<nettime> Stop the G8+5, Defend Oaxaca! Virtual Sit-In!

[lotu5@resist.ca]

The borderlands Hacklab [ http://sdhacklab.org], Electronic
Disturbance Theater [ http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html] and
Rising Tide North America call for a virtual sit-in against the
websites of the G8+5 and the Mexican government during the G8+5
meetings on October 3-4th, 2006 in Mexico.

To join the action, click here: http://sdhacklab.org/oaxaca

While the Mexican government tries to play host to the G8+5 Gleneagles
Dialogue on Climate Change, it is mounting a massive violent attack
on the people of Oaxaca. Apparently the Mexican government thinks
it can cleanse the country of its growing pro-democracy rebellion
while laying out a red carpet to world politicians including the G8
Energy Ministers. The neoliberal project of corporate globalization
and fossil-fuel-based "energy security" that causes global warming is
built on massive violence, from armies to riot police to militarized
borders, to turn the global south into its sweatshop and repress the
uprisings for justice, democracy, and sustainable livelihood of the
people in Mexico and other countries.

While the neoliberal model of industrial "development" sees the
remaining indigenous and "undeveloped" lands of the Earth as
territories for capitalist exploitation of natural resources and human
labor, the schoolteachers leading Oaxaca's popular pro-democracy
strike have a different vision. By taking direct action to shut down
the tyrannical rule of their state governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, the
people of Oaxaca are teaching that another world is possible.

On Sunday, October 1, 2006, a headline in the Mexico City daily
Milenio proclaimed, "Preparations for war in Oaxaca," while Mexico
City's El Universal newspaper reported that helicopters, planes and 15
troop trucks had assembled in Huatulco, a Pacific tourist getaway and
military hub a short flight â but a long and difficult drive â from
Oaxaca city. According to the independent news website Narconews.com,
which has been covering the Other Campaign of the Zapatistas, on
Sunday, October1, 2006:

"The Mexican Navy carried out a reconnaissance operation over the
buildings and public spaces occupied by the Popular Assembly of
the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO in its Spanish initials). Two MI-17
helicopters and one CASA C212 Navy airplane with registration number
AMP-118 flew over the streets of the city â where opponents of
Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz have maintained several encampments over
the past 130 days â for about 40 minutes."

"The zocalo, or central city square, the Oro and La Ley radio
stations, the state government building, the Brenamiel and El Rosario
radio antennas, as well as the Department of Finance building â
all places where the rebels have installed protest camps â were
reconnoitered by low-level flights of military aircraft. As they
passed over the Radio Oro facilities, the two helicopters were
fruitlessly "attacked" with fireworks that teachers of the National
Education Workers' Union local Section 22 launched from Conzatti
Garden. The airplane then made four more passes over the areas
around the zocalo and returned to the airport, where five other
military aircraft were stationed. At 5:30 that afternoon, the naval
surveillance plane and two AMHT-202 and AMHT-205 helicopters landed on
a city airstrip and let out 18 soldiers in black-and-grey camouflage,
bulletproof vests, helmets and firearms."

"Lino Celaya LurÃa, state secretary of Citizen Protection, confirmed
that the objective of the military flights was to "reconnoiter" the
scene of the conflict, but claimed not to know if this was the prelude
to an eventual federal operation to remove the protesters. The state
official limited himself to saying: "We were informed that a flight
would occur over the areas where the dissidents are present. We
believe this is to obtain field information on the situation."

"Meanwhile, from the occupied radio stations, the rebels again
declared a maximum alert in the face of what they imagine could be
the beginning of a removal/eviction operation against the popular and
teachers' movement."

