Hidmo Means Home

Check out the new video produced by Corrugated Films' founder, Jill Freidberg, for the Seattle Channel.

Hidmo Means Home.
http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=3170904

Urgent! Solidarity for David Venegas

URGENT ACTION:
SENTENCING scheduled for DAVID VENEGAS REYES “ALEBRIJE”, ex political prisoner and prisoner of conscience of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) and of Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy And Freedom (VOCAL).

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY URGENTLY REQUESTED IN DEMANDING JUSTICE FROM OAXACA AUTHORITIES.

This coming April 6, 2009, after spending eleven months in prison and more than a year on parole with the obligation to report every two weeks, our comrade David Venegas Reyes will finally be sentenced in the last of two cases brought against him by the malevolent government of the killer Ulises Ruiz Ortiz in order to jail him and thereby keep him away from the APPO. On this date, he will be sentenced on the obviously trumped-up charge of possession with intent to sell cocaine and heroin, for which he was jailed on April 13, 2007.

Review of the facts:

On April 13, 1007, at approximately 12:30 in the afternoon, David was walking through El Llano Park in the city of Oaxaca with two other people when he was violently apprehended with no arrest warrant by a commando of hooded armed men riding in a red van without plates or any kind of Police Department logo. He was thrown into the van at gunpoint by agents brandishing long arms. David was then ridden around the city with his own bag placed over his head to cover his face, beaten, and threatened with forced disappeared if he didn’t talk. This went on for several hours before he was taken to the Preventive Police Headquarters, known as “los Pinos” (The Pines), in Santa María Coyotepec, Oaxaca, a place where serious human rights violations, murders and disappearances of social activists have been committed by the Army as well as federal and state police forces. At “los Pinos”, the beatings and threats continued, and he was forcibly photographed and videoed with the drugs planted on him by the police. All of this was ordered by the ex Director of the Auxiliary, Banking, Industrial and Commercial Police (PABIC), Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, well-known for his repression of the social movement. David was finally taken to the Street Sales Drug Unit (UMAN) of the Federal Attorney General’s Office, along with the drugs planted on him at “los Pinos!”.

After holding him there for two days, he was taken to the Santa María Ixcotel Prison in the City of Oaxaca, and as soon as he got there, was charged with Sedition, Conspiracy, and Arson for allegedly burning eight buildings in downtown Oaxaca on November 25, 2006. These included the State Supreme Court Building, which, as everyone knows, was burned by the killer Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’s own government to do away with evidence of the injustices committed by the judicial system and to incriminate a number of different APPO comrades. These acts of brutal repression against members of the popular movement committed by the federal police force under orders of Vicente Fox and the state police forces under orders of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, on November 25, 2006, amounted to the worst case of mass human rights violations ever seen in Oaxaca, with almost 200 prisoners being transferred to a prison in the state of Nayarit, more than a thousand kilometers away from the land of Oaxaca.

After winning two protective orders and two appeals, and having his charges “reclassified”, David was finally released on March 5, 2008, in absence of any proof whatsoever of his guilt, and totally exonerated of the offenses of arson for the buildings burned on November 25. Nevertheless, his case for possession with intent to sell cocaine and heroin has dragged on despite government misconduct including intentional delays, serious omissions, lies, and a series of contradictions in the testimony of the arresting officers, all of which should be sufficient for winning his absolute freedom.

And so, today, we are mobilizing on his behalf and sending out this CALL for the solidarity of all the men and women, organizations, collectives, peoples, and labor unions of Oaxaca, Mexico, and the world to show your support for the absolute exoneration and freedom of David through protest actions and letters, phone calls, and faxes before the sentence is pronounced on April 6, 2009, at 10:45 a.m. in the Third Federal District Court in the city of Oaxaca:

We further call on you to sign the following statement as backing for the petition for justice in this case.

We continue to demand the exit of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz from the Oaxaca state government and will do so until the last day of his deadly regime. We will not rest in the struggle to achieve a deep, radical change in our society. At the same time, we extend our solidarity to the peoples throughout the world who are also struggling for a better world.

ULISES RUIZ, MURDERER, OUT NOW!
FREEDOM FOR ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN OAXACA, MEXICO, AND THE WORLD!
PUNISHMENT FOR ALL THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE REPRESSION AGAINST THE PEOPLES OF OAXACA!
THE APPO LIVES, THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!

Fraternally yours,
OAXACAN VOICES CONSTRUCTING AUTONOMY AND FREEDOM (VOCES OAXAQUEÑAS CONSTRUYENDO AUTONOMIA Y LIBERTAD)

Send your endorsement to: vocal@riseup.net

Send letters to:

Juez Amado Chiñas Fuentes
Juez Tercero de Distrito del Décimo Tercer Circuito
Avenida Juárez 709
Colonia Centro
Ciudad de Oaxaca de Juárez
Oaxaca, México C.p. 68000

Call: 01 (951) 51566000
Fax: 01 (951) 51566000. Ask for tone (¿Me da tono de fax, por favor?).

La Doctora Bertha Regresa a Oaxaca

Después de dos años de exilio regresa a Oaxaca la Dra. Bertha bautizada en el movimiento oaxaqueño de 2006 como la doctora escopeta.

