Ongoing Massacre in Oaxaca Today

I meant to put PFP at the top, not PFF.

fixed it. and read it before:

Oaxaca: No Time For Pacifist Illusions
by Steven Argue
Sunday Nov 19th, 2006 10:47 AM
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/11/18/18330840.php?show_comments=1#18331059

Minute to Minute Nov. 25
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/11/25/18333212.php

This is basically all you added:

"Liberation News
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news"

Thanks for fixing the typo.

As for making this post, I wasn't aware that there was already a post on the massacre on Indy Bay, and there certainly wasn't one on for Santa Cruz. Facing such a tragedy I think it is good that more than one person is getting the news out.

As for my post “Oaxaca, No Time For Pacifist Illusions” calling for the people of Oaxaca to arm themselves etc., I thought that these points are still useful in terms of revolutionary lessons and are hopefully still useful for the people of Oaxaca if the movement there has not been completely crushed through state terror.

NOTHING is going to "completely crush" the movement in Oaxaca. I'm sure the movement is going to arm themselves now that you suggest it.

In history many movements have been completely crushed, at least for a period of time. To name a few obvious examples: the Paris Commune 1871, Italy 1922, Germany 1933, and Chile 1973.

As for the arming of the Oaxaca commune, there are subscribers to Liberation News in Oaxaca and elsewhere in Mexico, so apparently what I am saying does make sense to some people there and is part of the discussion and so I will keep on saying what needs to be said.

This is not a direct reply to Steve (Liberation News), but points are relevent.

"Maybe rather than placing judgement on the movement from afar, one should be asking what can be learned from Oaxaca, whether you argree with it or not."
_______________________________________

I am going to weigh in on this discussion about what happened on Nov. 25th, who threw the first stone, whether or not the APPO "qualifies" as non-violent, etc.

I wasn't going to chime in, cause there are enough troubling things happening in Oaxaca right now, that the more important thing seems to be to get the information out as much as possible. But I saw one too many emails commenting on what the APPO "should or shouldn't do."

1) I personally have seen, with my own eyes, on at least three occasions (Seattle '99, Washington DC '2000, and Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2005), young kids who were throwing rocks and molotovs, enter and emerge from police vehicles in a fresh change of clothes. And I've seen it in video footage from other places (Genoa, Prague). Infiltration and the presence of provocadores are a GIVEN in any large mobilization.

I'm not saying that people who associate themselves with the movement in Oaxaca didn't also throw rocks and launch cohetes on Nov. 25th. I don't doubt that some of the kids from the barricades came ready to fight with the PFP. I'm saying that even had they not been there, the state would have made sure that "someone" on the side of the protestors threw the first stone. It's an age-old strategy for justifying repression that, in the case of Oaxaca, had been in the works for sometime...all they needed was a justification.

2) One of the remarkable things about the movement in Oaxaca is how it somehow created a space for anyone and everyone. It has been a huge strength and a huge weakness. The fact that Stalinists and anarchists and perredistas and housewives and indigenous authorities and schoolteachers and taxi drivers all found an expression in the same movement is, to me, remarkable. Not everyone who has participated in this movement has considered themselves part of the APPO. I can't count the number of times I've had conversations with people in Oaxaca who have said, "I'm not APPO, but I support the people, and that's why I'm out in the streets." I've gotten the sense that a lot of people think that "being APPO" means going to the assemblies or belonging to an organization. Lots of folks haven't participated at that level, but they have guarded barricades, fed plantonistas, participated in marches, etc.

And more recently, the APPO became a space where street kids found an expression as well. Street kids who don't see themselves as having much of a future. Some of them are probably not too worried about dying. And for sure they ALL hate the police, after years of being kicked around by them. I'm guessing most of them haven't spent a alot of time studying academic texts about social movement history or the different definitions of non-violence, etc. But those kids were the only ones with the guts to guard the last barricade between Radio Universidad and several thousand federal police and plain-clothed paramilitaries. So they found a space in the movement. And the "APPO couldn't control them." The APPO has never "controlled" anyone.

