Galeria Arte de Oaxaca

November 19, 2006

To see more art work by Oaxacan artists go to

http://www.artedeoaxaca.com/index.html

and then to catalogo de obra (there are pictures of work by Rodolfo Morales, Enrique Flores, and others).

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Where the People Voted Against Fear by Eduardo Galeano

By Eduardo Galeano

A few days before the election of the President of the planet in North America, in South America elections and a plebiscite were held in a little-known, almost secret country called Uruguay. In these elections, for the first time in the country’s history, the left won. And in the plebiscite, for the first time in world history, the privatization of water was rejected by popular vote, asserting that water is the right of all people.

* * *

The movement headed by President-elect Tabare Vazquez ended the monopoly of the two traditional parties–the Blanco and the Colorado parties–which governed Uruguay since the creation of the universe.

And after each election you would hear this exclamation: ‘’I thought that we Blancos won but it turns out we Colorados did"–or the other way around. Out of opportunism, yes, but also because after so many years of ruling together, the two parties had fused into one, disguised as two.

Tired of being cheated, this time the people made use of that little-used instrument, common sense. The people asked, Why do they promise change yet ask us to chose between the same and the same? Why didn’t they make any of these changes in the eternity they have been in power?

Never had the abyss between the real country and electioneering rhetoric been so evident. In the real country, badly wounded, where the only growth is in the number of emigrants and beggars, the majority chose to cover their ears to block out the oratory of these Martians competing for the government of Jupiter with highfalutin words imported from the moon.

* * *

About thirty or so years ago, the Broad Front (Frente Amplio) sprouted on these southern plains. ‘’Brother, don’t leave,'’ the new movement implored. ‘’There is hope.'’ But crisis moved faster than hope, and the hemorrhaging of the country’s youth accelerated. The dream of a Switzerland of the Americas ended, and the nightmare of violence and poverty began, culminating in a military dictatorship that converted Uruguay into a vast torture chamber.

Afterward, when democracy was restored, the dominant politicians destroyed the little that remained of the system of production and converted Uruguay into a giant bank. And as is often the case when it is assaulted by bankers, the bank went bust and Uruguay found itself emptied of people and filled with debt.

In all these years of disaster after disaster, we lost a multitude. And as if in a bad joke, not content to just force its youth from the country, this sclerotic system also prohibits them from voting-one of a small number of countries that do so. It seems inexplicable, but there is an explanation: Who would these emigrants vote for? The owners of the country suspect the worst, and with good reason.

In the final act of his campaign, the vice presidential candidate for the Colorado Party announced that if the left won the elections, all Uruguayans would have to dress identically, like the Chinese under Mao.

He was one of the many involuntary publicity agents of the victorious left. Not even the most tireless electoral workers did as much for this victory as the tribunes of the homeland who alerted the population to the imminent danger if democracy were to fall to the tyrannical enemies of freedom and the terrorists, kidnappers, and assassins who oppose democracy. Their attacks were extremely efficient: The more they denounced the devils, the more people voted for hell.

Largely thanks to these heralds of the apocalypse, the left won by an absolute majority, without a runoff. The people voted against fear.

* * *

The plebiscite on water was also a victory against fear. Uruguayans were bombarded with extortion, threats, and lies: A vote against privatizing water will condemn you to a future of sewage-filled wells and putrid ponds.

As in the elections, in the plebiscite common sense triumphed. In their vote, the people asserted that water, a scarce and finite natural resource, must be a right of all people and not a privilege for those who can pay for it. The people also showed they know that sooner rather than later, in a thirsty world, the reserves of fresh water will be as, or more, coveted than oil reserves. Countries that are poor but rich in water must learn to defend themselves. More than five centuries have passed since Columbus. How long can we go on trading gold for glass beads?

Wouldn’t it be worthwhile for other countries to put the issue of water to a popular vote? In a democracy, a true democracy, who should decide? The World Bank, or the citizens of each country? Do democratic rights exist for real, or are they just the icing on a poisoned cake?

In 1992, Uruguay was the only country in the world to put the privatization of public companies to a popular vote: 72 percent opposed. Wouldn’t it be democratic to do the same in every country?

* * *

For centuries, Latin Americans have been trained in impotence. A pedagogy passed down from the colonial times, taught by violent soldiers, timorous teachers, and frail fatalists, has rooted in our souls the belief that reality is untouchable and that all we can do is swallow in silence the woes each day brings.

The Uruguay of other days was the exception. That Uruguay instituted free public education before England, women’s suffrage before France, the eight-hour workday before the United States, and divorce before Spain-seventy years before Spain, to be exact.

Now we are trying to revive this creative energy and would do well to recall that the Uruguay of that sunny period was the child of audacity, and not fear.

* * *

It will not be easy. Implacable reality will promptly remind us of the inevitable distance between the desired and the possible. The left is coming to power in a shattered country, which, in the distant past, was at the vanguard of universal progress but today is one of the furthest behind, in debt up to its ears and subjected to the international financial dictatorship, which doesn’t vote but simply vetoes.

Today, we have very little maneuvering room. But what is usually difficult, even impossible, can be imagined and even achieved if we join together with neighboring countries, just as we have joined together with our neighbors.

* * *

In the Broad Front’s very first demonstration, which flooded the streets with people, someone shouted, half-joyous, half-scared, ‘’Let’s dare to win.'’

Thirty or so years later, it came true.

The country is unrecognizable. Uruguayans, so unbelieving that even nihilism was beyond them, have started to believe, and with fervor. And today this melancholic and subdued people, who at first glance might be Argentineans on valium, are dancing on air.

The winners have a tremendous burden of responsibility. This rebirth of faith and revival of happiness must be watched over carefully. We should recall every day how right Carlos Quijano was when he said that sins against hope are the only sins beyond forgiveness and redemption.

– Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan writer and novelist, is the author of "The Open Veins of Latin America," "Memory of Fire," and "Soccer in Sun and Shadow." This article is published with permission of the IPS Columnist Service.

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Las venas abiertas de América Latina (The Open Veins of Latin America) by Eduardo Galeano

This is an excellent book!

for more information on Eduardo Galeano see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Galeano

Las venas abiertas de América Latina (The Open Veins of Latin America) is arguably Galeano’s best-known work. In this book, he analyzes the history of Latin America as a whole from the time period of the European discovery of the New World to contemporary Latin America arguing against what he views as European and later U.S. economic exploitation and political dominance over the region. It was the first of his many books to be translated by Cedric Belfrage into English. It is a classic among the left of Latin America.

Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire) is a three-volume narrative of the history of America, North and South. The characters are historical figures; generals, artists, revolutionaries, workers, conquerors and the conquered, who are portrayed in brief episodes which reflect the colonial history of the continent. It starts with pre-Columbian creation myths and ends in the 1980s. It highlights not only the colonial oppression that the continent underwent but particularly the long history of resistance, from individual acts of heroism to mass revolutionary movements.

Memoria del fuego was widely praised by reviewers. Galeano was compared to John Dos Passos and Gabriel García Márquez. Ronald Wright wrote in the Times Literary Supplement: "Great writers… dissolve old genres and found new ones. This trilogy by one of South America’s most daring and accomplished authors is impossible to classify."

In New York Times Book Review Jay Parini praised as perhaps his most daring work The Book of Embraces, a collection of short, often lyrical stories presenting Galeano’s views on emotion, art, politics, and values, as well as offering a scathing critique of modern capitalistic society and views on an ideal society and mindset. (The Book of Embraces was the last book Cedric Belfrage translated before he died in 1991.)

Galeano is also an avid football fan; Soccer in Sun and Shadow (1995) is a review of the history of the game. Galeano compares it with a theater performance and with war; he criticizes its unholy alliance with global corporations but attacks leftist intellectuals who reject the game and its attraction to the broad masses for ideological reasons.

Galeano is a regular contributor to The Progressive and the New Internationalist, and has also been published in the Monthly Review and The Nation.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Galeano

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Latin America is preparing to settle accounts with its white settler elite

by Richard Gott
November 19, 2006, The Guardian

The political movements and protests sweeping the continent - from Bolivia to Venezuela - are as much about race as class

The recent explosion of indigenous protest in Latin America, culminating in the election this year of Evo Morales, an Aymara indian, as president of Bolivia, has highlighted the precarious position of the white-settler elite that has dominated the continent for so many centuries. Although the term "white settler" is familiar in the history of most European colonies, and comes with a pejorative ring, the whites in Latin America (as in the US) are not usually described in this way, and never use the expression themselves. No Spanish or Portuguese word exists that can adequately translate the English term.

Latin America is traditionally seen as a continent set apart from colonial projects elsewhere, the outcome of its long experience of settlement since the 16th century. Yet it truly belongs in the history of the global expansion of white-settler populations from Europe in the more recent period. Today’s elites are largely the product of the immigrant European culture that has developed during the two centuries since independence.

The characteristics of the European empires’ white-settler states in the 19th and 20th centuries are well known. The settlers expropriated the land and evicted or exterminated the existing population; they exploited the surviving indigenous labour force on the land; they secured for themselves a European standard of living; and they treated the surviving indigenous peoples with extreme prejudice, drafting laws to ensure they remained largely without rights, as second- or third-class citizens.

Latin America shares these characteristics of "settler colonialism", an evocative term used in discussions about the British empire. Together with the Caribbean and the US, it has a further characteristic not shared by Europe’s colonies elsewhere: the legacy of a non-indigenous slave class. Although slavery had been abolished in much of the world by the 1830s, the practice continued in Latin America (and the US) for several decades. The white settlers were unique in oppressing two different groups, seizing the land of the indigenous peoples and appropriating the labour of their imported slaves.

A feature of all "settler colonialist" societies has been the ingrained racist fear and hatred of the settlers, who are permanently alarmed by the presence of an expropriated underclass. Yet the race hatred of Latin America’s settlers has only had a minor part in our customary understanding of the continent’s history and society. Even politicians and historians on the left have preferred to discuss class rather than race.

In Venezuela, elections in December will produce another win for Hugo Chávez, a man of black and Indian origin. Much of the virulent dislike shown towards him by the opposition has been clearly motivated by race hatred, and similar hatred was aroused the 1970s towards Salvador Allende in Chile and Juan Perón in Argentina. Allende’s unforgivable crime, in the eyes of the white-settler elite, was to mobilise the rotos, the "broken ones" - the patronising and derisory name given to the vast Chilean underclass. The indigenous origins of the rotos were obvious at Allende’s political demonstrations. Dressed in Indian clothes, their affinity with their indigenous neighbours would have been apparent. The same could be said of the cabezas negras - "black heads" - who came out to support Perón.

This unexplored parallel has become more apparent as indigenous organisations have come to the fore, arousing the whites’ ancient fears. A settler spokesman, Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian-now-Spanish novelist, has accused the indigenous movements of generating "social and political disorder", echoing the cry of 19th-century racist intellectuals such as Colonel Domingo Sarmiento of Argentina, who warned of a choice between "civilisation and barbarism".

Latin America’s settler elites after independence were obsessed with all things European. They travelled to Europe in search of political models, ignoring their own countries beyond the capital cities, and excluding the majority from their nation-building project. Along with their imported liberal ideology came the racialist ideas common among settlers elsewhere in Europe’s colonial world. This racist outlook led to the downgrading and non-recognition of the black population, and, in many countries, to the physical extermination of indigenous peoples. In their place came millions of fresh settlers from Europe.

Yet for a brief moment during the anti-colonial revolts of the 19th century, radical voices took up the Indian cause. A revolutionary junta in Buenos Aires in 1810 declared that Indians and Spaniards were equal. The Indian past was celebrated as the common heritage of all Americans, and children dressed as Indians sang at popular festivals. Guns cast in the city were christened in honour of Tupac Amaru and Mangoré, famous leaders of Indian resistance. In Cuba, early independence movements recalled the name of Hatuey, the 16th-century cacique, and devised a flag with an Indian woman entwined with a tobacco leaf. Independence supporters in Chile evoked the Araucanian rebels of earlier centuries and used Arauco symbols on their flags. Independence in Brazil in 1822 brought similar displays, with the white elite rejoicing in its Indian ancestry and suggesting that Tupi, spoken by many Indians, might replace Portuguese as the official language.

The radicals’ inclusive agenda sought to incorporate the Indian majority into settler society. Yet almost immediately this strain of progressive thought disappears from the record. Political leaders who sought to be friendly with the indigenous peoples were replaced by those anxious to participate in the global campaign to exterminate indigenous peoples. The British had already embarked on that task in Australia and South Africa, and the French took part after 1830 when they invaded Algeria.

Latin America soon joined in. The purposeful extermination of indigenous peoples in the 19th century may well have been on a larger scale than anything attempted by the Spanish and the Portuguese in the earlier colonial period. Millions of Indians died because of a lack of immunity to European diseases, yet the early colonists needed the Indians to grow food and to provide labourers. They did not have the same economic necessity to make the land free from Indians that would provoke the extermination campaigns on other continents in the same era. The true Latin American holocaust occurred in the 19th century.

The slaughter of Indians made more land available for settlement, and between 1870 and 1914 five million Europeans migrated to Brazil and Argentina. In many countries the immigration campaigns continued well into the 20th century, sustaining the hegemonic white-settler culture that has lasted to this day.

Yet change is at last on the agenda. Recent election results have been described, with some truth, as a move to the left, since several new governments have revived progressive themes from the 1960s. Yet from a longer perspective these developments look more like a repudiation of Latin America’s white-settler culture, and a revival of that radical tradition of inclusion attempted two centuries ago. The outline of a fresh struggle, with a final settling of accounts, can now be discerned.

* This article is based on the third annual SLAS lecture, given to the Society for Latin American Studies in October. Richard Gott is the author of Cuba: A New History (Yale University Press
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Women, Political Parties, Barricades and Autonomy in Oaxaca

Article reposted from counterpunch.org and Photos

Previous Reporting by Barucha Calamity Peller:
November 14th: Graffiti in Oaxaca | November 11th: Oaxaca At Any Cost (article and photos) | November 7th: Women of Oaxaca | November 6th: Photos from the Barricades | November 5th: Photos and Audio Report

Women, Political Parties, Barricades and Autonomy
Who Will Live On in the Oaxaca Uprising?

By BARUCHA CALAMITY PELLER

Oaxaca

Although Governor Ulises Ruiz still holds office, and federal police forces occupy the Zocalo of Oaxaca City, the people of Oaxaca have removed the government in practice. The Mexican federal government calls this practice "ungovernability", but this state of "ungovernability"- in which politicians are not recognized, streets are barricaded in rebellion, and mass media outlets are taken over- is the most natural answer to the repression that has threatened the survival of Oaxacans for decades. "Ungovernability", is not chaos nor is it a break-down of civilized social order, it is the sanest and healthiest solution for the people of Oaxaca, because as long as they are not governed they are not repressed. Being ungoverned by others means being ungoverned by and neo liberal misery, Oaxacans have began to create a space where they direct and govern their own lives. The government, while having the opportunity has failed to make any acceptable political concessions to the Oaxacan movement, and has therefore even further demonstrated the realization that is dawning on many parts of the Mexican landscape- that the ideas, desires, and actions of people will never be governable.

The question then is- can APPO (The Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca) continue to realize the same thing?

The Congress-Plans, Problems, and the Lack of A Process of Gender Analysis Integration

The APPO Congress consisted of "mesas", exploratory sessions to debate the form the APPO and its actions will take in the future, the question of international, national, and state context, and the crisis of institutions. The ten people in charge of facilitating the Congress were accused on the second day of having "double interests" (interests with a political party) and changing and omitting some proposals that came forth. This came forth in spite of the fact that decisions were made by over a thousand people representing different sections of the APPO, and for the most part decisions were made on a consensus basis.

Throughout the weekend congress and continuing today is the debate over the participation of political parties. The APPO does not consider itself a political party, however, there is much discussion as to what extent the APPO can have alliances with political parties. Although among many Mexicans there is culture of distrust of political parties, and there has certainly been an anti-government and anti-authoritarian felling in the Oaxacan movement, there has been a disturbing presence of the PRD party in the previous directive body of the APPO. The "leftist" PRD party’s presidential candidate, Lopez Obredor, lost the national election this summer to federal electoral fraud, sparking a social movement of millions of Mexicans in protest of the fraud and Calderon, the un-democractically elected president.

As Lopez Obredor said in a speech Wednesday, "What the directive companeros of the APPO ask of us-we are here to support them. They will decide what we can do to help the people of Oaxaca."

During the Congress speakers often noted that the APPO is an organization open to anyone, including political parties if they are in favor of APPO demands. The PRD has many stakes in the Oaxaca movement, because if Governor Ulises is ousted before December 1st he would lose immunity and there would be new elections according to the Oaxacan Constitution. The PRD would surely be elected, since they are the only party existing beside the ousted PRI is the PAN, the crafters of the entrance of the PFP (Federal Preventative Police). In the meantime, the PAN and the PRI both desire that Ulises remains in power until the 1st, because that would grant Ulises the power to appoint a new governor, who would come from his PRI party.

It was decided that the APPO directive base, or the "Consejo", will consist of about 220 members, who are representatives from certain regions or organizations, including students, a spot for "barricades and neighborhoods" and about forty spots allocated for the section 22 teachers union. This is a bright change from the "provisional", leadership, about forty people who have taken up leadership for months despite that their role would be only temporary. Out of this forty, thirty will remain in the Consejo.

During the Congress it was also decided that the APPO would carry through with marches and actions in the coming weeks. Some of these actions are aimed at taking over government offices and institutions throughout the state. Road blockades are planned, cultural events, as well as the re-taking of the federal police occupied Zocalo of Oaxaca City on November 2Oth, the anniversary of the Mexican revolution and the day of the nation-wide strike called by the Zapatistas. This is also the day that Obredor’s supporters will name him president.

Up for debate during the mesa on the crisis of institutions was whether to reform existing capitalist and government institutions or whether to create new and autonomous ones. A clear decision has not been reached in this respect. But a physical battle almost erupted after one speaker said,

"I consider it important that the APPO negotiates and occupies decision making spaces and those of power effectively in institutions; that the APPO negotiates with the federal government and takes spaces in the federal government and takes spaces in the state government, and is not against the search of deep transformation. It is necessary to analyze the form that the APPO takes in the local legislature, so that proposals can be solidified and it can participate in the next electoral process. But there was no consensus in formation of a political party. This in of itself could be the end of the social movement."

The APPO seeks to use the wide range of political strategies to their advantage, and the objective of the congress was to be inclusive of the politics of the rainbow of participants. But the congress did not succeed in reaching a consensus of a general political formation of the APPO, and in this lack of common agreement is the space in which political parties, mostly the PRD, seek to inject their interests.

However, there were 473 representatives from indigenous communities at the Congress, and Oaxaca is the state with the largest indigenous population in the country. The indigenous communities in Oaxaca have traditionally organized within their communities using "usos y costumbres" and lean towards politics of autonomy, Zapatismo, and Magonismo. It is highly unlikely that the indigenous bases within the APPO will take part in reforming government institutions or seek to participate or gain power in the electoral process. The influence of ideas rooted in these communities, ideas of community run direct democracy, have had a big impact in the movement in previous months and will continue to be a fundamental part of the APPO, no matter what direction some of the APPO leadership seek to take.

"We have an urgency that women enter into descions," says Jessica Sanches Maya, a member of the Liga "We demand at least 33% participation".

When the time came to vote for the percentage of women who would regularly participate as members of the Consejo, it was clear that the APPO had failed to integrate a gender analysis into their previous political debates at the mesas. The mesa named "Analysis of the International, National, and State Context" accomplished a coherent current class analysis of Mexico, but never discussed patriarchy and Mexico’s long history of oppression of women on a social, economic, and political scale. It was assumed in the APPO congress that because women were present and because women’s voices haven´t been directly repressed within the movement, patriarchy was not a factor that could threaten political decisions in the future or that was necessary to analyze. The congress also consisted mostly of male representatives.

Because of this, patriarchy and a historically based gender analysis was not integrated into the concept of representation. The vote between whether women should have at least a 33% representation or a 50% representation was debated for over an hour. Men who spoke on the side of a 33% representation argued that it would not be possible to have half of the representatives for each organization, region, or sector be women, because many had very little or no women participants.

However, the women in the Oaxacan resistance have had a strong presence, and certainly have taken the most combative and action orientated roles. The lack of women participating to the fullest capacity has had bad implications for the movement. Women had a central role in taking over several media outlets, including Channel 9 television. The taking of channel 9 television was extremely prominent; reflected by more people watching the channel after the takeover by APPO women than in the history of the channel. At Channel 9 and the radios that the women took over, they taught themselves and then others how to use the equipment, and televised or transmitted reports on the Zapatistas and the spring siege of Atenco, among other social struggles happening around the country. In this way they provided a window of information in which Oaxacans could peer out into the context of their struggle. The liberated media outlets were also crucial in coordination and communication between neighborhoods and barricades before and during the PFP invasion.

APPO and the Barricades-Leaders, Political Parties, and Ungovernable Will in the Street

There are people in Oaxaca who will tell you that they are with the resistance to the government, but that they are not a part of the APPO. Before the entrance of the federal police, the three thousand barricades that were constructed around the city were constructed on a neighborhood basis- it was the neighbors that decided to take action and organize locally in rebellion. Many of these participants were in fact members and supporters of APPO, but the APPO simply acted as a name and an organizational umbrella infrastructure in which people took part by participating in the assemblies to the extent that they wanted to. Oaxacans took over the streets with barricades and organized within their neighborhoods, but these actions did not necessarily result from an APPO leadership consensus, and the barricades became phenomena out of the hands of the APPO. In fact, the barricades have always been the most radical elements of the movement, not only in their spontaneous and rebellious form, but in the fact that they have existed outside of the directive of the APPO. All of the barricades except the Cinco Senores university barricade were removed when the Federal Preventive Police entered into Oaxaca City on October 28th. The barricades have not been reconstructed despite calls to action to do so. This may be because the dead, missing, and arrested have largely resulted from repression at the barricades. And after nearly 6 months of the Oaxacan struggle, people may be tired to continue maintaining barricades. This is compounded with comments by APPO leaders such as Flavio Sosa, who say the barricades have no function.

Flavio Sosa, one the most well known faces in the APPO, a man with many federal warrants on his name for his participation in the movement and a figure often named as an APPO "leader", is indeed able to make statements and present himself as a person favorable to the people of Oaxaca. Sosa will certainly have a strong voice in APPO in the times to come. However, Sosa was extremely active in the eighties and nineties within the PRD, giving those in Oaxaca that do not trust the sincerity of the PRD’s leftist profile a sense of disillusionment with the internal desires of some the APPO leadership.

This was further compounded on November 2nd, when the Federal Preventive Forces arrived at Cinco Senores, the series of barricades surrounding the University and its APPO run radio, where barricadistas (people who maintain and defend the barricades in their communities) were readying themselves for the battle to come, gathering gas masks, slings, and bazookas.

According to people at the Soriana barricade, which runs across the streets on one side of the university entrance, and is a key part of element of the entire university barricade, Sosa arrived to the barricade and ordered that they be taken down.

"I was there, I heard him, and that’s exactly what he said, ´the barricades should be taken down´. And of course with the PFP coming towards us no one took down the barricades, and we still haven’t." said Maria Guerrero, a barricadista who has spent weeks coordinating at the barricade.

The seven hour battle between the PFP and the barricadistas that proceeded the conversation resulted in an amazing defeat of the police and the successful defense of the barricades, the occupied university, and most importantly, the protester radio-which to this day is the last transmitting APPO radio. The barricade is now referred to as the Barricade Of Victory. During the battle, in which protesters caused the retreat of federal preventive police, armed with tear gas launching helicopters and water tanks, Flavio Sosa stayed in the safe zone inside the university, and at one point demanded to be able to say a few things on the radio, but was denied by the people inside.

Sosa only came out into the streets when the police retreated and the barricadistas and the local people were celebrating victory, to stand with them and claim his part of the victory in front of the neighbors that had participated in the battle.

"I don’t have proof, but I believe there have been generalized attempts of the APPO leadership to debilitate the movement, and particularly the barricades, which have always have remained out of their control. And that’s why you see that the APPO had decided days before November 2nd that there would not be confrontations with the PFP" says Guerrero.

Some of anti-authoritarian sectors of the APPO movement seem to be musing over the possible motives of the APPO leadership and their connections to the PRD party.

There are two theories to why the PRD elements in the APPO had a stake in the removal of the barricades by the Federal Preventive Police, and have urged that here be little confrontation with police. The first one is that the "directors" of the APPO´s previous negotiations with the federal government, which, although failed in many respects, included opening up avenues and streets for movement in Oaxaca City. The success of these negotiations might have created a political opening for the PRD in the sense they had the opportunity to will the federal government, particularly the Secretary of Government, Carlos Abazco Carranza, to criticize Ulises Ruiz and assist in his ousting.

The other theory is that the PAN wants the movement to end quickly with the approaching d-day of December 1rst, where the PAN presidential candidate Felipe Calderon is set to take power amongst tumultuous social upheaval over the summer elections that were frauded in Calderon’s favor. The winding down of the movement in Oaxaca will provide a somewhat smoother landing surface for Calderon to take power. Because the APPO leaders, including spokesperson Flavio Sosa, have serious federal warrants on their names, it is believed that perhaps Carranza threatened to make good on the warrants if the movement continued, or to not follow through with the apprehensions if the movement backed down in the days leading up to the 1rst . The leaders asked for asylum in the Catholic Church last week because of their warrants but were denied. Yet still, Sosa and other APPO leaders can be seen walking the streets relatively freely, despite the fact that they are wanted by the federal government.

The university barricades, Cinco Senores, continues to hold despite lack of direct backing from APPO. Last week, barricadistas called in to the university radio behind the barricades saying, "We don’t care what the APPO says, we are not taking down our barricades."

Paramilitary threats continue, as well as arbitrary detentions of the barricadistas. As striking teachers returned to work in many parts of the state on Monday, only some of the students entered the university through the barricades to meet with teachers, yet there were no classes. The press took advantage of this to paint an image that the students were defiantly returning to classes. The mainstream press is also reporting that the students are not returning to classes at the university "because the conditions are not right", referring to the protesters at the barricades and citing a safety issue. However, people occupying the university and the barricades to support the radio say that the safety threat lies in the PRIistas who shoot into the university at night and attack the radio on an almost daily basis. To strengthen ties between the barricade and the surrounding community, a cultural event took place Wednesday night at the Cinco Senores University Barricades where films of the Oaxacan uprising were projected onto buses that block the intersection for the neighbors and barricade defenders.

It is ultimately up to the people of Oaxaca to decide if they will replace one political party with another or if they will estrange themselves from all parties, to what extent they will be governed or how they will govern themselves, and what tactics they will take to counter the repression that continues to keep pace with the movement, as death seeks to outrun freedom.

Last minute breaking news:

Political assassinations have become more frequent in Oaxaca in recent days. A 22 year old Oaxacan, Daniel, who was studying in Chiapas, came to Oaxaca over the weekend with the caravan of Zapatistas from Las Abejas. He was kidnapped on Sunday and his body was found on Monday. Later, when his body was being transported in a vehicle with his family, police forces in ski masks stopped the car and took the body, saying that an autopsy must be done. His body has not appeared in any morgue and the whereabouts of his body is unknown This morning, a lawyer was shot three times two blocks away from Santo Domingo plaza, occupied by the APPO since the eviction of the Zocalo by federal preventive police. It is believed that assassinations are being carried out one by one to create an atmosphere of fear and unknowing to repress the Oaxacan social movement.

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First Iraq, Then the World! Halliburton Wrecks Mexico

by Counterpunch at http://counterpunch.org/ross11182006.html 
Saturday Nov 18th, 2006 10:26 AM
The billboard posted along the scrubby highway running east in sultry, southern Tabasco state displays lush jungle, a sun-dappled iguana, and a flock of dazzling macaws. "We’re working for a better environment" the giant road sign radiates.

Solidarity Actions with Oaxaca Planned in Mexico and Around the World on November 20, 2006

Sun Nov 19 2006 12PM SANTA CRUZ, 4PM SAN FRANCISCO
Following the call put out by the Zapatistas for a nationwide general strike in Mexico on November 20th, actions have been planned internationally. In San Francisco activists are calling for a convergence and critical mass at 4pm. Download Flier. In Santa Cruz there will be a rally at noon.

The November 20th actions fall on the same day where Obrador, the candidate who lost the summer elections to fraud, is to be inaugurated by his supporters. There have been recent criticisms that Obrador’s party is attempting to co-opt the popular movement in Oaxaca, read Women, Political Parties, Barricades and Autonomy by Barucha Calamity Peller. Meanwhile the Oaxacan Attorney General has blamed APPO for the death of Indymedia journalist and anarchist Brad Will. Report, Audio and Photos by danielsan.

Another Critique of APPO: This is What Recuperation Looks Like: the Rebellion in Oaxaca and the APPO

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Report: FBI Heads to Oaxaca to ‘Invesitgate’ Brad Will’s Murder

November 19, 2006 01:32AM EST

Report: FBI Heads to Oaxaca to ‘Invesitgate’ Brad Will’s Murder

11/19 | Following death of NYC journalist, Disinformation Swirls: Oaxacan State Government Pushes Back in Information War.

