December 10, 2008  ==  International Human Rights day

OAXACA: Journalist Pedro Matias illegally detained and tortured

BELOW:

- information about the kidnapping and torture of journalist Pedro Matias, who Rights Action delegations met with on a number of occassions

- a book review about "Teaching Rebellion"

[FUNDS NEEDED TO SUPPORT THE VICTIM: To donate tax-deductible funds to support Senor Matias, see below.]

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Rights Action and the Oaxaca Solidarity Network (OSN) denounce the recent kidnapping and torture of journalist Pedro Matias on October 28, 2008. In 2006 and 2007, Rights Action and the OSN coordinated 3 fact-finding delegations to Oaxaca.  On each trip, our delegations met with Pedro Matias.  Rights Action published on our list-serv (http://www.rightsaction.org/articles/Oaxaca_Analysis_0307.html) an interview with Pedro.

Pedro Matias works for Oaxaca´s "Noticias" newspaper and has been published in the "Proceso" magazine.  Pedro Matias has been one of the strongest and most consistent voices reporting on the repression, corruption and illegality of current Oaxacan governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.

The kidnapping and torture of Matias is one more example of the continuing repression, lawlessness and impunity pervasive in Oaxaca, and highlights the risks posed to journalists that have the courage and commitment to report the truth.

FROM www.casachapulin.org:

October 29, 2008
http://www.casachapulin.org/en/story/news/teaching-rebellion-contributor-kidnapped-and-tortured

Journalist Pedro Matías, whose testimony is included in the book "Teaching Rebellion", was kidnapped and tortured for twelve hours yesterday before being abandoned on the side of the road outside of Oaxaca.

From Reporters Without Borders:

Oaxaca-based reporter kidnapped and tortured for 12 hours.

Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the abduction and mistreatment of reporter Pedro Matías Arrazola of the local daily Noticias de Oaxaca and the national weekly Proceso, who was beaten and psychologically tortured for about 12 hours on the night of 25 October in the southern city of Oaxaca before being dumped outside the city.

"The abduction of Matías was incredibly barbaric and, given that parliament is currently debating a bill to make attacks on journalists a federal crime, we call for the federal authorities to be immediately put in charge of the investigation," Reporters Without Borders said.

Matías was kidnapped as he left the newspaper to go home on the evening of 25 October. His abductors beat him and terrorised him for hours, simulating an execution, asking him how he preferred to die and variously threatening to drag him along the ground behind their car, cut off his genitals, rape him or behead him. They also threatened his family members, saying they had been "located."

He was released the next morning some 30 km outside Oaxaca City, in Tlacolula de Matamoros, without his car and without his papers, which his abductors also took from him. Although psychologically traumatised, he quickly filed a complaint with the public prosecutor's office.

As well as reporting for Noticias de Oaxaca and Proceso, Matías participates in broadcasts on a radio station, often criticising members of the Oaxaca state government who belong to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the party that controlled the national government until 2000. Some of his close friends think it was this criticism that prompted the kidnapping.

Oaxaca state has become notorious for the serious violations of press freedom and human rights that have occurred there in recent years. Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz and his supporters have been implicated in violence against Noticias de Oaxaca in 2005 and the murder of US journalist Brad Will in 2006.

[For more information about on-going struggles for justice and human rights in Oaxaca and Chiapas: www.casachapulin.org]

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BOOK REVIEW:  "Teaching Rebellion"
By Walt Sherwood, sherwow@sbcglobal.net

I wasn't in Oaxaca on June 14, 2006, when a massive police force was deployed to break up the mobilization of some 20,000 teachers who had been on strike for a living wage and better conditions in the schools of one of the two poorest states in Mexico.

That's when people from all walks of life, and many diverse communities, took to the streets in support of the teachers, and the APPO was born, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples (note the plural) of Oaxaca.

Nor was I there on November 25, 2006, when Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, governor of the state, launched a huge, well-planned police attack against the APPO and the people who had been occupying the city center for many months, leading to the beating, torture, arrest, and imprisonment of hundreds of activists, supporters, and sympathizers.

But I was there in July of the following year, when the city had returned to a misleading and tense calm, on a Rights Action delegation whose aim was to talk to and hear first-hand from some of the participants of one of the largest and most far-reaching rebellions in modern Mexican history.

One of the leaders and translators for our delegation was a young woman named Diana Denham, and I was impressed with the job she did. I know enough Spanish to realize that she always got it right, never missing a word or phrase nor leaving anything out, always translating fairly and accurately to not only give us the verbatim message but also the nuance and emotions behind what was said.

Now I am happy to see that Diana and the C.A.S.A. Collective have come out with a book called "Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca" so that we all have a chance to read in excellent translation the stories of this incredible group of people who constituted the social movement.

