By Ansel Herz
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI, JANUARY 14, 2010: The roof of Haiti’s national penitentiary is missing. The four walls of the prison rise up and break off, leaving only the empty sky overhead.

The gate to the jail in downtown Port-Au-Prince is wide open; the prisoners and police are all gone. Bystanders walk freely in and out, stepping over the still-hot smoldering remains of the facility’s ceiling. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday afternoon broke it to pieces.

“I don’t know if he’s alive or not alive,” said Margaret Barnett, whose son was a prisoner. “My house is crushed down. I’m just out in the street looking for family members.”

“Where is the help?” she asked. The former government employee spits the question again and again, hands on her hips. “Where is the help? Is the UN really here? Does America really help Haiti?”

In the absence of any visible relief effort in the city, the help came from small groups of Haitians working together. Citizens turned into aid workers and rescuers. Lone doctors roamed the streets, offering assistance.

At the crumbling national cathedral, a dozen men and women crowded around a man swinging a pickaxe to pry open the space for a dusty, near-dead looking woman to squeeze through and escape.

The night of the quake, a group of friends pulled bricks out from under a collapsed home, clearing a narrow zig-zagging path towards the sound of a child crying out beneath the rubble.

Two buildings over, Joseph Matherenne cried as he directed the faint light of his cell phone’s screen over the bloody corpse of his 23-year-old brother. His body is draped over the rubble of the office where he worked as a video technician. Unlike most of the bodies in the street, there was no blanket to cover his face.

Central Port-Au-Prince resembles a war zone. Some buildings are standing, unharmed. Those that were damaged tended to collapse completely, spilling into the street on top of cars and telephone poles.

In the day following the quake there was no widespread violence. Guns, knives and theft weren’t seen on the streets, lined only with family after family carrying only their belongings. They voiced their anger and frustration with sad songs that echoed throughout the night, not their fists.

“Only in the movies have I seen this,” said 33-year-old Jacques Nicholas, who jumped a wall as the house where he was playing dominoes tumbled. “When American send missiles to Iraq, that’s what I see. When Israel do that to Gaza, that’s what I see here.” Late at night, Nicholas heard false rumors that a tsunami was coming and he joined a torrent of people walking away from the water.

Nobody knows what to expect. Some people said Haiti needs a strong international intervention – a coordinated aid effort from all the big countries. But it was evident on the streets that no immediate cavalry of rescue workers was on the way from America and other nations.

“My situation is not that bad,” said Nicholas, “but overall the other people’s situation is worse than mine. So it affects me. Everybody wants to help out, but we can’t do nothing.”

Haitians are doing only what they can. Helping each other with their hands and the few tools they can find, they lack the resources to coordinate a multi-faceted reconstruction effort.

A popular radio host here reminded everyone that the strength of the Haitian people cannot be underestimated, posting on his Twitter: “We can re-build! We overcame greater challenges in 1804” – the year Haiti threw off the yoke of colonial slavery in a mass revolt. As the days tick by and the bodies pile up, it will take bold vision and hard work on that scale for Haiti to recover from Tuesday’s tremors.

source: http://narconews.com/Issue63/article4010.html

Reports and photos: NYC | Houston | Portland | San Francisco | Mexico | Uruguay (en español)

Audio: FSRN report on New York hunger strike | KPFT radio news coverage in Houston

October 23rd, 2008 – Solidarity Without Borders – NYC writes: In recent days, there has been an escalation of state repression in Oaxaca specifically directed at our companer@s in the APPO (Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca/Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca), CIPO-RFM (Consejo Indigena de Popular de Oaxaca-Ricardo Flores Magon/Council of Indigenous Peoples of Oaxaca) and other organizations of resistance.

Last Thursday, the Mexican state arrested Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, an activist with the APPO, outrageously charging him as the author of Brad Will’s murder, and fellow activist Octavio Perez Perez for covering up the crime. There is video evidence that agents of the state, affiliated with Governor Ruiz Ortiz, are responsible for this killing and the killing of many other activists in the fall of 2006 during the popular uprising.

Three other activists were also arrested in Oaxaca last week, allegedly for assaulting a municipal president at a barricade in 2006: Lirio Lopez, Miguel Cruz Lopez, who works with CIPO, and Guadalupe. This marks a broader crackdown on people and organizations who participated in the 2006 uprising and who continue to organize in Oaxaca.

And on September 25, our beloved companera Marcella Sali Grace Eiler, an international solidarity activist working with CIPO and Colectivo Mujer Nueva, was found raped and murdered in San Jose del Pacifico, Oaxaca. Sali was experiencing state surveillance while living at the CIPO house and accompanying Miguel Lopez and his family. Her murder is part of escalating violence against women as neoliberal trade policies like CAFTA and NAFTA are instituted and the Mexican state and its borders grow more militarized.

We are putting out a call to action for the weeks surrounding October 27, 2008 marking the anniversary of the PFP invasion of Oaxaca. We want to speak out against rising repression of those who resist the state in Oaxaca, to raise awareness of what our companer@s are experiencing, and to take action in solidarity with them. We want to highlight the complicity of the U.S. government – with $400 million of military aid in 2008 alone – and of defense contractors and other corporations in funding and supplying the Mexican state with the tools of violence and repression through Plan Mexico.

We call for direct actions, pickets and press conferences at the offices of Mexican consulates, defense contractors, and US government agencies across the country, teach-ins and benefits for organizations in Oaxaca, memorials and marches for beloved fighters lost in this struggle, everyday challenges to gender, racial and economic inequality, and anything else that people believe to be necessary.

We demand:

END STATE REPRESSION IN OAXACA!
STOP THE CRIMINALIZATION OF ACTIVISTS IN OAXACA!
PROSECUTE GOVERNMENT AGENTS RESPONSIBLE FOR MURDER!
SHUT DOWN US FUNDING OF THE MEXICAN POLICE STATE!
STOP THE MASSACRES IN CHIAPAS!
END THE FEMICIDE IN MEXICO!
JUSTICE AND RESPECT FOR WOMEN EVERYWHERE!
END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN OUR COMMUNITIES!
NO MORE MILITARIZATION OF THE US-MEXICO BORDER!
JUSTICE, FREEDOM AND SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE PEOPLES OF OAXACA!
JUSTICE, FREEDOM AND SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE PEOPLES OF CHIAPAS!

YA BASTA!

Actions and events are already scheduled in New York City, Minneapolis, MN, Tucson, AZ, Eugene, OR and Santa Cruz, CA.

Please post information about your action with your local Indymedia etc.

