Author: calamity

Barucha Calamity Peller is a writer and photographer, high school dropout, and rabel rouser. For years she has worked within and reported on Mexican social movements. Her photographs and analysis have been widely distributed through alternative media outlets such as Counter Punch and the Independent Media Center. Peller reported from Lebanon during the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon war just before entering Oaxaca. She is known for getting herself into very dangerous situations and then escaping with photographs that depict both old women and young anarcho-punks fighting for peace and justice in the streets. Peller asserts that Oaxaca could not have been reported from the safety of a hotel room, but only from the barricades themselves.

Categories
Repression

Four Catalans arrested in Oaxaca City are found in jail

Mexican activist also arrested say police threatened them

August 7th, 2007 – Barucha Calamity Peller writes: The four Catalans who were taken off the street in Oaxaca City at 9:30pm on Sunday, August 5th, the night of the state legislative elections, by police in 5 different red and white ford lobo trucks without license plates, are said to have been sent to immigration authorities. Their physical and legal status is unknown.

A Mexican citizen, Damian Reséndiz Saucedo who was arrested with them and who is a member of an activist radio collective in Mexico City, gave the flowing testimony of his arrest:

“We were violently forced into the back of the trucks, under threats they invited us to meet ‘the real Oaxaca’….they never asked us for identification, they put us face down, and during the transfer to the clandestine jail where the police took us with our heads covered, the police insulted them for being Spanish and me for being from Mexico City.”

Continue reading “Four Catalans arrested in Oaxaca City are found in jail”
Categories
Repression

PRI wins in Oaxacan elections as almost 80% abstain from voting

3 people taken off the streets on election night still not found, among them 2 Catalans and 1 Mexican

August 6th, 2007 – Barucha Calamity Peller writes: Last night at approximately 10 pm, while the votes were being counted that confirmed a PRI sweep of the state legislative elections, three people were taken off the streets of the Zocalo in Oaxaca City by police. Among them were two Catalans and one Mexican woman. Their status is still unknown over twelve hours later, and they have not been found in any jail. There is no other confirmed information surrounding their arrests.

The elections, in which almost 80% of the Oaxacan population abstained from voting, came as a disappointment for the APPO’s “punishment vote” campaign against the PRI.

Police presence was extremely heavy in the streets of Oaxaca City last night and today.

Continue reading “PRI wins in Oaxacan elections as almost 80% abstain from voting”
Categories
Repression

The New APPO, Elections, a Questionable Guerrilla Group and the Threat of Forgetfulness

Oaxaca is Not Over

August 4th, 2007 – Barucha Calamity Peller writes:

“Don’t let another six months go by before the world turns around and sees Oaxaca again.”

-APPO representative Eric.

Has the world forgotten about Oaxaca?

Political activity, from repression to organizing, is still just as present as when the Oaxaca uprising was visible in the streets, but with the appearance of normalcy in Oaxaca City it seems that many of us have begun the process of forgetting or assuming that the Oaxaca struggle is over.

Walking on the streets of Oaxaca it is indeed hard for the untrained eye to see the continuing struggle for autonomy.

The tourists have returned, the graffiti has been painted over, and the barricades are a burning memory. And perhaps it is a failure that on the left we need dramatic events and repression in order to recognize important political transformation, and in this sense we become part of the dangerous process of forgetting.

Continue reading “The New APPO, Elections, a Questionable Guerrilla Group and the Threat of Forgetfulness”
Categories
Media Patriarchy

Thousands of Women March on One Year Anniversary of Channel 9 Takeover

Remaining Movement Media Outlets Continue to be Sabotaged by the Government

Barucha Calamity Peller writes: Today, August 1st, 2007, thousands of women marched in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, Mexico, on the one year anniversary of the historic takeover of the Oaxacan television station, Canal 9, by APPO (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca). The spontaneous television occupation last year sparked a series of radio station takeovers in which the Oaxacan movement essentially seized and utilized the majority of mainstream media outlets in the capital.

The march today comes at a time in which the movement’s few remaining media outlets after the late October invasion of the Preventive Federal Police are under grave threat. Radio Planton, the movement’s largest radio run by the Section 22 teachers union and other movement participants, has regular signal interruptions believed to be caused by the state government. Oaxaca Libre, an independent media website, is regularly sabotaged.

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Categories
Repression

Successful Boycott of Government Guelaguetza Despite Repression

Ruiz’s protested government is forced to pay state workers to fill Guelaguetza auditorium; tens of thousands march in Oaxaca City despite recent repression

July 30th, 2007 – Barucha Calamity Peller writes: Today, on the 30th of July tens of thousands of people from the APPO (Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca) and the 22 section of the teacher’s union along with sympathizers participated in a protest against — and demand a popular boycott of — the official Guelaguetza festival. This festival has been the subject of conflict since the uprising in Oaxaca began last year. The Guelaguetza is a dance and cultural festival meant to reflect the traditions of the diverse indigenous population in the state of Oaxaca. However, the government of Ulises Ruiz, the governor ousted by popular demand but who refuses to step down, co-opted the festival as a tourist attraction heavily sponsored by multi-national corporations.

The protest, which began from the outskirts of the city, circled around Cerro de Fortin, where the government of Ulises Ruiz held the official Guelaguetza, although the state government had to pay state workers and others in order to fill the Guelaguetza stadium in face of the successful boycott.

Continue reading “Successful Boycott of Government Guelaguetza Despite Repression”