[mgj-discuss] Stop the G8+5, Defend Oaxaca! Virtual Blockade!

[Ethan X]

 Stop the G8+5, Defend Oaxaca!
*Click here to join the action, join us from Oct
3-4th<http://bang.calit2.net/sdhacklab/oaxaca/basta.htm>
*
*EDT Mirror of Action Page<http://www.thing.net/%7Erdom/ecd/oaxaca/index.html>
*
 *Espanol aqui <http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/119045.shtml>*
 The borderlands Hacklab <http://sdhacklab.org/>, Electronic Disturbance
<http://www.thing.net/%7Erdom/ecd/ecd.html>
Theater<http://www.thing.net/%7Erdom/ecd/ecd.html>and Rising
Tide North <http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/>America<http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/>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.


 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 — but a long and difficult drive — from Oaxaca city.
 According to the independent news website
Narconews.com<http://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
– where opponents of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz have maintained several
encampments over the past 130 days – 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 – all places where the rebels
have installed protest camps – 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 Luría, 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.

 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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