In Solidarity,

Individual members of Solidarity Without Borders, Friends and Family of Sali, and Friends of Brad Will

Contact solidaritywithoutbordersgroup@gmail.com (NYC) or bicyclevillain@riseup.net (AZ) with any questions.

Contact bicyclevillain@riseup.net to facilitate monetary donations to
CIPO-RFM, Colectivo Mujer Nueva and No Mas Muertes.

For more information…

On the Recent Arrests in Oaxaca:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com

On the recent massacre in Chiapas:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com

On U.S. Funding of the Mexican Military with Plan Mexico:
http://www.leftturn.org/?q=node/1240

With video evidence of US-made “less than lethal” weapons being used on civilians:
http://www.narconews.com/Issue54/article3214.html

source: http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/10/100944.html

On October 27, 2006, Brad Will stood on Juarez Avenue in the municipality of Santa Lucia del Camino, Oaxaca, Mexico. He was filming a violent clash between armed, civilian-clad municipal police and officials and members of the Oaxaca Peoples’ Popular Assembly, or APPO.

Brad, a longtime New York City activist and independent journalist, traveled to Oaxaca in early October 2006 to report on the protest movement led by the state teachers union that sought to oust governor Ulises Ruiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had ruled Oaxaca with an iron fist for almost 80 years.

Brad stood amid the APPO protesters and other journalists, filming down the length of Juarez Avenue where armed officials were firing at the protesters. Brad was shot and fell to the ground, his camera still running, having recorded the sound of the shot that hit him. Brad was shot from straight on, just below the chest, and yet his killer does not appear in the camera frame at the moment of the gunshot. Brad died on the way to the hospital. He had been shot twice.

PHOTO: IN BROAD DAYLIGHT: Moments before Brad Will was shot and killed October 27, 2006 in Santa Lucia del Camino, Oaxaca, Mexico, several local officials were filmed and photographed firing in the direction of Brad and anti-government protesters. (From left to right) Juan Carlos Soriano Velasco, a municipal police officer, town official Orlando Manuel Aguilar Coello and Abel Santiago Zarate, a member of the state government. Aguilar Coello and Zarate were both briefly detained after Brad’s death but were soon released when Oaxacan authorities mistakenly asserted that the two bullets that killed Brad did not come from a .38 revolver like the ones that both men were using that day.

Two years later, on October 16, 2008, the Mexican federal government arrested two members of the APPO, charging Juan Manuel Martinez as the gunman and Octavio Perez with helping to cover up Brad’s murder (Perez was later released on bail). Federal police were still looking for other suspected accomplices, all members of the APPO who had tried to carry Brad to safety and save his life.

The arrests came after a series of human rights reports criticized the government’s investigation for failing to follow leads pointing to local officials who were widely photographed by the press shooting at APPO protesters on October 27, 2006.

“It is such a coverup,” said Kathy Will, Brad’s mother, in a telephone interview on learning of the arrests. “It is an insult to us and to all of the groups that have tried to help with a meaningful investigation.”

LONG-RANGE SHOT

Whether Brad Will was shot at close or long range lies at the heart of the controversy over the government’s investigation and the recent arrests. Local police in civilian clothing and municipal officials in Santa Lucia del Camino were filmed and photographed firing on the APPO protesters among whom Brad Will was standing when he was shot. The federal government however, has not investigated the involvement of the local officials.

More than a dozen protesters and press photographers surrounded Brad when he was shot. All those interviewed said that the bullets came from down the street. Moments before Brad was killed, the Milenio newspaper photographer Oswaldo Ramirez was shot in the leg. The Mexican Office of the Federal Attorney General, or PGR, however, has neither interviewed Mr. Ramirez nor investigated the shooting.

“All the shots were coming from down the street, where the paramilitaries had gathered,” said Mexican journalist Diego Osorno, who covered the battle for Milenio that day and later wrote about it in his book Oaxaca Under Siege.

“As journalists, we were all focusing on the paramilitaries as the source of the gunfire,” he said.

PHOTO: SHOOT TO KILL: Pedro Carmona, a town official in Santa Lucia del Camino, opens fire on protesters shortly before Brad Will was killed. One of his targets was Mexican photographer Raul Estrella “I heard the bullet whiz by my head and that’s when I left,” Estrella later recalled.

Raul Estrella, a photographer for El Universal who won an international photojournalism award for his coverage of the Oaxaca conflict, said that Pedro Carmona, a municipal official, shot at him when he noticed Estrella taking his picture shortly before Brad Will was killed.

“I heard the bullet whiz by my head and that’s when I left,” Estrella, who took a now-famous photograph of Carmona and other Santa Lucia del Camino officials shooting at the protesters, said in an interview in 2007.

The PGR has not charged Pedro Carmona with attempted murder, nor did they interview him in Brad’s case.

The Mexican authorities claim that Brad’s killers shot him at close range, at a distance of two meters (about six-and-a-half feet), implicating the APPO protesters themselves, rather than the gunmen located down the street.

Witnesses, independent experts, and the Mexican governmental human rights group all challenge the PGR’s short-range hypothesis.

Gustavo Vilchis, a photographer for a Oaxacan human rights organization whose photographs were recently published in the book Teaching Rebellion, helped carry Brad once he was brought around the corner and onto Arboles Street. He offered his eyewitness testimony to the PGR back in March of 2007. He said that the men who brought Brad to Arboles Street were trying to save him. “Why try to save someone you want to kill?” he asked.

An independent investigative team from Physicians for Human Rights traveled to Mexico earlier this year and issued a report on May 23 calling on the PGR to investigate paramilitary involvement.

On September 26, the Mexican governmental National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) released a report highly critical of the government, charging that state and federal authorities violated the victim’s and his family’s human rights through their systematic failures to properly investigate the murder.

The recent arrests came a day before the deadline for the PGR to respond to the CNDH report.

“Take a look at Brad’s last frame; there is nobody in that frame,” said Kathy Will, “Two meters away? Come on! They are defying all logic and it just goes to show how corrupt they are. It wasn’t a short range shot and everybody knows that.”

The Will family and the Physicians for Human Rights investigators both pointed out the federal government’s failure to investigate 17 other murder cases during the 2006 Oaxaca conflict where witness testimony and photographic and video evidence indicate police participation in the killings.

“The involvement of civilian-clad police officers in death squads has been well documented,” said Mexican journalist Diego Osorno.

The federal government colluded to cover up Ulises Ruiz’s crimes, Osorno said, to secure the PRI’s support for President Felipe Calderon’s contested 2006 election victory, as well as for energy reforms that include the controversial privatization of sectors of Mexico’s state oil company.

Calderon’s National Action Party, or PAN, has traditionally been a rival of the PRI.

“Calderon has no other option,” he said. “He came to power very weak and that has made him beholden to more powerful groups, such as the PRI.”

