SF: Protest Oaxaca Massacre & Murder of Brad Will

http://indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/29/18324498.php


Americas | San Francisco
MONDAY 7AM AT MEXICAN CONSULATE!!!
by via list
Sunday Oct 29th, 2006 9:27 PM

MANY of us will be meeting at the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco
TOMORROW (532 Folsom St.), at 6:45am, to send a strong message to the
government of Mexico, that we will not allow this savage attack on our
brothers and sisters in Oaxaca to be taking place and have business go on as
usual.

(PLEASE HELP FORWARD THIS!!!)

Friends, Comrade, to everyone who cares about the struggles for justice in
Oaxaca:

MANY of us will be meeting at the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco
TOMORROW (532 Folsom St.), at 6:45am, to send a strong message to the
government of Mexico, that we will not allow this savage attack on our
brothers and sisters in Oaxaca to be taking place and have business go on as
usual.

Tonight and tomorrow at 9pm, we are meeting up at Station 40 (3030B 16th
Street, in front of 16th/Mission Street Bart) to make banners, signs, and
plans for the upcoming days. We really hope you can join us and help make
this much stronger with your participation and support. Please bring
anything that you think would be useful, but if you can't, we will have some
supplies here as well.

And please remember to invite others to come to the benefit for Oaxaca this
Wednesday at 7pm at Station 40
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/26/18323440.php

Oaxaca Vive! La Lucha Sigue!

PS- There will also be a demonstration at 5pm on Tuesday, Oct. 31, at the
Mexican Consulate. And you can join the electronic blockade of Mexican
consulate websites here: http://www.mountainrebel.net/oaxaca/

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Police Now Assaulting Oaxaca / NYC-IMC Response
to the Death of Brad Will
From: "Reclaim The Commons" reclaimthecommons [at] gmail.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So here is NYC-IMC's response below; meanwhile according to Reuters,
"Thousands of riot police backed by helicopters and armored trucks broke up
barricades to take control of Mexico's popular tourist city of Oaxaca on
Sunday, firing water cannons to disperse leftist protesters." Dan Feder at
NarcoNews reports, "Police are advancing with water cannon tanks and riot
shields. They have cleared several barricades but others are holding their
ground. Whether or not police are armed is unclear, but there have been
several reports on the movement station Radio APPO of PFP officers beating
protesters. The station also reports that snipers are flying low over the
city in three helicopters. Leaders continue exhorting the people to resist
but to abstain from any violence against the police."

NYC-IMC says they "reject the use of further state-sponsored violence in
Oaxaca" -- but further state-sponsored violence is now happening in Oaxaca.
So given this reality, I think we have no excuse not to take whatever action
we can locally, whether it's shutting down Mexican consulates or something
else, to protest & stop this situation...

>cienega wrote:
>NYC folks say they will be issuing a press release later this afternoon, so
hopefully that can help guide messaging >and information for individual
demonstrations. tonight they are just organizing a vigil.

THE NEW YORK CITY INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER
RESPONDS TO THE DEATH OF BRAD WILL

October 29, 2006
New York City

Brad Will was killed on October 27, 2006, in Oaxaca, Mexico, while
working as a journalist for the global Indymedia network. He was shot in
the torso while documenting an armed, paramilitary assault on the
Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, a fusion of striking local
teachers and other community organizations demanding democracy
in Mexico.

The members of the New York City Independent Media Center mourn the loss
of this inspiring colleague and friend. We want to thank everyone who
has sent condolences to our office and posted remembrances to
http://www.nyc.indymedia.org. We share our grief with the people of our city
and beyond who lived, worked, and struggled with Brad over the course of
his dynamic but short life. We can only imagine the pain of the people
of Oaxaca who have lost seven of their neighbors to this fight,
including Emilio Alonso Fabian, a teacher, and who now face an invasion
by federal troops.

All we want in compensation for his death is the only thing Brad ever
wanted to see in this world: justice.

* We, along with all of Brad's friends, reject the use of further
state-sponsored violence in Oaxaca.

* The New York City Independent Media Center supports the demand of
Reporters Without Borders for a full and complete investigation by
Mexican authorities into Oaxaca State Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz's
continued use of plain-clothed municipal police as a political
paramilitary force. The arrest of his assailants is not enough.

* The NYC IMC also supports the call of Zapatista Subcomandante
Insurgente Marcos "to companeros and companeras in other countries to
unite and to demand justice for this dead companero." Marcos issued this
call "especially to all of the alternative media, and free media here in
Mexico and in all the world."

Indymedia was born from the Zapatista vision of a global network of
alternative communication against neoliberalism and for humanity. To
believe in Indymedia is to believe that journalism is either in the
service of justice or it is a cause of injustice. We speak and listen,
resist and struggle. In that spirit, Brad Will was both a journalist and
a human rights activist.

He was a part of this movement of independent journalists who go where
the corporate media do not or stay long after they are gone. Perhaps
Brad's death would have been prevented if Mexican, international, and US
media corporations had told the story of the Oaxacan people. Then those
of us who live in comfort would not only be learning now about this 5
month old strike, or about this 500 year old struggle.

And then Brad might not have felt the need to face down those assassins
in Oaxaca holding merely the ineffective shields of his US passport and
prensa extranjera badge. Then Brad would not have joined the
fast-growing list of journalists killed in action, or the much longer
list of those killed in recent years by troops defending entrenched,
unjust power in Latin America.

Still, those of us who knew Brad know that his work would never have
been completed. From the community gardens of the Lower East Side to the
Movimento Sem Terra encampments of Brazil, he would have continued to
travel to where the people who make this world a beautiful place are
resisting those who would cause it further death and destruction. Now,
in his memory, we will all travel those roads. We are the network, all
of us who speak and listen, all of us who resist.


The New York City Independent Media Center
http://www.nyc.indymedia.org
4 W. 43rd St., Suite 311
New York, N.Y. 10036
USA / EEUU
212-221-0521