City-Wide NYC Meeting in Support of Oaxaca

[Wiley50]

COME TO THE FIRST NYC MEETING IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLES OF OAXACA,
MEXICO

Thursday, December 14th, 2006
7:30PM
Hunter College
Room 436 North Building ­ 4th floor
enter 69th street between Lexington & Park Avenues

The Mexican Federal government has chosen the
path of violence and repression instead of
negotiation to resolve this conflict in Oaxaca,
Mexico. This conflict began on June 14th when
Oaxaca's governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz sent in state
police to break a peaceful teachers' strike that
was camped out in the center of Oaxaca
City. Gov. Ruiz had already alarmed
international human rights organizations,
including Amnesty International, for atrocities
committed before the June 14. The actions on June
14th further ignited people’s anger throughout
the State who responded, by forming the People's
Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) who reinforced
the teachers' encampment in Oaxaca City. The
single demand of the APPO has been the resignation of Gov. Ruiz.

Since June 14th, the violence against the
teachers and the APPO by paramilitary forces and
police aligned with Gov. Ruiz has escalated and
on October 27th, independent journalist, Brad
Will, as brutally murdered at the hands of
plainclothes police officers and local government
officials in Santa Lucia del Camino, Oaxaca.

Two days later, on October 29th, the Mexican
Federal government dispatched several thousand
Federal Preventative Police (PFP) troops to
remove civilian protesters supporting the APPO
from their encampments throughout the city. There
were the recorded deaths of at least three
civilians as a direct result of the excessive
force that the PFP used to dislodge the
protesters, despite official comments from the
State and Federal governments to the contrary.

On November 2nd, the PFP tried to enter the
Benito Juarez Autonomous University in an attempt
to shut down the university radio station
critical of Governor Ruiz. Mexican law prohibits
the incursion of law enforcement onto autonomous
universities, unless requested by the university
rector. The rector of the Benito Juarez
categorically rejected the presence of the PFP in Oaxaca.

Oaxaca City is now living under a state of siege.
Since June 14th, at least 20 people have been
killed, over 500 people have been imprisoned,
more then 100 people have been disappeared and
hundreds wounded. Pick-up trucks carrying PFP,
State and Municipal Police are now patrolling the
city, randomly detaining people without arrest
warrants. Most of the people detained are unable
to contact family members and are being moved to
prisons outside of the state. Teachers are being
pulled from their classrooms. Many of the people
detained have been tortured. An illegal radio
station, Radio Ciudadana, affiliated with Gov.
Ruiz is broadcasting the names of APPO members,
Human Rights workers and others, giving their
addresses and offering a reward for their assassination.

The only way to resolve this conflict is through
dignified, peaceful negotiation, and respect for human rights.

Please come to this meeting where we will plan
how we can be supportive of the people in Oaxaca, Mexico.

[EFerrari]

1. K&R

[EFerrari]

2. kick