By Chris Anderson

Mostly just a collection of links to help people see the narrative as it currently stands. || Major Roundup From Indybay: "State Blames APPO for Brad Will’s Death"

WW4 Report [en]: Oaxaca prosecutor: APPO killed Brad Will. Currently the best short roundup of what PRI appointed Prosecutor General Lizbeth Caña Cadeza said at her press conference. Cadeza claims that there is "growing evidence that Indymedia cameraman Bradley Will was killed at point-blank range by supporters of the Popular People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) as a "deceitful confabulation" to "internationalize the conflict" in the state." Links to …

E-Oaxaca.net [es]: La muerte de Bradley Will fue “confabulación” de la APPO, dictamina PGJE. PPO leader Flavio Sosa Villavicencio said his organization will "name a commission" to launch its own investigation into the murder.

Lo Ultimo [es]: FBI investigará asesinato de Bradley Will.The FBI is sending its own team to Oaxaca to investigate the slaying. Confirmed today by the …

Houston Chronicle [en]: U.S. wants probe of journalist’s killing in Mexico. Consistantly the best mainstream US coverage of this story provided by the Chron. "In the wake of prosecutors’ allegations that leftist activists killed American journalist Brad Will in southern Oaxaca state last month, U.S. officials are pushing for a full investigation. "We are awaiting results of the investigation and we have made it known that we expect the investigation to be rigorous," a U.S. official with knowledge of the case said Friday, on the condition of anonymity." Notice how the FBI didn’t seem to care– at least on record– until Cadeza said it was APPO who did it.

Mark in Mexico [en]: Oaxaca, Mexico: Bradley Will, American reporter, shot from above at close range then executed at point blank range 15 minutes later. Quite possibly a CIA asset in Oaxaca, MiM is the best place to go for the Ruiz government’s line about what occured in Oaxaca.

Carlos Vigueras [es]: Brad Will : Drowning vineat the Devil wings. Meanwhile, on the other side, Vigueras quotes the testimony from Dr. Guillermo Ruiz Avelino who he claims (as best I can tell not speaking Spanish) was that Will "died in his arms" and that "he had one gunshot wound, not two," at the time he saw him.

Indybay has a major report [en]. "I have heard some important and strange facts about the ‘investigation’ into Brad’s death: The US Consul was not present at the autopsy, and human rights observers were not permitted to film the autopsy. Brad himself had filmed the autopsies of two murdered APPO sympathizers in the week before his own death. The two bullets extracted from his body (initially reported to be AR-15 bullets) were turned over to the state. The autopsy doctor said that the first shot killed Brad, that he was shot from the front in the center of his chest and that the bullet severed his aorta and lodged in his spine. The government hired a specialist who followed up the initial autopsy by refuting its claims. Bradley’s body had already been cremated when this second expert opinion surfaced, claiming that the second shot came fifteen minutes later, delivered by the men who tried to bring him to a hospital or clinic before he died … oday’s daily paper ‘Noticias’ has an article about the contradictions between the autopsy report and the PGJE’s specialists, highlighting the fact the the second bullet wound can be seen in several photos published in the Excelsior magazine before Brad was moved from the scene."

Finally, on 11/02, Josh Breitbart and Mike Burke posted the best roundup of how Indymedia understood the story at the time (early Nov.).

Obviously, a disinformation war is in full effect. Sadly, its hard to believe that anyone– the FBI, the federal Mexican Government, the state government of Oaxaca– can be trusted to honestly get to the bottom of what really happened .

As always, translation of the Spanish articles linked here much appreciated.
from indymedia.org

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Street Confrontations at Melbourne G20 Protest

Melbourne: Anti-globalisation - 19 Nov 2006

Street Confrontations at Melbourne G20 Protest

The G20 is meeting in Melbourne, Australia 17-18 November, and has met with creative protests by local activists. G20 is a meeting of Finance Ministers of 20 important developed and developing nations, Reserve Bank Governors, the IMF and World Bank held every year. The G20 includes the Group of Seven industrial countries - the US, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, Britain and Canada - plus Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the European Union.

Police locked down parts of Melbourne city for the G20 Finance Ministers meeting at the Hyatt Hotel in the expectation of protests.

On Friday as delegates were arriving in Melbourne, businesses which profit from war or environmental destruction were targeted for disruption. On Saturday it was the G20 meeting resulting in street confrontation between protestors and police, including the damage of a police riot squad truck. Late Saturday night saw a police payback operation when about 100 police violently attacked festive G20 protestors.

Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Videos: Engagemedia.org

Melbourne Indymedia | StopG20 |

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salmon in the cheakamus river


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from http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=277777574&size=l  (Robin Thom)

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