THE PGR THEORY

The PGR’s case against Juan Manuel Martinez and the other members of the APPO is built around a single witness’ testimony. That witness, Adolfo Feria, says that he saw Juan Manuel Martinez fire the fatal shot. It turns out, however, that Adolfo Feria is the cousin of the mayor of Santa Lucia del Camino, Manuel Martinez Feria, whose police and city officials led the armed attack on the APPO protesters.

The PGR also shared a slide show with the press on Friday, October 17. Although very brief, the slide show contains several contradictions.

One slide says that the gunman fired the first shot from a distance of two meters. The visual to support that slide is a still from Brad’s camera showing a cluster of protesters in front of Brad. The protester that the PGR identifies as the shooter stands about five meters away. The still was taken only milliseconds before Brad was shot. The supposed shooter is not pointing a gun at Brad.

Another slide says that the shooter fired a second shot into Brad’s side, standing between two and eight meters away, while others carried him behind a van. The visual slide to support this statement is a computer illustration that shows the shooter standing less than half a meter away from Brad while firing.

The PGR’s own visual representations do not correspond to its statements.

BLAMING THE VICTIMS

Mexican state and federal officials have insisted from day one on an impossible scenario: that one of the APPO members standing near Brad shouted at him to stop filming and then killed him when he did not obey—shooting him at close range in front of scores of witnesses without anyone seeing him, without leaving gun powder burns near the wound or on Brad’s shirt, and without appearing in Brad’s camera frame.

Brad’s family retained a lawyer in Mexico and has since traveled there twice to meet with state and federal officials. Their sole demand has been that the investigation consider and exhaust all possibilities. The Mexican government has refused, focusing solely on the hypothesis that the APPO killed Brad.

The troubled defense of the government’s “the APPO did it” theory began with then-Oaxaca State Attorney General Lisbeth Caña. On November 15, 2006, Caña called a press conference in Oaxaca City, flipping through a Power Point presentation with elaborate—though nonsensical—charts and graphs all pointing to the conclusion of the disgruntled APPO shooter.

Caña’s theory was that one of the APPO protesters told Brad to “stop taking pictures,” while he cocked a nine-millimeter pistol. As soon as he finished his sentence, the masked protester shot Brad. The bystanders who tried to take Brad to the hospital, the theory says, were in fact co-conspirators who drove him away from the crowd only to fire a second shot into his side.

Even at first glance, this theory is absurd. Brad was not “taking pictures.” He was filming; and, yes, the APPO protesters know the difference. The killer could not have shot Brad straight on without appearing in the camera frame. Also, the day after Brad was killed, the national Mexican daily Milenio published on the front page a photograph of bystanders carrying Brad to a car. Both gunshot wounds are clearly visible in the photograph. The work of other Mexican photojournalists, such as Javier Otaola of the national daily Excélsior, also clearly show that the two gunshot wounds were both present before Brad was driven off to the hospital.

And, jumping ahead, we now know that Brad was not shot with a nine-millimeter pistol, but with a .38 revolver—a gun that does not make any cocking sound such as that supposedly heard on Brad’s tape.

Brad’s parents, Kathy and Hardy, and his brother Craig traveled to Oaxaca on March 21, 2007, to meet with the state government investigators. At the beginning of the meeting, one of Caña’s assistants loaded a PowerPoint presentation dated November 15, 2006. Hardy noticed the date and asked: “Does this mean that you haven’t done anything in the past four months?”

Caña said that they had the wrong PowerPoint, apologized, and dispatched her assistant to bring the correct one. A few tense moments later the assistant returned and loaded the same Power Point presentation, this time dated March 21, 2007.

When Brad’s family realized that they were being led through the exact same presentation that had been paraded before the press the previous November, they asked Caña to stop the Power Point and to share any new information she had gathered. She had none. Had she interrogated the municipal officials photographed shooting at protesters on October 27, the family asked. She had not. Had she interrogated witnesses? She had not. Had she gathered ballistics information on the guns fired that day? She had not.

Infuriated, the family asked to view the case file—a right granted under Mexican law to the family members of murder victims. Caña said that they could not view the case file. Why? Because they had just that moment finished boxing it up to ship it to the federal government. Caña was asking that the Mexican federal attorney general take over the case. With that the meeting was over.

PHOTO: GUNNED DOWN: Brad Will is attended to after being shot twice just below the sternum. He died en route to a nearby hospital when the taxi he was being transported in ran out of gas. Despite overwhelming forensic and documentary film evidence to the contrary, The Mexican government claims that Will was shot at close range by a disgruntled protester and that the people who came to his aid conspired to finish him off with a second gunshot while traveling to the hospital.

THE FEDS TAKE THE CASE

The following day, Kathy, Hardy, Craig and their lawyer Miguel Angel de los Santos met for over 12 hours with officials at the PGR office in Oaxaca. They were able to review the case file (just unpacked), ask questions and submit evidence collected by their lawyer, such as the published photographs showing the presence of both gunshot wounds before Brad was driven from the scene.

The PGR officials, while assuring the family that they were more professional and impartial than the Oaxaca state investigators, refused to accept the photographic evidence, arguing that the photographs could have been tampered with.

Still, after the incompetence and insensitivity of the Oaxaca state investigators, the PGR officials’ ardent assurances of their academic pedigrees and distance from local politics led the family to feel somewhat better. Perhaps now, with the PGR taking over the case, they told me at the time, the government will conduct a serious and unbiased investigation.

That was March 2007. When Kathy and Hardy returned to Mexico almost a year later, in late February 2008, they were eager to learn of the PGR’s progress.

They were appalled to learn that there still had been no progress.

The federal special prosecution team investigating Brad’s murder was still proceeding under the assumption that Brad was shot at close range and that he received the two shots in different locations—the two assumptions first presented as evidence by Lisbeth Caña.

The PGR said that they would conclude their investigation and seek arrest warrants in a matter of weeks.

Through the efforts of Kathy and Hardy, a Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) team volunteered to travel to Mexico to review the investigation. Dos Santos, the Wills’ lawyer, then obtained formal approval from the PGR for PHR to make their examination.

In addition, an expert video forensics analyst studied Brad’s last tape. (The video analysis has not been released yet. However, preliminary findings show a bullet streak descending across the camera frame milliseconds after the shot is heard and milliseconds before Brad cries out. The forensic video expert has told the family that a close range shot is categorically impossible.)

In the months after the February meeting, while the PHR experts were reviewing the evidence, the federal officials remained silent.

