Friday, December 8th: Revolution, Resistance, Repression: The People’s Struggle for a Liberated Oaxaca!

What: An event to raise awareness about the uprising currently taking place in Oaxaca
When: December 8th, 2006 from 6 to 9 PM
Where: St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality located at 402 South Avenue

Schedule:
6-7: Dinner care of Rochester Food Not Bombs
7-8: Presentations on the APPO, the women’s movement and women's resistance in Oaxaca, the connections between Oaxaca and other global social justice struggles, and a film screening of the last footage taken by New York City Indymedia journalist Brad Will as he was murdered by government agents
8-9: After food and knowledge comes discussion.

Why:
In May of this year, Section 22 of the National Teachers Union (SNTE), a 70,000 member union, held a strike for better wages and working conditions in the city of Oaxaca, located in the state of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico.

Oaxaca is one of the poorest states in Mexico, mostly popular for tourism, and contains a significant indigenous population.

As events unfolded, nongovernmental organizations, international journalists, residents of Oaxaca and others began to join the teachers in occupying the Zócalo (central plaza) of Oaxaca City. Teachers and supporters barricaded the streets and occupied buildings refusing to leave until their demands were met.

In response to the strike—a strike that the union has conducted for the last 26 years with the Mexican government giving some concessions each year until 2006—Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, a party member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), sent police into the city of Oaxaca to violently repress the demonstrators.

In mid-June, the people resisted an attempted eviction of Oaxaca City by police and other state forces. The main body of support for the teachers—the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO)—was established as a de facto organization that would take over various roles of the government thereby making the Ruiz administration obsolete. The APPO, in solidarity with the teachers and the people of Oaxaca, called for the resignation of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz and an end to the violent interventions by state forces.

CNN and Fox News would have us believe that the struggle comes from disgruntled “leftists” who took over a teachers strike. They would also have us believe that the only news worth reporting is the news which describes property destruction—in particular, the corporate property destruction of businesses like McDonalds and Burger King. They also seem to be quite adept at reporting the state line in trying to obtain “order” by any means necessary in Oaxaca.

On October 27th, plain-clothes paramilitary forces attacked a barricade on the outskirts of Oaxaca City. Their bullets would murder at least three people. Emilio Alonso Fabian, a professor, Esteban López Zurita, a resident of Oaxaca, and Bradley Roland Will, a NYC-IMC journalist and videographer would all be dead by the end of the day. Will’s video camera would record his own murder. Up to 17 other people were wounded in the attack.

October 28th and 29th would bring the military, the Federal Preventative Police (PFP), water canons, tear gas, bulldozers, and hard-plastic bullets among other types of repression to Oaxaca as mandated by President Vicente Fox. Fox, seeing [state-sanctioned-]violence on the 27th as a pretext to invade, would use 4,000 fully armed troops to remove demonstrators and reclaim the Zócalo from the people. However, the people would resist and defend themselves using homemade rocket launchers, slingshots, stones, and bottles.

In the neighboring state of Chiapas, the Zapatistas called for a general strike on November 1st in Mexico as well as an international day of solidarity with the people of Oaxaca on November 20th. Syracuse activists, in combination with others around the world who were putting on similar events, were able to put together a successful speak-out, march, and vigil on the evening of the 20th.

On November 25, after peacefully protesting the presence of military and police in Oaxaca, Indymedia.org reported that paramilitaries opened fire on demonstrators causing widespread terror. The article stated, “Hundreds of people have been arrested, disappeared, wounded and are hiding in houses for fear of their lives. Terror permeates the city as the popular movement of Oaxaca regroups for another day of struggle and the exit of Ulises Ruiz.”

Human rights abuses such as torture, murder, and rape continue to happen to the people of Oaxaca. The demands of the people of Oaxaca include:

• All state violence and federal occupation of Oaxaca put to an end
• All kidnapped, disappeared and arrested people be released
• Justice for all those killed and wounded by the arrest of those responsible
• The resignation of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz as governor of Oaxaca

Find out more about the situation in Oaxaca at: Indymedia, The Narco-News Bulletin, and The Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (En Espanõl)