3) Anyone who was in the streets on Nov 25th knows that what went down, at least in the first moments of the confrontation, couldn't really be defined as auto-defensa (self-defense). But in six months of conflict, it was one of the only times where that was the case. The use of rocks, bottle rockets, molotov cocktails, etc. has almost always been in the context of self-defense. Now, a lot of folks who subscribe to a Ghandian idea of non-violence don't really get the idea of self-defense in the context of social movements. I suppose the idea is that, when paramilitaries start shooting at your barricade, you should lie down in the street and sing kumbaya.

I believe that non-violent movements, like the civil-rights movement in the US and India's independence movement, had the impact they did, in part, because of the role the media played. In those moments, the whole world saw thousands of dignified, non-violent people being attacked. And the world empathized with them and rejected the violence being used against them. When was the last time you saw a non-violent social movement depicted on the evening news? For those of you who watched the news coverage of Seattle rejecting the presence of the World Trade Organization, in 1999, how many of you saw 80,000 people put their bodies on the line, non-violently, before a brutal police attack? And how many of you saw the same image played over and over of some kids breaking windows? The media has changed the way it depicts social movements. Period.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is listening, does it make a sound? If the police break the skull of a campesino and no one is watching, does it make a difference that the campesino praticed non-violence? Communities in Mexico, especially rural communities, get that. They understand that if the federal police or army enter their community at dawn to beat the shit out of people, rape women, raid homes, etc. they are screwed whether they lay down in the streets and sing kumbaya or pick up a rock and fight back. And they also know that, regardless of how they respond to the police violence, if the media is there, they will paint the community members as violent criminals and the police / army as protectors of the peace. (any doubts about that, pick up a copy of the video Romper el Cerco about last May's police attack in San Salvador Atenco).

Mexican communities, in general, also have a real clear understanding of the difference between self-defense and armed uprising. They are not the same thing AT ALL. Armed groups have been threatening to join the fray in Oaxaca for months, and the APPO has been real clear about it's position on that, telling the armed groups to keep a lid on it and not screw things up.

So in the context of Oaxaca, for the movement to claim it is non-violent makes sense in the context of self-defense. Images of people guarding barricades with sticks and bottle rockets appear violent, until you put them in the context of who is on the other side of the barricade and the kinds of weapons THEY have; until you put them in the context of who has died in the last six months of conflict in Oaxaca.

So, while Nov 25th might not be an example of self-defense, for those of you who have been saying that the APPO has practiced violence all along and never should have called itself a non-violent movement, you are making those statements outside of a local context, and it doesn't fly.

4) So back to the confrontation on Nov 25th. This wasn't really a case of self-defense. Some folks arrived with the tools of self-defense, but with the intention of using them to start a fight. Does that make the social movement in Oaxaca a violent one? Maybe the question people should be asking themselves is not - is the APPO violent, but instead - what went wrong on Nov 25th.

A few days after the PFP arrived in town, several marches converged in the center of town to establish a planton in Santo Domingo. There was no confrontation between police and marchers. A few days later, quite a large number of people (estimates ranging between 30,000 and 500,000) walked straight into the center of town and there was no confrontation. In both of those marches there were people who were mad enough about the presence of the PFP that they wanted to go straight to the zocalo and have it out right there and then. But it didn't happen. It didn't happen because, from what I saw, the marches were damn well organized. Big teacher-types, with arms linked, placed themselves between marchers and police. People who acted aggressively were immediately removed from the march. In my opinion, leading that many people to within two blocks of several thousand federal police, without any confrontation, is a remarkable act of organization and...non-violence.

