(Bullshit)Oaxaca: APPO Activists arrested for the murder of Brad Will

By Kristin Bricker NarcoNews

Mexican federal police arrested five Oaxacan activists on Thursday afternoon. At least two were arrested for supposedly murdering US citizen and Indymedia journalist Brad Will on October 27, 2006.

Brad Will was assassinated while reporting and filming the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca. Multiple witnesses say he was shot by paramilitaries who are seen in photos shooting towards Will. The paramilitaries are: Juan Carlo Soriano, municipal police officer; Manuel Aguilar, council personnel chief; Able Santiago Zarate; and Pedro Carmona, mayor of Felipe Carrillo Puerto de Santa Lucia del Camino.

The government claims that Will was shot at close range, therefore implicating the APPO activists around him. To prove this claim, the government at one point stated that the autopsy found powder burns on Will's body consistent with a close-range shooting. However, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy contradicted this claim, saying he did not find powder burns on Will's body.

The man the government accuses of being the intelectual author of Will's murder is Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno. Martínez Moreno has supported the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO in its Spanish initials). Martínez Moreno made headlines in 2007 when he was kidnapped along with two other APPO members while performing election observation in Santa Lucía del Camino, where Will was murdered in October 2006. The kidnappers beat the three APPOistas severely in the face and abdomen under a bridge and then dumped them in a community 38 kilometers from Oaxaca City.

Police also acknowledged arresting Octavio Perez Perez for covering up the crime. Perez participated in the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca.

The Angry White Kid blog reports that three other activists have been arrested: Lirio Lopez, Miguel Lopez, and Guadalupe (last name unknown). It is unknown if these activists are also accused of Will's murder or if the arrests are part of a larger crackdown on dissent in Oaxaca.

According to Angry White Kid: "Activists here first learned of the detention of Juan and joined his family this evening at the Penitenciaria Central de Santa Maria Ixcotel, Oaxaca. Juan's mother and wife have not been allowed in to see him. Later it was learned four others had been detained. A planton is planned at the Ixcotel penal beginning at 9am on Friday."

APPO activists and members of the Indigenous Popular Council of Oaxaca (CIPO) say the government is blaming activists for Will's murder in order to cover up its own involvement in the crime.

Mexico: teachers' strike spreads up the Pacific coast while Oaxaca cautiously holds firm

The annual teachers' strike in Oaxaca has been bolstered by soldarity strikes of other sections of the Sindicato Nacional de los Trabajadores en la Educación (SNTE) stretching up and down the Mexican Pacific coastline, while in Oaxaca itself, occupations and blockades continue apace in support. Most analysts however have already doomed the strike to failure.

On Friday 30th, the strike by the Oaxacan SNTE local (Sección 22, around whose strike coalesced the 2006 revolt) entered its 12th day, with more motorways blocked, more tollbooths closed down and more education buildings occupied throughout the state. Teachers have also managed to close down various shopping malls throughout Ciudad de Oaxaca itself, while the occupation of the Zócalo (central square) is maintained.

Encouragingly, the strike, supported since day one by SNTE members in the state of Michoacán, has also seen solidarity by other SNTE members in the states of Guerrero (directly to the north of Oaxaca) and Chiapas (directly to the south), although workers have now returned to classrooms in both states.

In Oaxaca, the SNTE strike is now an annual event, yet some of the teachers' demands (such as the democratization of the SNTE) are now being picked up by teachers in other parts of the country. In Tabasco, a caravan convoy of SNTE members has now departed for Mexico City, some 1500km away.

In Oaxaca and Michoacán, responding to criticisms from some quarters which claim that the schoolchildren will lose out on their education, teachers have found various ways to avoid that scenario while maintaining industrial action. In Oaxaca, teachers have held 3 day long strikes each in rotation, depending on their region, with each region marching on the plantón (encampment) in the Zócalo of Cuidad de Oaxaca in order to relieve the last.

Meanwhile, the local government awaits the response of Sección 22 to their latest offer. The strike is still scheduled to run nine more days, but most seem to be relatively confident an agreement will be made before its official end. Indeed, the mood in Oaxaca seems to be relatively negative, with street vendors around the Zócalo and the proprietors of the plaza's various cafes and restaurants joining with the local government to condemn the strike and occupation. For most Oaxacans, the memories of 2006 are still too fresh to even consider this movement going any further.

An informative article about Oaxaca two years on from the revolt: http://www.narconews.com/Issue53/article3113.html