Doctor Bertha Muñoz, nicknamed La Doctora Escopeta during the 2006 popular uprising in Oaxaca, has returned to Oaxaca after two years in exile.

Remembering Estela Rios Gonzales

On May 27, 2008, Estela Rios Gonzales, one of the bravest women I ever met, passed away after a long battle with cancer. Estela gave everything she had - her courage, love, laughter, rage, and solidarity - to the people's struggle in Oaxaca. Despite her illness, Estela was always at the front of every march with a huge smile on her face. In 2006, she was one of the many women who brought the voice of the people of Oaxaca to the airwaves with the take-over of Channel 9, the state television station, in Oaxaca.

A few weeks prior to her death, several organizations and collectives in Oaxaca issued a declaration in solidarity with Estela. Here it is...

(photo John Gibler)

Madre patria, madre esperanza, madre revolución, madre, entregaste tu esfuerzo en los momentos complicados de la lucha y que nunca claudicaste, tu alma de acero se impuso para resistir doblemente la embestida del carnicero de Antequera y el terrible tumor que te desgarra la vida, pero perduraras en la historia como una valiente guerrera. Otras más, retomarán tu ejemplo para continuar la lucha que apenas empezó a germinar en Oaxaca.

La utopía fue abandonada por los traidores, los que no pensaron, ni tampoco sintieron los gritos profundos del pueblo, que clamaba justicia y patria diferente. Ahora alimentemos la memoria de la gesta heroica para que no se quede en el olvido, los poderosos no podrán pisar nuestro tallo, ni mucho menos nuestras raíces de un pueblo aguerrido e indio.

Con estas humildes palabras, reconocemos la labor de la compañera Estela Ríos, que entregó su participación en cuerpo y corazón en la lucha del pueblo oaxaqueño que se intensifico en el 2006; que sin ser maestra tomó participación activa por su firme convicción en el cambio del sistema político y económico actual.

Estela Ríos Gonzáles, nació el 11 de Mayo de 1934 en la comunidad de San Jacinto Tlacotepec, distrito de Sola de Vega. Sus padres se ocupaban a las actividades del campo, por la difícil situación económica emigraron a Río Grande. Estela Ríos en su infancia tuvo una vida de trabajo en el servicio domestico, para obtener recursos y solventar sus estudios básicos; ya adolescente se involucró a las labores de los catequistas en la que obtuvo una formación jesuita, participó en talleres de derechos humanos labor que se reconoce por el finado cura “Bartolomé” Carrasco Briseño.

Fue colaboradora y participante activa de Organizaciones Indias por los Derechos Humanos de Oaxaca (OIDHO), recuerda con gran cariño a sus compañer@s a Chave, Alejandro, José Luis. Su formación humanista la llevo a indignarse ante la represión ejercida por el mal gobierno de Oaxaca en contra de los maestros el 14 de Junio de 2006. A partir de ese momento tomó la decisión en participar de manera comprometida; tal como lo hizo en el Canal Nueve, desempeñando la comisión de seguridad, posteriormente el 1º de Agosto participó en la fundación de la Coordinadora de Mujeres Oaxaqueñas (COMO) meses después, Estela Ríos junto con sus compañeras decidieron abandonar el espacio, ya que era imposible avanzar en las actividades.

Ante la ímpetu de las mujeres que se retiraron de la COMO crearon otro organismo para seguir impulsando diversas iniciativas que reivindiquen la agenda sobre el tema de mujeres y la lucha de la APPO. El 30 de Agosto de 2007 realizaron un foro en el paraninfo de la Facultad de Derecho evento en el cual dieron a conocer la conformación de Colectivo Mujer Nueva. Estela Ríos participó en la tercera Asamblea de la APPO celebrado durante los días 17 y 18 de Noviembre 2007, fue una de las invitadas de honor para la mesa del evento.

Estela Ríos es muestra de las valientes mujeres que participaron y participan incondicionalmente en el movimiento social. A pesar de la enfermedad irreversible que le embarga no pierde la sonrisa, animada narra su infancia una de las dos únicas hijas de la familia.

Ante tales circunstancias convocamos a l@s compañeras a solidarizarse ampliamente con la familia, costumbre que ha caracterizado los oaxaqueños con la gueza y el tequio.

Aprovechamos para enviar un abrazo fraterno y solidario a todas las madres aguerridas compañeras del movimiento social y particularmente a los familiares de los caídos.

(photo John Gibler)

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad packs Hollywood Theatre in Portlad

Over 400 people turned out for a screening of Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad, in Portland, Oregon, at the beautiful Hollywood Theatre! The screening was co-sponsored by community radio KBOO 90.7 FM. Thanks to KBOO, PCUN, Rethinking Schools, Bolivarian Media Exchange, Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, MEChA PSU, and everyone else who helped get the word out!

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad Wins At Contra El Silencio

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad takes first place at the Todas Las Voces Contra El Silencio festival, in Mexico City, in the Social Movements and Citizen Participation section. 50% of the award money from the prize (as with the prize money from the Miradas en el Movimiento competition in Oaxaca, where Poquito took Grand Prize) will go towards community media projects in Oaxaca.