So why didn't it happen that way on Nov 25th? Knowing that the state was itching for an excuse to smackdown on the movement, was it tactically a good idea to try and create a human chain around the PFP? Having seen what happened on Nov 20th (a smaller, "lite" version of what happened on Nov 25th), was it a good idea to go ahead with the plans for Nov 25th? I don't know the answer to that, and furthermore, I think our role as foreigners isn't really to judge the tactical decisions of a social movement operating in a context that's real different from that in which most of us live.

I do know that saturday's march and human chain action lacked organization. Once the human chain was established there was a notable absence of people at each entrance to the zocalo who could monitor aggressive behavior. When young fellas rolled their grocery cart full of rocks and molotovs up to the police lines, there was no one there to pull them back, or to put themselves betweewn the rock throwers and the police.

Maybe the march lacked organization because of the absence of a large number of teachers. Despite all the contradictions and weaknesses of the teachers' movement in Oaxaca, one thing they know how to do is push their luck with the police without entering into an actual confrontation. They've learned over 26 years that powerful actions have to be carried out very carefully in order to have an impact without bringing down the wrath of the state on everyone involved.

Maybe the march lacked organization or tactical foresight because the state's plan was working: wear people out with a constant presence of federal police and paramilitary action; divide teachers from the rest of the movement so as to paint everyone else as "ultras" or "radicals;" push people to a point of desperation by carrying out daily disappearances of friends and family members; get the PFP worked into a real frenzy with four weeks of standing in the sun being insulted by passersby.

Whatever the reason for Saturday's apparent lack of organization and/or tactics, I think it has a lot more to do with that, and very little to do with the question of whether or not the movement in Oaxaca fits into some historic notion of non-violence. And the conversations I have heard, amongst movement participants, since Saturday, have had to do with that question (where did we go wrong organizationally) and not with the question of who threw the first stone, nor how to define non-violence. It was a big topic of conversation at the two-day indigenous forum this past week.

5) Finally, the truth is... if the PFP had really only wanted to control a few hot-headed kids with rocks and molotovs, they could have done it easily, without carrying out a massive repression against the people of Oaxaca. They have the tanks, shields, gas, guns, etc. What the PFP wanted to do (in collaboration with local PRI elements and local police, cause they were there, with guns, shooting at people too, saw it with my own eyes) was carry out a wide-scale repression that would send the movement into the mode it's in now...waiting to see what Calderon and Acua do, and in the meantime, hiding out.

And counting on their friends in the mainstream media, just as they did in Atenco, the feds and state know that, even if Ulisesdeparture has already been negotiated, he can now leave without creating the appearance that the APPO and the teachers won. As far as mainstream public opinion is concerned, the APPO has been defeated.

So lets get back to focusing on whats happening right now. Massive human rights violations, both in Oaxaca, and in the prisons of Nayarit and Tamaulipas, and no amount of rock-throwing or tactical error justifies that. I believe this current situation would have unfolded as it has whether or not a few kids from the barricades threw the first stone; whether or not the APPO fits your text-book definition of non-violence. The state had a plan for Oaxaca and didn't just spontaneously decide to smackdown on a massive scale cause a few youngsters got out of hand. Maybe rather than placing judgement on the movement from afar, one should be asking what can be learned from Oaxaca, whether you argree with it or not.

j

I agree that there is much to learn from the struggle in Oaxaca, that is why I was the first on Indymedia to post on the rebellion when it first started.

In addition to learning from what is happening in Oaxaca I also learn from history. From Oaxaca and the history of repression under capitalist governments, as well as the history of successful revolutions, I know the people there are in a very dangerous situation, and that is why I continue to post what Mexicans (and myself) are saying about the need of the people of Oaxaca to defend themselves with better weapons. The political power of the proletariat itself, is ultimately the most effective act of self defense. Continued and worsening repression is the the most likely alternative.

"I was the first on Indymedia to post on the rebellion when it first started."

Listen Steven, we may agree on some points, but claiming to be first person on Indymedia to post about the rebellion when it first started is one of the stupidest things I have read from you. I am not even going to ask you to try and defend a claim as arrogant as that, but no doubt you will try.

