from Upside Down World
(we learned about these notes/site thanks to http://oaxacadiario.blogsome.com)
* Taking Notes in Oaxaca, Mexico
* Oaxaca, Mexico: Free Speech in the "Dirty War" [jump]
[both pieces by Kelly Komenda & Sara Yassky]
by Kelly Komenda & Sara Yassky
Monday, 11 September 2006
-Angela Davis, from Abolition Democracy
While the people of Oaxaca have long been survivors of oppression, the current movement began on May 22nd with the peaceful occupation of the main plaza in the city of Oaxaca de Juárez by the state-wide teachers’ union, SNTE (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Educativo). SNTE boasts over 70,000 members, making it the biggest union in the nation and one of the biggest unions in Latin America. The teachers initially refused to leave the plaza as a response to the state government’s refusal to consider negotiation with the teachers, whose demands from the government included free breakfast for students, school uniforms, shoes, books, writing utensils, minimally adequate school buildings, and a salary raise that would adjust to cost of living increases. But what began as an annual strike against the government’s neglect of the public school system transformed itself radically and suddenly into a popular movement of the masses after the government responded with brutal repression in the early morning hours of June 14th.
As the protesting teachers slept, Oaxacan Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz ordered 3,000 armed state police to attack the occupied plaza. The police attack left unarmed, fleeing teachers and their family members beaten, tortured, raped and some even dead. The brutality of the June 14th attacks was felt throughout Oaxaca. Hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals throughout the state immediately united in solidarity with the teachers to declare: “Enough is enough,” a familiar rallying cry to the oppressed people of Mexico. One teacher commented: “We realized that even 70,000 teachers were not enough of a threat [to the powers that be], and that we had to unify forces…because we are not a few.” The Popular Assembly of the Oaxacan People (APPO in its Spanish initials) was formed to unify the masses and to declare the people’s demand for the removal of the governor – a man who embodies the long history of domination suffered by the people.(1)
June 14th symbolized a breaking point for Oaxaqueños. As one protestor explained, “There are only two ideologies: that which dominates the people and that which liberates them.” In order to exhibit their complete rejection of the government’s chosen ideology of domination, the people have taken power – forcefully, yet peacefully. What began as an occupation of the main plaza has now turned into an occupation of the entire city of Oaxaca de Juárez and local municipalities throughout the state.
In their path to liberation, mobilizations have wreaked havoc on the economy. The people have intentionally created what they call an atmosphere of “ungovernability” to clarify that their demand for the exit of the governor is nonnegotiable. Citizens have successfully blockaded banks, car dealerships, and multinational fast-food chains; highways have been blockaded and shutdown at times. The state government has visibly ceased to exist as the “whereabouts” of elected officials are “unknown,” and barricades and encampments blockade access to state buildings. The teachers of the SNTE have refused to return to work until the governor has been removed from office.
In an incredible front of solidarity that demonstrates the pervasiveness and strength of their movement, transportation workers, university employees, local businesses and markets have all gone on strike for various periods of time in support of the demands of the popular movement. The public health workers have also declared an indefinite strike (only attending to emergencies) until the governor is removed from office. “Mega-marches” have put more people in the city streets than populate the city itself. Furthermore, the citizens have taken over both government and corporate media outlets in an effort to disseminate information regarding the latest news, problems, mobilizations, and to issue warnings in what can be an unpredictable atmosphere. Together, the people’s organization has paralyzed the government’s power hold on Oaxacan society.
However, it is not easy creating and/or sustaining a peaceful, unarmed movement. As one teacher remarked, “We are here for convictions, not for convenience.” Surely, there is nothing convenient about occupying a capital city. Thousands of people and their families have migrated to the city, turning the streets into communal homes in which cardboard serves as mattresses and tarps act as roofs. As a community, they are self-governing, providing necessary services to each other and themselves within the occupied city. Women and children empty the city’s trashcans to maintain the cleanliness of their home. All food is donated by locals (a.k.a. “the poor who are taking from their own mouths,” as anyone will explain) to sustain the now income-less city occupiers. Women cook at all hours, providing meals that are offered at encampments throughout the city.
“But the nights are the worst,” confides a teary-eyed woman organizer. People barely sleep with the lingering threat of paramilitaries and government raids every night - the preferred time of the armed aggressors to carry out assasinations, disapperances and terror attacks on the people’s peaceful encampments. So when night falls, after a warming cup of hot chocolate or arroz con leche (rice pudding), men depart to guard various points in the city. Armed only with sticks, they weather the tense nights, burning small fires on streetcorners to deter armed intruders. Women move their washing machines down steep hills and into the middle of normally busy intersections, filling the machines with rocks to serve as blockades to paramilitaries. The people attribute their growing abilities to confront the repressive tactics by the state to their “loss of fear.” “One thing you can learn from us,” explains one teacher, “is the bravery that the people have to confront their oppressors.” The organized people believe they will not be defeated and they refuse to succumb to government intimidation.
