On Wednesday, November 5, the Freedom Socialist Party’s International Secretary Guerry Hodderson released an open letter to Secretary of State John Kerry demanding that, while Nestora is imprisoned and the murderers of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa are still at large, the U.S. government must cease all military aid to Mexico. Below is the full text of the letter:
November 5, 2014
John Kerry, Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520Dear Mr. Kerry,
It is now 40 days since 43 students from the teaching school in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero disappeared and are presumed dead at the hands of agents of the Mexican state. That is 40 days of silence on the part of President Obama and, as far as we know, on your part. Having celebrated President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration for pushing free trade, you now have nothing to say about its abominable continuation of the outrageous criminalization of social protest? Perhaps that’s because the U.S. government has equipped and trained the Mexican army and police in the latest counterinsurgency tactics, which they are now using in conjunction with criminals, to murder, jail, and terrorize the Mexican people.
In 2013, the U.S. State Department requested almost $200 million in military aid for Mexico, including funds for personnel from the FBI, CIA and DEA. In 2014, the U.S. and Mexico agreed to $309 million in new aid. On top of that, under the Merida Initiative, your office is promising to pay another $1.9 billion in military aid to Mexico. The youth of Iguala, the town most of the young students came from, have paid for this aid in blood. They are victims of a narco-state that the U.S. government and business interests frequently praise as they anticipate investing in Mexico’s oil and energy industry, while turning a blind eye to the abuses perpetrated by the Mexican government against its own citizens.
Case in point: Nestora Salgado, leader of a community police force in Olinalá, Guerrero and a naturalized U.S. citizen, sits in federal prison because the corrupt governor of that state, who has stepped down since the disappearance of the 43 students, refused to free her after a federal court found the charges against her had no merit.
Why is she still being held, now that Governor Aguirre has resigned? Why have negotiations to free her broken off when the major obstacle to her freedom has left the office in disgrace?
I know that you have received several letters on Ms. Salgado’s behalf from members of the Washington state congressional delegation. Now is the time to act, not only for Nestora but for the missing students; for the family of Eric, Alex and Jose Alvarado, three young U.S. citizens who were executed outside of Matamoros on October 30 by police; for all the political prisoners who are unjustly incarcerated; for the Mexican families scarred forever by the widespread violence of police and other state agents who work with criminal syndicates.
Now is the time to cut off all U.S. military aid to Mexico. It is time to make the sacrifice of these young lives in Guerrero a turning point in U.S.-Mexico relations.
Sincerely,
Guerry Hoddersen
International Secretary
Freedom Socialist Party
Read the original post at the Freedom Socialist Party’s website.
Freedom for Political Prisoners Committee 
This “demand” is like asking the proverbial fox to stop loving the taste of chicken or to stop breaking into hen houses; or perhaps—its like demanding that the Sun stop shinning . The FSP has a fondness for making irrational, unrealistic demands, and making them to institutions and people extremely unlikely to listen and even more unlikely to comply.