ramblings

Hello Family and Friends…

I am back in the states after my 7 month trip to Southern Mexico where I
spent mid July until December learning from and photographing the
incredible uprising occurring in Oaxaca followed by two months in Chiapas.
In Olympia this week, through photos, video clips, and stories, I hope to
share the spirit and creativity of the teachers strike turned full scale
popular rebellion that managed to take control of the city for multiple
months demanding the resignation of the corrupt state governor, Ulises
Ruiz Ortiz. My presentation will cover the reality that led to the
uprising, the media and government building takeovers, the 1,800
neighborhood barricades, the formation of the Popular Assembly of the
Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), and the brutal repression and assassinations of
movement members at the hands of paramilitaries and police. Witnessing
this diverse movement in Oaxaca has left me truly inspired and
re-energized. In the face of grave government repression the people of
Oaxaca are continuing this struggle and in great need of international
solidarity.

For those of you in Olympia my presentation will occur twice this week…

[ email ROB if you want deets ]

Please feel free to forward this on to lists and individuals who you feel
may be interested!
Hope to see you there.
Thanks for following my travels…
with love…
Rochelle

hello all…

It has been quite some time since I sent out a report from my time here in
Chiapas. I have been working with Frayba, a human rights organization
that sends internationals into Zapatista and other indigenous communities
to do peace observing work, documenting any threats or actions against the
communities by paramilitaries as well as any movement by the Mexican
military. It has been an incredible experience and I am hoping to spend
two more weeks in a community before I begin the long road home. I was
also fortunate to be able to atten the International Zapatista Encounter
that was held at the beginning of this month. I have included my report
back from that event below. In the middle of February I will be returning
to Oaxaca briefly to say goodbye to some folks and learning about the
latest developments in the struggle. I will then be back in the Northwest
for a couple weeks before flying to Sweden.

I am hoping to do at least one public slide show report back in Olympia in
early March. If anyone would like to help out in coordinating or
publicizing that event or if anyone has further ideas of opportunities for
me to share stories from the Oaxaca struggle, please let me know.
Although Even though the movement has been in hiding and happening behind
the scenes now due to the severe governmental repression, I have truly
been re-energized by the people of Oaxaca and want to share that with my
limited time in the states. The creativity and diversity of tactics,
widespread nature of the mobilization and the creation of an alternative
governing structure are incredibly inspiring not to mention Oaxaca needs
the eyes and solidarity work of the international community now as much as
ever.

As my trip is wrapping up I want to thank you all for listening to stories
from my travels and from all the exciting movement building going on here
in Mexico.

with love…
rochelle

Unbreakable Dignity: Report from the Zapatista International Encounter

Prior to the Zapatista uprising, for generations, the 700,000 indigenous
people of Chiapas have lived in oblivion. From the perspective of the
global economy, being neither large consumers or producers, they have been
ignored and simply in the way. The endless appetite of the global economy
has resulted in, according to Subcomandante Marcos (leader of the
Zapatista Army), “the destruction of our land, our culture, our collective
way of working, the destruction of our women, the lack of appreciation for
our elders, and the merchandising of our youth. All of this, including
the lack of maintenance of our educational system and the social security
system is for the benefit of the grand capital extranjero [foreigner].” On
New Years Day 1994, the first day NAFTA took effect, the Zapatista
National Liberation Army rose up and took over municipalities throughout
Chiapas, birthing a movement which today continues not only to resist the
theft of their resources but is also creating alternative autonomous
governing bodies, schools, clinics, cooperatives and means of
communication. On December 29th to January 2nd the Zapatistas invited
internationals from around the world to come together for an Encounter
between the Zapatistas and the people of the World. The invitation stated
“At this encounter the Zapatista communities will speak on the experiences
we have had these past years with our autonomous governments; the
challenges and problems that we have faced constructing this
anti-capitalist project and we will try to, with humility and respect, to
respond, speak and exchange, and above all, share our errors and
stumbling, and also our modest achievements.”

Haves and the Have Nots

The gathering took place in Oventic, one of the five caracoles (municipal
seats) of the 32 Zapatista municipalities. On the way to the gathering,
driving through the rural villages one can clearly see that very little
money is making it to these communities. Federal and state government
policies have benefited the foreign investors that exploit resource rich
Chiapas and in turn line the pockets of the politicians and Mexican elite.
With this setup, the indigenous people are losing land and many have been
forced to migrate to the North, relocate to the urban centers or work on
large agribusiness farms to provide low wage labor. Racism from the
government is also clearly at work in Chiapas as shown in the poverty
statistics. In a community where the indigenous population is less than
10 percent, 18 percent of the people are at or below the poverty line; for
municipalities where the indigenous population is between 10 and 40
percent, 46 percent of the people are poor; and for those where the
indigenous make up more than 70 percent of the population, over 80 percent
are poor. The majority of the Zapatistas are Mayan Indians who live in
wood slat and mud houses with dirt floors and do not have running water
even though Chiapas provides close to 90% of the water consumed by the
rest of Mexico.

Encounter Begins

Recognizing the reality most of the Zapatistas live in it is clear where
the fuel came from to ignite this struggle, and yet with access to so few
resources it is hard to imagine what alternatives they could be capable of
creating. On the first day of the encounter thousands of Zapatistas who
attended the conference set up stick structures covered in black plastic
sheeting to sleep in for the duration of the encounter. In sharp
contrast, the 2,000 internationals from 44 countries began to set up fancy
tents. The structure of the encounter included a series of workshops
providing updates on the progress of the autonomous governments, schools,
health care systems, and cooperatives in each caracoles as well as the
struggles for land and for equality for women. I could feel such strong
unity and pride in the Zapatistas who attended the encounter and it was an
incredible experience to sit with them as the leaders they selected laid
out their accomplishments throughout the workshops.

The tactics of the Zapatistas have been extremely diverse throughout the
thirteen year struggle from the initial armed uprising and government
negotiations to the creation of the autonomous communities. The Mexican
government response has been fairly consistent and limited to the use of
force and intimidation mixed with rhetoric and promises never fulfilled.
Even within this climate, much has been accomplished as in achieving
autonomy as highlighted by the workshops. As one of the representatives
explained “Because we can not change the world we struggle so that the
world will not change us.” Reports from three of the workshops are
included below.

Autonomous Education

From the internationally recognized health clinics to the primary and
secondary schools, many of the communities are receiving services they
never received from the government, often with support of NGOs and
internationals. The Zapatista educational promoters, who are chosen by
their communities to develop schools and train teachers from within the
community, explained that the government schools their children used to
attend were staffed mostly by teachers from the city who spoke only
Spanish. “The government schools discriminated against the indigenous
culture, language and traditions of our youth. They did not respond to
our realities in the villages. They prepared our kids for the city, not
to stay in our communities.” Many parents decided to pull their students
out of the government schools with the hopes of creating autonomous
schools that “teach liberation, not domination” and “the value of being
not having.” Schools have been constructed in all five of the caracoles
and many recently celebrated the graduation of their first class.
Although the teachers are not paid the community provides them with food.
Each region also expressed a lack of resources to train future promoters
and to build new schools. Their eyes lit up as they shared the largest
dream of one day establishing an autonomous university.

Autonomous Governments

The representatives of the caracoles are selected through
their community
for a three year term. They can not run again to give all opportunity for
leadership and to prevent people from becoming disconnected from the
community and power hungry. They too do not receive payment but the
community also provides them with food. Initially when the government
councils were first created they were male dominated but today there are 6
women and 7 men. Although clearly they have the capacity to govern
themselves, the representatives explained that they have faced many
challenges with few resources and villages with great need. The leaders
stressed the huge contrast between themselves and the bad governments,
those who run the state and country. For example, unlike the corrupt
justice system throughout Mexico, the caracol representatives deal with
conflicts by first attempting to find a solution through dialogue and
compromise and if no compromise is reached the one who is found wrong must
complete work to benefit the community, like the construction of a bridge.
Repeatedly the representatives stressed that they “lead by obeying” and
“propose not impose” with “humility and no self promotion.”

Struggle for Land

Due to armed uprising in 1994 many wealthy landowners abandoned their
land. The Zapatistas have reclaimed much of this land to work
collectively to sustain their communities. “The land belong to those who
work it” and “to sell the land, would be to sell our mother.” Each region
faces different struggles over land. The threat of losing land remains
strong and paramilitary activity continues with intimidation and even the
murder of Zapatista community members. Currently in the Aguazul region the
government is attempting to force a Zapatista community off the land by
the creation of an ecotourist destination, which will also allow the
government to exploit water reserves and other resources. Also the
implementation of neoliberal programs by the government, such as PROCEDE,
also work to destroy the possibility of collectively worked lands. “Today
we are living a global offense of exploitation, of being kicked off our
lands, and of a development of politics that will destroy us. The only way
to confront this is by struggling for the impossible, or in other words,
the necessary,” explains Sergio Rodriguez from the Zapatista Rebeldía
magazine. The lands that they have recuperated are farmed organically
without the use of genetically modified seed. Agro-ecology promoters have
recently been selected to educate themselves and then their community on
sustainability practices.

Life of Resistance

On January 1st at close to 2a.m. in the morning, Subcomandante Marcos and
many members of the Zapatista National Liberation Army arrived to
celebrate the thirteenth anniversary of the rebellion. The cultural event
lasted for hours with music and dance. In the indigenous language of
Tzotzil, Marcos stated “What we have learned on the road of our struggle
is that we could not win unless we united with the people who struggle
everywhere.” The Zapatistas need the support of internationals to achieve
their goals in the face of an system that continuously tries to eliminate
them. As they establish stronger and stronger concrete alternatives their
threat to the system grows. The eyes of internationals are critical in
preventing the human rights abuses the Mexican government is notorious
for. We have a long way to go to cross the cultural barriers necessary to
provide the ultimate solidarity but on the last night looking through the
mist out on to the basketball court where thousands of internationals and
Zapatistas were dancing together to traditional music, it felt possible.
As I watched the dancers, many in their early twenties, I realized that
the rebellion began for many of these Zapatistas when they were less than
ten years old, they have truly lived a life of resistance. Throughout the
length of the encounter I was struck by their humble spirit mixed with the
depth of their accomplishments, not only the autonomous governments,
schools, clinics, radio stations, coffee and craft collectives but also
the incredible wealth of beauty in their vision and their unity.

Hello all…

So I have been experiencing some sort of writers block. I had intended to
send this update last week but ended up needing some time to reflect and
decompress. The repression by the Mexican government that I described on
the 25th has continued. On October 29th the government leaked that they
had compiled a list of 100 internationals from video footage who they
alleged were committing vandalism alongside the movement and who they
intended to deport. I am not sure I believe such a list exists (not to
mention I have never seen close to 100 internationals in Oaxaca), it may
have simply been a fear tactic but mixed with the news that they had
picked up a french woman and her lawyers were unable to speak to her or
find out where she was, I decided it was best to go. I had been in Oaxaca
for so long and I don’t exactly blend in and I did not want to risk
deportation, not to mention rape and torture. If I had stayed I would
have been stuck in my apartment and decided I could do more just as much
writing from a far. So now I am in San Cristóbal Chiapas and looking
forward to attending an international encounter planned by the Zapatistas
at the end of this month. Then I hope to spend the last month and a half
doing volunteer work in the Zapatista villages in the jungle. On the way
home I will stop in Oaxaca to say goodbye to many folks and check in with
the situation. I will be in the Olympia/Portland area for two weeks the
end of February through early March and would love to do a slide show and
reportback of the Oaxaca struggle if anyone is willing to help me find a
space and do a bit of publicity. Let me know if you are interested. Ok,
enough about me. On to the current situation…

There have been over 500 people detained, many tortured by the government
throughout the 6 months of this struggle. Currently there are over 200
imprisoned, over 100 of them have been transferred to federal prison in
states outside Oaxaca. Stories coming out of these prisons include
stories of torture, 60 reports of sexual assault, rape threats and forced
confessions. There are still many outstanding arrest warrants for members
of APPO. Because one of the major goals of APPO has been to create a
democratic governance structure, they have been highly transparent and the
names of those involved and elected as representatives of various regions
are easily found in meeting minutes and online. This has made it easy for
the government to target those involved in the movement. The police have
made numerous private home searches and have taken teachers from in front
of their students in their classrooms (in front of children as young as
kindergardeners). Governor Ulises himself recently acknowledged that up
to 80% of those detained on the 25th were not associated with APPO but
were concerned citizens in the streets.

On December 1st, Felipe Calderon from the conservative PAN party who took
the election through fraud was inaugurated. Thousands gathered outside
before dawn, constructing barriers to prevent Calderon’s entrance into the
Chamber of Deputies. Inside brawls had broken out between member of the
PAN and PRD (the party of leftist Lopez Obrador who was cheated out of the
position) parties. Chairs had been thrown, doors blockaded, pillows were
handed out the members of the different parties had fought over sleeping
on the platform where the inauguration was to take place. A fake
presidential convoy was used to distract the demonstrators while Calderon
snuck in through basement parking garage. The entire ceremony took less
than 4 minutes and it was impossible to hear over the screaming from PRD
members.

Calderon was able to give a speech later in a military installation. I
watched on television as he spoke to an audience of men in uniform
standing in formation. Oh democracy. In less that a month he has already
made cuts to education and has created a cabinet including Francisco
Javier Ramírez Acuña as his Interior Minister, in charge of domestic
security. Ramírez, past governor of Jalisco, was accused by Amnesty
International of serious human rights violations, including ordering a
brutal crackdown on anti-corporate globalization protesters. Eduardo
Medina Mora was selected as Secretary of Public Safety. He has strong ties
to banking interests and is a member of El Yunque, an ultraconservative
group similar to the Christian right in the states. Making his policy
clear in dealing with social uprising, on December 4th members of APPO
including two highly visible elected reps were arrested in Mexico city two
hours after announcing they had come to negotiate with the federal
government.

On December 3rd APPO released a declaration stating… “The APPO is more
alive than ever in the hearts of the workers, indigenous people,
campesinos, housewives, students, youth, children, and all the exploited
and oppressed in Oaxaca and Mexico. The State Terror that has been
unleashed on the people of Oaxaca and the international community with
increased brutality since November 25 has not weakened our desire to be
free men and women.” A march was held on December 10th. Even in the face
of the incredible risk of being arrested and tortured tens of thousands
marched calling for the release of prisoners and continuing the call for
Governor Ulises to go. The march was led by families of the disappeared,
representatives of APPO and senators from Lopez Obradors PRD party.

The movement has taken a huge blow through the fierce repression but the
logic that you can simply wash over a movement with fresh paint and jail,
disappear and torture its members without acknowledging the root cause of
the unrest shows the barbaric and shortsightedness of the government
strategy to deal with this movement. So much of this response is created
through pressure from the United States to maintain the status quo to keep
the positive climate for foreign investors to come in and take the
resources and exploit the labor of Mexico without opposition from the ever
growing poor, which in turn keeps the pockets of the Mexican elite lined
with dollars. This corruption and repression is facing greater and
greater resistance and we can recognize our own role in the situation and
support the movement however we deem possible. The Zapatistas have called
for an International Day of Action on December 22nd in solidarity with
people of Oaxaca. I will include that declaration below.

Thanks for listening and keeping the people of Oaxaca in your minds…
rochelle

Communique of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee - General
Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Mexico.

December 2 of 2006

To the people of Mexico:
To the people of the world:

Brothers and Sisters:

The attack that our brothers, the people of Oaxaca suffered and suffer
cannot be ignored by those who fight for freedom, justice and democracy in
all corners of the planet.

This is why, the EZLN calls on all honest people, in Mexico and the world,
to initiate, starting now, continual actions of solidarity and support to
the Oaxacan people, with the following demands:

For the living reappearance of the disappeared, for the freedom of the
detained, for the exit of Ulises Ruiz and the federal forces from Oaxaca,
for the punishment of those guilty of torture, rape and murder.

We call to those in this international campaign to tell, in all forms and
in all places possible, what has occurred and what is occurring in Oaxaca,
everyone in their way, time and place. We call for these actions to come
together in a worldwide mobilization for Oaxaca on December 22, 2006.

The people of Oaxaca are not alone. We have to say so and demonstrate it,
to them and to everyone.
Democracy!
Freedom!
Justice!

By the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee - General Command of
the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Mexico.

Insurgent Subcommander Marcos.
Mexico, December of 2006

Hello family and friends…

I am sorry it has been awhile since I sent an e-mail. I have been able to
get a few pieces published and have been focusing on writing for those.
I have thought about sending them out to this list but I fear they would
be repetitive. There is so little information out there that each piece I
write has a lot of the same background information. One piece can be
found on Common Dreams at
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0910-23.htm

This weekend has been full of independence day celebrations here in
Mexico. The Governor of Oaxaca usually does the “grito” or cry of
independence on the 15th in the main square. Since the governor has been
banished from the state, APPO organized the celebration and an indigenous
man did the cry. This had to be a first. Governor Ulises had planned to
do it from another town in Oaxaca but the popular struggle was not going
allow that and in the end he didn’t show his face. Odd similarity to the
national situation where President Fox, too, was unable to give the
“grito” in the Mexico City main square because of Obrador and his
supporters so he had to do it in another town.

