Oaxaca

(click on images for larger view)


(click on images for larger view)
The Mexican state of Oaxaca has been embroiled in a conflict since May 2006 that has resulted in at least 18 deaths and over 300 illegal arrests and detentions by the government. The conflict emerged in May 2006 with violent action by the Oaxacan Police towards the local teacher's union during their 25th annual teacher's strike and has grown into a broad-based movement of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) against the state's governor, Ulises Ruiz.



APPO is a broad based group comprised of indigenous and other communities, and the teachers union, human rights groups, and religious groups.



Oaxaca has a long history of popular organizing including agricultural struggles for territory, social struggles for infrastructural needs, and community struggles for the rights of traditions and customs.



"In Oaxaca there is a particular resistance, because of the way communities traditionally live, it enables resistance of oppression in all aspects of life," Fernandez Soberanes, Co-ordinator of projects for CMPIO; a coalition of indigenous teachers and member of the Oaxacan Section 22 teachers union.



Zapata looks out from the walls at UniTerra.


Ulises Ruiz, depicted in this poster as a Nazi like figure, with the initials of the Policía Federal Preventiva (PFP). 4500 PFP, a counterinsurgency police, were sent by the federal government to Oaxaca to end the protests in 2006. Ruiz, governor of Oaxaca since 2004, is accused of repressionof the protests, suppressing the freedom of the press, destruction of historical monuments in the city, and the detention and killing of his political opponents. Ruiz forms part of a history of institutional violence in Mexico that includes ignoring the needs of 75% of Oaxaca's population - the indigenous communities.



The APPO has made Ruiz's resignation or removal their one non-negotiable demand before they will agree to end the conflict.
" We reject the government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, because we do not accept a government which uses public resources to benefit only one priveleged sector of society. We withdraw our support from institutions which do not fulfill their obligations and silence the voice of the people."
The Declaration of the People of Oaxaca:August 2006



APPO stated in a November 2006 Declaration:
" We're peaceful, not passive; we're plural and autonomous, yet united; we're from the base, not leaders or vangaurds. We're combining centuries of indigenous organizational stratergies with modern social movements. This is what we have to strengthen and consolidate."
Guelegtza Popular, Zocola, Oaxaca City, July 2007.




The Communist Party of Mexico is one of the many different groups of APPO occupying the Zocola in 2007.



"Oaxaca is a lab for social change," says Marcos Leyva, photograhed in his office at EDUCA. EDUCA has worked in Oaxaca for 15 years, focusing on human rights, gender issue and indigenous people's rights. It is now part of APPO.





Pedro Matias, a journalist with 20 years of experience watching governmental abuses in Oaxaca, describes the events of 2006 as only the last part of a long chain of events.



The teacher's "planton" in the government building on the Zocola continues, and is organized into shifts, so that schools do not have to close. In addition ot seeking salary increase, teachers have assumed broader social causes because of their close relationship with indigenous communities.


A helicopter of fireworks, symbolic of the government helicopters that tear-gassed participants in the mega-marches of 2006, goes off at the 2007 Geulegetza Popular's Fireworks display.



The Guelaguetza, in traditional communities, is a dance festival with gift giving of pineapple, mango, bread, chocolate. The government has turned this into an annual folkloric festival and tourist attraction. In 2006 the Government run Guelegetza was cancelled because of the conflict .In 2007, APPO staged the “Guelaguetza Popular" and called for the boycott of the "official" Government Gulegetza.



Oaxaca city roads around the Zocola are shut to Ruiz (PRI) supporters during the Guelegetza Popular.



Dancers at the Guelegetza Popular.






APPO security guard in Guelegetza Popular Parade. APPO has its own security to prevent outside agitators from disrupting marches.


Interactive art exhibit, red dots represent the barricades in Oaxaca City in 2006 . Barricades kpet armed thugs from entering neighbourhoods to beat and kill people, especially leaders of the movement. US journalist Brad Wills was killed at such a barricade, and it was after his death that Vicente Fox deployed 4500 Federal Police (PFP) to crush the popular uprising.
Protestors tried to use barricades to prevent these military and police forces from entering and occupying the city.


Estela Río Gonzalez and Itandehuí Santiago Galicia (right), explains how on August 1st 2006, she was one of 15000 participants in " La marcha de las caseroles ( the march of women beating their pots and pans with wooden spoons) that seized the state TV Channel 9. TV Caserole, as it was known, broadcast for 3 weeks " the voice and images of the people." Soldiers shot down the antenna and forced them out on August 21st.



Sergio Beltrán at UniTerra, shows video clips of a TV Caserole broadcast. UniTierra, an alternate education university, helped the women with video production. The take over of the station helped break the image of the "passive woman. "Cuando una mujer avanca, no hay hombre que se detenga” (when a woman is advancing, no man is held back), Ricardo Flores Magón.


Alba Cruz Ramoz, Mayem Arellanes, both lawyers, and Alma Soto, members of the November 25th Liberation Commitee, work with the legal body of Appo. Founded by well known Oaxcan painter- Francisco Toledo, the November 25th Commitee was formed in response to the illegal and arbitrary detentions at the mega- marches.



Dionisio Martinez, artist, in his studio in Oaxaca City. Dionisio was one of 150 arrrested and detained on November 25th. Two of his ribs were broken, and he was detained incommunicado in Nayuruit, 1000km away for 15 days. He is facing 9 charges, including terrorism. Dionisio spoke of devastating psycholgical and financial costs of the detention and legal proceedings. Behind him is a portrait of legendary guerrilla leader, Luciano Cabanas, from Guerrero, whose Guerrilla Army of the Poor terrorized government supporters in the 1970's. He was killed by the Mexican army in 1974.



Over the last 20 years, the church has played a role in launching social struggles in Oaxaca, including training teachers and Indigenous leaders and building Christian Base Communities. Often, however, the church hierarchy betrayed these struggles and abandoned people to repressive forces.


Padre Manuel Arias Montes is the parish priest in the Jukilita neighborhood of Oaxaca. Arias spoke of how priests built solidarity with APPO even as the church hierarchy allied with the government. Arias and other parish priests continue to work with civil society to make fundamental social changes. Arias embraces the importance of Indigenous spirituality in his work, and points to the importance of Indigenous cosmologies to find solutions to problems that they face. He talks of a long history of exploitation and repression, with the government propagating systems of corruption and impunity and the local governments becoming the worst caciques (chiefs) who take advantage of community members.

part two