Physicians for Human Rights concluded its review and sent a full report to the family and the Mexican government in late May 2008. In a May 23 press release, PHR wrote that the Mexican federal investigation has “shortcomings in efforts to locate all firearms in the possession of police, paramilitaries, and others who were present at the scene; a singular focus by Mexican authorities on a working hypothesis that the gunshots originated from Will’s immediate surroundings; and a failure to investigate other instances of injuries or deaths in Oaxaca that might reveal a pattern of violence leading to the perpetrator(s).”

The Mexican authorities did not respond to the PHR report, instead leaking a story to the Mexican press claiming that the federal investigation had concluded that the APPO killed Brad.

On May 26, Misael Sánchez published an article in the Oaxaca-based pro-government newspaper El Tiempo headlined: “The PGR concludes: The APPO killed Brad.” On the same day, Ricardo Alemán published an article in the national newspaper El Universal headlined, “Bradley Will’s killer, from the APPO?”

Both articles cite only unnamed sources within the PGR who claim to have concluded their investigation, having gathered irrefutable evidence that Brad was shot at close range. Both articles repeat the impossible claim that Brad was shot a second time while en route to the hospital.

In August, PGR officials sought arrest warrants for several members of the APPO, but a federal court turned them down.

Then on September 25, the day before the National Human Rights Commission published its own investigation, the PGR leaked yet another story, this time to the national left-leaning newspaper La Jornada: “PGR investigation points to APPO as journalist’s killers.”

HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION ATTACKS INVESTIGATION

The CNDH released its report the next day, concluding that the state and federal authorities involved in investigating Brad Will’s murder all “violated the fundamental rights to legality, to legal certainty, to access to justice, as well as to access to information.”

The report details the blunders, omissions, and acts of speculation that state and federal investigators engaged in from the day of Brad’s murder up to the present. A short list includes: not preserving the scene of the crime; not inspecting the crime scene until October 31, four days after the murder; not inspecting the firearms used that day or interrogating the men witnessed and photographed firing on the APPO, or even opening a preliminary investigation to determine the degree to which, if at all, they may have been involved in the events under primary investigation; not interrogating the two men originally held for the murder; not conducting or ordering an investigation to identify all those photographed carrying or firing guns that day; and misidentifying the .38 revolver bullets pulled from Brad’s body as coming from a nine-millimeter pistol.

This last error is of particular importance. Claiming that Brad was killed with a nine-millimeter pistol, Lisbeth Caña released the two municipal officials who had been detained. They did not carry nine-millimeter pistols, Caña said, but rather .38 revolvers.

But the CNDH analysis concludes that Brad was in fact killed with a .38 revolver (PHR also confirmed that the lethal weapon was a .38-caliber handgun). The two men—Abel Santiago Zarate and Orlando Manuel Aguilar Coello—however, have not been detained. Aguilar Coello, moreover, has apparently gone into hiding.

The CNDH report also concludes that the fatal shot occurred at a distance of between 35 and 50 meters (about 40 to 55 yards) and that the two wounds that caused Brad’s death occurred successively, separated by thousandths of a second, one after the other, both at the crime scene on Juarez Avenue. The CNDH categorically rejects both the close range and the separate shot theories put forth by the Oaxaca state investigators and defended for nearly two years by the PGR.

THE MERIDA INITIATIVE

On July 1, George W. Bush signed legislation approving the Merida Initiative, a $400 million program to aid Mexico’s military, police and judicial systems. That legislation, often referred to as Plan Mexico, included a paragraph calling for justice in Brad Will’s case.

“The state and Federal investigations into the October 27, 2006, killing in Oaxaca of American citizen Bradley Will have been flawed,” the law states, “and the Secretary of State is directed, not later than 45 days after enactment of this Act and 120 days thereafter, to submit a report to the Committees on Appropriations detailing progress in conducting a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation to identify the perpetrators of this crime and bring them to justice.”

On September 23, Congressman Donald Manzullo (R-IL) sent an angry letter to the Committee on Appropriations and President Bush, calling on them to suspend funding for the Merida Initiative until the Mexican government carries out a serious investigation.

Renata Rendon, advocacy director for the Americas with Amnesty International USA, said the PGR investigation should cause alarm for the U.S. government, which has become a major financial supporter of the PGR.

“This should be a real red flag for the U.S. federal government, which is sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the Mexican government, some of which will go to the PGR,” she said in a telephone interview.

Kathy Will said that her family is pressuring Congress to withhold Merida Initiative funds from the Mexican government.

“I don’t call that a democracy,” she said, “a place where they don’t hold somebody accountable, at any level of government, when they are guilty. The impunity in Mexico is unreal!”

PHOTO: TAKING IT EASY: When he wasn’t covering social upheavals in Latin America, Brad Will was active in a number of activist campaigns and projects in New York City.

THE ART OF IMPUNITY

In Mexico, the art of impunity most often takes the form of a kind of ritual incompetence—incompetence so pervasive and implacable that it can only be the result of decisive action, the result of tradition and practice, a truly exquisite craft.

Brad’s case has become part of a now deep and horrid tradition of political murder investigations plagued with an incompetence whose function is simply to cement impunity into the cultural fabric of the law: from the massacre of hundreds of students in Mexico City 40 years ago on October 2, 1968, to the ambush and murder of Triqui radio journalists Felícitas Sánchez and Teresa Merino on April 7, 2008.

The experience of the Will family in their trips to Mexico and the documentation provided in the CNDH report present a level of incompetence in both the state and federal investigations that is too thorough to be accidental.

“Look at the hard evidence,” said Hardy Will, Brad’s father, in a telephone interview, “Brad was shot straight on. He had a high-quality camera with a wide-angle lens that would have picked up any shooter within 35 meters. There were 12 witnesses, including journalists, none of whom saw a shooter near Brad. Our video analyst detected bullet streaks on the last two frames before Brad was hit. The Attorney General Medina Mora and Doctor Wiarco [the special prosecutor in charge of the case] have all this information, but they have chosen to ignore it.”

“Doctor Wiarco and Attorney General Medina Mora are either incompetent or corrupt. Well, Dr. Wiarco might be both,” Hardy Will said. “Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade: They are covering up and obviously getting some direction from above.”

John Gibler is the author of Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, forthcoming from City Lights Books. He is a Global Exchange Media Fellow and writes from Mexico. In 2007 and 2008 he acted as volunteer interpreter for the Will family in meetings with Mexican state and federal officials.

PAST COVERAGE OF BRAD WILL IN THE INDYPENDENT:

Remembering Brad Will
By John Tarleton
October 29, 2007 – The Indypendent
Before his death, Will, a freight-hopping, guitar-playing activist, had spent years on the frontlines of countless movements from efforts to save squats and community gardens in the Lower East Side to engaging in “tree-sits” for weeks at a time high in the canopy of Oregon’s endangered old-growth forests.

