Bolivia - December 12th, 2021

December 12:
International Day of Struggle
for the Persecuted Worker

From San Pedro Penitentiary, in La Paz

Letter from Luis Mamani, employee of the Brosso company, political prisoner, persecuted by the businessman and deprived of liberty in the Arce government prison

On December 12, the International Day of struggle for the Persecuted Worker, he bravely calls to unity, as well as expresses his solidarity with the oil workers of Las Heras, 8 years after their unfair sentence.

Sunday, December 12, 2021

From: Luis Edgar Mamani Villca
To: Oil workers of Las Heras, Argentina

Subject: Salutation and support letter

Today, Sunday December 12, the International Day of struggle for the Persecuted Worker, I want to tell you comrades the most heartfelt, warmest, most empathic and most revolutionary salute of struggle on this day that marks 8 years of the unfair sentence you and your families are suffering.

I, Luis Edgar Mamani Villca, send you a fraternal hug. My situation, comrades, is no different than yours, since, like you, as a union leader, I always fought and will keep fighting for the best for my rank and file, for which I’ve gladly got the responsibility of talking about all the abuses of these so-called businessmen. I call them “tyrants”. As they saw our unity was winning above their low interests, they decided to attack me through fake charges, slanders, persecution, harassing, intimidating and even fabricating fake proofs.

Comrades, I’m writing you from San Pedro Penitentiary Centre in La Paz, Bolivia, where I was incommunicado. In this case, the Limited Liability Company Rodriguez Zabala LLC (BROSSO) has pressed 3 charges against me, arguing theft, injuries and violence. It paid the court and the police and DA’s office personnel so they act against me in my hearings’ rulings.

Truth is I am a family father. I have children, just as you. They don’t leave me to bring bread to my home. I am kept in jail and they wash their hands. Comrades, I truly understand how it is not to have money, not even to pay our defense lawyers, because Public Defense is not an option, because these lawyers are also bought by the companies.

How can the businessman be so mean and have so much influence in the unions and now in the very personal lives of each worker (…) who only defend their rights and benefits that belong to them by law? Not having enough, the businessmen also buy the dignity and will of the famous pro-employer leaders, who are the ones generating parallelism in unions and sell out these workers to the owners and managers. They infiltrate our conferences, congresses and meetings. Now they even want to infiltrate our headquarters, the union organizations like the Industrial Workers Federation, Confederation and Workers Centrals. But we must not lower our guard, comrades (…) Where are our authorities and headquarters that should fight to uproot these barbarities and mockeries? We must recover our identity and strengthen our unity, because united we are invincible.

(…) This has to stop. I am one of you, one man deprived from his freedom and from his freedom of expression, due to the power of the money of these tyrants. Enough of fearing the retaliations for telling the truth! Let’s keep forward, comrades, and we will all denounce these flagrant criminal acts that only harm the poor (…) If the businessmen perform a bad management of the companies, they are the ones that should go to jail and, once and for all, we, the workers, to be the sole power above the judicial, legislative and administrative instruments. We, the working classes, workers, are the economic engine of our countries and we should kill once and for all the transnational companies too, and to strengthen ourselves in our own territories and show the world that we do have ruling capacity. Let’s keep on moving forward, stronger than ever, despite these persecutions, let’s be united and, I repeat, to our main organizations, they have to defend the union privileges, because we are under these circumstances because we fought. Do not only use us as steps to go up, and then leave us abandoned. We need you to act and get the gains together.

Finally, I infinitely thank the International Network for the Freedom of all the Political Prisoners and Justice to our Martyrs. A revolutionary greeting to them as to all the organizations fighting for human rights and workers rights honestly, uninterestedly and incorruptibly, which contribute to the struggle to make the labour rights and true justice be respected, eradicating once and for all businessmen corruption and the tyranny of these murderers that persecute us and want to silence us.

Thank you so much and I hope our main organizations to step in these difficult situations we are bearing with our own pain and the pain of our families.

Long live united workers!
Death to the corrupt and bought-off DA’s, prosecutors and investigators!
Death to the rotten justice!
Death to the businessmen tyranny!

Luis Edgar Mamani Villca
Union of Industrial Workers in “Brosso-Rodríguez Zavala”
Another persecuted leader, deprived from his freedom in a corrupt way, in San Pedro Penitentiary, La Paz, Bolivia