Oaxaca Update, October 31, City in Flames

With no resolution, Federal police have now taken over the city of Oaxaca by force. Remember, President Fox promised that there would be peaceful resolution but we see the opposite: no resolved issues, and a beautiful city now torn apart psychologically and physically between government, teachers, parents, business owners, and a variety of activists, all with different needs.
Violence has broken out in a variety of ways now that the senate has ruled that they will not remove the Gov. Ruiz but ask him to resign, teachers and other groups have had to split ways, due to different demands and disagreements, and we can watch the revolution fail as the solidarity that once held this movement together falls apart under the pressure of not having any comprimises. (The Gov. does not seem to have the basic human decency to just step down and avoid some of this conflict which has resulted in so much pain.)

Bradley Roland Will, a journalist for IndyMedia, of whom we had been following, was shot to death this past weekend by unknown 'thugs'. Some including the BBC have reported that he was shot by hired hitmen from Ruiz's party.
We will mourn his death, but be grateful to remember how he did his best to get the true story, as a journalist...amongst so many deceptive and sensationalist media sources he was one who cared to live amongst the barricades and take his camera to the source of this revolution.

So our Oaxaca updates will soon end, sadly, by watching a people who worked so hard to grow and to care about equality, their city none for the better now after so many months of trying... and in a few months it will probably look different, the faces of people will be harder, and the kids will be restored to classes... their teachers will need time to heal, the city will be scarred, yet tourists will return, some not aware in the least that this piece of history took place.
We will go to Patzcuaro today for the Days of the Dead and mourn those heroes who died in their attempt to carry on an honest democracy, who stood up to a very corrupt government in the name of democracy, who exercized their rights to civil disobedience. VIVA OAXACA... we won't forget this!

*See New Oaxaca Information sources on the right sidebar.*