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NEWS & LETTERS, February - March 2007Oaxaca: a land of repression and resistanceOaxaca is a land of revolutionary upsurge, repression and resistance. At the present moment repression with a mano duro (hard hand) is the order of the day as Oaxaquenos, who have been active in the upsurge, are picked up on the streets, beaten by local or state police as a warning to spread fear in the community, and then released. Others remain imprisoned weeks after being swept up by the federal prevention police, who viciously broke up a protest march in late November. Ulises Ruiz, the fraudulently elected, corrupt governor and undoubtedly the author and manipulator of the present repression, still remains in power. This continuous repression must not obscure what has occurred from May/June through November, and continues in open and underground ways--the emergence of an Oaxaca in revolt, first responding to Ruiz’s crude attempt to crush a teachers’ strike, and then blossoming and developing in a multitude of ways, encompassing the indigenous, women, youth, and people from the city and the countryside, all joining the striking teachers. Indeed, one often finds indigenous, teacher, woman, within a single person. It is truly the population to a woman, man and child taking matters into their own hands. Among the Oaxaca uprising’s important aspects: 1) the creation of APPO, the Popular Assemby of the Peoples of Oaxaca, (Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca), rooted in an indigenous tradition became the most crucial forum to organize action and express ideas from below; 2) the participation of women, who took matters into their own hands and seized a radio and television station, thus finding and speaking with their own voices; 3) the youth, particularly from the university, who fought to defend and extend the gains of the struggle, including the important act of seizing the university radio station when the teachers’ Radio Planton was destroyed; 4) the neighborhood activists, who, particularly in poor areas, defended their streets, building barricades in the evening to stop the caravans, and pouring out to participate in the mega-marches that stretched from the summer into the fall; 5) the teachers, tens of thousands strong, who had catalyzed the rebellion with their initial strike and occupation of the central plaza, and continued to remain at the heart of the occupation of Oaxaca City; 6) the teachers, campesinos and others from outside Oaxaca City who created their own asambleas where they lived, and traveled to the capital to join the protests; 7) And always, always, the indigenous dimension, the heart and soul of Oaxaca. UNFOLDING OF THE OAXACA REBELLION On May 22, the Oaxacan teachers organized under section 22 of the National Union of Educational Workers (El Sindicato Nacional de Trabajdores Educative, SNTE). After a week of fruitless negotiation, the teachers and their supporters occupied the central square and dozens of surrounding blocks. Rather than forcing a settlement in a few days, the teachers found themselves in an open battle with the Ruiz regime. In the pre-dawn hours of June 14 Ruiz sent state police to attack the sleeping teachers, many of whom were encamped with their families. Facing physical force, including large amounts of tear gas, the teachers were driven from the central plaza, their encampment broken up. The teachers refused to yield, battled back, and after several hours, took over the center of the city. The government’s unprovoked attack, designed to terrorize and break the teachers, proved to be a major turning point. Not only did the teachers in a courageous and determined manner hold their own, but an outraged citizenry throughout the state of Oaxaca came to the aid of the teachers and saw the battle as their own. Two days after the attack a third mega-march was held. The more than 300,000 who poured out included members from indigenous communities from the coast to the sierra. The following day the movement created a revolutionary form to catalyze its struggle--the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca, APPO. APPO--THE INDIGENOUS ASSEMBLY INFUSED WITH NEW CONTENT APPO is the synthesis of many movement organizations. Hundreds of organizations would eventually come together “in all colors and flavors” to become part of APPO. The central demand was the removal of Ruiz. As the movement developed, this came to mean not only his person, but all the representatives of the political authoritarian system which had been in power for some seven decades. APPO was anti-systemic. At the same time there was the beginning of the construction of popular power. How to communicate with Oaxaca’s multitude was central to this construction. With the teachers’ Radio Platon smashed, students at Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca took over the university radio station. It became one of APPO’s principal ways of reaching the city’s masses, informing them of news of the movement, of marches and other protest activities, as well as warning of state police threats--communication desde abajo, from below. Because the state government greatly feared this revolutionary communication from below, they organized their police force and their “private” underground forces to carry out assaults on the movement-controlled communications. To protect itself, APPO organized its own security forces and used its communications media to defend the rebellion. Appeals went out over the air to guard the radio station(s) and resist government attacks. One form of resistance was the building of barricades to protect the occupation of the center of the city, the radio stations and transmission towers in the movement’s hands, and in general to prevent secret night attacks by the government-sponsored forces. Sometimes these were fortified permanent-type barricades including using commandeered buses. Others were temporary barricades to stop the movement of caravans in the evenings. When a call went out to construct such barricades it was answered immediately with the construction of several hundred the first night. APPO’s form of representation was simple and direct, born from indigenous practices. Decisions were taken in asambleas in which all participated. While there are spokespersons, the organization is horizontal, not with a hierarchy of leaders. Activists speak of APPO not only as an immediate form of organization, but as a spirit of rebellion and communalism that has grown over many, many years. APPO WOMEN FIND THEIR OWN VOICES Aug. 2 marked an important leap in the movement, when a group of APPO women seized the state television and radio stations whose signal covered the state. A new stage in the struggle had arrived. Now working women, indigenous women, who never had a chance to tell their stories in public, to present their ideas, were able to speak, to find their own voices and be heard in a way they had never been heard before. The women were everywhere. Not alone at the radio and television, but in the numerous mega-marches as well as La marcha de las caserolas (the march of women beating their pots and pans with wooden spoons). They were building the barricades and defending them. They brought food to those operating the radio stations. If Oaxaca City was the storm center of the upsurge, the countryside was by no means passive. During the months of the uprising, many communities in Oaxaca took the initiative to form there own local APPOs. They traveled to Oaxaca City to participate in the mega-marches. These communities had as well felt the repressive hand of the state government for decades. Our concentration on the creativity of the movement is not meant to minimize the repression which Oaxaquenos face day in and day out, and which is being expressed with particular viciousness, brutality and outright murder in the battle for Oaxaca over the last seven months. At least 17 people have been murdered directly during, and because of, their participation in the movement. Hundreds have been arrested and many of those remain as political prisoners. However, the battle for Oaxaca is far from over. We will see what form it will take in the period ahead. --Eugene Gogol |
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