Community Radio Activists Murdered in Oaxaca

Two indigenous triqui women who worked at the community radio station La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (The Voice that Breaks the Silence), in the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala (Mixteca region), were shot and murdered while on their way to Oaxaca city to participate in the State Forum for the Defense of the Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca. Three other people were injured.

According to the State Attorney General, the victims are Teresa Bautista Merino (24 years old) and Felícitas Martínez Sánchez (20 years old).

Francisco Vásquez Martínez (30 years old), his wife Cristina Martínez Flores (22 years old), and their son Jaciel Vásquez Martínez (three years old) were also injured in the attack.

According to prelimary reports, the women had left the station, which is part of the Network of Indigenous Community Radio Stations of the Southeast (Red de Radios Comunitarias Indígenas del Sureste), around 1:00 PM. They were travelling in a truck on their way to Oaxaca city, but were ambushed on the outskirts of the community Llano Juarez.

The two community radio activists were supposed to coordinate the working group for Community and Alternative Communication: Community Radio, Video, Press, and Internet, at the State Forum for the Defense of the Rights of the People of Oaxaca, which was to begin the today (Wednesday) in the auditorium of Seccion 22 of the teachers union in Oaxaca.

The Center for Community Support Working Together (CACTUS as the spanish acronym) released a communique denouncing the murders and demanding that the state authorities investigate and punish those responsible for the crime.

The state attorney general said that 20 bullet shells, caliber 7.62, were found at the site of the murders, along with other arms including an AK-47.

People are encouraged to contact their local embassies and consulates (or to organize demonstrations at their local embassies and consulates) to express their condemnation of this paramilitary repression of indigenous women and community media projects.

Distribution Good News!

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad won grand prize at two festivals in the month of March: Miradas en el Movimiento, in Oaxaca, and the International Documentary Festival "Santiago Alvarez en Memoriam," in Santiago Cuba.

Just returned from a small screening tour in Argentina and Uruguay. There were three screenings in Buenos Aires, one in Rosario, and one in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The highlight was defenitely the screening in Montevideo which was organized by TV2 and LA Voz FM: a community television and radio station that forms part of a housing cooperative on the outskirts of the city.

The discussion afterwards went on for over an hour and focused almost entirely on the importance of community participation in community media.

While in Buenos Aires, I stayed at the famous Hotel Bauen, a hotel that was reclaimed by the workers, in 2001, and converted into a worker cooperative hotel. Thanks to the good folks at Grupo Alavio, a video collective housed at the Hotel Bauen, for that hook up.

A visit to Argentina wouldn't have been complete without being held up in a roadblock. There was an argricultural workers strike going on. They carried out extensive road blocks across the country. Our trip from Rosario to Buenos Aires was held up for over 6 hours by one of these roadblocks, complete with tractors, burning tires, and choripan.

2008 distribution so far!

I've been traveling a lot to screenings and have been horrible about updating the blog with regards to recent screenings. So here's an overview...

The film is getting out there more and more. Just since the new year, it has shown across Canada, (from Ottawa t0 Vancouver and all kinds of places in between). Thanks to the Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation for organizing a great little screening tour in Southern Ontario. There have also been screenings in Portland, Philly, Albuquerque, Utrecht (Netherlands), Los Angeles, Seattle, Bellingham, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Olympia, and Besancon, France.

And lots more screenings coming up in the next couple of months...Austria, Germany, New Orleans, Chicago, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Santa Monica, Tempe, Portland, and beyond.

Some recent highlights...

At the University of Washington screening (which was packed), students from the UW study abroad program in Oaxaca talked about their experience being in Oaxaca during the uprising (why UW kept them there a full five weeks after the Dept. of State told everyone to get out of Oaxaca is beyond me). Fortunately, they all came home in one piece and with amazing stories to tell. Thanks to the Latin American Studies dept and Latino Policy Assoc. for organizing that one.

Keep checking the upcoming screenings page at www.corrugate.org and let your friends know when the film is coming to their town!

A Little Bit of So Much Truth starts making waves at festivals

The Tres Continentes International Documentary Film Festival (the first festival in which A Little Bit of So Much Truth has premiered) gave the film the Special Jury Prize!

Tukwila Teachers and Students Defend Right to Walkout

On November 16th, over 500 students in Washington State walked out to protest the war in Iraq and the presence of military recruiters in public schools. 150 students at Foster High School, in Tukwila, Washington walked out, saying "Money for Schools, Not War."

In reaction the Tukwila School District has done the following:

Suspended one Social Studies teacher, Brett Rogers, who supported his students in a student generated democratic movement

Threatened administrative action against five other teachers

Threatened to discipline students for exercising their First Amendment Right to free speech

Listen to the report I produced for Free Speech Radio News and One World Report (KBCS 91.3 FM)

Washington Post calls Oaxaca a "riot."

My reply to Ceci Connelley's Washington Post travel story on Oaxaca.

Here's the link to her story.

Here's my reply. (also posted as a comment to the Wash. Post online version of the story).

