Editor’s Note: A sense of outrage has spread throughout Mexico following the recent discovery of an extermination camp in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, where hundreds may have been executed. The camp was not discovered by the State, but by families of the disappeared. Protests have been held, documents and denunciations issued. Below we print a letter issued by activists, searching families, artists and writers. It originally appeared in the online journal Desinformémonos, and has been translated from Spanish.

---

To those who are not indifferent to war:

The discovery of the exploitation, torture, and extermination camp in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, is a small and terrible example of the cruel human crisis that Mexico is experiencing as a result of the drug war that broke out in 2006 and has not ended. The pain of the families of the disappeared permeates practically every corner of the country and extends beyond our borders. At least 124,000 people have disappeared, a devastating figure because they are not numbers or entries in a database; they are children, young people, women, and men torn from their homes and communities. They are people we miss and whom oblivion threatens to erase.

Disappearance—any disappearance—is an unjustifiable crime, regardless of its cause or motive, without excuses or nuances. The search—any search—is an inescapable obligation and calls us not to stop until we find them all, to commit to putting an end to the horror, regardless of our work, our ideology, or our geography.

The pain, indignation, and rage caused by the knowledge that extermination camps exist in Mexico (although it seems that the people on high avoid acknowledging that these schools of terror are just that) should not be exploited, either by those who caused this human crisis since 2006, or by those who claim to have broken with the practices of the past while repeating their vices; or by those inside and outside Mexico who see pain as a political, business, or interventionist opportunity.

We are not bots, trolls, or mercenary or fictitious voices; we are those who shouted “NO” at Tlatelolco, at Acteal, at Atenco, at Ayotzinapa. [Other sites of mass killings and disappearances.] We are those who, for decades, have opposed militarization and militarism, war, dehumanization, and horror.

We are human beings who do not blindly follow or condemn by order, who will always use reason to listen critically, and our hearts to listen in solidarity, and we will act accordingly in the face of infamy. Do not confuse us, do not minimize us, do not lie to us.

We have seen how the blood that runs through the country and the bones hidden beneath the earth, multiply because violence—both state and non-state—is relentless. Meanwhile, criminal structures within and outside the state are strengthened, under the cover of a policy of silence and structural, systematic, and routinized impunity, which only justifies more war, more death, and more pain. We know that political figures who allowed an extermination camp to operate—which is now Teuchitlán, but yesterday was Patrocinio, La Gallera, La Guapota, or Colinas de Santa Fe—are today enjoying the atrocity, with freedom and preferential treatment, some in Mexico, others abroad.

Knowing that those who were present at Teuchitlán may still be alive today only makes our rage increase, knowing that every minute counts in finding them. Knowing that camps like this could be very close to where we are and that nothing is happening, that the broken bodies, lives, and dreams are piling up every day, makes us want to shout and do something, defying everything: the factions of political parties, ineffective institutions, prosecutors who cover up, complicit military officers, and powerful people who continue to make cowardice and cruelty their most lucrative business.

We call on those who now seek to erase, silence, disappear, and exploit us to stop, because otherwise this rage will grow along with the abnormal dimensions of death, disappearance, and normalization of the nightmare. Criminalizing the disappeared, underestimating the depth of the pain and the authenticity of the searching families, minimizing their technical capacity and expertise in the search, are mechanisms that perpetuate impunity and portray the attacked as aggressors. This dynamic leaves everything in the realm of political opportunism, not human urgency. This guarantees the replication of crimes like this because the power networks involving governments, corporations, and cartels are not exposed.

Here we are; we are not bots, we are not trolls. We tell President Sheinbaum that the victims are the more than 124,000 disappeared men and women, not her. Listen to your mothers and fathers, your brothers and sisters, your sons and daughters; this is a debt owed by the State. It was owed to them yesterday, you owe them today, you will owe them forever, as long as there is no response. We put our shoes there, cast off, piled up, and empty, the shoes of others who are somewhere. Their pain cannot be theirs alone. If we let that happen, we will condemn them, we will condemn ourselves to death, because nothing flourishes in hell.

We are beyond petitions, demands, special mechanisms, and technicalities. The struggle of the seekers is humanity’s final call to stop this madness of ambition, death, and pain. After that, there is nothing left to await but the grave that will be left for us, for those of us who feel the pain today and for those who inflict it.

NOT WITHOUT THE FAMILIES!

–Signed by hundreds of activists, family members, artists and writers