Fw: Mexico City Bus Drivers: Ruta-100 2001-12-21.doc

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

                                             Mexico City, Districto Federal
                                             Dec. 21, 2001


TO THE WORKING CLASS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA


        The members of the Mexico City Ruta-100 bus drivers union send you
fraternal greetings wishing you and your families success and happiness this
holiday season and throughout the New Year.

        We wish to share with you the triumph we obtained in the December
first elections completed during our General Assembly attended by more than
6500 members of the S.U.T.A.U.R.-100.  A solid majority elected a
Liquidation Commission with power to do justice to the working class
membership, redistributing to each member their just share of the
S.U.T.A.U.R.-100 assets stolen from them by a vulture-like leadership and
used for their own personal benefit and for their Mafioso followers who had
infiltrated amongst our rank and file membership.

        A newly elected S.U.T.A.U.R.-100 leadership of the Liquidation
Commission are: Jorge Cuellar Valdez, President, Felipe Dominguez Correa,
Secretary, Ernesto Monroy Martinez, Treasurer, and Angel Santiago Garcia,
Antonio Ortega Sanchez, and Carlos Ochoa as spokes persons.

        We [the undersigned] ratify companero John Sutcliffe as our contact
person in the United States and Canada for purposes of information exchange
and for solidarity support that worker organizations wish to send in support
for our movement.

The address of John Sutcliffe is P.O. Box 360, Kingston, AR 72742, tel.
(479)-665-2216  fax (479)-665-2303 and e-mail jnsutcliffe at prodigy.net.  Make
checks payable to:  Ruta-100 Support Committee.  To send direct to bank:
First State Bank, P.O. Box 667, Huntsville, AR 72740  Acct. # 6333737.
Please send us your full name, address, phone, fax and e-mail so we can send
you a receipt with a message of appreciation.  Please specify your
contribution as a donation or as a loan.

        Our most urgent needs are economic.  For example:  Fees for our
attorneys pursuing the civil and penal suits to recover our transportation
project facilities, payment for the innumerable certified copies requested
by the eleven civil suits.  Gasoline and transport used in organizing
membership information meetings and for organizing public demonstrations [to
maintain pressure on the government to continue their cooperation in
pursuing our legal case], payment to the notary public firm [who attended
our General Assembly] to certify legality of our December first election
[for the federal government arbitration board], payment for mass publicity
for our General Assembly election.  Announcements in Mexico City metro
trains and buses [to advise our widely dispersed Ruta-100 membership],
payment for ink, and paper for computers, fax and copiers loaned to us,
payment for food [for members] attending lengthy meetings.

        We speak mainly for a group of fifty or so full time activists and
organizers, most of who were fired years ago by the former corrupt
leadership.

        We survive on the basis of weekly voluntary donations that we
receive, mostly form Ruta-100 members [who are still employed].  In addition
most of us manage to get by on occasional part time jobs and from help from
relatives and friends who support our cause.  Many of us have been without
steady work for six years.

        As you can understand, our needs are many, but our will to continue
our struggle remains strong.  For that we will appreciate whatever
solidarity help, or loans.  From the perspective our attorneys give us, we
are confident that in a short time we will recover our 546 buses and our 500
taxis and maintenance facilities that have a total value of over 60 million
dollars.  This will provide us with work once again and the power to cover
our debts.

        The betrayal we have suffered left us with a bitter experience
because it came from the leaders for whom we fought and sacrificed all to
have them released from prison [1995] believing them to be decent persons
and innocent of the governmentâ?Ts charges.  However we have learned that in
reality they were guilty, that they were scoundrels all along.  They owned
lucrative businesses with the money [they stole] from S.U.T.A.U.R.-100
workers.

        In hopes that the working class of the United States and Canada, in
understanding and in solidarity, help us, we reaffirm our commitment to
always continue fighting to defend the interests of the international
working class.

Fraternally,
Jorge Cuellar Valdez                       Felipe Dominguez Correa

          President                                     Secretary

Translated by John N. Sutcliffe

[***] translator added for clarity


Most of the 50 organizers working with Jorge Cuellar V. have been out of
work for more than six years.  During all this time they have had no office
nor office equipment.  Their membership meetings have been mostly outdoors
at one side of the Mexico City central plaza (El Zocolo).  This is the first
time they have asked workers in the United States and Canada since the lock
out in 1995.  These are proud self-reliant people, veterans of more than
twenty years of militant struggle.  Once these court procedures are complete
they should be back to work once again to resume their leadership position
in the Mexican democratic labor movement.