Hi. I intended sending further voting recommendations this morning, including opinion on judges, which several folks have asked for. Important stuff, but trumped by the events described below by respected sources not compromised by supporting discounting actual ballots in Mexico's election, as in U.S. corporate media.
I'll send the ballot material a.s.a.p. Thanks to Anna Kunkin for the Indymedia statement on the death of Brad Will, and to Portside for the following reports. I'll send you the first decent report I see on Lula's great victory in Brazil. Ed Jo Tuckman in Oaxaca Monday October 30, 2006 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1934668,00.html Thousands of federal riot police backed by armoured trucks and helicopters pushed into the Mexican city of Oaxaca yesterday as a protest that began over teachers' pay spiralled into a major confrontation. Police wearing body armour and carrying riot shields and submachine guns were accompanied by water cannon and helicopters as they moved from the outskirts of the city towards the central plaza that has been occupied by a leftwing movement for months. Hundreds of protesters shouted their fury as the wall of police advanced, sometimes managing to push it back a few inches. Housewives, workers, students, teachers and others chanted: "The people united will never be defeated" as they were pushed back. Police in the line stared impassively ahead towards a large green sign over the road inviting tourists to enjoy the colonial and indigenous charms that have made Oaxaca particularly popular with European visitors. But most tourists have been scared away from the picturesque centre, which has been occupied for months by a movement that began as a dispute over teachers' pay and conditions in May, but has since grown into a social revolt. The protesters have occupied the city's central plaza, seized radio and television stations, and blocked main roads. To reach the movement's stronghold in the central square, police will have to get through dozens of barricades made from pieces of corrugated iron, burnt-out buses and lorries driven across the road. The protesters' main demand is the removal of the governor of Oaxaca state, Ulises Ruiz, whose failed attempt to evict the teachers in June led to the radicalisation of the movement. Organised into a loose coalition of unions, residents' associations, indigenous and student groups, the so- called Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, Appo, accuses Mr Ruiz of everything from electoral fraud to murder. According to some members, the coalition includes representatives of small armed guerrilla groups active in the state. Appo, which has made it impossible for Mr Ruiz to appear in public in Oaxaca, says the governor has set up paramilitary groups to attack its members. It claims that 14 people have died since the occupation began, with several killed at the barricades at night in drive-by shootings. The federal government of President Vicente Fox stayed out of the conflict for a few months, claiming it was a local matter. When it failed to go away, the interior ministry sponsored talks, which led to a deal with teachers' leaders. In the first real sign that a peaceful end to the conflict might be possible, most of the teachers voted last week to go back to work today. However, the tension rocketed on Friday again when a day of violence throughout the city left two protesters dead, along with a US journalist sympathetic to their cause who was shot in the chest twice as he filmed an attack by armed men on one of the barricades. A national newspaper later identified the gunmen as police in civilian clothes. The protesters accuse Mr Ruiz of stepping up the attacks in order to force the federal government into quashing their movement in the name of restoring order. If so, the strategy appears to have succeeded, with the government announcing it was sending in the police on Saturday. "Shame on President Fox," said a retired builder Arbado Corteza. "How can it be that the job of one governor is worth more than the entire population of Oaxaca?" But the claim that the entire state backs the movement is belied by some residents who are frustrated by the closed schools and the occupation that has devastated the local economy. Others balk at what they see as anarchy taking hold, with instances of alleged thieves beaten and tied to lampposts with signs around their necks. However, Appo does have significant support among ordinary people, who responded to calls on a radio station controlled by the movement to provide non- violent resistance to the military-style police operation to retake the city. Elsewhere there were reports of protesters stockpiling stones and petrol bombs for a more active resistance to any police advance. "They will be able to get through, what can we do, we don't have the weapons to stop them, we are peaceful," said 33-year-old Rosa Jiminez as she stood a few metres from the police frontline. "But while we can't stop them going in, perhaps we can stop them getting out." ==================================================== Killings in Oaxaca Prompt Fox to Send in Federal Forces Diego Cevallos http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35283 MEXICO CITY, Oct 28 (IPS) - The Mexican government announced Saturday that