Oaxaca

Posted on October 29, 2006 
Filed Under out of town

In solidarity with the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, or APPO, I want to bring attention to their plight in Oaxaca. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, this Guardian article is a decent place to start.

I traveled to Oaxaca in the summer of 2005, and I can share some of my own pictures.

While I was there, it looked nothing like the scenes depicted in the above news photographs. It’s a beautiful colonial town in the southern Sierra Madres. If the APPO is right, then the current government of the state of Oaxaca is out of touch with the needs of its citizens. The governor, Ulises Ruiz, is another example of a democratically elected leader (well, ostensibly elected) who, once in office, distances himself from the average person whom he is supposed to represent and instead snuggles up to business interests.

The current conflict all started this summer when Ruiz did not respond favorably to an annual teacher strike. Teachers demonstrated for a pay increase, Ruiz sent in the police to break up the protest, and word got around that Ruiz thought he could brush the teachers aside so easily. The Zocalo and Alameda de Leon, two adjacent central plazas in Oaxaca, have since been the center of Mexico’s protest politics, where people are demanding a government accountable to the people.

Is that really so much to ask for in a democracy?

More from NYC Indymedia –

Brad Will was killed on October 27, 2006, in Oaxaca, Mexico, while working as a journalist for the global Indymedia network. He was shot in the torso while documenting an armed, paramilitary assault on the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, a fusion of striking local teachers and other community organizations demanding democracy in Mexico.

All we want in compensation for his death is the only thing Brad ever wanted to see in this world: justice.

* We, along with all of Brad’s friends, reject the use of further state-sponsored violence in Oaxaca.
* The New York City Independent Media Center supports the demand of Reporters Without Borders for a full and complete investigation by Mexican authorities into Oaxaca State Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’s continued use of plain-clothed municipal police as a political paramilitary force. The arrest of his assailants is not enough.
* The NYC IMC also supports the call of Zapatista Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos “to compañeros and compañeras in other countries to unite and to demand justice for this dead compañero.” Marcos issued this call “especially to all of the alternative media, and free media here in Mexico and in all the world.”

Do you want to do something?

Call the Mexican Consulate in Raleigh at (919) 754-0046

Demand:

(1) An end to the Federal Police invasion of Oaxaca. Express your support for the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO).

(2) A full and complete investigation by Mexican authorities into Oaxaca State Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’s continued use of plain-clothed municipal police as a political paramilitary force.

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nicomachus.net is the virtual representation of Phillip Barron, who is responsible for all of the writing and photography, unless otherwise credited. Want to know more?


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