Ironically, Ceci Connolly’s article “Oaxaca: One Year Later,” is published on Nov. 25th, 2007, exactly one year after thousands of federal police carried out some of the worst human rights abuses in recent Mexican history; detaining, torturing, and raping men, women, and children who had taken to the streets demanding social and economic justice.

But according to Ms. Connolly, what happened in Oaxaca, in 2006, was nothing more than “riots.” She uses the term repeatedly. Here are some dictionary definitions for “riot”:

1) …form of civil disorder characterized by disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence, vandalism or other crime.

2) a disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons acting together in a disrupting and tumultuous manner in carrying out their private purposes.

3) three or more people acting with a common purpose and in a violent and tumultuous manner to the terror of the public.


None of these definitions even begin to capture the unprecedented popular uprising that swept through the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, during 2006. For over six months, a broad-based, non-violent social movement maintained popular control over the city of Oaxaca and large parts of the state. Tens of thousands of women, children, schoolteachers, doctors, indigenous communities, and farmers took to the streets in massive acts of civil disobedience. Their demand? The resignation of a corrupt and repressive governor. These “rioters,” as Ms Connelly would call them, maintained non-violent protest encampments for months, despite regular paramilitary attacks that took the lives of over 23 people. They walked from Oaxaca to Mexico City (almost 600 km), and upon arrival initiated a hunger strike. They reclaimed and celebrated the indigenous cultural festival, “Guelaguetza,” that for many years had been appropriated by local governments.

Ms. Connelly expresses her despair that she was unable to find “authenticity” during her recent visit to Oaxaca. Like many tourists, she wanted the “authentic” Oaxaca experience…smiling Indian women selling her crafts for dirt cheap prices, steaming cups of Oaxacan chocolate, merry musicians marching through the streets…. What she fails to consider is that, for decades, the Oaxacan people have also longed for “authenticity,” but in their government. For years they have demanded a government that “authentically” takes the needs and interests of the Oaxacan people into account, and not the government they’ve had… a government that systematically uses brutal repression and outright corruption to manage the state and its resources in the interests of a privileged few.

Had Ms Connolley done her research about what was happening in Oaxaca (something that wouldn’t have been that difficult, as it appears she was in Mexico City for much of 2006), she would have found that the only moments that truly fit the dictionary definition of “riot,” were those moments when police forces (uniformed or plain-clothed) attacked movement participants: when tear gas and bullets were fired indiscriminately into crowds; when individuals were dragged from their homes, beaten, and detained without charges; when plain-clothed police opened fire on protest barricades, killing several people including New York indymedia reporter, Brad Will; and when federal police held detainees out of airborne helicopters threatening to throw them into the abyss.

To her credit, Ms Connolley gives voice in her article to Oaxacan small-business owners and craftspeople who are suffering the profound economic crisis that has gripped Oaxaca since the 2006 conflict exploded. Yes, things are harder economically now than they’ve ever been in Oaxaca. But let’s not forget that state governments in Oaxaca have systematically used public money for everything but the public good for decades. Public money has been spent on outright buying of votes; on arming and defending land bosses who orchestrate paramilitary attacks on indigenous communities who stand in the way of their economic interests; and on the personal frivolities of state politicians- their mansions in Mexico City, their private jets, etc. The majority of the people in Oaxaca have lived in poverty for decades, if not centuries, while their governments have lived in obscene opulence.

Oaxaca does need tourism. People are encouraged to visit Oaxaca and spend their money with local, independent vendors (avoiding the large chains who are among those who called for police repression). But Oaxaca also needs justice. As long as American travel writers continue to wring their hands over Oaxaca, implying that a non-violent social movement is to blame for the city’s lost charm, beauty and “authenticity,” while neglecting to educate readers about the true situation in this poorest of Mexican states, the discontent will continue to stir just below the surface, as it has done for 500 years.

Landless Worker's Movement Hosts Screening

On October 15th, I had the extreme honor of presenting A Little Bit of So Much Truth at the MST's popular education university Escuela Nacional Florestan Fernandez (ENFF). The MST (Movimiento Sin Tierra, or Landless Workers Movement) has a long history of carrying out land occupations across Brazil, but also of using the occupied land not only for farming and housing, but also as sites of popular education and movement building.

In 2005, the MST founded the ENFF with the mission of providing a space where social movements and organizations from across Latin America could participate in a popular education process towards building political formation. This August, they started their first semester, with over 90 students attending from across Latin America, as well as Haiti and Mozambique.

Showing the film at the school was an amazing experience, because there were literally over 90 representatives from social movements all over Latin American, the Caribbean, and Africa. The discussion took place in a mix of Spanish and Portuguese (I think the Haitians were struggling as the only participants who didn't come from Spanish or Portuguese speaking countries). So there was lots of debate...about organizing tactics, about taking power vs. building an alternative, about indigenous assemblies, about the relationship of other social movements to the APPO. The debate was supposed to have ended by 10 pm, but was still going strong at 11:30 pm.

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad in distribution

Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (A Little Bit of So Much Truth) is now in distribution.