North American tourists are drawn to Oaxaca, especially the capital city, because it is an attractive place with fine colonial architecture, many art galleries, good restaurants, and a rich variety of indigenous arts and crafts.

But there is a hidden underside of poverty, neglect, and discrimination, enforced by an entrenched elite who maintain their grip on power no matter what the cost.

This is what the teachers' strike initially, and the APPO mobilization eventually, shone a spotlight on. The teachers weren't just asking for higher pay and better working conditions for themselves, but for a greater commitment from the state to improve the lives of the children who attended their schools and the communities they came from.

That their reasonable demands were met with intransigence led to outrage, then rebellion.

To read this book is to understand the depth and diversity of the Oaxacan phenomenon. There are many voices gathered here: a teacher, a school principal, a maid, an agronomist, a priest, artists, journalists, seasoned human rights activists, people who had never participated in politics before, high school and college students, peasants, working people, middle class professionals. Together their stories capture the excitement, fear, and hope of the movement, and share some of the lessons they learned.

One big lesson is that of empowerment: ordinary people, with varied experience, coming together, can pool their knowledge and skills, learn from each other, and accomplish things they never thought possible. Another is that shared struggle enables people to overcome class and educational barriers and communicate with people they'd never talked to before.

Each participant sees the struggle from a unique perspective, but all convey a sense of the commitment and personal sacrifice that are not so much required as freely given once the person has reached the point where he or she says "Basta ya!" ("Enough!" ).

There is also the feeling of commonality and solidarity that people share from having joined together in sit-ins and mega-marches or spent long sleepless nights at the barricades. But lurking behind the good feelings and comradeship, not to be ignored, is the ever-present danger of physical attack by police or para-military forces.

Some of the strongest stories are first-hand accounts of the shootings, arrests, and beatings that the protestors endured. The attempt to force social change carries a cost.

The Mexican government, at both the federal and state levels, used gunmen dressed in civilian clothes, SUVs and pick-ups with tinted windows and license plates removed, and random shootings and beatings, in addition to uniformed officers with helmets and shields and high powered weapons and tanks. When arrests were made, often with great brutality, prisoners were transported out of the region to another state and held in secrecy, while families and friends wondered what had become of them.

One if the book's strongest features, along with the range of individual voices telling their stories, is the six dozen black-and-white photographs interspersed throughout. Many of these photos were taken in the midst of fierce, chaotic clashes with police or paramilitary forces, and they vividly capture the action that the stories relate, as well as showing us the many faces of the participants.

The book is not intended to be read and set aside.

It comes with a Study Guide, a Chronology of the Popular Uprising, a brief section on the Historic Context, a Glossary, and a list of Acronyms. It would make an excellent choice as a required text in a university course on Latin American social movements, but that is not the editors' intention.

Rather, the underlying premise is that we can all learn from these shared experiences and incorporate the lessons into our own efforts to create a better world.

The teaching section of this book attempts to show us how we can apply to our own local situation the Oaxacan gift of community-based decision-making and bottom-up social change.

Can rebellion really be taught? Why not buy a copy of this book, get together with a group of friends to read and ponder and analyze, and find out?

TO PURCHASE "Teaching Rebellion": www.casachapulin.org

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WHAT TO DO?

TO MAKE A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION to help Senor Matias with costs associated with his illegal detention and torture, make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:

* UNITED STATES: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887;
* CANADA: 552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8. 

CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS: http://www.rightsaction.org/Templates/donations_index.html

EDUCATIONAL DELEGATION-SEMINAR: Form your own group and come on an educational seminar trip to learn more about community and Indigenous development, human rights and environmental issues in Guatemala, Oaxaca or Honduras.

JOIN Rights Action’s listserv: http://www.rightsaction.org/lists/?p=subscribe&id=3
JOIN Rights Action’s quarterly newsletter list: info@rightsaction.org
CREATE YOUR OWN E-MAIL LIST and re-distribute this and other information
DAILY NEWS: Watch & listen to www.democracynow.org; Read www.upsidedownworld.org, www.dominionpaper.ca
BOOKS TO READ: Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America”; Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”; Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”; Paolo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”;
SMILE:  And live to make another world is possible, everyday.

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SEND E-MAILS TO THE FOLLOWING:

Presidente FELIPE DE JESÚS CALDERÓN HINOJOSA: felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx

Dr. José Luis Soberanes Fernández, Presidente de la CNDH (National Human Rights Commission): correo@fmdh.cndh.org.mx, correo@cndh.org.mx,

Ambassador Carlos Alberto De Icaza Gonzalez
Embassy of Mexico
1911 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20006

Mexican Embassy in Ottawa: info@embamexcan.com
Mexico Consular office in Montreal: comexmt@consulmex.qc.ca

Mexican Mission to the United Nations: mexico@un.int

Governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz: gobernador@oaxaca.gob.mx

With copies to your media, to (in the USA) a nearby mexican consular office.