Comrades, we will try to be as brief and objective as possible.
As of late evening of December 29th, 2013, last day of the Informal Anarchic Days/International Anarchist Symposium, and until today (December 31st), anarchist comrade Gustavo Rodriguez Romero is still missing.
On the evening of the 29th, at approximately 7.30pm, comrade Gustavo left the Che Guevara auditorium (in the UNAM campus) alone to go to Metro Copilco; he intended to meet his partner a bit later, and get back home together —which never happened, because Gustavo never showed up.
Five minutes after Gustavo left, a compañera who remained at the aforementioned event received a phone call from Gustavo, in which strange sounds were heard, and after a few seconds the call was dropped; this seemed suspicious to the compañera, who tried repeatedly to call him back, but he didn’t answer, and she assumed that he would get in touch later as agreed.
Yesterday afternoon, December 30th, the same compañera received a message from the life companion of Gustavo, who was asking about him and saying he had not returned home, and when this happens he always notifies her and never fails to communicate, because Gustavo is not the type who plays jokes, nor is he the type who goes out partying, or does things like that.
Until this morning (December 31st) we could not find him anywhere, either in hospitals, or in police stations, or in the detention centre for foreigners, since he is born in Cuba and has U.S. passport; we have not been able to locate him anywhere. The Attorney General’s Office said that they have not taken any person with that name into custody.
We would like to emphasize that this has happened amid a climate of harassment by the police of the Federal District Government, which was launched as soon as several antiauthoritarian, anarchist and libertarian collectives in affinity with each other reclaimed the space known as Auditorio Che Guevara, situated within the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UNAM; but harassment was further intensified when the Informal Anarchic Days/International Anarchist Symposium began. From then until now, comrades who enter and leave the auditorium have been harassed by persons who took pictures of them, or followed them on foot and by car, and even camouflaged “journalists” were sent to the event asking compromising questions, etc.
Gustavo Rodriguez is an anarchist comrade, nearly 54 years old, who has written countless articles on social politics, focusing for the most part on anarchism, and has made significant contributions to the development of the insurrectional anarchist perspective. His latest work has been a compilation for the book “May the night be illuminated!” Genesis, Development and Rise of the Informal Anarchist Tendency in Mexico, recently published by the Black International editions. He joined the informal anarchist symposium as participant giving a presentation for which he was invited, a speech on Anarchism, Insurrection and Social War.
We would like to point out that comrade Gustavo has also had verbal and written reprisals by some groups of the revolutionary left, because of the many criticisms he has made toward these leftist groups, whose responses in retaliation also include attempts to identify and single him out as the “leader” or ringleader of anarchist action groups who have acted in the Mexican anarchist context and geography.
We demand that comrade Gustavo Rodriguez Romero be presented to us safe and sound!
We hold the government of the Mexican Federal District primarily responsible for this forced disappearance, given the climate of harassment and repression which has developed over the past months against anarchists!
We urge you to show solidarity; because solidarity is our weapon!