FROM COAST TO COAST, WE DEMAND AN END TO REPRESSION
In recent days, there has been an escalation of state repression in Oaxaca specifically directed at our companer@s in the APPO (Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca/Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca), CIPO [1]-RFM [2] (Consejo Indigena de Popular de Oaxaca-Ricardo Flores Magon/Council of Indigenous Peoples of Oaxaca) and other organizations of resistance.
Last Thursday, the Mexican state arrested Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, an activist with the APPO, outrageously charging him as the author of Brad Will’s murder, and fellow activist Octavio Perez Perez for covering up the crime. There is video evidence that agents of the state, affiliated with Governor Ruiz Ortiz, are responsible for this killing and the killing of many other activists in the fall of 2006 during the popular uprising.
Three other activists were also arrested in Oaxaca last week, allegedly for assaulting a municipal president at a barricade in 2006: Lirio Lopez, Miguel Cruz Lopez, who works with CIPO, and Guadalupe. This marks a broader crackdown on people and organizations who participated in the 2006 uprising and who continue to organize in Oaxaca.
And on September 25, our beloved companera Marcella Sali Grace Eiler, an international solidarity activist working with CIPO and Colectivo Mujer Nueva, was found raped and murdered in San Jose del Pacifico, Oaxaca. Sali was experiencing state surveillance while living at the CIPO house and accompanying Miguel Lopez and his family. Her murder is part of escalating violence against women as neoliberal trade policies like CAFTA and NAFTA [3] are instituted and the Mexican state and its borders grow more militarized.
We are putting out a call to action for the weeks surrounding October 27, 2008 marking the anniversary of the PFP invasion of Oaxaca. We want to speak out against rising repression of those who resist the state in Oaxaca, to raise awareness of what our companer@s are experiencing, and to take action in solidarity with them. We want to highlight the complicity of the U.S. government - with $400 million of military aid in 2008 alone - and of defense contractors and other corporations in funding and supplying the Mexican state with the tools of violence and repression through Plan Mexico.
We call for direct actions, pickets and press conferences at the offices of Mexican consulates, defense contractors, and US government agencies across the country, teach-ins and benefits for organizations in Oaxaca, memorials and marches for beloved fighters lost in this struggle, everyday challenges to gender, racial and economic inequality, and anything else that people believe to be necessary.
We demand:
END STATE REPRESSION IN OAXACA!
STOP THE CRIMINALIZATION OF ACTIVISTS IN OAXACA!
PROSECUTE GOVERNMENT AGENTS RESPONSIBLE FOR MURDER!
SHUT DOWN US FUNDING OF THE MEXICAN POLICE STATE!
STOP THE MASSACRES IN CHIAPAS!
END THE FEMICIDE IN MEXICO!
JUSTICE AND RESPECT FOR WOMEN EVERYWHERE!
END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN OUR COMMUNITIES!
NO MORE MILITARIZATION OF THE US-MEXICO BORDER!
JUSTICE, FREEDOM AND SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE PEOPLES OF OAXACA!
JUSTICE, FREEDOM AND SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE PEOPLES OF CHIAPAS!
YA BASTA!
Actions and events are already scheduled in New York City, Minneapolis, MN, Tucson, AZ, Eugene, OR and Santa Cruz, CA.
Please post information about your action with your local Indymedia etc.
In Solidarity,
Individual members of Solidarity Without Borders-NYC, Friends and Family of Sali, and Friends of Brad Will
Contact solidaritywithoutbordersgroup@gmail.com [4] (NYC) or
bicyclevillain@riseup.net [5] (AZ) with any questions.
Contact bicyclevillain@riseup.net [5] to facilitate monetary donations to CIPO-RFM, Colectivo Mujer Nueva and No Mas Muertes.
For more information...
On the Recent Arrests in Oaxaca:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/10/oaxaca... [6]
On the recent massacre in Chiapas:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/10/chiapa... [7]
On U.S. Funding of the Mexican Military with Plan Mexico:
http://www.leftturn.org/?q=node/1240 [8]
With video evidence of US-made "less than lethal" weapons being used on civilians:
http://www.narconews.com/Issue54/article3214.html [9].