Below is the latest article I have written, the background info is
repetitive for you all but there is some up to date info and some broader
analysis. Keep in mind this will be published in slingshot, an anarchist
newspaper, so this one is not written for a mainstream audience.

I do fear the movement may be facing some more repression soon so please
pass this info on to folks who might be interested, we have a lot of power
to stop such repression from the states if people are aware…

Graffiti calling for the ousting of the Governor of the state covers
almost every blank wall in the historic district of Oaxaca City. The
Zócalo, or main square, and the 50 blocks that surround it have become the
home of the statewide teachers strike since the end of May. The
encampment is surrounded by makeshift blockades of metal sheeting and
barbed wire, large pieces of concrete and in some cases reclaimed
government cars and buses keeping traffic of these streets. Multicolored
tarps cover blankets and cardboard used at night to sleep on by the
thousands involved in the struggle, community kitchens gather donations
and prepare large pots of beans and rice, a clinic is set up by supportive
workers in the medical field to serve those who have left their villages
and homes and are living in the encampments. Many teachers embroider,
read the latest movement communiqué, and gather in circles holding
meetings. Banners from unions and municipalities from all over the state
supporting this popular struggle hang between trees and light posts.
Stencils depicting Mexico’s revolutionary heroes, calling for the people
to rise up and demanding the release of political prisoners are
everywhere. This encampment in the main square marks where the movement
began last May, but it has since expanded and encampments can now be found
throughout the city. They now surround all government buildings in the
city and protect the four radio stations and their transmitters that have
been taken over and are currently held by the movement. These four
channels air march and meeting announcements, discussions, alerts and
calls for backup at the scenes of government repression of the movement.
This is just within Oaxaca City. At least 200 villages in the state have
joined in and reclaiming their town halls.

How the Movement Began
Seventy percent of the 3.5 million people who live in the state of Oaxaca
are indigenous. Over half live in abject poverty, 35 percent do not have
piped water in their homes. The Mexican constitution demands that all
children have the same access to education. And yet today in Oaxaca the
average person spends only 5.6 years in school, two years less than the
national average. The conditions in the rural schools are extremely poor,
with a lack of basic infrastructure. Children often come to school hungry,
barefoot and are without desks, books and pencils. For the past 26 years
Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers has held an annual
statewide strike. Some of the demands this year included raises, basic
supplies and breakfast for the students. Each year the teachers camp out
in the main square of Oaxaca city until an adequate compromise is reached.
This year things played out a little different. At 4:30 am on June 14th
while teachers and their families were sleeping, 3000 police raided the
encampment, a helicopter fired teargas from the sky, cops beat people,
burnt their belongings leaving over 100 people injured. The teachers
resisted with sticks and rocks, reclaiming the square later the same day.
And they have remained ever since.

Construction of the Popular Assembly
Immediately after the government repression a mega march was held where
400,000 people came to show support for the teachers. A new entity was
formed of the 350 organizations that mobilized alongside the teacher
strike called the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO).
Through hours of meetings this organization has come to represent not just
the voice of the striking teachers but also the voice of all those in the
state who face oppression and injustice. According to Florentino, a
member of the press committee, “APPO does not set out to impose any
decisions, what we set out to do is to integrate all the people so that
together we can organize and govern the state.” Without leaders and using
collective decision making, APPO advances daily with announcements of new
actions and strategies. The indigenous people of the region have a long
history with this type of organizational structure; many municipalities
are still run by the general assemblies under the traditional native
customs of usos y costumbres. These assemblies are not affiliated with
political parties and select the municipal presidents who then lead by
following, accountable to those who selected them.

On August 16th and 17th APPO held a forum entitled “Building Democracy and
Governability in Oaxaca,” with sessions covering the design of a new
state constitution, creating democracy from below, movement inclusion and
respect for diversity. Since the formation of APPO, a clear consensus
decision was made to change the primary demand from those of the teachers’
to the resignation of the Governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Not only
because of his responsibility in the violent repression of their
democratic teachers’ strike but because he was brought to power through
fraud, and since the beginning of his term he has favored corporate
interests and undermined social organizations.