Perhaps you will again try to qualify what you meant to say, since someone called you on it.

Example from above:

"I thought that these points are still useful in terms of revolutionary lessons and are hopefully still useful for the people of Oaxaca if the movement there has not been completely crushed through state terror."

>> "NOTHING is going to "completely crush" the movement in Oaxaca."

"In history many movements have been completely crushed, at least for a period of time."

I don't understand the hostility of the above post.

Anyway, here is the post that I was referring to:

YESTERDAY (June 15): TEACHERS KILLED IN MEXICO FOR GOING ON STRIKE. (Friday Jun 16th, 2006 8:23 AM)
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/06/16/18280975.php

There was nothing untrue or arrogant in me stating that it was the first post on the rebellion. My point was that I have been posting supporting the people of Oaxaca all along. I do know this was the first post on the rebellion on IndyBay, but perhaps there was a post somewhere else on Indymedia before mine.

As for what has happened in terms of the repression on November 25, I think the following November 26 Liberation News post covered much of that. When I made this post "Ongoing Massacre in Oaxaca Today" it was hard to know exactly how far the repression was going to go since it was the night it was happening. No, the movement in Oaxaca has not been crushed, but it has suffered some big blows.

The following Liberation News post of November 26 clarifies these points:

From Mexico: Police and death squads on a rampage, urgent call for solidarity
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/11/26/18333449.php

Here is a June 17th Liberation News post made after the one above covering the deepening rebellion:


The uprising is continuing and has deepened in Oaxaca, Mexico despite police repression that has left eight teachers and three students dead. Down with the capitalist PRI, PAN, and PRD! For workers' revolution in Mexico! -Steven Argue for Liberation News


Eyewitness Account from Oaxaca, June 17th

Friends, family, colleagues, companeros:

A website is now being circulated that has up-to-date info and video that can be downloaded of the police action and developments in Oaxaca. For those who have not seen it elsewhere, the website is: http://www.mexico.indymedia.org/oaxaca

Also, some of you have asked me about coverage in Mexican and Oaxacan newspapers. If you can access Noticias here in Oaxaca, it is giving the teachers a voice and also publishes many photos. The other major newspaper, El Imparcial, is known to be the voice of the government. It is common to find piles of El Imparcial at newsstands while Noticias is sold out almost immediately. La Jornada from Mexico City is also giving excellent coverage.

It is now Saturday, June 17, and so much has changed since the brutal police action early Wednesday morning, June 14, that forced thousands of striking teachers out of their encampment in the historic center of the city of Oaxaca. After fleeing the initial attack of tear and pepper gases and physical force, the teachers spontaneously began to regroup in several areas of the city center, to arm themselves with bats and rocks, and to fight back. Although the police were armed with guns (denied by the government but confirmed by countless photos in the newpapers) and protected by gas masks, they were overcome by the sheer number and the outrage of the unarmed teachers.

News footage and photos document bands of teachers surrounding and overcoming armed police, picking up gas canisters and throwing them back to the police squadrons that had just ignited and tossed them, and taking over city buses to crash through police barricades. We experienced the first police attack on the encampment about 5 a.m.; within 4 hours, the teachers had disbursed the police, taken some of them prisoner (they were released later, unharmed), and retaken control of the center of the city. It was about 10 a.m. when teachers marched to where hundreds of us had taken refuge in the Law School and liberated us.

One of the teachers who is part of the Directions Committee for the strike told me that the committee met after the police action began in order to decide how to respond, but when committee members began receiving numerous cell phone calls informing them of spontaneous resistance by teachers in various parts of the downtown, they said, "To hell with this meeting!" and hurried to support the resistance efforts that had spontaneously exploded.

