Oaxaca
Recapturing the spirit of 2006; reflections on the second statewide APPO conference - Claudio Albertani
A report on the February 2009 APPO conference in Mexico. The report illustrates the internal struggle between the social movement and the political forces who want to reduce the social movement to their own obedient political constituency.
A native of Italy, Claudio Albertani is an anti-authoritarian activist and writer who has lived in Mexico for many years. He has written extensively about social movements in Mexico and recently published a book, El espejo de México (Crónicas de barbarie y resistencia).
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Rebels without a pause
In May 2007, Freedom correspondent Nancy Davies reported from Oaxaca one year after the Mexican rebellion began, and found dissent alive and well.
In May 2006, the Oaxaca Popular Movement coalesced striking teachers, dominated by 60,000 from Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) who covered fifty blocks with tents and sleeping bags, cookware and laundry, kids’ drawings and soda cases.
Attempted murder of APPO activist
In the latest of a string of intimidations and attacks, an attempt is made on the life of the libertarian activist and former APPO Councillor Ruben Valencia Nunez.
Oaxaca of Magon
City of Resistance
Saturday 10th January 2009-01-11
Urgent Action: ATTEMPTED MURDER OF COMRADE RUBÉN VALENCIA NÚÑEZ
We wish to denounce the intimidatory actions that have endangered the life of our comrade in the popular movement in Oaxaca
FACTS:
APPO prisoner on hunger strike
Following harrassment and abuse of political prisoners in Oaxaca, a hunger strike has commenced for their liberation.
Oaxaca, 28th November 2008
Compañeras and compañeros of all the organisations, collectives and individuals of Oaxaca and the World, of the Other Campaign, of National and International Human Rights Organisations, to the communication media, to the members and sympathisers of the APPO in Mexico and the World.
Reporter kidnapped and tortured in Oaxaca
In the increasingly tense climate of repression against the social movement which has been escalating these past couple of weeks, a journalist from the Noticias newspaper was abducted by security forces.
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,
Notes from Oaxaca
The following collection of articles on Oaxacan radical movements between January and September 2008 was translated from a number of different sources and posted to libcom's forums. They provide a number of useful insights into the situation in the volatile Mexican region.
The background:
In 2006 the Mexican state of Oaxaca was embroiled in a conflict that lasted more than seven months and resulted in at least eighteen deaths and the temporary occupation of the capital city of Oaxaca by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).
To Lorenzo San Pablo Cervantes
Two years on from your murder, this movement continues forward, despite all the differences and finds its way by means of honest and faternal dialogue. It is in this way, through that brotherhood and honesty of which you were an example, that we believe we have found a clear and solid form of linking together the different resistances and of constructing alternatives to this dominatory system that keeps Oaxaca and the entire world under its yoke.
“The true man goes to the roots.
To be radical is no more that this: he who goes to the roots.
He who does not see things in their depth should not call himself radical.
Nor that man who does not aid the security and speech of other men.”
José Marti
Compañero Lorenzo San Pablo:
Oaxaca: Overcoming the Fear. The long struggle for dignity
Article analysing the Oaxcan social movement from within, looking at its history, present and future and identifying obstacles to be overcome. Written by activists intimately involved with grassroots organisation and struggle.
(This article was prepared for a special edition of the magazine “La Guillotina” dedicated to the topic “Re-thinking the Left in Mexico”)
“This is not a movement of leaders, but of bases”
The APPO two years on: Where now for Oaxaca's social movement?
Two years later what is left now in Oaxaca? Has the APPO been reduced to a memorial mechanism to commemorate its fallen? Is it accurate, as URO keeps insisting with epileptic vigor, that, "nothing is happening" here? Or are we seeing a movement in chrysalis, reconsolidating only to reemerge just as vibrant, but even smarter, than before?
This fall in Oaxaca marks a season of commemorations. Already marches for fallen APPO members Jose Jimenez Colmenares and Lorenzo San Pablo Cervantes have woven their ways through the streets of the city, pausing at the spots they were murdered in 2006, holding ceremonies at the Cathedral. Twenty-four more such processions await Oaxaca in the coming months.
Anarchism and libertarian currents in the Oaxaca insurrectionary movement
Article examining the influence of libertarian ideas in the recent uprisings in Oaxaca, Mexico.
SERGIO DE CASTRO SANCHEZ
Originally published in Spanish on oaxacalibre.org and in Rojo Y Negro, newspaper of the CGT
Translated by a comrade of Capital Terminus Collective
