COME TO THE FIRST NYC MEETING IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLES OF OAXACA, MEXICO

Thursday, December 14th, 2006, 7:30PM Hunter College, Room 436, North Building, 4th floor Enter on 69th street between Lexington & Park Avenues The Mexican Federal government has chosen the path of violence and repression instead of negotiation to resolve this conflict in Oaxaca, Mexico. This conflict began on June 14th when Oaxaca's governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz sent in state police to break a peaceful teachers' strike that was camped out in the center of Oaxaca City. Gov. Ruiz had already alarmed international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, for atrocities committed before the June 14. The actions on June 14th further ignited people’s anger throughout the State who responded, by forming the People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) who reinforced the teachers' encampment in Oaxaca City. The single demand of the APPO has been the resignation of Gov. Ruiz. Since June 14th, the violence against the teachers and the APPO by paramilitary forces and police aligned with Gov. Ruiz has escalated and on October 27th, independent journalist, Brad Will, as brutally murdered at the hands of plainclothes police officers and local government officials in Santa Lucia del Camino, Oaxaca. Two days later, on October 29th, the Mexican Federal government dispatched several thousand Federal Preventative Police (PFP) troops to remove civilian protesters supporting the APPO from their encampments throughout the city. There were the recorded deaths of at least three civilians as a direct result of the excessive force that the PFP used to dislodge the protesters, despite official comments from the State and Federal governments to the contrary. On November 2nd, the PFP tried to enter the Benito Juarez Autonomous University in an attempt to shut down the university radio station critical of Governor Ruiz. Mexican law prohibits the incursion of law enforcement onto autonomous universities, unless requested by the university rector. The rector of the Benito Juarez categorically rejected the presence of the PFP in Oaxaca. Oaxaca City is now living under a state of siege. Since June 14th, at least 20 people have been killed, over 500 people have been imprisoned, more then 100 people have been disappeared and hundreds wounded. Pick-up trucks carrying PFP, State and Municipal Police are now patrolling the city, randomly detaining people without arrest warrants. Most of the people detained are unable to contact family members and are being moved to prisons outside of the state. Teachers are being pulled from their classrooms. Many of the people detained have been tortured. An illegal radio station, Radio Ciudadana, affiliated with Gov. Ruiz is broadcasting the names of APPO members, Human Rights workers and others, giving their addresses and offering a reward for their assassination The only way to resolve this conflict is through dignified, peaceful negotiation, and respect for human rights Please come to this meeting where we will plan how we can be supportive of the people in Oaxaca, Mexico.