Repression escalates: Reporter Pedro Matias kidnapped and tortured in Oaxaca
Oct 31 2008 14:40
Repression escalates: Reporter Pedro Matias kidnapped and tortured in Oaxaca
By Scott Campbell
Pedro Matias, a well-known reporter who writes for Noticias, a local daily paper, as well as the national weekly Proceso, was kidnapped, beaten, tortured and robbed on Saturday night in Oaxaca.
Reporters Without Borders states that,
"Matias was kidnapped as he left the newspaper to go home on the evening of 25 October. His abductors beat him and terrorised him for hours, simulating an execution, asking him how he preferred to die and variously threatening to drag him along the ground behind their car, cut off his genitals, rape him or behead him. They also threatened his family members, saying they had been "located.
"
"He was released the next morning some 30 km outside Oaxaca in Tlacolula de Matamoros, without his car and without his papers, which his abductors also took from him.
"
Matias does much reporting on the social movement in Oaxaca, usually giving it fair, if not occasionally favorable, coverage. According to Reporters Without Borders, he also is a contributor to a radio station and on it has criticized the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), the party which has ruled Oaxaca for almost 80 years.
This is not the first attack against Noticias or its reporters, which for several years has been the lone local mainstream media outlet which is critical of the state government. Mexico is also the most deadly country in the Americas for journalists.
On November 19, 2004, masked gunmen took over Noticias' warehouses and printing presses, holding it for several days and murdering a 19 year old.
On June 17, 2005, Governor Ulises Ruiz, with the help of a state congressman and a PRI-controlled union called the CROC (Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants), fomented a fake strike against Noticias in an attempt to shut it down. Union members, paramilitaries and local police blockaded the building with 31 Noticias employees inside, cutting off the electricity, phones and water. After a month, the thugs raided the building, dragging out the 31 employees and destroying the offices.
On August 9, 2006, during the rebellion in Oaxaca, two armed, masked men entered the offices of Noticias, shooting equipment and people, wounding two employees.
This year, on January 16, two Noticias reporters received death threats from Ruben Marmolejo Maldonado, aka "El Dragon," a leader of porros (paid thugs), who has instigated numerous conflicts on the campus of the state university in Oaxaca (UABJO) as well as organizing attacks against the APPO (Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca). He has been denounced by the Chair of the Law and Social Sciences Departments of UABJO of working for the state government.
And now Pedro Matias has been kidnapped and tortured. While this event should be seen as another occurrence of government repression against Noticias, it also has a place in the increasingly tense climate of repression against the social movement which has been escalating these past couple of weeks. Oaxaca has seen the October 16 arrest of three APPO members for the October 27, 2006, murder of Brad Will, the issuing of more that 300 more arrest warrants, and the October 25 warrantless raid and trashing of a house belonging to CODEP, a group aligned with the APPO, by the AFI, Mexico's equivalent of the FBI.
Things may only get worse as the anniversary-laden month of November approaches. November 2 marks not only the Day of the Dead but also the unsuccessful 2006 Federal Preventive Police (PFP) attack on the barricade of Radio Universidad. And November 25 is the two year anniversary of the massive and brutal PFP, paramilitary, state and local police attacks against the APPO. Clearly, the government of Oaxaca is trying to pre-emptively intimidate and frighten a rebellious populace that it still very much fears.
Scott Campbell is an organizer from the SF Bay Area currently residing in Oaxaca.
He posts observations and translations Oaxaca-related material at http://angrywhitekid. blogs. com/weblog.
Nov 1 2008 18:39
#2
OK, i hadn't noticed and didn't know AWK was posting here. Feel free to delete this thread.
Nov 1 2008 22:02
#3
I think it's worth noting that Noticias - although anti-URO - is still part of the bourgeois media. They were very heavily against the recent teachers' strike for instance. i mean, it sucks when journalists get beaten and tortured but this guy isn't from the movement y'know? I wouldn't shed too many tears for, say, Johan Hari if he got a beating.
Nov 13 2008 19:35
#4
I'm not sure if I agree with Alan entirely, but am currently too tired and inarticulate to explain why.
I was in Oaxaca on Nov 2nd, and APPO held a big demo in the main square trying to raise awareness about police repression etc, of course it being height of the tourist season there was not a single police officer in sight and they were allowed to carry on undisturbed for ages, until they were ready to finish really. Some rich Mexican guy came over to explain to me how "all these communists are making a fuss over nothing - look, they've got free speech right now, there's nothing for them to complain about, they just like feeling victimised". I tried to suggest that the lack of police presence may be to do with the huge amount of tourists in the area, but I didn't get very far :s
Nov 13 2008 19:56
#5
Quote:
of course it being height of the tourist season there was not a single police officer in sight
Actually, it was because the demo in the Zocalo was organised by the sellout Trot cunts of the FPR (People's Revolutionary Front) who have and never will do fuck all to challenge the system of power here and affect social change, and all the pigs and soldiers as well were busy on the other side of the city where we (the libertarians, anarchists, barricaderos and real radicals) were attempting to hold an action at Cinco Senores intersection, where the cops got their arse royally whipped two years ago that day.