I am struck by how cell phones have affected this resistance effort. Almost from the moment the police action began in the early hours of last Wednesday, and certainly as soon as we found refuge in the Law School, hundreds of teachers were using their cell phones to call for help from family, friends, and organizations. I am certain the same thing was happening wherever teachers took refuge. Teachers have told me that in many neighborhoods of Oaxaca, as soon as their families and neighbors received the first notice of police action, the entire community organized and headed to the city center to support the teachers. Marches of teachers such as the one that freed those of us at the Law School were probably a mix of regrouped teachers and outraged family, friends, and university students. As calls went out to relatives in other cities of Oaxaca (the teachers in the encampment had converged from all regions and communities of the state, so their network of contacts was statewide), colleagues and families began to march and take over government centers in many outlying cities and municipalities, especially those controlled by the governor?s political party, the PRI. Many of those cities and communities now have sent delegations of teachers, parents and social organizations to the capital to support the teachers? movement here.

The fact that in the first hours of police action the teachers speedily overcame the government?s repression has galvanized the state of Oaxaca and beyond. Yesterday afternoon and evening the third "megamarcha" was held, the first since the failed police action. Today?s paper reported more than 300,000 marched, including teachers, students, many universities and civic organizations, and outraged citizens from across the state and from other states. The marchers covered more than 12 kilometers and lasted over four hours. There were several torrential downpours, but nothing dampened the marchers? determination or their continuous shouts for the governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, to be dumped.

It is very clear that this movement has now moved to a very different level of political activity. The primary demand by ALL parties now is that the governor must go. Even the teachers say that their original list of demands has moved to secondary importance at this point.

Organizers of yesterday?s megamarch had publicized its beginning and ending point but not its route, which confused lots of folks, including me. I spent several hours waiting at the park called the Llano, where the march was to end. Many congregated there, and as the rain fell we talked under umbrellas as we waited. I talked to teachers who could not march because of arthritic knees or eight-month pregnancies, but they were waiting in the rain to support the march. In many cases, their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, etc., were marching, and cell phones kept us posted of their progress.

I talked with two teachers from private schools who openly said they disagreed with the union?s strategies, "left over", they said, from the decades when the PRI wielded uncontested political power and which were no longer viable, such as the massive teacher sit-in that has entirely crippled Oaxaca?s tourist trade and therefore it?s ?s economy. Nevertheless, they were there in the rain to support the demand that this corrupt governor and his cronies must go. Though they do not agree with all the union?s strategies, they said the teachers are the only ones who are standing up and taking action.

I spoke with a woman in her fifties who told me she was not a teacher and her children weren?t teachers but she came out to support the marchers. "This governor and his corruption must go!" she said. She told me that her son, who in a functionary in the government, has been told that he must deliver at least 30 votes to the PRI in the upcoming presidential election in early July if he hopes to keep his job. "I told him he must not stoop to that corruption, regardless what happens with his job!" she told me. I was struck to hear unsolicited confirmation of a report I had read in the newspaper earlier that morning about the political pressure being applied to government employees to "deliver the PRI vote".
When I finally encountered the march, it was already after 8 p.m., but it went on for another hour and a half.

The marchers were wet and exhausted, but their chants of "He?s out! He?s out! Ulises is already out!" never stopped. I spoke with a marcher today who said that all along their route, people offered them water, hot coffee and hot chocolate, and plastics to protect them from the rain. She said the support from the community was tremendous.

There was no government repression of the march. However, talking with my colleagues this morning in the newly-constructed teacher encampment in the Zocalo (which is now even larger than the one the police destroyed), they said that because of yesterday?s rain and the fact that so many of their blankets, clothes, and sleeping materials were destroyed in Wednesday?s police action, they were instructed to sleep last night in schools and churches rather than in the encampment.

At some point during the night, most of what was left of their tarps and belongings were removed by "civilians" who were paid either by the government or by angry business owners. But the teachers said, "Regardless, we are here in force and we are not going away." And in Mexican fashion, making light now of the terror they faced during the police action last Wednesday, one of the teachers laughed and said that the government had "done them the favor of cleaning the Zocalo well" so that the new encampment is even better than before!