Corrupt Governments and their Development Plans
Corrupt exploitive governments are nothing new to Oaxaca or to Mexico. In
fact the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), made up of the
conservative right, light skinned, wealthy class, has held the position of
governor of Oaxaca for the past 80 years and all of Mexico for over 70
years, previous to the current President Vicente Fox’s rule. There were
hopes for Fox to step out of the traditional exploitive role but his
party, the National Action Party (PAN), has carried on the PRI legacy of
neoliberal expansion, corruption and repression of social organizations.

With help from the leaders of the Central American countries, Fox
initiated Plan Puebla Panama, PPP, a neoliberal development mega project,
praised by the United States. This project, claiming one of its main
goals is to improve the conditions for the people of the region, in
actuality is stealing land from indigenous people for infrastructure
projects to move resources more quickly into the hands of multinational
corporations and commodifying their culture for the tourist industry. One
of the projects with huge implications for Oaxaca is the creation of a
super highway at Mexico’s skinniest point, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in
order to move resources more readily across the land from the Atlantic to
the Pacific. This transportation corridor will be surrounded with
sweatshops, maquiladoras, free of labor and environmental laws. “For all
of these objectives, the government of Oaxaca is key to the realization of
the project,” explained Florentino.

Ulises Ruiz Ortiz is a carbon copy of the most corrupt PRI leadership
which exploits and represses the majority indigenous population to serve
the interests of foreign corporations and maintain nationwide PRI control,
a perfect match to prepare the region for the implementation of the PPP.
Unable to be elected democratically, Ulises was forced to steal his
position through vote buying, ballot box tampering and computer fraud. On
December 1st 2004, his first day as Governor, 40 armed men including PRI
municipal leaders with police support occupied the Noticias, a major
newspaper for the region which covered illegitimacy of the election. The
newspaper has been operating out of a different location ever since. In
the 21 months that Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz has been in power 37 people
have been killed for political reasons. With this record his response to
the democratic teachers strike on June 14th comes as no surprise.

Government Repression Continues
The repressive tactics against the movement have continued since June
14th. Arrest warrants have been issued for at least 80 movement “leaders”
including members of the teachers union. Four have been abducted from the
street by unmarked vans, photos of one, a biologist, severely beaten were
seen in the local news. The faces of the four political prisoners and a
strong call for their freedom can be seen wheat pasted throughout
downtown. In response to that repression a march was held on August 10th,
20,000 attended with one days notice. Half way through the march
government goons shot into the crowd killing José Jimenez Colmenares, a
mechanic and the husband of a teacher. Yet the movement remains dedicated
to not taking up arms. Instead APPO has used the main strategy of
creating a situation of ungovernability in Oaxaca preventing the state
government from meeting, orchestrating state wide strikes, blockading bank
and wealthy business, and controlling transportation through highway
stoppages.

In late August the federal government finally agreed to negotiations with
APPO and 28 representatives, half teachers, went to Mexico City. These
negotiations are not likely to go anywhere because the federal government
refuses to back down and the movement is unwilling to compromise on the
resignation of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. A teacher living in an encampment
outside one of the radio stations explained “Some compañeros want to
accept the crumbs that the federal government is offering us and say that
maybe we better return to class so that this can end peacefully, as if
nothing has happened, but there are a lot of us that say no, because this
would imply forgetting the reality that we have been living until now. I
insist this type of repression before has not been seen in Oaxaca and if
we allow it, believe me when I say, that we would condemn the state of
Oaxaca to live like this. Something that would not only affect the
teachers but every social group that would want to rise up in the
future.”

Power of Community Radio
Radio has played a very significant role in this movement, giving new
voice to the voiceless. A radio station, created by the striking teachers
with community support was destroyed by the police during the June 14th
repression. In response, students from the Autonomous University of
Benito Juarez reclaimed their radio station, Radio Universidad, and it
became the means of communication for the movement. It too was shot into
by government goons and acid was poured on the transmitter, destroying the
station. On August 1st a 3000 strong women’s march moved through downtown
clanging pots and pans, in the spirit of the march of “cacerolas” in
Chile, and calling for the resignation of the state governor of Oaxaca,
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Leila, a member of the women’s coordination committee
of APPO explained, “The pots and pans reflect that in Oaxacan homes, there
is no food. In a country where there is no justice, no equality, where
there is no respect for human rights, these pans are not only empty of
food but also of these basic principles.”