To purchase the video or organize a screening, please visit www.corrugate.org

When the people of Oaxaca decided they'd had enough of bad government, they didn't take their story to the media...they TOOK the media.

In the summer of 2006, a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century.

But it was the people’s use of the media

that truly made history in Oaxaca.

A 90-minute documentary, A Little Bit of So Much Truth captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice.

Update on the Situation in Oaxaca. Dec, 20th. 2006

Here are links to articles, radio reports, and photo essays about the current situation in Oaxaca:

January issue of In These Times: Street Battles in Oaxaca

Women march against Ruiz, freed detainees come home

Ready To Fight. Underdogs Of Mexican Left Gather Momentum

Oaxaca Governor Ruiz Sends Massive Police Force to Crack Down on
Protesters Demanding His Resignation

Oaxaca Protesters Describe Jail Beatings, Abuse by Police

Photographs from the Dec. 10 march in Oaxaca

Photos from womens march and prisoner release in Oaxaca

Indigenous Teachers Defend a Just Cause

By John Gilber/The Herald Mexico
El Universal
October 07, 2006

OAXACA CITY - Every night streets here become battlefields in
waiting. But behind the commandeered city buses, burned trucks, and coils of barbed wire, a group of atypical urban rebels stands guard.

Watching over a barricade where a small altar to the Virgin of
Guadalupe rests between tangled wire and sand bags, six women ranging from their early 30s to their late 60s, none taller than 5 feet, huddle around a small fire in the street, wrapped in blankets and without so much as a club in sight.

For over a month these six women, teachers from the southern
mountainous region of Oaxaca, have been poised on the front lines of a conflict that has seized this colonial city, paralyzed the state
government, and come to dominate national headlines. And while they may not be threatening to a casual passerby, these womens resolve to defend their barricade is implacable.

"If they kill us, then we were born to die," says María, a Mixteca
indigenous woman who teaches in Mixteco and Spanish in a rural
elementary school, a five-hour walk from the nearest road.

"We are not afraid," she adds, "because we are here defending a just cause."

RAID BACKFIRES

The conflict in Oaxaca began on May 22 as a teachers strike for
better wages and a higher budget to provide impoverished school
children with uniforms, breakfasts, and basic school supplies. After
refusing to negotiate with the teachers union, Gov. Ulises Ruiz sent
the state police into Oaxaca Citys central plaza on June 14 to remove the teachers protest camp with tear gas and police batons.

Hundreds were injured in the pitched battle that resulted, and after
a few hours the teachers, supported by outraged local residents,
forced the police out of town. They have not been back since.

The teachers and members of the Oaxaca Peoples Assembly (APPO) that formed after the failed police raid decided to suspend the teachers original list of demands and focus all their efforts on forcing the removal of Gov. Ruiz.

Since June 14, they have subjected Oaxaca City to increasingly
radical civil disobedience tactics, such as surrounding state
government buildings with protest camps, covering the citys walls
with political graffiti, and taking over public and private radio
stations.

Their struggle has led to a severe drop in tourism and the economic
impact of the empty restaurants and sidewalk cafes has polarized the community, leading many who are sympathetic to the teachers cause to clamor for an end to the movement's grip on the city.

"We do agree with some things the teachers demand, but this is
affecting too many people, " says Mercedes Velasco, a 30-year-old
resident who sells banana leaves in the Mercado de Abastos in the
southern reaches of the capital.

TENSION INCREASES

The tension shot up in late August when a convoy of armed gunmen
opened fire on the protesters camp outside Radio Ley, killing 52-year-old Lorenzo Cervantes. From that night on, striking teachers and members of the APPO, have built massive barricades across all the streets surrounding the radio station and other strategic points near protest camps around the city.

Shortly thereafter, the U.S. State Department issued a warning to
U.S. citizens considering Oaxaca as a potential vacation spot.

"U.S. citizens traveling to Oaxaca City should consider carefully the
risk of travel at this time due to the recent increase in violence
there," states the announcement, which was extended to expire on Oct. 30.

Despite the announcement, there have been no reported incidents of
violence against tourists during the conflict.

Since the shooting on Aug. 22, teachers and local citizens take to
the streets every night between 10 and 11 p.m. to reinforce their
barricades.

Walking the desolate streets at night, fires are visible at every
intersection, as figures gather around holding vigil.

The visual impact is alarming: at many barricades men with clubs and Molotov cocktails stand in the shadows with their faces covered by bandanas or cheap surgical masks.

As rumors of a federal police or military intervention intensified
this week, teachers and APPO protesters extended their barricades
throughout the city, making it impossible to navigate the streets of
Oaxaca by automobile at night.

But this is no ordinary battlefront. Rather than tanks making rounds,
in this labyrinthine conflict zone one finds instead families winding
through the predawn streets, carrying large stew pots filled with
steaming coffee and hot chocolate for the night guards.

The barricade guards are at times skittish, but not hostile. They ask
pedestrians where they are going, and then tell people walking alone to be careful and not to walk down dark streets.

A well-dressed couple returning home in the middle-class Colonia
Reforma gave the barricade guards near their house directions to
their back door saying: "if anything happens, our house will be open."