One of the results of the massive expansion of civic groups in this struggle is that a Popular Assembly has now been selected to make decisions for what will happen next. Since the retaking of the Zocalo, the government has agreed to negotiate with the teachers, and now those negotiations will include the expanded social movement. In order to have direction and consultation with ?the bases?, p; a People?s Assembly has been selected. As I write this, the Assembly is convening for the first time, in the patio of the same Law School that gave us refuge last Wednesday morning. I assume that tomorrow there will be word of at least some decisions concerning what is to happen next in Oaxaca?s popular resistance. I will try to keep you informed.

Lois Meyer
Univ. of New Mexico
From Oaxaca

To a certain degree the Oaxaca commune really started with its current demands in response to the June 15 repression, yet that repression was in response to a strong and militant teachers strike that had been going on for four weeks before the repression. While I believe Liberation News was the first on Indybay to cover that repression and the peoples' response to it, I do see a repost from Narco News did cover the teachers strike on this site a couple days before the June 16th Liberation News coverage:

Stand-off Continues as Oaxaca Teachers Strike enters Fourth Week
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/06/12/18280390.php

>> "I don't understand the hostility of the above post."

The hostility comes as a response to the silly statements you make.

>> Anyway, here is the post that I was referring to:

>> YESTERDAY (June 15): TEACHERS KILLED IN MEXICO FOR GOING ON STRIKE. (Friday Jun 16th, 2006 8:23 AM)
>> http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/06/16/18280975.php

Like I said before, we agree on some points, and I do appreciate that you are helping to spread the word about what is going down in Oaxaca.

>> "There was nothing untrue or arrogant in me stating that it was the first post on the rebellion. My point was that I have been >> posting supporting the people of Oaxaca all along. I do know this was the first post on the rebellion on IndyBay, but perhaps >> there was a post somewhere else on Indymedia before mine."

What?!

I think it is arrogant, especially in the context being used.

Now you are saying that someone else in the global Indymedia network MAY have posted something before you! What, you think that nobody living through the repression in Mexico thought to publish an article on Indymedia Oaxaca or Mexico Indymedia? I guess oaxaqueñ@s must have seen your posts on Indybay and thought it was a good idea for them to use Indymedia as well.

Human rights activists based in the United States have had their eyes on Oaxaca before you (Liberation News). People have been acting in solidarity with Oaxaca for many years now and using Indymedia to coordinate and spread the word. The rebellion did not start on June 15th, 2006. Nor did it start on June 14th, 2006.

Oaxaca Explodes (June 14, 2006)
http://austin.indymedia.org/newswire/display/34126/index.php

The rebellion did not start on May 22, 2006, either.

May 22, 2006, was the first day of Section 22 of the SNTE teacher-working class actions (some of the teachers are adherents to The Other Campaign) to support the educational demands of the people of Oaxaca. 70,000 teachers begin an extended sit-in in the center of the city in front of the old Government Palace and in 56 surrounding streets, to ask for fulfillment of their list of demands (first presented on May 1) that includes improvements to educational infrastructure (construction of classrooms, laboratories and workshops; uniforms; free student breakfasts; and more funding for scholarships and staff hiring), legal recognition of Radio Plantón, salary increases and recognition of the legitimacy of the union.

There is no clear beginning or end to the rebellion.

In an article by George Salzman called “a revolution with an absolute minimum of violence,” Salzman describes was he sees as phases of the struggle: (http://elenemigocomun.net/231)

Phase I, from 15 May 2006, the start of the education workers’ strike,
Phase II, from 14 June, when the state attacked the strikers’encampment, and
Phase III, from 1 Aug, when APPO women seized the state TV and radio stations.

Like I said, it is appreciated that you are helping to spread the word.

