Brad Will, IMC journalist murdered in Oaxaca

Wes, another imc volunteer, 30.10.2006 09:32

Here is Brad Will's last dispatch where he reports on the darkness that is all but ignored by the commercial news. His news report is testimony in and of itself as to the importance of independent media. Go light a candle for Brad Will. Long Live Independent Media!

Brad was an independent video journalist, a volunteer with the Independent Media Center in NYC. We have lost a journalist who helped shine light on news that is under-reported or not even told at all. Shame on the United States mainstream media for their corporate censorship when it comes to this 5 month long teacher and community struggle in Oaxaca, Mexico. So, so many don't even know. Were it not for imc reporters like Brad Will: No One Would Know.

Brad Oaxaca O25, '06

cameras in the streets!

Brad's last email dispatch ...
early dawn, oct16

yesterday i went for a walk with the good people of oaxaca -- was walking
all day really -- in the afternoon they showed me where the bullets hit the
wall -- they numbered the ones they could reach -- it reminded me of the
doorway of amadou diallos home -- but here the grafitti was there before the
shooting began -- one bullet they didnt number was still in his head --

he was 41 years old -- alejandro garcia hernandez -- at the neighborhood
barricade every night -- that night he came out to join his wife and sons to
let an ambulance through -- then a pickup tried to follow -- he took their
bullet when he told them they could not pass -- they never did -- these
military men in civilian dress shot their way out of there

a young man who wanted to only be called marco was with them when the
shooting happened -- a bullet passed through his shoulder -- he was clearly
in shock when we met -- 19 years old -- said he hadnt told his parents yet
-- said he had been at the barricade every night -- said he was going back
as soon as the wound closed -- absolutely

just days before there was a delegation of senators visiting to determine
the ungovernability of the state -- they got a taste -- the call went out to
shut down the rest of the government -- dozens went walking out of the
zocalo city center with big sticks and a box full of spray paint -- they
took control of 3 city buses and went around the city all morning visiting
local government buildings and informing them that that they were closed --
and we appreciate your voluntary cooperation -- and they filed out preturbed
but still getting paid -- shut -- as they pulled away from the last stop 3
gunmen came out and started shooting -- 2 buses had already pulled away --
mayhem -- 10 minute battle with stones and slingshots and screaming -- one
headwound -- another through the leg -- made their way to the hospital while
the fighting continued -- shout out on the radio and people came from all
parts -- the gunmen were around the side of the building -- they got away --
they were inside -- no one sure -- watchful -- undercover police were
reported lurking around the hospital and folks went running to stand watch
over the wounded

what can you say about this movement -- this revolutionary moment -- you
know it is building, growing, shaping -- you can feel it -- trying
desperately for a direct democracy -- in november appo will have a state
wide conference for the formation of a state wide assemblea estatal del
pueblo de oaxaca (aepo) -- now there are 11 of 33 states in mexico that have
declared formation of assemblea populares like appo -- and on la otra lado
in the usa a few -- the marines have returned to sea even though the federal
police who ravaged atenco remain close by -- the new encampment in mexico
has begun a hunger strike -- the senate can expell URO -- whats next
nobodies sure -- it is a point of light pressed through glass -- ready to
burn or show the way --

it is clear that this is more than a strike, more
than expulsion of a governor, more than a blockade, more than a coalition of
fragments -- it is a genuine peoples revolt -- and after decades of pri rule
by bribe, fraud, and bullet the people are tired -- they call him the tyrant
-- they talk of destroying this authoritarianism -- you cannot mistake the
whisper of the lancandon jungle in the streets -- in every street corner
deciding together to hold -- you see it their faces -- indigenous, women,
children -- so brave -- watchful at night -- proud and resolute
went walking back from alejandros barricade with a group of supporters who
came from an outlying district a half hour away -- went walking with angry
folk on their way to the morgue -- went inside and saw him -- havent seen
too many bodies in my life -- eats you up -- a stack of nameless corpes in
the corner -- about the number who had died -- no refrigeration -- the smell
-- they had to open his skull to pull the bullet out -- walked back with him
and his people

and now alejandro waits in the zocalo -- like the others at their plantones
-- hes waiting for an impasse, a change, an exit, a way forward, a way out,
a solution -- waiting for the earth to shift and open -- waiting for
november when he can sit with his loved ones on the day of the dead and
share food and drink and a song -- waiting for the plaza to turn itself over
to him and burst -- he will only wait until morning but tonight he is
waiting for the governor and his lot to never come back -- one more death --
one more martyr in a dirty war -- one more time to cry and hurt -- one more
time to know power and its ugly head -- one more bullet cracks the night --
one more night at the barricades -- some keep the fires -- others curl up
and sleep -- but all of them are with him as he rests one last night at his
watch

uro= Ulises Ruiz Ortiz "governor" of the state of oaxaca
planton= sit in, vigil, encampment
zocalo= central plaza

more info:
 http://narconews.com/Issue43/article2180.html
 http://mexico.indymedia.org/tiki-index.php?page=DesalojoOaxaca
 http://www.oaxacalibre.org/libertad/
 http://elenemigocomun.net/
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oaxacastudyactiongroup/messages

