We who have signed below, all of us from the village of Tanetze de Zaragoza, Villa Alta, Oaxaca, want to express our deepest appreciation for all the help we have received in the conflict within our community, conflict that our organization (Pueblos Unidos) continues facing. Today, just like yesterday, a constant struggle continues, a sustained struggle for free self-determination by the indigenous peoples of our country; that is the case with our grassroots campesino organization. In these months of constant tension, we recognize that if our struggle had not been publicized with the influential impact of the information media, for one thing, at this moment we would not have visual resources [the video record] to reflect on it [the struggle] and to continue telling the story of our people. We also know that the life of our people will continue along its course, very much despite there being a small group of citizens constantly trying to divide the community, not sharing the social struggle with us. Also, there are opportunistic people without scruples who get carried away trying to defame our leaders, to subject them to calumny. Their aim, we clearly know, is to destroy, to destroy and continue destroying the struggle, the effort and the sacrifice of the communities and citizens, the struggle in our visions and dreams that we still believe in. So we have to take into account that we are campesinos, that as such we are born and as such we will die, pursuing the unity of our peoples.

      Today the problem is transportation, tomorrow who knows? It is up to all of us to continue maintaining the unity and the respect that our grandparents had for one another. Apparently we, their children and grandchildren, have not been able to understand that.

      If only many many more Ojos de Agua were born (sources from where spring up a visual wisdom that day to day flows like the breeze that dampens the fields of corn and beans of so many villages). We are proud of having and counting on great friends like you. We think you are people with great principles of struggle and of large moral character. This makes of you greats among the great.

      We are eternally thankful for your collaboration in stopping the brutal repression to which we have been subjected; we know that we are not alone, and neither will you ever be.

      It will always be that foolishness is born with us,
      The foolishness of assuming an enemy,
      The foolishness of paying the price.

      We will die as we live (struggling for survival).

      As for the video that our compańeros in struggle worked on, the work of making it has been very well accepted. We got a lot of encouragement from talking with people who need more community work. Their most frequent comments are:

      "We want to go back to being the same brothers we were before."

      We want to thank the community - state, national and international - for its unqualified help, as well as, in addition, all the people who sent their letters of support; we compańeros have read them. Thank you.

      Surely many times, as the years pass, one forgets things. In this case we very much doubt that that will happen.