(to your birthday at the 19th of April 2010)
Far away from us in Germanywe
didn´t know even your name.
Now we came closer to you,
somewhere in the North of the Philippines.
You are cowardly enforced disappeared
by secret and military services 580 days ago.
You stand up for your rights,
for the rights of the indigenous people,
for the miners, living there in their ancestral land
since thousand of thousand yearswithout
any Conquistador and Yankee.
You stand up against the Lepanto Mining Company
to rescue the water from Cyanide and mercury,
the air in the mountains from poisoning,
the valleys from being destroyed by the dam of St. Roque,
for a liberated life without exploitation and oppression
in Abra, Apayao, Ifugao, in the Mountain Provinces of Kalinga, in Mankayan, Bakun
and in Baguio City as well
as a part of our world.
On the street, where you walked,
the women sell still vegetables and fruits from a Chinese distributer
they know your name and they would like
to give you grapes and from the delicious mangos.
The anti-open-pit mining kids sing today
a song of solidarity and resistance.
They know this song, as you taught it to them.
Your brother, sisters,friends and parents long for being
together with you not only today.
We know, you support us in our fight against social damages like Hartz 4,
against Stuttgart 21 and against the so called “war on terror” in Afghanistan
and elsewhere.
The Mothers of Placo de Mayo in Buenos Aires with their white scarfs
look for their missed relatives since more than 30 years..
We carry on your fight,
the second liner come in the first row.
Salute James Balao, you are here,
James Balao, where are you?
Here!
James Balao, where are you?
Here!
James Balao…