A Murder Not Forgotten
By Harry Bubbins
October 29, 2007 – The Indypendent
In the first days after your killing, there were dozens of protests and vigils held all over the world including here in New York. Since then, Friends of Brad Will has evolved into a national network of activists demanding accountability through the arrest and prosecution of the people responsible for your murder. Jail may not be a solution, but something must be done.

Friends of Brad Go to Washington
By Friends of Brad Will
March 16, 2007 – The Indypendent
The Friends of Brad Will traveled to Washington, D.C. March 1 to press Congress and the State Department for a full investigation into the death of the former NYC Indymedia videographer who was gunned down in October while covering protests in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Brad Will’s Remarkable Life
By John Tarleton
November 1, 2006 – The Indypendent
Brad Will was someone who seemed to be everywhere. Most knew him as an Indymedia activist, but he was also a passionate environmentalist, freedom fighter, musician, and anarchist who was also close to the Earth First! movement where he was a beloved character by many.

Remembering Brad Will
By Indypendent Staff
November 1, 2006 – The Indypendent
Testimonials and tributes poured into the nyc.indymedia.org website in the day’s following Brad Will’s death. Here are excerpts from a few of them…

“One more martyr in a dirty war — One more time to cry and hurt.”
By Brad Will
November 1, 2006 – The Indypendent
yesterday i went for a walk with the good people of oaxaca – was walking all day really – in the afternoon they showed me where the bullets hit the wall – they numbered the ones they could reach – it reminded me of the doorway of amadou diallos home…

Oaxaca Rising
By Leanne Tory-Murphy
May 11, 2005 – The Indypendent

source: http://www.indypendent.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Melissa Mundt melissajmundt(at)gmail.com
Rachel Wallis, rachel.a.wallis(at)gmail.com

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Monday, Oct. 20: Days after Mexican authorities arrested two activists for the murder of independent journalist Brad Will, Mexican photographer and witness to the murder, Gustavo Vilchis, denounces the arrests as politically motivated. Vilchis, along with human rights organizations and members of the media, argue that plainclothes police officers and a local elected official are responsible for Will’s murder.

According to the Oaxaca based indigenous organization Consejo Indigena Popular de Oaxaca (CIPO), Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno was arrested Thursday October 17 and charged with Will’s murder. Octavio Peréz was later arrested as an accomplice to the murder. CIPO reports that federal authorities have issued more warrants in relation to the case. Both Peréz and Martinez are activists with Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO) one of the main organizing bodies of the 2006 protests.

Vilchis, an eyewitness to Will’s murder, is currently on a speaking tour in the US. He argues that, “We know, and there is evidence to prove, that the bullets that took the life of Brad and injured at least three other protesters came from local officials, who were well armed and dressed as civilians. We, who have been fighting for justice in the murder of Brad, know that the investigations of the ‘Mexican authorities’ are full of irregularities and omissions. They are clearly trying to blame the people who put their lives at risk to try save Brad’s life, and at the same time, they are repressing and criminalizing protest movements.”

Will was shot and killed on October 27, 2006, during the violent clashes between protesters and authorities that consumed the city of Oaxaca, Mexico for nearly six months. Although autopsy reports revealed that Will was shot by the same caliber weapon carried by the municipal officials who were captured on film shooting towards the protesters, Mexican authorities have continued to insist that he was shot at close range by protesters.

On September 28, 2008, the National Commission on Human Rights in Mexico released a report claiming that there were serious irregularities and omissions during the investigation of the murder.

Gustavo Vilchis is currently on tour promoting the book “Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Movement in Oaxaca,” a collection of testimonies from participants in the Oaxacan social movement, which features his photography and his account of Will’s murder. The tour dates and locations are available here: http://teachingrebellion.wordpress.com/dates

source: http://www.indybay.org

They were supported by the people of Morelos in their marches, encampments in public plazas, and blockades of interstate highways. On Oct. 7, 8, and 9, the army and state and federal police were sent in to brutally smash the movement. This model is a mirror of the crackdown that occurred in Oaxaca in 2006 and has enraged teachers and the public across Mexico.

There is little to no information in English about the situation in Morelos, but there are photos that don’t require translation. These are some that have been widely sent around. Please continue sending them around and spreading the word of the Morelos rebellion – which may have been brutally repressed but has not been extinguished.

————–

Forty Years After The Tlatelolco Massacre, The Mexican Army Attacks Civilians In The Indigenous Town of Xoxocotla

by Gregory Berger – October 11, 2008

On October 2nd, tens of thousands of people, young and old, took the afternoon off and marched in the streets of Mexico City to the cry of “¡Nunca Más!” – Never again!

On that same day in October, forty years earlier, scores of young people, mostly striking University students, were gathered in Tlatelolco Square for a protest meeting. Suddenly, and without provocation, Mexican Army troops opened fire on the crowd, killing at least 200 people,wounding countless more, and “disappearing” hundreds more . The State-controlled media neatly covered up the story, and the Federal government denied that a massacre had taken place. But forty years later even the Mexican government now admits that it was guilty of the shameless crime of using the armed forces against its own citizens to supress a non-violent protest movement.

Initially, the attacks silenced popular protest. But very soon after, and up until the present day, Mexicans from both town and country have continued to organize and resist, in a perpetual struggle to make good on the unfulfilled promises of the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

In the forty years since that bloody day, Mexican society has undergone profound systemic changes. Social movements have seen important victories, but also crushing setbacks. One crucial victory has been public recognition of the Tlatelolco massacre and an increased awareness on the part of the general public that use of the Mexican military to repress social movements is illegal according to the Mexican constitution, and must never be tolerated. The Mexican army has unfortunately continued to fight against organized social movements in recent decades. But even this counterinsurgency has only been allowed to happen in Mexico’s most rural areas, in the shadows, and far from the public eye.

Until now.

On Wednesday, October 8th, Morelos Governor Marco Adame called out more than 1,500 police personnel from the State Police and from the Paramilitary Federal Police force to the indigenous town of Xoxocotla. Law enforcement agencies were instructed to dismantle a series of road blockades along the Alpuyeca-Jojutla highway. Residents of Xoxocotla, long known for their effective community organizing and for their willingness to show solidarity with other social movements, had set up the blockades to show solidarity with teachers who have been on strike in Morelos for nearly two months.

The teachers of Morelos and the townspeople of Xoxocotla are united in a common struggle to stop the rapid privatization of public resources. Teachers on strike in Morelos are trying to halt a new set of educational reforms they say would open the doors to the participation of private capital in the public education system. Xoxocotla, on the other hand, is desperately trying to save the aquifer which feeds its municipal water system from being sucked dry from private condominium developers who skirt local zoning laws.

