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Oaxaca's Grassroots Struggle

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Oaxaca's Grassroots Struggle November 20, 2006 Dear Friends, Now that the elections are over, we in MUSTE the peace movement must increase our News from the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute efforts to end US military presence in Iraq and elsewhere, and to pursue an agenda that promotes and restores civil liberties, economic equality and justice to all parts of our society. Your support for the Muste NOTES Memorial Institute will help keep this movement growing stronger. VOL. 14, NUMBER 2 WINTER 2007 Please take a moment to read the enclosed letter from five World War II draft resisters who share a unique perspective as Grantee Profile: peace makers. Their movement seemed small in the face of the overwhelming push Oaxaca’s Grassroots Struggle for war at the time. But they and their comrades accomplished much in the years In December 2005, the Muste Institute that followed. granted $2,000 to the Chiapas Peace House Today, the Muste Institute funds small Project, which in 2003 established a center groups because we know these efforts help for education and solidarity in the southern lead to bigger changes. We don’t know Mexican state of Chiapas, CASA de la Paz. where the next mass nonviolent movement Our grant helped set up a similar center in will take hold, but we know our early sup- neighboring Oaxaca state: CASA Chapulin. port can make the difference. (In Spanish, CASA stands for Collectives of Please send in your contribution today. Support, Solidarity and Action.) Let’s work together toward a New Year CASA Chapulin opened its doors in that brings us all closer to a more just and the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca as peaceful world. a center for international solidarity, Child wearing a mask to protect her from education, and activism in September of police tear gas on the streets of Oaxaca. In peace, this year, only to find itself in the middle of a conflict which captivated The night before the PFP entered the the nation, and the world. city, Oaxaca was filled with anxiety for Starting in the last week of October, its citizens. Glued to our radio, we lis- Murray Rosenblith Federal Preventive Police (PFP) heli- tened to the calls for peaceful resistance Executive Director copters began to circle the city of and reinforcement at the barricades Oaxaca, descending menacingly low. under attack. At 2am there was a knock While they had entered with the pre- at our door—a friend who had been at a Mexico for human rights abuses. The text of being peacekeeping troops, it nearby barricade and run for his life state has the largest indigenous popula- soon became clear that they had allied when 40 paramilitaries, men paid by tion in Mexico, and the highest levels of themselves more or less with the state the governor and dressed in civilian poverty. The state has been ruled by the governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, who has clothing, showed up and opened fire. political party PRI for over 70 years. been actively repressing the social Oaxaca has been the site of extraordi- The Chiapas Peace House Project movement for the last five months. nary mobilization since May 22, when began to plan the opening of an office in 70,000 teachers declared a strike and occu- Oaxaca after Ruiz assumed power in K Ö pied the streets with basic demands of 2005 and human rights violations esca- Ö B salary increases and free books and uni- lated. Our first volunteers arrived in A R September 2006, and found themselves U forms for poor students. State police A L responded by violently removing the in the middle of an impressive grass- Y B S teachers from the occupied historic center roots uprising where there seems no end O T to the creativity and will of citizens. To O of the city, using dogs, helicopters, tear H P gas and firearms. The teachers regrouped demand the governor’s resignation and and took back the city’s center, but the attention to their demands, Oaxacans police violence triggered a massive public have engaged in “mega-marches,” civil outcry out of which was born the Popular disobedience, strikes, sit-ins, disruption Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), of traffic and hunger strikes, and have made up of some 400 social organiza- spread their message through music, tions, collectives, and individuals. street theater and public art including Oaxacans rose up because they felt graffiti, sculptures, sand murals, and The people’s “Megamarch” in Oaxaca on indignant at the use of force against altars for assassinated activists. October 29. “Enough of being sacrificed, peaceful protesters, and at the many CASA Chapulin volunteers work for silenced, assassinated. [Governor] Ulises and years of political repression they have local organizations seeking to address the PFP [federal police], get out of Oaxaca.” endured. Oaxaca now ranks first in continued on page 2 2 • Muste Notes Vol. 14/No. 2 5 6 3 E New Developments N A L S A F An update on projects funded by the Muste Institute Y B O T On October 1, 2006, more than eighty women activists kicked off Faslane 365, a O H year-long nonviolent blockade of the Trident nuclear weapons base in Faslane, P Scotland. Over 55 affinity groups from peace, justice, environmental and human rights organizations have committed to blockading the base in two-day shifts. The opening Oct. 1-3 rota was led by the “Greenham women,” nonviolent activists who held an encampment on Britain’s Greenham Common from 1981 to 2000 to protest the storage of cruise missiles at a US airbase there. “We wanted to make a link between the success of the women’s peace movement of the 1980s and the start of these Faslane blockades,” explained Faslane 365 coordinator Angie Zelter. The Greenham women knit as they blockade the Muste Institute granted $1,718 in April 2006 for the September 9 public launch Trident nuclear weapons base in Faslane on event for the blockades. For reports and photos, see www.faslane365.org. October 2. Oaxaca continued from page 1 underlying roots of social problems in The resilience of the movement became Rights to develop a program for interna- Oaxaca, in the areas of women’s rights, clear, however, when, by 8am the next tional accompaniment, and continue to ecology, strengthening citizenship, alter- morning, the APPO had peacefully provide food and lodging to activists native education, and indigenous rights. occupied all twelve commercial radio who, amidst many illegal detentions, We are finding that there is much to learn stations in Oaxaca as a response to the disappearances and assassinations, fear from this movement, which calls for violence of the government, returning being victims of the violence instigated democracy and social justice, and where all but two stations the following day. by the state governor. For an unarmed citizens become active by taking a partic- One of the most important roles grassroots movement such as the one ipatory role in decision-making. CASA Chapulin has played is in that has developed in Oaxaca, interna- One CASA Chapulin volunteer divulging information. The international tional solidarity is crucial. To find out helped out with the organization of the press has tended to portray the conflict what you can do to support the people of “Citizens’ Initiative for Dialogue as a clash between government forces Oaxaca, or to gain a deeper under- towards Peace, Democracy and Justice and “subversives,” ignoring the peaceful standing of the political dynamics in in Oaxaca,” one of numerous assemblies movement’s basic demands for govern- Oaxaca, we invite you to visit our called by the people to discuss what ment accountability, transparency and website: www.casacollective.org they want government to look like, and respect for human rights. As a collective, —Diana Denham, CASA Chapulin to formulate proposals for structural we have written articles, given inter- and political change to benefit society as views and submitted photographs for The A.J. Muste Memorial Institute makes a whole. The citywide assembly was newspapers, magazines, and radios in small grants for nonviolent grassroots moderated by a woman from a local the US, Sweden, Finland and Italy, and activism for social justice. Our next dead- feminist organization and included have helped organize solidarity actions line for proposals is February 9, 2007. speeches in three indigenous languages. in these countries. We are collaborating Guidelines are at www.ajmuste.org. Freedom of expression has been at with the Oaxacan Network for Human the core of the struggle in Oaxaca. The voice of the teachers union, Radio Plantón, was destroyed by local police on June 14, but Radio Universidad Swann Fund stepped in as the new voice of the With a generous gift from an anonymous donor, the Muste Institute has movement. On August 1st, some 2,000 started the Swann Fund to further expand our support for nonviolence training women of the APPO peacefully took and organizing. The fund is named in honor of Marjorie Swann Edwin and her over the previously state-run television late ex-husband Robert Swann. The Swanns were among the founders of the Channel 9, as well as Radio ARO, the Committee for Nonviolent Action and organizers of many of the significant paci- state radio, in order to further the voice fist, civil rights and anti-war actions in the 1950s and 1960s. They worked closely of the popular movement. On August with A.J. Muste for many years and helped organize the Omaha Action against 21st in the middle of the night, paramil- nuclear missiles, the Quebec-to-Guantanamo and San Francisco-to-Moscow itaries entered both the radio and TV walks for peace, and the Polaris Action campaigns.
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