Here are some more articles to give an idea of how long people have been acting in solidarity with Oaxaca and using Indymedia as an important resource:

OAXACAN ANARCHISTS DEMAND JUSTICE (Jul 31st, 2002)
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2002/07/31/1391571.php

State Repression and Indigenous Resistance in Oaxaca (Feb 10, 2005)
http://www.indymedia.org/en/2005/02/112933.shtml

Indymedia Presents "El Enemigo Común" (Feb 6 2006)
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/02/06/42012.php

El Enemigo Común screening in Watsonville March 2nd (Feb 27th, 2006)
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/02/27/18051591.php

Gobierno represor desaloja a los maestros oaxaqueños (Jun 14th, 2006)
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/06/14/18280629.php

Mexican gov't strikes Mexican teachers, leaving 5 dead (Jun 15th, 2006)
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/06/15/18280883.php

Mexican Police Accused of Killing 11 Striking Teachers in Oaxaca (Jun 15th, 2006)
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/06/15/18280777.php

Emergency Protest at Mexican Consulate - Support Mexican Teachers! (Jun 15th, 2006)
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/06/15/18280845.php

This is not about who posted first, who has sent out the most emails, who has been to Oaxaca the most, who has more contacts, or who has the ideological answers.

Let's not lose focus that we are trying to act in solidarity with the people of Oaxaca.

¡¡NI UN MINUTO DE PAZ A LOS ASESINOS!!

By the way, I must correct another point made against me, that being my response to the person who said, "NOTHING is going to "completely crush" the movement in Oaxaca."

My response was not, "In history many movements have been completely crushed, at least for a period of time." This qualification was only a minor point that I will explain in a second. The important part of that response were the examples I gave immediately after my critics selected sentence. Those examples were, “To name a few obvious examples: the Paris Commune 1871, Italy 1922, Germany 1933, and Chile 1973."

One could argue that although all who led and organized these movements were murdered, jailed (facing torture and murder), or in exile, and that although the mass social movements of the working class that had taken place were completely silenced in their countries of origins, that these social movement lived on as ideas even though the living movements were completely crushed. This was the only reason I added that qualification.

My real point was to give a few obvious examples, out of many, where social movements of the working class have been completely crushed by capitalist governments. It is my reading of history that any capitalist class of any capitalist government is ethically capable of resorting to the most extreme measures of repression when they feel threatened. Already the Mexican government has resorted to murder, rape, and torture as a means of trying to take control back in Oaxaca. Political and military ramifications are being weighed every moment as the Mexican government considers ratcheting-up the repression, backing-down (in some small way to stall things and regroup), or continuing a low scale warfare based on direct government forces and paramilitaries carrying out arrests, disappearances, murders, rapes, and torture as they are currently doing.

To the proletariat of Oaxaca the government is discredited. They have been in open revolt against a murderous government and have faced horrible repression for it. It is the opinion of Liberation News, including our comrades in Mexico, that continuing this status quo, while that may or may not be possible, is not a desirable outcome for the people of Oaxaca or for Mexico in general. We see the need for better self-defense through better weaponry, seizures of power, freeing of political prisoners, and broader demands and seizures against the capitalist class.

Ok, I missed the June 15 posts from the IWW and Democracy Now as well as the protest action in SF. I don't remember seeing them (and I thought I looked) in the "Americas" section after I posted on the morning of June 16th. My mistake. On Indybay I usually spend most of my time looking at the Santa Cruz page and I hadn’t seen anything posted there. In addition what I meant by saying Indymedia, and didn't say correctly, was this specific site.

My error on being first on this site was an honest mistake and not one that deserves hostility. Again my point was not to brag about being first, or now about being one of the first, but to point out that, in the face of someone saying I need to learn from Oaxaca, that I have been helping many people learn from and support the movement in Oaxaca. This, however, does not mean that I will be silent when I have a difference of opinion.