'In sum, we are an army of dreamers, and therefore invincible. How can we
fail to win, with this imagination overturning everything. Or rather, we do
not deserve to lose.'
- Subcomandante Marcos
*********************************************************
love and rage, brad!
by david s
Friday Oct 27th, 2006 9:19 PM

Brad was a fully alive, tireless, hopefull frontline rebel and friend who worked with many, many of us in the streets, wilds and community spaces in the struggles of the last decade.

Brad wrote two weeks ago about another mexcian companero shot in Oaxica: "one more death --one more martyr in a dirty war -- one more time to cry and hurt -- one more time to know power and its ugly head" Much love for your life, Brad-- and hope and rage to keep fighting.

friends in NYC wrote this about him:
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 23:20:05 -0400
Subject: friend and companero brad was killed
Our friend, brother, and companero, Brad Will was killed today by
paramilitaries in Oxaca Mexico.

Brad has been an inspiring and passionate militant, joining struggles
all over the world, from land occupations in the Pacific North West
of the US, to direct actions against global capital, to rebellions in
Argentina, land occupations in Brazil, and anti-privatization
struggles in Bolivia. Brad was always a part of whatever he was in.
He was always with people, not organizing them. He taught me, and so
many others so much through example. He will be missed in so many ways.
Brad was a part of our communities. We should remember him with the
love and affection that he showed, and we feel. We should also carry
on with direct action to stop those that are trying to stop social
creation, in the US, Mexico, Argentina, and the globe.
brad Presente!
brad presente!
brad Presente!

