Friends of Brad Will

FACTS ABOUT THE SITUATION IN OAXACA

October 29, 2006, 12 a.m.

For further information, contact:
Beka Economopoulos, (917) 202-5479
Brandon Jourdan, (646) 342-8169
Eric Laursen, (917) 806-6452

• Oaxaca is a major international tourist destination, with its vibrant folklore, architecture, and scenery. It is also the second poorest state in Mexico – 75% of its 3.4 million residents live in extreme poverty.
• Poverty in Oaxaca is the direct result of neoliberal economic policies that Mexico’s government has followed over the past two decades. These have included slashing subsidies on necessities like gasoline, electricity, bus fares, tortillas, and milk. The government also closed its CONASUPO stores, which bought corn at subsidized prices from farmers to help them stay on the land and sold tortillas, milk, and food to the urban poor. Meanwhile, the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement forced Mexico to open its agricultural market to heavily subsidized U.S. agribusiness. The result: Many thousands of rural Oaxacans, unable to make a living on the land, today support their families by working in the U.S. and sending remittances back home.
• Oaxaca also has one of the most repressive and corrupt regimes in Mexico, dominated by the PRI, formerly the country’s ruling party. Although the PRI was ousted from the presidency six years ago by Vicente Fox’s PAN, the PRI continued to control the state under Governor Ulises Ruiz. The Ruiz regime followed the same neoliberal economic policies that Fox espouses, practiced corruption, intimidation, and censorship, enforcing its will through gangs of thuggish paramilitaries.
• In May, Oaxaca’s 70,000 teachers went on strike for higher salaries and to end censorhsip, arbitrary jailings, and other human rights violations. Over 120,000 Oaxaca residents joined them in the largest rally in the state’s history. Ruiz promised business owners he would put down the protest with a heavy hand. At four in the morning on June 14, he launched an attack on the people occupying the city square with helicopters, clouds of tear gas, and a charge to hundreds of police. Scores were beaten and one pregnant woman miscarried. But the teachers retook the square, and the following morning 300,000 people marched through Oaxaca demanding Ruiz’s resignation. A major popular uprising was in motion.
• Since then, the governor has left and the state legislature is no longer functioning. The People’s Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) has come together to create a new, autonomous, self-governing structure for the state. APPO has earned the support and respect of the people and has organized a strong resistance to the government’s attempts to intimidate it.
• APPO and the teachers have received the support of the 16 indigenous peoples in the state. This past summer, several thousand teachers and APPO members marched on Mexico City, where they have been camped out in front of the Senate.
• The government, nevertheless, has refused to negotiate directly with APPO or the people on the barricades defending the city. Instead, it has massed troops outside the city and encouraged the Ruiz-affiliated paramilitaries inside. The paramilitaries continue to terrorize and brutalize the people whenever possible.
• On October 26, the teachers union, Section 22, SNTE-CNTE, voted to go back to work. However, they made this conditional on receiving guarantees of safety for the strikers against threats by Ruiz and his thugs. Many strikers chose not to return to work and have remained on the barricades.
• On October 27, a group of paramilitaries attacked Barricade Three in Santa Lucia del Camino. Brad Will, an American journalist/cameraman, was shot and killed. Photographer Osvaldo Ramírez, of the daily paper Milenio, was also shot in the leg. At least nine people have been killed by paramilitaries and troops in Oaxaca since the governor was forced out. There have been no deaths on the other side.
• On October 28, federal riot police and soldiers toting shields and automatic weapons massed around the city. But APPO leader Flavio Sosa, late Saturday night, indicated that his group would continue to maintain its barricades, although they would not fight back if the federal forces attempted to dismantle them.