For over three months, the people’s survival, their safety, and their stamina have been completely and literally dependent on their ability to function as a community. Individuality has been put aside to provide the necessary space for plurality and diversity within the movement. Each person, each organization, each encampment fulfills necessary roles in the collective struggle to “better the lives of all.” In a situation where fragmentation within the popular movement itself could lead to the re-conquering of the people, Oaxaqueños continue to successfully hold the power they have reclaimed due to the development of clearly stated goals. The removal of the governor is the primary prerequisite to realizing their vision of creating a more just society.
The Oaxaqueños have not only mobilized incredible numbers of people, but they have also done something significantly different and much more powerful: they have organized. Here in Oaxaca, there is no “post-mobilization period;” the people do not return to their daily lives while waiting for “the next call to action.” The Oaxaqueños’ “routine” is their struggle. Through their remarkable sustained organization, the people of Oaxaca are creating spaces for constant resistance, acknowledging that “the war will not be won in a single battle.”
Subsequently, Oaxaqueños are already preparing for future battles. To the people, Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz represents one man in a world full of dominators, and his exit symbolizes a victory that will create new terrain from which to struggle. Envisioning the necessary conditions for the construction of a more just society, the people have already held a “National Forum: Constructing Democracy and Governability in Oaxaca” to discuss the creation of a new state constitution based on politics of inclusion, and respect for diversity. (2) Through vehicles like APPO (Popular Assembly of the Oaxacan People), the people are establishing spaces to participate in the creation of new democratic processes. “We want a government that represents the interests of the people,” asserts one Oaxaqueño. And as citizens of a federal state, the inhabitants of Oaxaca realize that their local victories are only the beginnings of challenging a much bigger system.
So the struggle continues. Since the repressive attacks on June 14th, the Oaxacan people have been manifesting a movement which “began with an analysis of reality,” as one teacher shared. Oaxaqueños have taken their realities of violence, exploitation, and oppression and transformed them into a catalyst for resistance to and the transformation of their reality. It is now essential for us, as world citizens who are subject to similar realities, to take notes about the incredible lessons that these educators and citizens are offering to us. Oaxaqueños understand community, plurality, organization, and solidarity as inextricably linked and necessary tools that will facilitate the creation of new battle grounds for resistance against repression. The people of Oaxaca are not creating a popular uprising which will come and go with the ousting of one political leader; they have realized that the organization of their masses has the ability to sustain itself through an ongoing, difficult and tiring battle against systematic domination. Through the selflessness that the Oaxaqueños exhibit in their struggle to achieve a common political goal, they are doing their part to create circumstances of liberation and offer us new models of resistance. Just imagine the possibilities if the rest of us were wide awake.
kelly komenda & sara yassky are two activists from the united states who have been self-educating about organizing within people's liberation movements in latin america. they are currently in mexico. contact info: kellyLkomenda@gmail.com , sarakamara@gmail.com
Notes:
(1) Before Ulises Ruiz Ortiz had been effectively removed from his position as governor by the popular uprising of the people, he had only served 18 months in office. Taking the governor’s seat after what the people claim was a fraudulent election, Ruiz Ortiz’s record during his short time in office boasts a reported 45 political prisoners, 9 politically related deaths/assassinations, and 30 disappeared people. Ruiz Ortiz also chose to spend $80 million dollars to remodel the city’s main plaza, while at the sem time declaring that there were no funds available to negotiate with the teachers’ demands. Needless to say, his excessive use of force, aggressive media control, and poor money management skills have not helped his popularity. See Narco News
by Kelly Komenda and Sara Yassky
Tuesday, 22 August 2006
Since May 22, Oaxacan teachers have been occupying the main plaza in the city of Oaxaca. In the beginning of the occupation, the teachers’ demands from the government were simple: fair wages to adjust for their cost of living and the guarantee of a better educational environment for their students, which to the teachers meant funding for books, supplies, uniforms and food.
The state government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz refused to negotiate with the teachers, so the teachers therefore refused to leave the plaza. But around 4 a.m. on June 14, Ruiz Ortiz sent approximately 1,000 state police officers to attack the sleeping teachers.
The police tactics included beating, torturing, raping, disappearing, and even killing some of the fleeing protestors. The teachers’ movement responded by transforming itself into a state-wide people’s resistance against government repression, while people throughout the country have expressed their solidarity with the Oaxacan people.
"We’ve learned and we’re defending ourselves. We realized that…we need to raise our voices."
On Aug. 1, over 3,000 women fortified their voices with the ringing of their pots and pans as they marched the city streets of Oaxaca, demanding to be heard.
"We decided to march to show as women, we have power too, and we can do something with it," one marcher explained. "We decided to do what's been done in Chile and Argentina and to take the streets with our pots and pans."