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A Terrible Beauty . . . For Brad Will . By Starhawk 31.10.2006 - 18:49 It’s the night of the Spiral Dance, our community’s annual huge celebration for Samhain, more generally known as Halloween, the ancient feast of the ancestors and honoring of the Beloved Dead, which long predates the Christian feast of All Souls.  The Spiral Dance is the biggest, most elaborate ritual our community, Reclaiming, creates throughout the year, with intricate altars, a full chorus, dancers, singers, acrobats doing aerial invocations, and a spiral that might include a thousand people.  Into all this, we weave some deep magic, both personal and broader than personal, involving the mystery at the heart of our spirituality—death and regeneration.  Each year I take on different roles.  Some years I lead the trance, other years I might simply invoke the spirits of the land or play the drum and leave the ‘bigger’ roles to others.  This year my role seems to involve carrying a lot of heavy objects and buckets of sand, building altars and decorating the front of the house.  Or not so much actually building and decorating, as providing the materials and suggestions for others to do the creative part.  And this year I’m calling the Dead.  So I’ve been thinking a lot about death, and singing the song we will use to sing the Dead over into a place of renewal.  Just before bed, I check my email, and I learn that a young man has died, shot to death in Oaxaca where he has gone to cover the teachers’ strike and the people’s insurrection for Indymedia.  His name is Brad Will.  I stare at his picture, trying to remember if I know him from all the demonstrations and mobilizations and meetings we have undoubtedly been at together.    In Miami, my friend Andy reminds me, after a wild ritual collaboration between the Pagan cluster and the black bloc, a young man stepped forward with a guitar and began singing Desert Rat’s song about Seattle, “When the Tear Gas Fills the Sky.”  That was Brad—alive, singing, defiant. “I will wash the pepper from your face, and go with you to jail, And if you don’t make it through this fight, I swear I’ll tell your tale…”  I didn’t know him well, but I know so many like him—mostly but not all young, sitting in long meetings in warehouses or donning respirators to gut flood-ruined houses in New Orleans, standing shoulder to shoulder as the riot cops advance, or as the bulldozer moves forward to destroy a home in Gaza.  Filing stories at midnight on electronic networks set up by young geniuses with duct tape and component parts in dusty, third world towns, eating cold pasta out of old yogurt tops and sleeping on floors. Hitching rides into war zones and crossing borders.  It’s as if a whole cohort of souls had arrived on this planet imbued with the unquestioned faith that they were put here to somehow make a difference, to interfere with injustice, to witness, to change the world.  Ragged, intemperate, opinionated, passionate, and above all, alive.  And now another one of the tribe is dead, shot down in Oaxaca where a five-month teachers’ strike became a full-blown insurrection, the kind that radicals dream of, with streets full of barricades and ordinary people rising up against a rigged election and a corrupt, dictatorial governor.  It hasn’t been much reported in the U.S.  papers.  But Brad Will was there, with camera and computer, to be a set of eyes.  Now his eyes are closed, forever.  I put his name on our list of the Dead.  At the Spiral Dance, I see someone has set up a shrine to him on our North altar, where the dead are honored.  I meet another activist friend there, who tells me how he remembers Brad: running into a barrage of sound bombs in a demonstration in some foreign city.  “I couldn’t explain to people that they were harmless,” he’d said.  “We didn’t speak the same language.  So I had to show them.” I didn’t know him well, but I know how it is to walk into a situation that is dangerous, even life-threatening, how it feels to weigh the risks, to accept them, to tell yourself that you can be at peace with any consequence, and then to walk out into the street in the firm if unconscious belief that you will be lucky that day, once again.  I can only imagine how it feels when the bullets rip through flesh, and your severed spirit stares back at a broken body, and in a blaze of light a different journey begins.  We Pagans have no dogma, no official Book of the Dead to outline the soul’s journey.  If we share any belief in common, it is simply this: that death is part of a cycle that includes regeneration and renewal. That just as the falling leaves decay to fertilize the roots of trees, each death feeds some rebirth. Death transforms us. The tribe of world-changers has its list of martyrs—the short list of those who are known in the first world—Carlo Giuliani, Huang Hai Lee, Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall—and the much longer list of names in some other language—Spanish, indigenous, Arabic, and so many others--who die every day.  And the world’s religions each have their concept of that transformation, for those whose death is somehow special, powerful and meaningful: martyrs, saints, boddhisatvas. We Pagans don’t like to glorify martyrs, but we know that ‘sacrifice’ means ‘to make sacred.’   In an instant, that ordinary comrade you remember singing at the fire or arguing at the meeting, someone you might have been charmed or irritated by or attracted to, or not, someone who showed no mark of doom or prescience of what was to come, becomes uplifted into another realm, part symbol, part victim, locus of our deepest love and rage.  William Butler Yeats expressed it best, writing about the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916, the friends he admired and the ones he disliked, shot by the British. “Being certain that they and I But lived where motley is worn, All changed, changed utterly, A terrible beauty is born…”                                                And death transforms the living. When someone close to us dies, we become someone else.  When my father died when I was just five years old, my mother was transformed from a beloved wife to a grieving widow. I changed, overnight, from a blessed, fortunate child to someone set apart, marked by a tragedy, missing something deeply important that other children had.  