At the barricade near Niños Héroes Avenue, the six Mixteca and
Zapotec women stay up all night discussing their favorite topic:
education.

"I have to walk six hours to get to my school," says Estela, a
Mixteca woman who has been teaching in mountainside communities for 30 years, "And then when I get there, I find that half the kids have not had breakfast and the other half dont have pencils or notebooks. I use my salary to buy these supplies, to prepare bread and tortillas. How do you expect children to learn if they have not had breakfast?"

OFFENDED BY REPRESSION

Estela and the other women expressed outrage and offense at Ruiz's use of violence to answer their call for a greater education budget, and that outrage fuels their long nights at the barricades.

"Ulises made a mistake when he attacked us on June 14," says María as she leans away from the smoke of the street fire where she warms her hands. "He thought that he was going to repress a small organization, but the teachers union is large, and resilient."

Update on the Teachers' Situation in Oaxaca. September 26th, 2006.

Teachers Walk from Oaxaca to Mexico City
Here is a summary of what has happened in recent weeks in the ongoing struggle in Oaxaca.

As of today, September 26th, 2006, the popular movement that is making history in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca enters its 127th day.

Public schoolteachers remain out on strike. This week marks the sixth week that they have gone without pay.

On August 21st and 22nd, convoys of heavily-armed death squads circulated through Oaxaca City at night, destroying the transmitters for the state television and radio stations that had been under the control of women within the movement, and injuring teachers who had been guarding the antennas. Protestors responded to the violence by taking over every commercial radio station in Oaxaca. The death squads opened fire on the protestors guarding the radio stations. One member of civil society, Pablo Lorenzo Cervantes, who had come out to help defend the occupied radio stations,
was shot and killed. Photos of the death squads revealed uniformed state police alongside the plain-clothed gunmen.

Of the commercial radio stations that were taken over by movement participants, two remain under popular control: La Ley and Radio Oro.

In response to the death squads, neighbors throughout the city organized nightly barricades, using sticks, rocks, bonfires, furniture, and vehicles to blockade streets. The first night, there were at least 500 barricades across town. Today, five weeks later, there are at least 1500 barricades. They appear around 11:00 PM and disappear again around 6:00 AM.

The barricade directly below the house where I am staying is guarded every night by a retired schoolteacher, her husband, and her sons. Other neighbors often join them with coffee, tlayudas, and always a radio tuned to Radio Ley, Radio Oro, or Radio Planton. The barricades depend on these radio stations for information about what is happening elsewhere in the city.

September 15th is Mexican independence day, known as “fiestas patrias.” Historically, the celebrations are overseen by the president, at the national level, and by the governor, at the state level. But this year, in Oaxaca, the fiestas patrias were organized and overseen by Local 22 of the teachers union, and the Popular Assembly of the People’s of Oaxaca. In the city’s central plaza, the zocalo, people gathered for music, dancing, fireworks, and the traditional midnight “grito.” But the celebrations also took place in various barricades across town, with bands traveling from one barricade to the next, serenading the “barricadistas.”

A commission of teachers and members of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), participated in six dialogue sessions with the Federal Secretary of Internal Affiars, Carlos Abascal. Abascal insisted that only the Senate can remove a governor, while at the same time asking the movement to return the occupied radio stations, and asking teachers to return to classes. The teachers carried out a rank-and-file consult that resulted in the declaration that teachers would not return to classes until five days after governor Ulises Ruiz resigns. The movement, in general, reiterated that the resignation of Ulises Ruiz is not a negotiable demand, and the dialogue sessions ended with no advances.

Last Thursday, approximately 3000 schoolteachers, parents, students, and members of civil society began WALKING to Mexico City (over 300 miles). The march’s primary objective is to pass through communities along the way, talking to people about the situation in Oaxaca, and to demonstrate the level of sacrifice the marchers are willing to endure. Along the way, they will pass through three states with very unpopular governors: Puebla, whose current governor is accused of belonging to a child-pornography ring; Morelos, whose governor is a known drug-trade king-pin; and the State of Mexico, whose governor was responsible for the recent repression against the community of San Salvador Atenco.

When the marchers arrive in Mexico City (after walking for at least 13 days), they will camp out in front of the national senate to demand the resignation of Governor Ulises Ruiz. The last time the teachers walked to Mexico City was in 1986.

I spent three days walking with the teachers. I saw children, old women in plastic sandals, mothers with babies...all walking. The march is accompanied by the medical support of public health workers, and doctors from the University’s medical school.
The popular support along the way has been very impressive. Even in the most unpopulated parts of the route, entire families appear along the side of the road with food, water, oranges, and of course signs and posters. The march arrived in Telixtlahuaca the second night, and there was such an outpouring of local support that there was actually TOO MUCH food (and we are talking about over 4000 people that needed to be fed that night and the following morning).

The third day was the hardest. The distance between Telixtlahuaca and Noxchitlan is 42 kilometers, through the mountains. I came
back to Oaxaca before they actually arrived in Nochixtlan, but a
teacher sent me a text message saying, "Llegamos super jodidos pero con el animo al maximo." (We got here, super-fucked, but with high spirits).

