Making the world safe for capitalism: Oaxaca, Mexico

US independent journalist Brad Will [see NYC Indymedia archive] and Mexican schoolteacher Emilio Alfonso Fabián are two of the latest victims of state terrorism in Mexico, murdered yesterday by paramilitaries acting for Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. In reaction, Subcomandate Insurgente Marcos writes:

We know that they killed at least one person. This person that they killed was from the alternative media that are here with us. He didn’t work for the big television news companies and didn’t receive pay. He is like the people who came here with us on the bus, who are carrying the voices of the people from below so that they would be known. Because we already know that the television news companies and newspapers only concern themselves with governmental affairs. And this person was a compañero of the Other Campaign. He also traveled various parts of the country with us, and he was with us when we were in Yucatán, taking photos and video of what was happening there. And they shot him and he died. It appears that there is another person dead. The government doesn’t want to take responsibility for what happened. Now they tell us that all of the people of Oaxaca are mobilizing. They aren’t afraid. They are mobilizing to take to the streets and protest this injustice. We are issuing a call to all of the Other Campaign at the national level and to compañeros and compañeras in other countries to unite and to demand justice for this dead compañero. We are making this call especially to all of the alternative media, and free media here in Mexico and in all the world.

The Narco News Bulletin has an extensive archive on The Other Campaign, which simple and humble people may like to peruse further. Closer to home, this Tuesday Heriberto Salas, a representative from the People’s Front in Defense of Land, will be speaking at Trades Hall. (Frente del Pueblo en Defensa de La Tierra — an organisation which has helped defeat the further imposition of market imperatives (‘neoliberalism’) in Mexico: in one case the forced removal of peasant communities in Mexico City in order to make way for the construction of a new airport.)

Details:

7pm
Trades Hall
Cnr. Victoria and Lygon Sts, Carlton
$8/$5
Food and drink available
Organised by LASNET and the Mexico-Australia Solidarity Network

    Embassy of Mexico in Australia
    14 Perth Avenue
    Yarralumla ACT 2600

    Telephone: (02) 6273 3963
    Facsimile: (02) 6273 1190

Update : Mexico City — October 28, 2006

Dear supporter of the teachers’ and popular movement in Oaxaca:

Yesterday afternoon (Friday, October 27) I was at the Planton (encampment) in Mexico City with the 21 hunger strikers and the 400 remaining teachers and activists from Oaxaca who arrived here October 9 following their 500-kilometer walk.

Just moments after the riot police (granaderos) charged the encampment to dislodge us from in front of the Hemiciclio a Juarez building, we learned that in the city of Oaxaca, armed goons -– under direct orders from PRI Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz –- had charged the barricades in a major operation to remove all the Section 22 teachers and APPO supporters from the downtown section of the city, which has been occupied by the movement since June 14.

[APPO: an umbrella protest group, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, known by its Spanish-language initials APPO.]

The teachers’ union and APPO had called on their supporters to join them in a major mobilization on Friday to demand the immediate resignation of Ruiz Ortiz.

Three people were killed in this assault: IndyMedia photographer [Bradley] Roland Will from New York, Section 22 teacher Emilio Alonso[?] Fabian and community activist Esteban Ruiz. At least 23 others were seriously injured, and are currently in the hospital. This brings to 14 the number of people who have been killed on the APPO barricades. We later learned that in the neighboring municipality of Santa Maria Coyotepec, 20 striking teachers were arrested by the police and carted off to jail. Thirteen of them had gunshot wounds. The teachers and their supporters had organized a protest and encampment in front of the Municipal Building to demand the ouster of Ruiz Ortiz.

The Mexican newspaper La Jornada also reports this morning (October 28) that as many [as] 50 teachers who were on picket duty in front of the office of Ruiz Ortiz in the city of Oaxaca have been disappeared. At this writing, their whereabouts are still unknown.

In a statement issued Friday night, leaders of Section 22 and APPO said this operation was masterminded by Ruiz Ortiz and Elpidio Concha Arellando, state president of the PRI-controlled CNC peasant federation, and was carried out both by plain-clothes cops and members of the CNC and PRI. The movement leaders also said the Friday assault was the first stage of a two-day effort to destroy the movement. They warned that a major police operation could take place today in Oaxaca against the teachers and APPO activists…

— Alan Benjamin

Update : Fox seeks to end Mexican unrest [declares military ‘solution’] BBC — see also — Oaxaca crisis could dent Mexico stock market, Reuters, October 25… State and capital, a match made in Heaven.

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
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3 Responses to Making the world safe for capitalism: Oaxaca, Mexico

  1. The cops have taken the camp. The protest has ended in a fairly non-violent manner (I think – I must confess I haven’t read the below link, only the story in the Aged).

    http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2006/10/30/police_wrest_control_of_mexican_city/

  2. Ah… it appears that two protesters were murdered by government forces. So… not quite so non-violent.

  3. Pingback: From Dos Blockos to Doss Blockos | slackbastard

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