As poorly organized police marched on Xoxocotla, they were quickly outwitted by the highly organized women and men of the town. When police advanced on the roadblocks, the townspeople removed one of the barricades, allowed a few of them to enter, and then established the withdrawn barricade once again. These hapless police officers were trapped within the confines of Xoxocotla’s barricades. The officers were effectively penned in for several hours, during which they were unable to dismantle the roadblocks.

Later that night, between 500 and 1000 members of the Mexican Army from the 24th Military Zone barracks in Cuernavaca were given the order from the National Defense Secretary to assist police in their efforts to dislodge protesters in Xoxocotla. Accompanying these soldiers was a vast mobile arsenal, including humvees, tanks, and helicopters. It is important to note that such use of force can only take place under authorization from the executive branch of the Federal government.

Representatives of the newly arrived army and the police informed a negotiating team from Xoxocotla that if the police officers trapped in the town were not allowed to leave, that the order would be given “to attack the town.”

Just two short years ago, in a nation still grappling with the murderous legacy of Tlatelolco, the use of the army to contain a protest action in central Mexico would have been unheard of. And in 2008, the people of Xoxocotla couldn’t believe what they were witnessing. Shocked by the brazen display of military might, the town let the police officers retreat and removed the road blockades. In return, they were promised that all security forces would leave.

As dawn approached, the vast majority of state security forces remained in place. Reports emerged of arbitrary beatings, illegal home searches, and detentions by police. And in the early afternoon, the women and men of Xoxocotla went back to the highway in protest once again. At that point, members of the State and Federal police, with the cooperation and participation of the Army, launched an attack of collective punishment on the entire town.

Helicopters flew overhead and shot tear gas into private homes, most of which were filled with small children and whose inhabitants were not involved with the road blockades at all. This reporter was led into several homes the following day and saw several large spent containers and saw small children still coughing from the gas.

Houses were raided by police and soldiers, and men taken and beaten in front of their families. There are reports of at least 70 missing persons, of whom only 20 have been officially “arrested.”

Yesterday night, I passed 4 checkpoints of armed troops to enter Xoxocotla. I watched as all men entering the town, returning from work were frisked, insulted, and harrassed by troops armed with submachine guns. I headed into the center of town. Hundreds of scared and angry residents emerged from their homes to tell stories of their shock and rage. Many were shcoked at the participation of army troops, tanks, and helicopters.

“Why are they sending the army out against us?” Cried one woman. “We aren’t criminals. The President says he is using the army to fight drug traffickers, but he is using it against poor indigenous people.”

Demonstrating the short-sighted nature of the government’s strategy, another woman whose brother is among the missing echoed a sentiment I heard many times. “Before today many of us didn’t even support the teachers’ strike. But now we are all with them.”

How is it that even as Mexico remembers the 40th anniversary of the Tlatelolco massacre that the army has been allowed to turn its weapons against its own citizens once again?

Despite serious allegations of fraud, Felipe Calderon was sworn in as President of Mexico in December, 2006. Almost immediately following his inauguration, Calderon gave all members of the armed forces a pay raise. Soon afterwards Calderon increased the role of the Mexican Armed forces in Mexican society by announcing that the armed forces would be used to conduct a new heightened war against drug traffickers. Within a few short months, the army was authorized to perform police duties in several Mexican states. Random, illegal military checkpoints targeting civilian vehicles on federal highways became commonplace.

Nearly two years later, with thousands of people killed in Calderon’s drug war, there has been no significant disruption in the flow of drugs to the United States. From the outset, critics claimed that Calderon never intended the army’s presence in the Mexican countryside to serve as an anti-narcotics force, and that his aims were in fact twofold: To leverage his ability to serve out his Presidential term in light of massive calls for his resignation before his inauguration, and to legitimize the use of the armed forces in domestic affairs as a means to repress Mexico’s abundant social movements.

The repression in Xoxocotla this week overwhelmingly supports this hypothesis. Had the citizens of Morelos not seen a gradual increase in the presence of soldiers far from their barracks doing vehicle checks, patrolling the streets, and policing highways, there would surely have been more of a public outcry in this week’s use of the army to repress the people of Xoxocotla.

Even more distressing is another clue I witnessed in the ruined home of one woman of Xoxocotla yesterday: a tear gas cannister with English text written on it:

“FOR USE ONLY BY TRAINED INDIVIDUALS”

Apart from the obvious and cynical irony of this “warning label” on a weapon that had been used to terrorize small innocent children, the cartridge proves that the weapons shot from Federal helicopters have been provided by manufacturers from an English speaking country, presumably the United States. Recently, the U.S. Congress authorized 400 million dollars in funding to provide support for the Mexican military in its “war on drugs” in a package known as “Plan México” or “The Merida Initiative.”

Declassified documents from the U.S.’ National Security Archive have established evidence of Washington’s participation in the Tlatelolco massacre. In 2008, once more, the U.S. is helping to arm the Mexican military to attack its own citizens.

source: http://narcosphere.narconews.com

related links: Mujeres y la Sexta || Mexico Solidarity Network || Lydia Cacho || MexicoReporter.com || Tlatelolco – the 40th anniversary || “The Road To Hell” || Community Radio Producers Murdered in Mexico || Standing With Those Who Fight for Themselves || The right to choose is not enough – Mexico DF

Military training film showing psychological operations in “Hostland,” a mythical (probably Latin American) country, designed to aid the host government in gaining the support of the population.

Producer: U.S. Army Pictorial Center
Sponsor: U.S. Army Materiel Command

Shotlist

At the United States embassy of a small fictional country, Hostland, delegates request assistance in counteracting the outside influences which “have planted the seeds of subversion” in their country. “As with most countries that find themselves in the midst of a Communist inspired insurgency, Hostland has a population with a doubtful sense of national unity”. In this fictional land with hints of Latin American influence, the United States military must work with the government of Hostland, not only to provide militaristic strength, but through psychological operations to gain the support of the population. “Psychologically, the military in every country in the world represents government authority. Military psychological operations cannot function independently. They must always reflect the national policy of the host country.”

