AP: Gunmen Slay Indian Activist in Oaxaca

[Eugene]

Gunmen Slay Indian Activist in Oaxaca

By REBECA ROMERO
The Associated Press
Sunday, December 10, 2006; 1:12 AM

MEXICO CITY -- Assailants shot dead an Indian activist in Mexico's conflict-ridden
state of Oaxaca, police said Saturday. It was not clear if the killing was related
to months of political violence in which at least nine other people have died.

The bullet-ridden corpse of Raul Marcial Perez was found Friday on a road near the
Mixtec Indian community of Agua Fria about 120 miles north of Oaxaca City, state
police said in a news release. He had been shot earlier in the day, it said.

Marcial Perez had been involved in disputes involving two rival Triqui Indian rights
groups, but it was not clear if that was related to his slaying.

Some Indian groups in Oaxaca have participated in demonstrations against state
Gov. Ulises Ruiz, who is accused of thuggery and corruption. The protesters took
over the center of Oaxaca for five months until thousands of federal police drove
them off in clashes in October and November.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/10/AR2006121000037.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. Oaxaca from Above and Below

"...we who are nobody will not become a fragmented mirror..."

WORDS FROM DELEGATE ZERO OF THE SIXTH COMMISSION OF THE EZLN (the Zapatistas).
DECEMBER 2, 2006. COPAI-México

Hundreds of people detained illegally, dozens of people disappeared, tortures, searches, and beatings. Young men and women, indigenous people, children, elders. In other words: the people of Oaxaca who come from below. Above, there are the Federal Preventive Police, Ulises Ruiz’s paramilitaries, the mass media, the political class.

To be quiet in the face of this is to say “Oaxaca” from above, and to make top-down assessments that are cheerful…and idiotic.

Because up above they are prepared to declare that everything has returned to normal and that the “conflict” is controlled because “the leaders” have been detained, as if this movement had “leaders” to be bought, imprisoned or killed. They say that now we must look the other way. That is to say, we must turn a steady gaze to those above, to the paraphernalia of political power, to its simulations and its fronts, which command and give orders while the true Power doles out the day’s orders to its media, pundits, announcers, artists, intellectuals, police chiefs, military units and paramilitary.

To say “Oaxaca” from below is to say compañero and compañera, to draw near to those who are persecuted, to mobilize our own forces to demand the return of the disappeared and the release of detainees, to inform, to call for international solidarity and support, to not be quiet, to speak of this southern pain and to announce that it extends through the entire country and beyond its borders on all four sides, as though it were down below where pains walks, is named, spoken of and listened to.

Oaxaca is extending in pain, but also in struggle. Pieces of this people, as if parts of a puzzle, are scattered throughout the national territory and beyond its geographic limits, which, at least in the north, are more ridiculous than ever.

During the two months that we spent walking in the different corners of the Mexican north, Oaxaca appeared over after over. And it cloaked itself in pain and rage, and it spoke to us and watched us.

And the Other Campaign listened and keeps listening; and it extends its arms, as do the thousands of Zapatistas who blocked off the roads of Chiapas on two occasions in solidarity with Oaxaca and the Others in all of the corners of Mexico from Below, as well as the others in all of the corners of the world. As they extend their arms. As they will keep extending them even if no one pays attention; as we who are nobody will not become a fragmented mirror.

http://narconews.com/Issue44/article2438.html

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NOTE FROM PEACE PATRIOT: At least 17 innocent peaceful protesters and others like photojournalist Brad Will have been shot dead by Gov. Ruiz's paramilitaries, and hundreds of others have been kidnapped, raped, tortured, detained in secret and disappeared. All of these horrendous actions are now supported by President Calderon. There is no better proof of Calderon's illegitimacy than this--that he would bring federal troops into this conflict on the side of murderers and torturers. And now the federales are themselves murdering and torturing the innocent peaceful people of Oaxaca, who dare to ask for justice and fairness.

This AP article goes out of its way to point the finger away from Ruiz and Calderon in this latest murder of one of the leaders of the peoples' movement in Oaxaca, Marcial Perez. They say he was mediating an Indian tribe dispute. Indian tribes in Oaxaca do not shoot their mediators, nor each other in disputes. This is a war profiteering corporate news monopoly reporter searching for any little fact that can give the impression that maybe the President of Mexico and the Governor of Oaxaca are not murdering scum. This is my opinion, after long experience of AP's wretchedly biased, pro-global corporate articles on the democracy movements in Latin America.

My heart sorrows for Marcial Perez, for his loved ones and for the people of Oaxaca, who have lost so many, and whose good-hearted, peaceful leaders are being targeted and killed, or grievously harmed by torture and detention. They are heroes of the great social movement seeking justice and fairness for the vast Latin American population of the poor, who have been so brutalized, exploited and neglected by the rich and powerful in Mexico, and by US-based global corporate predators, and our own collusive and criminal government in Washington. Justice and fairness for the poor is at last being achieved with successful democracy movements throughout Latin America, in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador, and recently in Nicaragua. The old fascists and exploiters who collude with US corporations are being defeated everywhere else, and will be in Mexico as well, and, hopefully, in our own troubled land, where we have a fascist junta inflicting so much pain here and abroad.

But it is more than justice and fairness for the vast poor majority that we are seeing, in this great democracy movement. It is the mobilization of these entire societies--in country after country--to create a positive future for Latin America, of economic and political cooperation among Latin countries, of self-determination, and of release of the vast creative energies of all citizens. In Venezuela, for instance, a little known program of classical music training for the extremely poor children of the barrio--now funded by the government's oil profits--is producing musical geniuses, who travel the world giving concerts and conducting orchestras, and have impressed critics worldwide with their skill and their passionate, blistering interpretation of classical pieces. The poorest of the poor! A society is not healthy--and cannot create lasting prosperity--if most of its people have no access to education, training and literacy, to medical care, to small business loans and other helping hands. In the old model, vast numbers of people were marginalized, for the benefit of the super-rich. In the new model, everyone has a chance to contribute to the culture and to general prosperity. It is REAL democracy that Latin America is re-inventing.

U.S. citizens, take note. Watch and learn. And give your support, in whatever way you can, to the rebirth of democracy in the Americas. It is for this that Marcial Perez died.