After the Zapatista uprising on January 1, 1994, then President Salinas offered to give them the "sorry" if laid down their arms.
The response of the Zapatistas by "Subcomandante Marcos" was the following letter:
Who has to apologize and who can grant ... January 18, 1994
Until today, January 18, 1994, we've only been aware of the formalization of "forgiveness" offered by the federal government to our forces. What do we have to apologize? What what are we to forgive? Do not die of hunger? Do not be silent in our misery? Do not have humbly accepted the enormous historical burden of contempt and abandonment? Do us up in arms when all other roads are closed? Do not us followed the Criminal Code of Chiapas, the most absurd and repressive in recent memory? How have shown the rest of the country and the world that human dignity is still alive and is in its most impoverished? Do you have prepared well and thoroughly before starting? What guns have led to combat, rather than bows and arrows? How he learned to fight before it? How to be Mexican all? How to be mostly indigenous? How to call the Mexican people still fighting in every way possible, so they belong? How to fight for freedom, democracy and justice? Do not follow the patterns of previous guerrillas? Do not give up? Do not sell? Do not betray us?
Who has to apologize and who can grant? Do that for years and years, sat at a table full and were satisfied while he sat with us death, so everyday, so our stop just by fear? Do we filled the bags and soul of statements and promises? The dead, our dead, so deadly dead of "natural death", ie, measles, whooping cough, dengue, cholera, typhoid, mononucleosis, tetanus, pneumonia, malaria and other niceties gastrointestinal and lung? Do our dead, so mostly dead, as dead democratically shame because nobody did anything, because all the dead, our dead, went just like that, without anyone keeping score, no one said, finally, the "NOW ENOUGH! " to return to these deaths meaning, no one asked to forever dead, our dead, to return to die again but now to live? Those who denied us the right and the gift of our people to govern and to govern? Those who refused to respect our customs, our color, our language? Do we treat them like foreigners in our own land and ask us papers and obedience to a law whose existence and fairness do not? Do we tortured, imprisoned, murdered and disappeared by the serious "crime" of wanting a piece of land, not a big piece, not a small piece, just a piece that you could get something to fill your stomach?
Who has to apologize and who can grant?
The president of the republic? "The secretaries of state? Are the Senators? Are the Members? Do the governors? "Municipal presidents? Are the cops? Does the federal army? "The great lords of banking, industry, trade and land? Are the political parties? Are the intellectuals? "Gallium and linkages? Are the media? Do students? Do teachers? Do the settlers? Are the workers? Are the peasants? Are the Indians? The dead of pointless death?
Who has to apologize and who can grant?
Well, it's all for now.
Health and a hug, and with this cold both are appreciated (I think) but coming from a "professional of violence."
Even today, the Zapatistas continue to endure the attacks, abductions and murders:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx
