Two Days in the Life of Oaxaca's Revolution
A Neighborhood Organizes to Hold a Radio Station and Protect Citizens from Police Repression
By James Daria
The Ricardo Flores Magón Brigade Reporting for Narco News from Oaxaca
August 23, 2006
Monday, around four o’clock in the morning, the antennas and transmitter of the Oaxacan Radio and Television Corporation were attacked by police and hired thugs known as porros. A few weeks earlier, Oaxacan women took the offices of Channel 9 and the radio station at 96.9 FM, creating an audio and visual outlet for the demands of the social movement that is currently shaking the foundations of Oaxacan society. In the attacks, armed forces supposedly linked to the state government fired upon peaceful protesters occupying the facilities on top of Fortin Hill. One person was wounded and the equipment was destroyed, striking a strategic blow against the free expression of the popular movement and turning up the already tense climate in the city.
Oaxaca awoke to a flurry of activity as streets were blocked throughout the city completely paralyzing transportation. Upon hearing of the attack against Channel 9, the popular forces remobilized and occupied 15 corporate radio stations throughout the city, according to the report in the local daily Las Noticias. It was as if the response was, “if you take two of ours; we will take fifteen of yours” as they further increasing the un-governability of Oaxaca. The protesters had spontaneously and simultaneously organized the most massive media takeover ever seen in Oaxaca.
Waking up in the morning and trying to go to work, this reporter ran into a road blockade in his own neighborhood, a largely residential subdivision with cheap government housing and insufficient basic services. City buses were put into strategic places completely cutting off access to the neighborhood and to the Regional University of the South East located in the entrance. The neighborhood, El Rosario, is tucked into the southeast pocket of Oaxaca City and is surrounded by hills. Normally the residents of this neighborhood have stayed relatively neutral as to the current course of events but, finding themselves in the midst of the struggle to guard the antenna of one of the radio stations taken by the popular forces, the neighborhood’s consciousness began to rise and be put into action. From early on local residents brought food and coffee to the small numbers of teachers that were camped out in front of the antenna.
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http://www.narconews.com/Issue42/article2021.html