And so one day you are someone with a job and a family and a neighborhood in which you and your kin have lived for generations—and a day later the waters rise and you are homeless,  a refugee in a strange place dependent on the kindness of strangers.  One day you are a mother filled with hopes and dreams and pride, and the next day you are bereft, with a gaping hole in your heart that can never be filled.  Yet we, the living, have some choice in how we respond to death, and what transformation we undergo.  My mother, out of her grief, became a counselor, a therapist, an expert in loss and grieving.  Cindy Sheehan, out of her grief for her son Casey, killed in Iraq, became a woman on fire, a modern prophet calling the powerful to justice, who galvanized the movement against the war.  Mesha Monge-Irizarry, mother of Idriss Stelley who was shot dead in the Metreon by the San Francisco police, became an advocate for all the victims of police violence.  Rachel Corrie’s parents took up the cause of justice for the people of Palestine.  Grief can open the heart to courage and compassion; rage can move us to action.   Out of loss comes regeneration: a terrible beauty is born.  A death like Brad’s calls us all to deeper levels of courage, to be eyes that refuse to shut in the face of oppression, voices that sing out for justice, hands that build a transformed world.    Starhawk  http://www.starhawk.org   More info on Oaxaca and Brad:  http://www.narconews.com/  http://nyc.indymedia.org/ SF Bay Area activities:  http://indybay.org/ NEW YORK CITY INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER RESPONDS TO THE DEATH OF BRAD WILL  http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/77958.html By Starhawk> Brad presente! 02.11.2006 - 11:34 I write to acknowledge the life of Brad, latest transformer to pass; a member of the tribe of sane ones. I did not know Brad personally, but like Starhawk said, who knows at which demo we might have shared our likeminded awarenesses, passions and intentions. I went on to search out the links provided, learning about the struggle that Brad gave his life for. Wetness on my face, I realize I am crying, tears come so easy, like breathing. I hate it that one like Brad had to pass, and hate it even more that this is why I learned of current events in oxcala, but there it is. I stay at home now, temporarily grounded while helping my mother to pass out of this world, and this machine has become my link to you all and the rightious struggles we give our lives over to. Starhawks words: "It’s as if a whole cohort of souls had arrived on this planet imbued with the unquestioned faith that they were put here to somehow make a difference, to interfere with injustice, to witness, to change the world. Ragged, intemperate, opinionated, passionate, and above all, alive." Staring into the candle I lit for Brad, I am also thinking of other warriors and truth mongers I've known who left this plane too soon (this includes my own dad, a whistle blowing presence who taught me about honesty and fairplay) and am thus compelled to share with all the tribe of the awakened, how much I value and love you all, and that if not for you, what a lonely lonely sailer in this voyage I'd be. Now the rain has paused for a spell, bringing the sun back out to wink at me, mystery intact. annette> Oaxaca- Interview with Jesus Rodriguez of CND 05.11.2006 - 18:15 Friday, November 3, 2006 Dear Sisters and Brothers: This morning I had the opportunity to talk over the phone with Jesusa Rodriguez, the main organizer of the National Democratic Convention (CND), which gathered more than 1 million people in the downtown square, or Zócalo, in Mexico City on Sept. 16, 2006 to proclaim Andrés Manuel López Obrador the duly elected and legitimate president of Mexico. Jesusa, as she is known by the people of Mexico, chaired portions of the CND and was elected to coordinate its main committees, the most active of which has been the Resistance Committee. I met Jesusa for the first time last September when I was part of the international delegation to the CND from the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC). I asked Jesusa if she would grant me an interview to promote the campaigns of the CND, particularly the campaign in solidarity with the people of Oaxaca, throughout the United States and around the world. She gladly accepted. But first a few additional background notes. On October 9, Jesusa -- in the name of the CND -- welcomed into Mexico City at a mass demonstration and rally the 3,500 marchers from Section 22 of the National Teachers Union (SNTE) and the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). The marchers had walked for 15 days to the nation's capital to press for their demands: Meet the striking teachers' demands! Ulises Ruiz Ortiz Must Step Down! Over the course of the past three weeks, Jesusa has joined the Plantón, or encampment, set up by the Section 22 and APPO activists at the Hemiciclio a Juarez monument in the Alameda Park of Mexico City. This past weekend, she organized two mass demonstrations in Mexico City to protest the decision by the Fox administration to send in federal troops and special riot police into the city of Oaxaca to tear down the barricades and the encampment set up by the APPO activists more than five months ago. At another demonstration this past Tuesday evening, standing side by side with López Obrador, she called for the formation of a National Front in Defense of the People of Oaxaca, and she supported the call issued by PRD leader Porfirio Muñoz Ledo to organize a nationwide "Megamarch" in support of the people of Oaxaca. Last night, Jesusa was the leader of yet another action that shut down major thoroughfares in Mexico City for more than two hours to protest the growing repression in Oaxaca by the occupation army. I spoke to her this morning after her late-night meeting of the Resistance Committee of the CND. I ask that you please join me in circulating this interview widely to your friends and co-workers, and to all your lists. The translation into English of the original interview is my own. I will send out the original Spanish text separately. Not One More Death in Oaxaca! In solidarity, Alan Benjamin, Coordinator, OWC Member, Executive Committee, San Francisco Labor Council ---------- Question: Tell us your assessment of the current struggle in Oaxaca. Jesusa: For us, the