it was sending federal police to the capital of the southern state of Oaxaca to restore law and order, after four people were killed and 23 injured there Friday. Striking teachers and hundreds of local residents living in camps have occupied downtown Oaxaca City for five months to demand the resignation of Governor Ulises Ruiz. Ten protesters had been killed so far, but Friday was the most violent day since the conflict began, bringing the total number of victims to 14. President Vicente Fox decided to send in federal forces after holding an emergency meeting with his top security officials into the wee hours of Saturday. According to radio reports from Oaxaca City, hundreds of federal police officers had arrived to the state capital by air on Saturday. The Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), which is demanding the removal of Governor Ruiz, who they accuse of corruption and authoritarianism, declared itself on maximum alert and called on its members to put up resistance to any violent actions of which they are the target. APPO, made up of 350 Oaxaca social organisations, emerged in June after Ruiz sent police to break up a protest by teachers who went on strike in May for better salaries. On Friday, heavily armed men in civilian dress, who witnesses identified as police officers and municipal authorities, reportedly opened fire on members of APPO, who were defending barricades they have set up to block streets in the city centre. The protesters, whose blockades have frequently been the targets of drive-by shootings, have armed themselves with sticks and Molotov cocktails for protection. The men who were fatally shot Friday included a teacher, a resident of a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Oaxaca, and a freelance U.S. journalist and cameraman. A fourth victim is still unidentified. The U.S. reporter, Bradley Will, 36, was working for Indymedia, an Internet-based alternative news agency. He was killed by two shots to the abdomen while attempting to film interviews for a documentary he was preparing. Osvaldo RamÃrez, a photographer with the Mexican daily Milenio, was among the injured. The U.S. embassy in Mexico lamented Will's death, which, according to Ambassador Antonio Garza, "underscores the critical need for a return to lawfulness and order in Oaxaca." The embassy also said the men who shot at the protesters may have been local police. APPO blames the 14 deaths on paramilitary groups made up of police officers and hired killers allegedly contracted by Ruiz. On Friday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged the Fox administration to get involved in a more decisive manner in the Oaxaca conflict. Meanwhile, the International Federation for Human Rights expressed its concern for the growing disrespect of human rights in Oaxaca. APPO said several of its members had been arrested Friday, and that no one knows where they are being held. Although Ruiz, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has been urged by the Fox administration, the ruling National Action Party (PAN), and a number of PRI leaders to step down or take a leave of absence, he has consistently refused. The conflict in Oaxaca, one of Mexico's poorest states, broke out in May when the local teachers' union went on strike. As a result, some 1.3 million public school students were unable to start the school year in September. This week, the teachers voted in assemblies to return to the classrooms. But after Friday's violence, and because of the decision to send in federal police, that decision could be revoked, APPO said. Since it emerged in June, APPO has occupied public offices and several local private radio stations, while setting up barricades cutting off streets in central Oaxaca City. For the past few months, Ruiz has governed from a luxury hotel in the Mexican capital. Human rights organisations say the security forces in Oaxaca work against social movements in the state through repression, bribes or threats. Ruiz, who blames the crisis in Oaxaca on APPO, belongs to the most conservative wing of the PRI. While the party, which governed Mexico from 1929 to 2000, has lost its hold over most of the states and at a national level, it remains all-powerful in Oaxaca. (END/2006) To subscribe to the list: http://www.portside.org/subscribe To search the portside archive: http://www.portside.org/archive *** From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Hannah Sassaman) Date: October 29, 2006 1:15:54 PM PST Subject: Statement: The New York City Independent Media Center Responds to the Death of Brad Will The New York City Independent Media Center www.nyc.indymedia.org 4 W. 43rd St., Suite 311 New York, N.Y. 10036 USA / EEUU Main Number: 212-221-0521 Alternative Press Contact: Brandon Jourdan, (646) 342-8169 Statement: 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 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 compañeros and compañeras in other countries to unite and to demand justice for this dead compañero." 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 www.nyc.indymedia.org 4 W. 43rd St., Suite 311 New York, N.Y. 10036 USA / EEUU 212-221-0521 hannah sassaman prometheusradioproject --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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