El Enemigo Común

The members of the Youth Encounter of the Oaxacan Social Movement have set out on the “Jaguar Path for the Regeneration of our Historic Memory and Territorial Defense”. At noon on May 5, the Caravan left the city of Oaxaca and will visit several different communities in the next few days to support, participate, and spread the word about the processes of resistance and struggles of the peoples of Oaxaca in defense of their ways of life.

The caravan was announced at a press conference covered by local and alternative news media outside the Section 22 teacher’s headquarters, where it was explained that the effort was agreed upon at the Youth Encounter of the Oaxacan Social Movement last January in the town of Zaachila, Oaxaca.

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2 MORE REPORTERS MURDERED BY THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT

Felicitas Martínez and Teresa Bautista, ages 22 and 20, were Indigenous Journalists assassinated on April 7th, 2008 in a shooting by government supported paramilitaries near San Juan Copala in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. According to survivors six men began firing at their car with AK-47 assault rifles. The police found twenty spent bullet cases on the The police found twenty spent bullet cases on the road.

Their murders are only the latest in the massive Government violence against journalist and everyday people in Mexico. According to Reporters Without Borders annual report Mexico is the most deadly country in the Hemisphere for Journalists. In 2007 two were killed and three vanished and in 2006 nine journalists were murdered and three were missing, making the country second only to Iraq for the number of journalists killed.

Download the fact sheet as a pdf | Baja la hoja del hecho en español como pdf

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Phil writes: April 21st, 2008, was the first day of the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit, in which the presidents of Mexico and the United States, and the prime minister of Canada met to discuss security and trade, as well as the neoliberal and militaristic integration of North America. In protest, the local community organizers of New Orleans held the People’s Summit, in which visiting activists met with local organizers to discuss the history of racism, oppression and capitalism in North America and how to resist those things now and into the future.

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April 18th, 2008 - Root Force writes: The Bulldozers have arrived, and clearing has begun in preparation for the construction of I-69, the NAFTA superhighway, in Southern Indiana. Under contracts totaling more than $25.3 million from the Indiana Department of Transportation, Gohmann Asphalt and Construction of Clarksville, Indiana, has demolished homes and trees along the first 1.77 miles of the proposed mega-highway, and will soon begin the actual road construction. This is the same Gohmann Asphalt and Construction that was fined $8.2 million this past December for defrauding the public with false asphalt density tests on road projects.

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On April 7th, 2008, 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.

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By Collective Reinventions

The following text is the result of a collaborative effort, and is the fruit of a considerable number of meetings and discussions. It reflects the give and take, even the hesitations, of an ongoing conversation. It should also be noted at the outset that this essay makes no pretense of being a definitive account of the Oaxaca rebellion, nor is it the product of a directly observed or lived experience of the events themselves. Like all significant historical events, there are many truths—instead of one Absolute Truth—to be discovered in the Oaxaca rebellion. In any case, this analysis was written at a literal distance from the unrest in Mexico in the period under discussion here. While the text is unashamedly partisan, in the sense of taking the side of the Oaxacan rebels, and specifically the most radical among them, it is not a work of mere advocacy or apologetics. Still less does it represent the kind of ventriloquism common to the left: it does not speak for Oaxaca, which can most certainly speak for itself. It seeks to afford some perspective on the rebellion, and to reveal some of the roots of a complex phenomenon, and nothing more.

It is written after the apogee of the Oaxaca rebellion, but with the certainty that this movement is not over, that in one form or another the struggle that began in 2006 will continue. Our analysis is presented in the hope that will shed some light on Oaxaca before the uprising is mythologized (by anti-authoritarians); distorted (by all the Leninist vanguards who, in their arrogance, are eager to impart their stern “lessons” to the “masses” in Oaxaca); or simply fades away, far from the glare of the proverbial media spotlight.

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Murdered Journalist Network Denounces Military Reward for Impunity

The international network demanding accountability for the murder of US journalist Brad Will released secret documents detailing proposed military support for Mexican security forces implicated in murder, torture and continuing arbitrary detentions.

“Finally we were able to obtain these documents, which even Members of Congress have yet to see. We hope that by releasing them to the public we will be able to better make our case for withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military subsidies to the Mexican military. The murderers of Brad and many others in Oaxaca and Atenco and Chiapas must be brought to justice if U.S. support for human rights is to mean anything.” said Harry Bubbins, of Friends of Brad Will. Over 70% of the proposed $1.5 billion would entail lethal aid analysts revealed.

PDF of leaked documents: high resolution (33 MB) or low resolution (3 MB)

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On March 24th at 7pm at the Liberty Hall in Portland and March 25th at 9pm at the Apocalypse On Broadway in Eugene, there will be screenings of the new film “Brad, One More Night at the Barricades” (50 min). Brazilian filmmaker and media activist Miguel will be on hand to discuss his documentary tribute to a fallen friend.

When Mexican paramilitary forces shot Brad Will in the chest, killing him, his camera fell from his hands. But it didn’t stop recording. It continued moving from hand to hand, telling Brad’s story, as well as the story of the movement of movements that he was a part of. From the squats of New York to the forests of Oregon, from the anti-globalization protests in Seattle, Prague, Quebec to the popular uprising in Oaxaca, Brad’s camera paints us a picture of what his life was about, and what so many of his friends continue to struggle for.

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