Davies: Oaxaca’s State TV Station Under Popul ar Control

August 2, 2006
Please Distribute Widely

Dear Colleague,

The remarkable social uprising in the Mexican stat of Oaxaca
continues to break new ground. Yesterday, a large group of Oaxacan
women, after marching through the city center, descended on the state
television station and peacefully took it over. Within hours the
women had begun broadcasting - the TV channel is fully under popular
control and the people have begun to seize the means of communication.

Nancy Davies writes from Oaxaca City:

"Women have played a strong part from the beginning of the movement,
as they comprise half of the teachers’ union and/or are mothers of
students affected. As parents they have expressed rage against lack
of decent schools and classrooms, and most recently against paying
enrollment fees for public schools. Free education is guaranteed by
the Mexican Constitution. Fees to register, as well as purchase of
uniforms and books, appear to have fronted yet another method of
state theft.

"About 350 women marched into the state TV Channel 9 facilities at
approximately 1:30 p.m. Nobody stopped them. Perhaps a thousand women
and children more stood on watch outside the building. At 3:30 the
channel went off the air. Within an hour, the women telephoned Radio
Universidad, the radio station at the Benito Juárez Autonomous
University of Oaxaca (UABJO), to say they had two radio stations
working from the site, one AM and one FM, but no television. They
reported that there had been no opposition, no struggle, and nobody
was hurt. They asked the listeners for back-up – guards, food, water,
and people who know how to operate television cameras.

"...at 7:00 this evening Channel 9 went back on the air. Terrible
sound, full of static, but there was the APPO. Seated in front of a
movement banner, which read 'When a woman advances there is no man
who stays behind,' Daniela, a lawyer who works both with APPO and the
civil rights commission CODEP, introduced half a dozen women (none
introduced by name, I simply recognized Daniela). The women took
turns with a hand-held microphone to demand that URO resign. 'The
women organized for a great march,' one said. 'We are in the
struggle. Thanks to Ulises Ruíz the people have risen up, with
marches, and concentrations of citizens. Channel 9 never gave us
information, only lies. The APPO is the people. In a peaceful way we
have taken the channel which is the public channel.'"

Read the whole story in The Narco News Bulletin:

http://www.narconews.com

From somewhere in a country called América,

Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com
dan [at] narconews.com

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