A fake “ethnic” dance in “Hostland”
Shot through a drainpipe of soldiers digging a ditch with a crane in the background
Women and children at a pipe with running water
A military road block with contents of covered trucks being inspected by soldiers
Children at a playground being forced to leave by soldiers
People in front of microphones in a sound proof radio booth
People waving from the back of covered military vehicles as soldiers march along the side of the roads
Women and children being loaded into the back of a covered truck
A man looking through charred books near a damaged house with soldiers
A soldier sits in a rainstorm, looking at a piece of paper and clutching his bleeding leg
Close-up of a reel-to-reel tape recorder
Close-up of a farmer’s face — man is in overalls and wearing a hat
A soldier in a military jeep calls to the farmer man who walks towards the vehicle

source: http://www.archive.org/details/Psycholo1968
http://www.archive.org/details/Psycholo1968_2

The background:

In 2006 the Mexican state of Oaxaca was embroiled in a conflict that lasted more than seven months and resulted in at least eighteen deaths and the temporary occupation of the capital city of Oaxaca by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).

The conflict emerged in May 2006 with a strike involving the local teachers’ union and has since grown into a broadbased movement pitting the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) against the state’s governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Protesters demand the removal or resignation of Ortiz, whom they accuse of corruption and acts of repression.

Download the translations: Notes from Oaxaca

Contents

Oaxaca: Overcoming the fear
Explaining the recent history and progress of Oaxacan politics and the APPO

Caravans for land and territory
The story of a radical youth caravan which travelled through the Oaxacan region in an attempt to document what is happening and foster ties between the cities and rural areas.

• Caravans for land and territory

• The Path of the Jaguar

• The caravan begins to move

Barefoot Investigators
A statement of intent to push for the continued revitalising and radicalisation of APPO from various groups and individuals

March-Calenda for dignity and justice
A short description of a 2008 march to commemorate a brutal attack on demonstrators on July 16th 2007

Letter to a lost friend
A heartfelt letter to murdered radical Lorenzo San Pablo to tell him that in his name resistance will not waver.

Community airwaves, free to all
A call to defend the independent radio voices which have helped spread APPO’s influence far and wide in the Oaxaca region

source: http://libcom.org/library/notes-oaxaca

In particular, the repression began to get heavier after the events of June 20, 2008, when the organized people impeded Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’s presence in a public act convened by the municipal government of Zaachila.

They are blaming our members for initiating violence, when this was provoked by the PRI party municipal President Noe Perez, and his father, Mr. Natalio Pérez, who pistol in hand, fired at people peacefully protesting to defend themselves against the imposition of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’s presence in their lands. This aggression is documented in photos and videos.

Nevertheless, for several days the local news media, echoing the statements of Ulises Ruiz and other government functionaries, have spread the story on television, radio, and in the written press that the violence was provoked by some of the schoolteachers in the town of Zaachila, “el Alebrije” (David Venegas), and VOCAL members. Threats have been circulated in these same news media that the full force of the law will be brought to bear against those who provoked the violence, thereby putting the blame on the people’s organization that is alive as a movement. In response to this resistance, the government’s response is clearly to try to discredit movement organization in Oaxaca with the same old dirty strategies: seeking out leaders to co-opt, repressing activists, blocking alternative information pages, stepping up the arrest of graffiti artists and beating them before they turn them loose, making false accusations, and intimidating all those movement spaces in struggle who aren’t willing to negotiate the dignity of resistance; this dignity is visible in the reorganization going on among different peoples in the neighborhoods, barrios, collectives, and spaces, and it resounded in the streets on June 14, 2008. At the same time, the police presence is steadily increasing and there are calls for the application of more federal force.

Direct harassment against us has occurred in news broadcasts on Channel 9, the state TV channel, with photos displayed of several VOCAL members: Silvia Gabriela Hernández Salinas, Efraín López, Eduardo Zanabría, Rubén Valencia, and David Venegas Reyes. News reports say that there are warrants out for all these comrades and that they will be arrested any minute.

They accuse us of provoking violence in our state of Oaxaca with the clear intent of justifying repression, prison, and even our disappearance by the government in complicity with the news media at their service.

Our case is not an isolated example; on the contrary, it is a symptom of the wave of repression against all the rest of the comrades in the Oaxacan social movement who are beset by the permanent police presence.

The police presence at many of our private homes and meeting places is constant. We consider the risk of being arrested as latent and highly probable. It is this situation that prompts us to make this climate of repression and harassment public. We will not let these hostilities continue; they clearly reveal the climate of repression by the state and federal government against all of us who participate in the Oaxacan social movement. The true motives that the state is now directing its repression against VOCAL, just as it has against other movement comrades in other circumstances, are clear. We are true to our word and keep up our clear, public, peaceful participation in the social movement in Oaxaca and ceaselessly struggle for the demands of our movement to overthrow Ulises Ruiz Ortiz: punishment for the murderers of our people, freedom for all political prisoners, and an in depth transformation in Oaxaca.

We know we’re not the only ones at risk because different peoples, collectives, organizations, teachers, and neighborhoods are also in struggle, making it possible to strengthen the social movement in Oaxaca. We are being targeted now because we have responded to calls for solidarity and support that some of the peoples have sent out to the movement as a whole, and we have done it in solidarity as brothers and sisters. This poses a serious risk for the state at a time when it is bent on dividing and conquering a social movement in Oaxaca that is setting out on the road towards a true, deep, radical change in our society—a change born in the people’s roots and nourished by the ancestral wisdom almost blotted out during the last 500 years of such heavy imposition and injustice. Today Oaxaca says enough is enough! We’re not willing to live the way we have before. After 2006, nothing or nobody will ever be the same again.

We demand justice, freedom, and an end to the hostilities against the social movement as a whole and against our comrades Silvia Gabriela Hernández Salinas, Efraín López, Eduardo Zanabría Hernández, Rubén Valencia Núñez and David Venegas Reyes, and ask all of you comrades to help us in spreading the word about our situation. No matter how hard they try to silence us or stop us, we know what they’re trying to do and we’re not going to let them do it. We’ll never tire of denouncing their repression.

Important note: To help us in the collective dissemination of this mail, we ask that you write “Adhesión comunicado” on the subject line.

Felipe Calderón, Presidente
felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx

Lic. Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo, Secretario de Gobernación
jcmourino@segob.gob.mx

Lic. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, Procurador General de la República
ofproc@pgr.gob.mx, wmaster@pgr.gob.mx

Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, Des-Gobernador del Estado de Oaxaca,
gobernador@oaxaca.gob.mx

Evencio Nicolás Martínez Ramírez, Procurador del Estado de Oaxaca
buzonciudadano@pgj.net

United Nations High Commission for Human Rights
tb-petitions@ohchr.org

Representative in Mexico of the Office of the UN High Commission for Human Rights
oacnudh@hchr.org.mx

Jina Hilani, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Human Rights Defenders
manstett.hchr@unog.ch

————–

PETICIÓN DE SOLIDARIDAD Y APOYO A VOCAL Y AL MOVIMIENTO SOCIAL EN OAXACA

Quienes formamos parte del espacio Voces Oaxaqueñas Construyendo Autonomía y Libertad (VOCAL) queremos denunciar mediante esta carta el grave clima de hostigamiento, criminalización y persecución que el gobierno de Ulises Ruiz Ortiz y los medios de comunicación locales han desatado en los últimas semanas en contra de algunos integrantes de nuestro espacio de manera directa.