Over half of the Oaxaca's 3.2 million people, most of whom are
indigenous, live in poverty, and 21.5 percent of those over 15
are illiterate, while the average number of years of schooling is
5.6 years -- almost two less than Mexico's national average. Many
students in Oaxaca's rural schools lack books and desks. In May,
tens of thousands of teachers seized the capital's leafy central
plaza to demand wage increases and improved school conditions. The
following month, Governor Ulises Ruiz sent police to attempt to
retake the heart of the city. Since then, radical social movements
of workers, peasants, students, women and others have joined the
striking teachers, building street barricades and taking over radio
and television stations. They demand that Ruiz resign, alleging that
he rigged the 2004 election and uses paramilitary gangs to attack
dissidents. A total of five "megamarches" were organized with the
largest reaching the astonishing number of around 300,000 people, or
one out of ten people who live in the state.


During the protests, as many as six people have been killed in violent
incidents which apparently involved irregular armed groups linked to
the Ruiz administration and the police, according to human rights
organisations. A number of demonstrators have also been arrested and
injured, and further assaults perpetrated against them by organized,
unidentified gangs of thugs have been reported.


One example of neoliberal "development" in Mexico with major
implications for Oaxaca is Plan Puebla Panama (PPP), a transnational
"mega-infrastructure" project that would transform the region's
geography and economy if implemented. While claiming that one
of its main goals is to improve the conditions for the people
of the region, PPP is stealing land from indigenous people for
infrastructure projects to move resources more quickly into the hands
of multinational corporations and commodifying their culture for the
tourist industry. One of the projects affecting Oaxaca is the creation
of a super highway at Mexico's skinniest point, the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec, in order to move resources more readily across the land
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This transportation corridor will
be surrounded with sweatshops, maquiladoras, operating without labor
and environmental protections. For all of these objectives, neoliberal
control over the government of Oaxaca is key to the realization of the
PPP project.

Mexico has an ugly history of military repression that coincides with
major world gatherings occurring inside the country. 38 years ago
today, October 2nd, the Mexican military massacred hundreds of student
protesters at Tlatelolco, just days before the 1968 Olympic Games
began in Mexico City. If military violence against the pro-democracy
protesters of Oaxaca occurs before, during or after the G8 meeting
in Mexico, the G8 leaders as well as the Mexican military must be
held accountable for the injuries and death. To prevent this, we
demand that the G8 officials who are meeting this week in Mexico must
publicly speak out to condemn the possibility of another Mexican
massacre at Oaxaca.

We demand that the G8 end its support of destructive "carbon trading."
The G8 is composed of the leaders of the richest 8 countries in the
world, who are responsible for the policies of war, criminalization of
cross-border human migration, and massive environmental destruction.
While they claim to be meeting to solve the climate change crisis,
they are in fact discussing carbon trading agreements that will allow
corporations to profit while exporting their pollution to the global
south. Carbon trading threatens to turn countries like Brazil into
a "carbon sink" for the global north while ignoring the underlying
capitalist ideology of endless growth and boundless consumption that
is creating massive climate change.

Help us stop the G8 by slowing the propaganda systems that the G8+5
and the Mexican Government will be using during the meetings and
the attacks to spread disinformation about their actions. As in our
previous actions, people from all around the world will make their
virtual presence manifest on the doorstep of the G8+5 and the Mexican
Government.

To join the action, click here:
 http://sdhacklab.org/oaxaca

In addition to the virtual sit-in on the websites, you can also manifest
your virtual presence via email or telephone:

Write to:
Vicente Fox Quesada
(Presidencia, Los Pinos)
Telephone:
011 52 (55) 2789 1100
011 52 (55) 18 7501 Atencion Ciudadana
Fax: (55) 52 77 23 76
email:  vicente.fox.quesada@presidencia.gob.mx

Dear President Vicente Fox,

Please do not authorize the use of Federal force to resolve the current
social and political dispute in Oaxaca.

Sincerely,

If you use email, please send copies to:

President Elect Felipe Calderón Hinojosa:  felipe@felipe.org.mx and

Secretary of Government: Carlos Abascal:  segob@rtn.net.mx

More news and updates about the unfolding situation in Oaxaca at
 http://narconews.com
More information on resistance to the G8+5 meeting in Mexico City at
 http://contrag8.revolt.org





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