Sadly, neither the teachers union, the communists nor anyone else saw fit to do fuck all on the anniversary of the most fundamental day in the movements' history so it was left to us. The plan was to re-take the intersection and barricade it again with hijacked vehicles etc. but the lack of numbers and the truly massive police presence, coupled with the pig's specific orders to crush any attempt to take the road meant it was a wash-out. Good to see that the self-appointed leaders of the APPO contented themselves with standing around in the main square and sounding off as usual instead of attempting anything approaching direct action.
When we left Cinco Senores and marched to the Zocalo ourselves these same leaders tried to deny use of the microphone to the antiauthoritarians and so prevent us from being heard. Luckily this didn't work and though they left in a huff taking taking their gear with them, the people in the square were still addressed by various members of the libertarian left, shouting at the top of their lungs in order to be heard, and getting much applause for their efforts.
Quote:
they were allowed to carry on undisturbed for ages, until they were ready to finish really.
Why might that be then? Because they are so incredibly strong and with such popular support and the fact that this murderous fascist regime is simply quaking at the thought of negative publicity, or simply because they pose absolutely FUCK ALL threat whatsoever and it'd be a total waste of police resources to even bother noticing them?
Nov 13 2008 19:58
#6
Ok, sorry, am no expert or anything just going on what I saw. You're clearly more authoritative on the matter so I'll take it all back!
Nov 13 2008 20:03
#7
Hey man, wasn't trying to be a dick or anything. It's just my charming writing style that's all. It wasn't directed at you personally, its just me getting fucked off at the (sadly typical) way in which its always the sellouts who manage to imply that they're the leaders or somehow representative of the movement. Again, wasn't aimed at you personally, though i'm sure it seemed like it.
N
Nov 13 2008 20:08
#8
Ha ha no worries, just shows how much the tourist in Oaxaca who came to see all the skeltons and shit knows about the intricacies of local poltics - i.e. not a whole lot 
But fair play to you, that does sound pretty fucking frustrating. And yes, they did a pretty good job of acting like the ones to listen to, either that or I'm just easily impressed! Right, back on topic...
Nov 13 2008 20:23
#9
Alan wrote:
I think it's worth noting that Noticias - although anti-URO - is still part of the bourgeois media. They were very heavily against the recent teachers' strike for instance. i mean, it sucks when journalists get beaten and tortured but this guy isn't from the movement y'know? I wouldn't shed too many tears for, say, Johan Hari if he got a beating.
The paper wasnt kidnapped, a worker was. Idiot.
Nov 13 2008 20:33
#10
?
Ignoring Weeler's presumably joke/acidhead post then...
Last time I was in Oaxaca (...June/July?), the state was making a really concerted effort to humanise its cops. There were now "tourist police" (?) who wear jeans and white polo shirts and basically deal with all the apparent miscreants in the square. In real terms, they're equally aggressive and on a powertrip.
Nov 13 2008 21:02
#11
Ah ha! Yes I did meet them, lovely friendly chaps who help you find your way around town and make sure no pesky children hang around you looking poor, right? Lovely police in Oaxaca, I should know, I've been there Barely saw any police in the main touristy bit other than these guys actually, as Escarabajo pointed out they were all otherwise engaged.
Nov 14 2008 02:06
#12
Nah they bust up my friend's shit she was trying to sell, it's all designed to make the Zocalo more aesthetically safe for your modern middle aged kinda liberalish American tourist or tediously paranoid and dull German backpacker. Mexicans get squeezed outta it...
And back on this journalist kidnapping, well Mexico has the highest rate of kidnappings in the world and notoriously low levels of press freedom. In short, this shit really isn't rare, the "revolutionary" spotlight is on this cos Noticias was seen to be broadly supportive of the 2006 movement implicitly due to its bashing of URO (maybe Escarabajo can expand mroe on that, but I've checked the paper a few times and it's certainly still reactionary and bourgeois).
Nov 14 2008 02:18
#13
weeler wrote:
The paper wasnt kidnapped, a worker was. Idiot.
kidnap newspapers! live the anarchy!
no but seriously this is rather fucked up, but typical... a government that can't handle criticism and has to beat, torture, murder, or otherwise eliminate even the chroniclers of its peoples' movements is simply annulling its legitimacy and invalidating itself by doing so; it shows the feebleness of their control.
Nov 15 2008 01:06
#14
The point wasn't just that a reporter was kidnapped, it's also the context of increasing repression. And Pedro Matias, while certainly not a revolutionary, has done a lot of good work covering the movement. Mexican mainstream media is absolute garbage, and Noticias falls into that category more often than not, but there are still reporters who do a decent job.
More like this
- Reporter kidnapped and tortured in Oaxaca
- Oaxaca in revolt again: the Zócalo reoccupied, motorway tollbooths "liberated", roads blockaded
- The APPO two years on: Where now for Oaxaca's social movement?
- Sección 22 back on the case: Oaxaca's Zócalo reoccupied, motorway tolls "liberated" etc etc
- Looking Back on the Oaxaca Rebellion
This was on our newswire the previous day:
http://libcom.org/library/repression-escalates-reporter-pedro-matias-kidnapped-tortured-oaxaca