La represión, en particular, comenzó a agudizarse tras lo ocurrido el día 20 de junio del 2008 en Zaachila, municipio donde el pueblo organizado impidió la presencia de Ulises Ruiz Ortiz en un acto público convocado por el gobierno del municipio de Zaachila.

Culpan a personas de nuestro espacio como iniciadoras de la violencia, cuando dicha violencia fue provocada por el presidente municipal priista de este municipio Noe Perez, y su padre el señor Natalio Pérez, quienes con pistola en manos, balaceó al pueblo que de manera pacífica protestaba en legítima defensa por la imposición de la presencia de Ulises Ruiz Ortiz en sus tierras. La agresión de estas personas consta en la evidencia de fotografías y vídeos.

Sin embargo, los medios de comunicación locales en consonancia con las declaraciones de Ulises Ruiz y otros funcionarios del gobierno, han dispersado por varios días por televisión, prensa escrita y radio la información de que fueron algunos maestros del pueblo de Zaachila, el “alebrije” (David Venegas) y los integrantes de VOCAL que provocamos la violencia en Zaachila, amenazando a través de los mismos medios de comunicación que se aplicaría todo el peso de la ley en contra de quienes, según ellos provocaron la violencia, culpando como siempre a la organización del pueblo que se encuentra viva como movimiento. Ante dicha resistencia el gobierno responde con claros señalamientos para desvirtuar la organización del movimiento en Oaxaca, a través de sus sucias estrategias de siempre: busca lideres para poder cooptar, reprime, bloquea páginas de información alternativas, detenciones en aumento de compañeros grafiteros que les golpean y sueltan, así como señalamientos falsos e intimidación hacia todos los espacios en lucha del movimiento que no están dispuestos a negociar con la dignidad de la resistencia, la cual se visibiliza en la reorganización que existe como pueblos, desde las bases, por colonias, barrios, colectivos y espacios al retumbar las calles el pasado 14 de junio del 2008. A la par de estos hechos incrementa la presencia policiaca, y piden más fuerza federal.

Nuestro acoso como espacio han sido señalamientos de manera directa en noticias difundidas en el canal estatal de televisión: canal 9, fotografías de varios integrantes de VOCAL; Silvia Gabriela Hernández Salinas, Efraín López, Eduardo, Rubén Valencia y David Venegas Reyes, asegurando en estos mismos medios que existían ordenes de aprehensión liberadas en contra de todos estos compañer@s y que la detención se realizaría en cualquier momento.

Nos acusan de ser provocadores de la violencia en nuestro estado de Oaxaca, con la clara intención de justificar la represión, la cárcel e inclusive la desaparición en nuestra contra que hacen gobierno en complicidad con algunos medios de comunicación a su servicio.

Nuestro caso no es un ejemplo aislado, por el contrario, es un síntoma de la ola represiva contra el resto de compañeros y compañeras del movimiento social oaxaqueño que se ven hostigados por la presencia policíaca permanente.

La presencia policiaca en los domicilios particulares y en los lugares de reunión de varios de nosotros y nosotras es una constante. El riesgo de ser detenidos lo consideramos latente y muy probable. Esta situación nos lleva a hacer pública este clima de represión y hostigamiento. No vamos a permitir que continúen los acosos, pues demuestra el clima de represión en contra de quienes participamos en el movimiento social oaxaqueño por parte de instancias de los gobiernos estatal y federal. Los motivos verdaderos por los que en este momento la represión del estado está orientada hacia nosotros y nosotras que formamos parte de VOCAL, así como en otras ocasiones lo han orquestado con otros compañer@s del movimiento, es por la consecuencia, por nuestra participación clara, pública y pacifica del movimiento social en Oaxaca. Por no cansarnos de luchar con las demandas de nuestro movimiento de derrocar a Ulises Ruiz Ortiz: castigo a los culpables de los asesinatos, libertad a todos los presos y presas políticos y por una transformación profunda de Oaxaca.

Sabemos que no somos los únicos, ya que también están en lucha diferentes pueblos, colectivos, organizaciones, maestros de base y colonias que hacen posible fortalecer el movimiento social en Oaxaca. Nos acusan ahora porque hemos respondido a los llamados de solidaridad y apoyo que algunos pueblos han solicitado al movimiento en su conjunto y lo hemos hecho de manera solidaria y fraterna, lo que para el estado es un grave riesgo en momentos que pretende terminar por dividir y derrotar al movimiento social que en Oaxaca, está iniciando el camino para una transformación radical y verdadera de nuestra sociedad, profunda, que nace en las raíces de los pueblos y se alimenta de los saberes ancestrales que nos han truncado desde hace ya más de 500 años ante tanta imposición e injusticia. Hoy Oaxaca dice ¡Basta! y no estamos dispuestos a seguir viviendo como hasta ahora, hoy después de 2006 nada, ni nadie puede ser igual.

Demandamos pues justicia, libertad y el cese al hostigamiento al movimiento social en su conjunto así como a nuestros compañeros Silvia Gabriela Hernández Salinas, Efraín López, Eduardo Zanabría Hernández, Rubén Valencia Núñez y David Venegas Reyes, pidiendo a los ojos de nuestros compañeros y compañeros toda la solidaridad para poder difundir nuestra realidad. Por mucho que traten de callarnos o pararnos, todos y todas sabemos lo que el gobierno intenta y no lo vamos a permitir y no nos cansaremos de denunciar la represión.

Nota importante: Con el fin de facilitarnos la gestión colectiva del correo les rogamos escriban en el Asunto, “Adhesión comunicado”.

Felipe Calderón, Presidente
felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx

Lic. Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo, Secretario de Gobernación
jcmourino@segob.gob.mx

Lic. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, Procurador General de la República
ofproc@pgr.gob.mx, wmaster@pgr.gob.mx

Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, Des-Gobernador del Estado de Oaxaca,
gobernador@oaxaca.gob.mx

Evencio Nicolás Martínez Ramírez, Procurador del Estado de Oaxaca,
buzonciudadano@pgj.net

Alta Comisionada de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos
tb-petitions@ohchr.org

Representante en México de la Oficina del Alto Comisionado de las

Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos
oacnudh@hchr.org.mx

Jina Hilani, Representante Especial del Secretario General sobre la
cuestión de los defensores de los derechos humanos
manstett.hchr@unog.ch