El Enemigo Común

Oaxaca, Oax, Mexico
July 31, 2009

TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Dear President Obama,

Maria Libia Martinez Moreno and the Martinez Tejada family wish, by means of this letter, to communicate to you our concern regarding the homicide case of Bradley Roland Will. We send this in the hope that our plea for help will reach you, by way of the U.S. Embassy.

On October 27, 2006 the journalist, Bradley Roland Will, a U.S. citizen from Evanston, Illinois, was filming for the news agency Indymedia, a march by the Oaxaca social movement, as it proceeded toward the municipality of Santa Lucia del Camino, just outside the city of Oaxaca. During the demonstration violence broke out between some demonstrators and groups made up of public servants and sympathizers of the PRI party. Bradley was injured by a firearm and subsequently died.

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By Scott Campbell

I didn’t translate this article because I think it’s good. Actually, it’s horrible.  As you likely know, in October 2006, Indymedia journalist Brad Will was shot and killed in Oaxaca while covering the uprising there.  There is much evidence, including the images below, a report by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, and another report by Physicians for Human Rights, that conclude that Will was shot from a distance – implicating the paramilitaries unleashed by the Oaxaca state government.

However, Mexico’s Federal Attorney General has forwarded the theory that Will was shot at close range by a protester and has arrested and charged APPO member Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno with the murder.  This theory and subsequent arrest has been extensively dismissed as preposterous and is viewed largely as a ploy to appease the U.S. into releasing Plan Mexico funds and to keep the ruling party in Oaxaca, the PRI, cooperating with the national ruling party, the PAN.

Enter the RCMP and the article below.  The RCMP study, done this month, corroborates the Mexican state’s absurd version of events.  However, reading the article, especially the end, one can see just how shoddy an investigation it was and how biased against the APPO and Brad Will the RCMP is.  It really raises more questions than it answers, namely about the relationship between the RCMP and the Mexican police and Attorney General.

But worst of all is that this report will undoubtedly be used by the government to railroad an innocent man while the real killers, known to all and protected by the state, remain free.

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UPDATE 6/25/09: House of Representatives Votes to Force the Pentagon to Release Information to SOA Watch

SOA Watch has received confirmation that Congress will vote on an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act that would require that the School of the Americas/ WHINSEC to release the names, ranks, country of origin, courses and dates attended of students and instructors at the institute.

The amendment will be offered by Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), Representative Joe Sestak (D-PA), Representative Sanford Bishop (D-GA) and Representative John Lewis (D-GA) and we expect the vote to happen on Wednesday, June 24.

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El día miércoles 17 de junio Hugo Jarquin mando alrededor de 50 porros y para-policías para desalojar el platón de denuncia que mantiene el concejo de la APPO en el zócalo, y golpearon a varios compañeros integrantes de este mismo, y no conforme con esto el señor Hugo Jarquin el día jueves 18 de junio en el programa de noticias de TV azteca de las 7:00 am amenazo de tomar represarías contra:

*Gabriela Jiménez
*Adán Mejía
*David Venegas

Después de negar de una manera sínica el haber mandado a golpear a los compañeros de la A.P.P.O. Y argumentara haber sido solo 10 cuando todas las personas y medios que se encontraba ahí se dieron cuenta que era casi el quíntuple de porros que él dice que eran.

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Three years after the Oaxacan people’s victory over the state government, shots are fired at a barricade, the PFP mobilizes, and a strong megamarch fills the streets.

by Daniel Arellano Chávez

Oaxaca sizzles and resists once more on the three year anniversary of the peoples’ victory in resisting an attempt to remove the teachers’ encampment from the Oaxaca Zocalo on June 14, 2006. On the night of June 13 of this year, dozens of barricades were set up at various points around the city, showing that nothing has been resolved, yet far from being defeated, the struggle goes on.

Around 4:20 in the pre-dawn hours of June 14, 2009, a barricade set up at the Niños Héroes of Chapultepec intersection was attacked. Five spent shells from a 9 mm pistol were found at the site, left behind by thugs hired by the state government, who fired at least 10 rounds. Meanwhile, the Federal Preventive Police (PFP), which had been arriving in small convoys all during the preceding month and establishing themselves in hotels like the Parador Crespo, staged an operation aimed at taking over La Ley radio station, where APPO member and architect Lorenzo Sampablo Cervantes was killed three years ago by agents of the Ulises Ruiz government.

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