After the march ended in the main square, a contingent of 500 women
decided to take over Channel 9 CORTV, a state wide television station and
its two affiliated radio stations. After a few hours the women got the
channel back on the air. They began to express many reasons for the
takeover, to continue the pressure for the governor’s resignation, to
reclaim the space for the community, to air the news that is not getting
covered and to use the mode of communication for organizing and spreading
word of the needs of the movement. On August 21st police and government
goons attacked the transmitter control room for Channel 9 taking it and
two affiliated radio stations off the air. A contingency plan had been
created and within hours 11 radio stations were under the control of
movement members, many of them women from Channel 9.

Encampments and street blockades were set up protect the new stations from
plain clothed cops and paramilitaries who appear at night and fire into
the encampments. One movement member guarding radio station was killed
bringing the total deaths to eight. This repression has had the opposite
effects of its apparent goals to disable the movement with fear, instead,
more and more people can be found sleeping in the encampments outside the
radio stations and the determination of the people seems stronger and
stronger. On September 3rd APPO declared the Governor banned from the
state and have essentially taken over control of the state. Florentino
explained, “For us the process of destruction of the government and the
resignation of Ulises has already ended so that a phase of construction
can begin, of creating governability, of showing that we are capable of
governing ourselves.”

In this National Climate the Winds of Oaxaca Reach Far and Wide
While the people have managed, at least for the time being to reclaim
Oaxaca from the hands of the corrupt and repressive leadership, on the
national level Felipe Calderon, with the help of the conservative Federal
Election Commission (TRIFE), has managed to fraudulently steal the
national presidency. On September 6th TRIFE unanimously handed the
presidency of Mexico to Calderon even though he had only half a percent
lead out of 41.6 million votes over the left PRD candidate Manuel Lopez
Obrador amidst an immense amount of evidence pointing to fraud. Obrador,
who some on the left have criticized as a moderate, has campaigned on
helping the poor and is refusing to back down, mobilizing millions against
the fraud in Mexico City.

In preparation for the his final State of the Union address on September
1st, President Fox planned to keep the Obrador supporters at bay with 10
foot tall metal barricades, thousands of armed federal police, water
cannons and military snipers stationed on rooftops of surrounding
buildings. He did not foresee the 155 senators and congress members who
felt the election was fraudulent and who prevented the speech from the
inside by taking over the podium. Fox ended up giving a televised
address. On September 16th at a National Democratic Convention for the
people voted Obrador as President of a “parallel government” with plans to
prevent Calderon from taking office on December 1st. Those in power
continue to try and carry on with business as usual. According to a White
House spokesperson, two days after Calderon was handed the presidency,
George Bush expressed the desire to “meet at the earliest mutually
convenient opportunity” especially to move forward on Plan Puebla to
Panama. Try as they might, they can not continue to ignore what is being
created in the poor and indigenous communities in Oaxaca and throughout
Mexico.

“The worry that is maybe the biggest of all is the fear of being
repressed, the fear of being incarcerated, the fear of being harshly
beaten, and of course, the fear of dying because that is what we are
exposed to,” states a teacher afraid to share his name. Yet the dignity
and courage in his eyes and in the eyes of so many suggests to me that
perhaps the strength of this mass mobilization of people with justice in
their hearts and a clear understanding of the roots of their exploitation
in their minds can withstand this brutal repression. The largest defense
against this repression is international solidarity as we have seen
throughout the Zapatista uprisings in Chiapas. APPO has recently called
for international solidarity, for actions at Mexican consulates throughout
the world. This struggle for human rights and self determination is not
new and what they are resisting is clearly not confined to Oaxaca. In
fact Oaxaca is simply another front in this global struggle for social
justice. And we, in the belly of the beast, where it is the easiest to
carry on and maintain the status quo, we must stand tall and not let a
single casualty in this struggle go unnoticed. We gain strength with each
exploitive act and development plan that increases the distance between
the very rich and the growing poor. Throughout the Americas things are
changing. In South America the grass roots movements are expanding,
electing left leadership. And in the states the immigrant rights
movements are on the move. The potential for solidarity is endless. The
Former Chiapas Bishop Samuel Ruíz García, a long time advocate for the
poor and indigenous communities, attended an APPO forum. In the closing
ceremonies he stated, “…it might be that we are standing in two time
dimensions, the past and the future. In these days we are living something
that we are leaving, and cement is being placed beneath something that
doesn’t come automatically but is the result of working together, of our
construction.”