“The fundamental problem is capitalism…”- Florentino Martinez, Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, (APPO) On October 27th in Oaxaca Mexico, in the face of a renewed strike by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), groups of gunmen linked to three municipal mayors from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) launched an attack on the rebels. This attack resulted in the deaths of three people, eleven wounded, two disappeared, and hundreds of shells left scattered around the city.
This act of repression was just the latest in a string of brutal assaults. The revolt at first was started by a teachers strike, which for twenty-seven years has tried to get sufficient funds to aid poverty-ridden towns. This year was different; this year the people fought back in new ways. Starting with occupations of public areas, and using systems of general assemblies as decision making bodies, the Oaxaca Rebellion was born. The movement grew, and people began to occupy social spaces, government buildings, television and radio stations, and word of the revolt spread. Police reacted as agents of the state do all over the world, by killings and beatings. The people however, were unwavering. “We are not afraid,” one spokeswoman said. “Whatever happens, happens. We are fed up with this situation. We are fighting for our children.”
Direct action, not party politics or voting, has been the method of change for those writing history in the streets of Oaxaca. Taking over media centers to spread news, destroying and occupying government property, taking to the streets and stopping business as usual. All of this is designed to disable the one thing that the elites care most about: profits. Struggles across the world have much to learn from the rebels in Oaxaca, who don’t wait for change, but go into the streets and create it for themselves. For them, a revolution is not an abstraction, but something that they have a stake in creating. Even now, as you read this, people are resisting, fighting, and in some cases, dying for a better world in Oaxaca. Rebels and revolutionaries in what is generally known as a “tourist town”, are building and defending barricades, feeding and taking care of each other, and battling the police to re-gain control of their city.
Across Latin America, indigenous, revolutionary, and anti-capitalist movements have also answered Oaxaca’s call, and have fought with them in solidarity. From indigenous struggles, to the Zapatista’s “La Otra Campaña", a new surge of revolutionary sprit that contends our dreams will never fit in the state’s ballot boxes, is rising. Across the world, and in this country as well, many have answered the calls for support from the people of Oaxaca. Mexican consulate buildings have been occupied and attacked, rallies and protests have been made, and people all over the world have put pressure on the Mexican government to stop the repression, assassinations, and violence.
Solidarity is still needed, people can organize, and take the fight to the nearest Mexican Consulate, found here: http://www.mexonline.com/consulate.htm For more news of the ongoing rebellion:
www.news.infoshop.org, http://www.indymedia.org, http://www.narconews.com
“It is clear that this is more than a strike, more than expulsion of a governor, more than a blockade, more than a coalition of fragments; it is a genuine people’s revolt.” Brad Will, New York Indymedia, Oct. 17th, Killed by Agents of the State, Oct 27th