Claudia Pafundi
Member of the Commission of Condemned Workers, Families and Friends of Las Heras

“We are one class in the whole world!
Let's fight over the borders!”

Dear comrades and friends…

Good afternoon. My name is Claudia Pafundi, member of the Commission of Condemned Workers, Families and Friends of Las Heras. My family has been hit hard by repression and jail.
We are very excited by the enormous solidarity we have received.
7 years have passed since the brutal sentence to life in prison. But we did not start fighting in 2013.It has been 14 years of tireless struggle.
We were part, in 2006, of a tough struggle of the workers here in southern Argentina, in Patagonia, against the big imperialist oil companies such as REPSOL and PANAMERICAN. Our fight against labor flexibility and the wage tax was part of a general demand of all Argentinean workers.
In those years we took to the streets, we conquered the unity of all the workers, on the roads and on the picket lines, and we voted for everything in an assembly, against the union bureaucracy itself, which even handed over the “black lists” with which they later imprisoned us. They chased and tortured us.
But the old union leaders isolated us, betrayed us, surrounded us. The black night came.
The government that guised as a "Human Rights defender" occupied our town with the Gendarmerie, with the intelligence services and began a witch hunt. They entered our houses and took our comrades as if they were criminals.
In 2006, Las Heras experienced what the Argentinean working class had suffered in the 1970s with the Videla dictatorship.
Many comrades were detained for months and six were held hostages for more than three years to punish all the workers in the country.
After seven years, the trial started.The oil companies had confidence in each other. They believed they had the people of Las Heras under their boots. Buttheywerewrong.

In that dark court that sessioned in Caleta Olivia, the light of the workers of the world began to arrive, beginning to surround us with solidarity and prevent the judges from acting as they pleased with us. From Japan, from France, from Palestine, from Tunisia, from Chile, from Bolivia ... The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo - Founding Line, like Nora Cortiñas and Elia Espen, also came to court and their white handkerchiefs already belonged to the oil workers and their families.
The Vengeance Court wanted darkness and silence to convict and lock us up. But also our brave colleagues began to tell the truth in the face of the revenge court, that the statements were extracted under torture and that a true clandestine detention center was operating in the Provincial Highway offices.
Las Heras had lost fear and was taking to the streets. We ourselves with our families began to travel the country and made known to the world what was happening. They wanted to sentence workers to life imprisonment for fighting for their rights. We were in the struggles of the metalworkers, of the oil producers mill workers, before the closure of meat factories like Paty. We toured the country and embraced all the workers' and anti-imperialist organizations in the world that face persecution, repression and jail with their best fighters.
And the day of the sentence arrived. On December 12, 2013 the court issued the sentence, four comrades were sentenced to life imprisonment, and six were sentenced to five years.
But we no longer went to court alone, we were surrounded by the solidarity and support of hundreds of workers' and human rights organizations in Argentina, while the oil workers in Las Heras went on strike.
We were no longer alone, there was a network of solidarity and support throughout the world.
For this reason, although they condemned us, we are still in our homes, fighting for our acquittal. But also knowing that our freedom will be conquered by deepening unity across borders with each prisoner, with each persecuted, with each worker who stands up for their demands.
We are fathers and mothers of the Chilean youth and of the 2,500 prisoners in Piñera's cells. Because we have DIGNITY, we fight alongside them. We are one fist with the families of the martyrs, wounded and prisoners of Senkata who faced the coup in Bolivia.
Because we are brothers of the workers and poor peasants of Peru who are imprisoned for revolting against the plans of hunger and misery. We are the 5,000 Colombian political prisoners and relatives of the murdered activists.
We are the Syrian refugees and prisoners, who have risen up against the murderer Al Assad and his partner Putin.We also fought together with those Syrian refugees and prisoners since the first day of the trial. We are also comrades of Iranian political prisoners, who suffer brutal torture and even being executed by the Ayatolhas regime.
Our children are imprisoned in the jails of Greece and we will not leave them alone. We want them all released! With the families and widows of the Marikana workers, murdered by the South African government, the Angloamerican and their murderous police, we continue to demand justice for the 34 miners.
We are the family of Alberto Santillán with whom we will fight until justice is done for the death of Darío and Maxi, where today their murderers rule alongside those who sentenced us to life and jail. We want justice for Santiago and Rafa and also for Facundo Castro!
We are fathers and mothers of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa. They took them alive, we want them alive! TheStateisresponsible!
Without any doubt, we are all George Floyd! Black lives matter!
In Argentina we feel increasingly surrounded by workers who are fighting in defense of their interests, which are the same ones we fought for 14 years ago and were sentenced seven years ago. Today they are fighting against layoffs, against labor flexibility. Unions like the tire workers union are back in the fight for the same demand that we raised in 2006 in Las Heras: it is a shame and a disgrace that a tax is placed on the miserable salary of a worker.
We are surrounded by enormous solidarity from Human Rights organizations and workers' organizations. This year we have also received the support from left-wing deputies such as Giordano and Laura Marrone, former legislator of the Capital City.
We are aware that this infamous regime needs more and more hostages to extort money from the working class to make it surrender. That will not happen!
We fight for our acquittal, which will come hand in hand with the unconditional release of comrades Sebastián Romero, Daniel Ruiz, César Arakaki, Dimas Ponce, Facundo Jones Huala, of the drivers of the East Bus Line of La Plata, the drop of all charges against comrade Alejandro Villarroel the Rio Santiago Shipyard, and thousands of comrades prosecuted for fighting.
We are received and our families are received in all the struggles, in the rounds of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, on the anniversaries of the murder of fighters like Kostequi and Santillán... We are no longer alone.
Our die is cast. It depends as never before on the result of the extremely tough struggle of the exploited against their executioners, both in Argentina and worldwide.
To the hundreds of organizations that sent us their solidarity, we want to say that they can count on us, unconditionally. We consider them all part of our family and our struggle. We are at your service. It is time that they let the rebellious youth, the workers and the oppressed peoples who fight for their liberation live their lives, that they stop torturing us in the concentration camps and in the prisons of murderous states.
We were an isolated handful, today we are thousands and we must be millions who fight together against the oppressors, for the freedom of our political prisoners and for our martyrs throughout the world.
We have the same enemy and we are the same class all over the world
Just as there were millions who took to the streets for the Chicago martyrs, millions also who came out to face the conviction and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.
We are one class in the whole world! Let's fight over the borders!
That is our proposal and our return to this enormous solidarity that we have received.
Thank you very much comrades, because this struggle belongs to all, the workers and exploited of the world.
The rebellion of the slaves is not a crime, IT IS JUSTICE!