Just yesterday we had a meeting with the Minister of Culture of Mexico City. The Minister offered us the opportunity to develop a Peace Culture Program in the neighborhoods of the capital and in a detention center for juveniles. That will be very challenging. Last year the Peace and Nonviolence Team presented a number of workshops on peace and violence prevention in a public school on the outskirts of Mexico City, a neighborhood where there is a high level of violence, including some lynchings in recent years. The teachers there were very enthusiastic about the results of the program. Of course these are small, humble steps, but real nonetheless and, as Gandhi would call them, “experiments with truth.”
 
Our plans for this year include publishing a booklet with the seven workshops on peace and nonviolence that we have been working with in order to share and discuss our experience with other groups.
 
In closing I send you a strong and affectionate hug, hoping that your faith may strengthen mine, that they may join together and multiply, so that with this experience in the Vatican, and with the victims in Mexico, we may be capable of transmitting at least a bit of the spirit.
 Fraternally, Pietro

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Anita, a nurse, works with Don Sergio. She has 3 children and has not been paid at her hospital job for 6 months. Photo courtesy of Patricia Ferrer

Updates on Sergio Castro/Yok Chij
   For over 45 years Sergio Castro (Yok Chij) has been working within the indigenous Mayan communities of San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, one of the poorest states of Mexico. Sergio spends most of his time providing medical and wound care to burn victims, and, with increasing frequency, patients suffering from the effects of type 2 diabetic complications. Don Sergio does not charge any fees. He is a “one-man-wound-care clinic” and is always moving, hence the name ‘yok chij’, Maya language, Tzotzil for ‘deer foot’, because he’s always moving. 
    Don Sergio's project activities are regularly updated on his blog by Patricia Ferrer, who has worked with him for eight years, @ http://sergiocastrosc.blogspot.mx

DONATE to SERGIO CASTRO & YOK CHIJ.

Summer 2016
(updates from Patricia Ferrer on Sergio's blog).
    We had been aware of the recent protesting and violence in Oaxaca and although we did not see any protesting, we definitely experienced the effects. Teachers and health professionals (to my understanding have not been paid) create road blocks which prevent certain items to come in and out of the city. Tourism numbers are low and gasoline is limited. The lines at gas stations are long and they run out quickly. We cannot go out to the communities so we only treat the local patients....keeps us busy enough!
    As usual, he is grateful to all his friends that continue to support him and his work.  The never-ending influx of patients with burns and wounds seems endless and all donations help reduce the suffering in this part of the world.
    At this time we have a 2 and a half-year-old that was pushed into a tub of hot water by her brother, which burned her back, legs and genitalia.  These are first-degree burns (epidermal blisters) and superficial second-degree burns (the superficial portion of the dermis).  These types of burns are so painful and although the little girl cries when we change her bandages, she lets us do our job.
    We do it as quickly and smoothly as possible.

30% of her body surface area was burned, 1st and superficial 2nd degree burns. Photo courtesy of Patricia Ferrer.

    The poverty she, her family and neighbors live in astounds us:no clean water, no toilets, they cook with wood, the walls are thin planks, and discarded items are used in any way possible for shelter. There is no waste for the poor; they find utility in everything, just as nature does. 
read more about Don Sergio's work in Chiapas, Mexico

  January 2016

Sergio must travel long distance to serve patients in isolated towns and villages in Chiapas. Photo courtesy of Patricia Ferrer

"Its hard to believe I met Sergio 8 years ago and how little things have changed in his world of wound and burn care. At least as far as patients go: same accidents, different people. Our patients are the young, the old, and everyone in between.

    On New Year's Eve a 5 year-old boy, with his 23 year-old uncle from Chamula, were planning to use fireworks and pulvora - literally in English 'gunpowder' -  and somehow it when 'boom'.  Both their hands and faces were burned.  The boy's complete face (excluding his eyelids) has a superficial second degree burn and he looks like a kid from a horror movie. The back of his hands suffered a 1st degree burn in which the superficial aspect of his skin will peel and probably won't leave any scarring. At this point we really don't if he will be left with any facial disfigurement, but his function of blinking, and use of his mouth should be fine. Sergio cleans his face and applies cream and this 5 year-old does not cry. His absolute attention and caring in doing this must have some calming affect...plus the boy knows Sergio will give him a piece of chocolate afterwards.
    The uncle does the whimpering when we change the bandage on his right hand which has a superficial 2nd degree burn. His face suffered a burn equivalent to a chemical peel that many women in the US pay hundreds of dollars to help with wrinkles. His face is recovering very quickly but his hand will take longer.
    The older patients have diabetic or venous ulcers we see on a regular basis. The blindness from diabetes continues to amaze me and lack of education for diabetes prevention is sorely lacking (as it is in the US). It also continues to amaze me how people get along with their maladies that interfere with their daily activities of living and their quality of life. They seem to blame no one and accept their fate.   Read more on Sergio's blog.