After first stopping at a downtown hotel where Governor Ruiz Ortiz had supposedly been holding undercover meetings due to the people's insistence on his exit, the women spontaneously decided to march to the state-run television and radio station to demand an hour of airtime in order to "tell the truth" about the circumstances of the state repression. Not surprisingly, the station employees embodied the silencing forces that the women were marching against, and the women's demands were denied. From outside the station's security gates, husbands, brothers, sons, and compañeros tried to "reason" with the angry and fed-up women, asking them to "regroup" and "calmly" think through their next course of action. But the women had already decided that they had come to the station to be heard, so with their pots and pans as their weapons, they successfully took over Channel 9 and what is now known as "Radio Cacerola" ( cacerola meaning pan).
For the next 20 days, Channel 9 and Radio Cacerola served as critical mediums of communication for the people's movement in Oaxaca. As promised, the women used the media outlets to tell the truth. Radio Cacerola was an important tool for discussion and a vital source of information regarding problems, mobilizations, warnings, and the latest news in an unpredictable city. Channel 9 was used to broadcast images of the June 14 raid on the plaza, including documentaries of "social movements and the repression that the people have suffered on behalf of different governments throughout the years," as well as other informative programming pertaining to health, farm workers movements, water issues, and genetic engineering (Noticias, Aug. 20). An hour each day was dedicated to airing citizen complaints. The women were also offering workshops, lead by Oaxacan youth, to help both the women and the people in the community learn the technical skills necessary to run the station.
The Aug. 20 edition of Noticias, an Oaxacan daily newspaper, reported that because the start of school has been delayed indefinitely due to the teachers' strike, "teachers were analyzing the possibility of developing an alternative education project" using Channel 9. The takeover of the government TV and radio station had not only developed immediate functional uses for the community, but also served as a powerful model of empowerment and reclamation asserted by the women.
The women-run stations, with women behind the microphones and in front of the cameras, signify a resistance to the traditional roles that these women have been expected to fulfill. One woman, who was a part of the takeover, explained that they are "creating a supportive space in which women can realize their capabilities."
In an atmosphere where the government had already attacked two radio stations that were principal forms of communication for the anti-repression movement (Radio Plantón on June 14 and the university radio on July 22), the women refused to be silenced and presented themselves as a force to be reckoned with, as they reclaimed the freedom of speech which the government views as a threat. As one woman stated, "Our biggest crime is to talk, to take to the streets."
In the pre-dawn hours of Aug. 21t, the women of Channel 9 and Radio Cacerola were reminded of the seriousness of their threat. Between the hours of 3 a.m. and 4 a.m, buses and cars were set on fire in encampments throughout the city, in what the women explain was "a distraction." The people at the Channel 9 and Radio Cacerola encampment awoke to ringing church bells—a system that the protestors use to alert people that there are problems in the area and to call people together.
As folks gathered at the encampment, they learned that a group of armed persons had been sent to "dislocate" the guards protecting the broadcasting antenna for Channel 9 and Radio Cacerola. According to a communiqué released that morning by the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), "They entered shooting directly at the people who were guarding the facilities, causing them to retreat and thus burning the broadcasting equipment."
At least one teacher, Sergio Vale Jiménez, was injured with a gunshot wound to the leg. And at least three other people who were guarding the antenna are missing, adding to the list of the disappeared in what is being called "the dirty war."
Responding to the latest act of violence by the government, one woman who was a part of the Channel 9 and Radio Cacerola takeover explained, "They want to cut off our freedom of expression so that we are left mute."
As the news spread at the Channel 9 and Radio Cacerola encampment, the people organized themselves with decisiveness and with the model of the women's takeover as their inspiration. They marched to the neighborhood of El Rosario where residents were being awoken by church bells; women were in the streets banging their pots and pans, and car horns were sounding. El Rosario is home to a broadcasting antenna which covers nearly the entire state of Oaxaca through nine different transmission signals. The people of El Rosario rose from their slumber to join the marchers from the encampment to take over the antenna. By sunrise, one could tune into several newly taken, peoples' radio stations. A new encampment was quickly formed to protect the antenna of El Rosario because, as one woman said, "We can't be left without methods of communication."
Each side of this intense conflict in Oaxaca is aware of the power of the word. The government has resorted to violence to silence the people, and the people are responding with non-violence and their most powerful weapon: their voices.
"We know that our lives are in danger and the lives of our families, but we stay…we are an example of a people that are fighting, we aren't selling out…we won't sell our dignity."
Even though the women of Channel 9 and Radio Cacerola are aware that they cannot fix the damaged antenna, they remain undeterred: "We are not going to loose time fixing something that we're not capable of. We are re-planning and we are going to take over more spaces."
No one in Oaxaca knows what the outcome of this conflict will be, but the women have a vision for the taken stations: "We will keep them."
Kelly Komenda and Sara Yassky are activists from the United States who have been self-educating about organizing within people's liberation movements in Latin America. They are currently in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, Mexico.
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