Meanwhile, back in Oaxaca city, the climate is extremely tense. At the federal level, the discourse signals a possible intervention by the federal police. And there are signs that the state government wants to provoke a violent confrontation that would justify the use of repressive force. On Sunday, the governor, who has not been seen in Oaxaca for over 3 months, appeared in the historic center of town eating a taco. He was later reported to be in a meeting inside the Camino Real hotel, also in the center of town. When teachers and APPO members arrived outside the hotel, government thugs came out of the building and opened fire. One person was injured by the gunfire, others were injured by plain-clothed thugs who arrived with sticks. This was widely interpreted as an attempt to provoke a confrontation.

This weekend, the Governor threatened that, if teachers didn’t return to classes yesterday (Sept 25th), he would have them replaced by scabs, and would force the re-opening of schools. But very few schools opened across the state.

It’s very important that people try to stay informed about the situation in Oaxaca. An attack by federal police forces could happen at any time. Mobilizations in front of local Mexican consulates should demand the immediate resignation of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, and should condemn threats to use federal police forces against the people of Oaxaca.

Update on the Teachers' Situation in Oaxaca. August 14th, 2006

The situation here in Oaxaca, with the teachers' strike which has evolved into a popular movement calling for the resignation of governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, has deteriorated rapidly.

Rather than write my own update, I've included here the latest article from John Gibler, which will publish on ZNet this week, and which clearly outlines the dirty war that the governor is carrying out against the people of Oaxaca.

International solidarity is critical now. The world needs to send a strong message to the state government in Oaxaca that state violence against a peaceful movement is unacceptable.

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Pistol Policy
State denial and repression in Oaxaca

By John Gibler

Throughout the past week gunmen of have opened fire on members of the People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO for its initials in Spanish) killing four and wounding at least 10.

Organizations and citizens across Oaxaca formed the APPO shortly after the governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’s (Institutional Revolutionary Party) failed June 14 raid on a teachers’ encampment in downtown Oaxaca City. The teachers had been camping out, on strike, since May 22. The APPO united the teachers’ union and a broad swath of political and social organizations to demand the immediate renunciation or destitution of Ulises Ruiz. The APPO led massive marches with up to half a million people in attendance before deciding to step up their civil disobedience tactics on July 26 by shutting down all branches of the state government, setting up encampments around government office buildings. On August 1, some 3000 women led a women’s only march through town that led to the unarmed take over of the state television and radio corporation, CORTV. APPO’s explicit strategy is to generate “ungovernability” (ingobernabilidad) to force Ulises Ruiz’s exit from office.

The response of Ruiz and the state government has been to simply disappear from downtown Oaxaca, to lobby the federal government to intervene, to arbitrarily and illegally detain APPO leaders, and—apparently—to send thugs and gunmen to terrify and break up the APPO protests.

The recent wave of violence started last Sunday when four federal agents arbitrarily detained Catarino Torres Pereda, a social movement leader from Tuxtepec and member of the APPO. Agents beat Pereda and then took him to the La Palma maximum-security prison outside of Mexico City.

Then, on Monday, August 7, local and national reporters witnessed police chief, Aristeo Lopez Martinez, shooting at a student protest from the back of a BMW motorcycle (Milenio, 8 August 2006, “Estalla Oaxaca”). No one was wounded and the protesters repelled the police with rocks. From that day on rumors have run through town that the Big Raid is coming. That night gunmen executed a university professor, Marcos Garcia Tapia, in his car in downtown Oaxaca.

The next day, Tuesday, August 8, students paid to sabotage the university radio station set a bus on fire to distract the radio workers; they ran into the console and dumped sulfuric acid on the radio transmitter. Radio workers caught the students in the act and detained them.

One of the first victims of the June 14 raid was the teachers’ Radio Plantón (Encampment Radio). Police officers destroyed all of the radio equipment and beat and arrested three of the programmers in the first minutes of the raid. That very day, a group of seven students decided to take over the university radio station and immediately continue their broadcasts. On July 22, armed gunmen opened fire on the radio station from pick-up trucks. No one was injured, nor was the equipment damaged. Radio workers said that the shooting was an attempt to scare them.

“The government said that the shootings on July 22 were a “self-hit” (autoatentado),” one worker who asked to remain anonymous told me. “We say it was a government action to chase us off, to threaten us and wear us out psychologically. We blame the government. We are conscious of what is at risk here, and if it is necessary, we are ready to give our lives for our university, for our radio.”

The teachers and social movements across Oaxaca have long used the radio not only for political discussion and analysis, but also for emergency coordination during state repression. The police attacks and sabotage attempts against the radio stations are strategic military actions, seeking to break up the movement’s communication network.

On Wednesday, August 9, a gunman busted into the offices of the Oaxaca state newspaper Noticias at 7:24 AM, firing Uzi machine guns at the ceiling and wounding six employees with bullet fragments that ricocheted off the ceiling. Noticias has been the constant victim of state repression since June 28, 2004 when thugs took over the newspapers’ office building. In response, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission called on the Mexican federal government to take precautionary measures to ensure the safety of 117 employees of the paper.

Later that day, gunmen ambushed and opened fire on Triqui indigenous members of the APPO near Putla in the Mixteca region of the state, killing three people and wounding two; the Triquis were on their way to an assembly meeting.

Also that day, federal and state agents dressed in civilian clothes and armed with AR-15 assault rifles, beat and detained a leader of one of the largest organizations in the APPO, the Popular Revolutionary Front (FPR), German Mendoza Nube. Nube has been wheel-chair bound since 1987 when he was shot in the lower spine. He also suffers from severe diabetes. Two friends and neighbors were helping Nube get out of a car and into his wheelchair when the armed men pulled up in three cars and immediately beat him and threw him into the back of a pick-up truck. They also beat the neighbors and friends, arresting three of them (they were released the next day). The agents have moved Nube between several different prisons in Oaxaca and Puebla, making it impossible for family to locate him.

The next day, Thursday August 10, the APPO convoked a march to demand the liberty of Torres Pereda and Mendoza Nube. Around 12,000 people marched toward the occupied CORTV station when they were ambushed in a narrow stretch of Morelos Avenue around 7:15 at night. Gunmen shot from both sides of the street, wounding three people and killing one. Jose Colmenares, a 50 year-old mechanic, joined the march to support his wife, a junior-high teacher from Ejutla. A gunman who ran out into the street shot Colmenares in the neck and heart. He died minutes later.

Marchers detained at least 8 suspects, and found a pistol, gloves, police boots and jackets in the house and health clinic from which the shots had been fired. Protestors set fire to the house to force hiding gunmen out, but they appeared to have escaped, and within half an hour protestors allowed firefighters access to the house. Firefighters extinguished the flames within minutes.

In the town square, tourists continued to sip coffee and listen to roaming mariachi musicians apparently oblivious to the gunshots and flames only a mile away.

On Friday, August 11, police detained Erangelio Mendoza, a long-time leader of the teachers’ movement, and held him in a car while they waited for a helicopter to take him away. His whereabouts are still unknown.

The APPO’s explicit aim has been to generate “ungovernability.” They have succeeded. In over a month in Oaxaca, I have not seen one uniformed police officer. The idea that the state maintains its monopoly of the legitimate use of violence has been obliterated. But the APPO has refrained from resorting to violence itself in this total power vacuum. Their tactics are extreme—shutting off access to all government buildings; commandeering government vehicles; occupying the town square; taking over the state television station—but never violent. The state, in turn, responds with outright violence such as the failed June 14 police raid, or covert violence such as the arbitrary detentions, beatings, shootings, sabotage attempts and assassinations of the past week.

Army intelligence officers videotape over land travelers to and from Oaxaca. Spies follow journalists throughout the day. Plainclothes cops with machine guns pick APPO leaders off the street. No one knows where the governor is, not even his press secretary. Gunmen fire into crowds.

On Friday, Flavio Sosa, one of the APPO spokespeople, publicly called for a meeting with Carlos Abascal, the Minister of the Interior, to discuss possible solutions to the conflict in Oaxaca. “Ulises Ruiz is leading us into a situation practically of civil war, and our movement is non-violent,” he said in a press conference in the occupied town square. “Our movement is non-violent. In fact, it is a movement against violence, against a system of violence that excludes us, against the violence of police brutality.”

Update on the Situation in Oaxaca. August 3rd, 2006

Tuesday's occupation of the state television station, Channel 9, by several hundred women, appears to have sent a strong message to other commercial media in the state of Oaxaca. Today "Antena 89.7," a commercial news radio, suspended its broadcast fearing that the station would also be "taken" by members of the Popular Assembly, and the local TV Azteca station also suspended its operations.

Notimex reports that the Popular Assembly now has control of five media outlets in Oaxaca, but it wasn't clear which five it was referring to. They may include: Radio Planton (the teachers' radio station), Radio Universidad (taken over by students on June 14th), Channel 9 television and the two radio frequencies it also owns (on both FM and AM), which were taken over by women from the Popular Assembly, on August 1st.

Women Take Television Station in Oaxaca

Several hundred women took over the Oaxacan state television station, on Tuesday, August 1st...

Earlier in the day, several thousand women and girls marched through the streets of Oaxaca city demanding the resignation of state governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Many of these women are schoolteachers who were joined by students, housewives, workers, and campesinas. Many marched in their aprons, carrying pots and pans, spoons and spatulas.

At the end of the march, several hundred women took over a handful of public buses and headed for Channel 9, the state radio and television station. They entered the station without resistance, and took some of the station workers "hostage," insisting that they help the women get on the air (these workers were not subjected to any kind of physical nor verbal agression, and went on the air later to say that they had been treated well, and that the women even provided them with food). The women began transmitting on the state radio station almost immediately, and later that evening, during the news hour, began broadcasting on the television as well.

Meanwhile, the teachers are wrapping up a week-long consultation of the rank-and-file across the state, to decide how they will continue to particpate in this popular movement that started out as a teachers' strike, but which has exploded into a state-wide popular movement demanding the resignation of the governor. The school year begins in two weeks, and many teachers are worried about the possibility of being out on strike at the beginning of the school year.