struggle in Oaxaca is the epicenter of the popular struggle in Mexico. It is the epicenter of the struggle against the electoral fraud, for democracy and for social justice, and for the defense of the Mexican nation itself. As you know, the embattled people of Oaxaca, with only their sticks and stones, repelled yesterday afternoon, after a nine-hour battle, the forces of the PFP [Federal Preventative Police], which had tried to storm the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca, in violation of the law. The university's rector has opposed consistently any incursion by the state police or federal army onto the campus. Our Resistance Committee met till the wee hours of the morning. We assessed the unfolding events and were rejoiced by this first victory. But we realized it is going to be a long and difficult struggle to force the federal troops and police out of Oaxaca, and to force the removal from office of Ulises [Ruiz Ortiz, the hated PRI governor of Oaxaca]. Your readers should know that the person now calling the shots is Felipe Calderón, with the backing of the U.S. Embassy -- not Fox. Ulises Ruiz has essentially blackmailed Calderón. He told Calderon that the PRI will prevent Calderón from taking office December 1st if Calderón does not commit to backing him 100 percent against the popular insurrection in Oaxaca. If Ulises is forced from office, Ulises and the PRI have said, then Calderón will fall -- which is something the U.S. Embassy cannot allow. Calderón is Bush's man. His new finance minister is the No. 3 person from the International Monetary Fund. All the policies of the new Calderón administration, if we don't bring him down first, will be concocted in the United States. So, as you can see, the issue of the electoral fraud of July 2nd -- with the PRI-PAN alliance that imposed the massive fraud against Andrés Manuel [López Obrador], and now with this PRI blackmailing in relation to Oaxaca -- is still at the heart of all the political developments being played out in our country. Question: Tell us about the decisions taken last night by the CND's Resistance Committee. Our committee voted to support wholeheartedly the action proposals that were announced yesterday afternoon by the leadership of APPO: 1) We will build and join the caravan that leaves from the Hemiciclio a Juarez in Mexico City at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning to Oaxaca. APPO has called for a statewide [from all "four points" of the state of Oaxaca] mobilization to build a security belt around the APPO encampment and the university, from where APPO broadcasts its message over Radio Universidad, also known as Radio Plantón. Oaxaca is an occupied territory. It has been invaded by occupation troops. This is intolerable. The people of Mexico, the people of the world, cannot accept this situation. 2) We will participate in the statewide "Megamarch" called by APPO on Sunday [November 5] in the city of Oaxaca. This movement needs a shield of hundreds of thousands of people, if not more, protecting them and forcing, through their sheer numbers and their unswerving resolve, the withdrawal of all federal troops from Oaxaca and the removal of Ulises. There needs to be a massive exodus of workers, peasants, students to Oaxaca to help the people free this occupied territory. 3) We will support, publicize and build the National People's Strike [Paro Civico Nacional] called by APPO and the Coordinadora [the dissident wing of the National Teachers' Union--tr. note] on November 9-10. We believe this should not only be a teachers' strike; all unions and working people should walk off the job these two days to protest the repression in Oaxaca and to demand the withdrawal of Ulises and the federal troops, and 4) We will support, publicize and build the APPO call for a nationwide and international caravan to Oaxaca on Saturday, November 11, and a new, much larger, National Megamarch in Oaxaca on Sunday, November 12. Question: Activists across Mexico and the United States are calling upon López Obrador to issue a call for a National March in defense of Oaxaca. The CND's support for the decisions of APPO is essential, of course. Your statement in support of forming a National Front is very important, as is the call by Muñoz Ledo for a national march in support of the people of Oaxaca. But more and more people are saying, and I fully agree with them, that a strong call for a National Megamarch by López Obrador could, in fact, bring out the one million people that are needed to oust the federal troops and Ulises along with them. Jesusa: This view is widely shared on our Committee. The national leadership of the CND will be meeting in the next couple of days and will discuss this question, which, as you say, has been raised by a growing number of CND supporters. Question: On November 20th, López Obrador is slated to be sworn into office at a mass gathering in the Zócalo of Mexico City. Is this still going to take place? How is it building? Jesusa: Absolutely. Andrés Manuel will be announcing his cabinet any day now. We will be gathering to celebrate, but also to swear him into office in a solemn ceremony. This is key to deepening the resistance; it is key to waging the fight to prevent Calderón from taking office on December 1st. Question: What can unionists and activists around the world do to support the struggle in Oaxaca and the struggle of the CND? Jesusa: The main thing now is to organize, in every country, broad-based delegations -- with top union leaders, elected officials, church and civic personalities -- to the Mexican embassies and consulates to demand an end to the repression in Oaxaca, the withdrawal of all federal and special police troops, and, most important, the removal of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. We are aware that the International Liaison Committee has already organized many such delegations, and we thank you for all your support. But more, much more, needs to be done. The eyes of the world have to be focused on Mexico. In every country there must be delegations and mass protests at the Mexican embassies and consulates to press for these  demands. Question: Is there anything else you would like to add? Jesusa: Yes. In the state of Oaxaca, just as in the rest of our country, they are destroying our corn -- the very essence of our culture, our identity, and the basic staple of our farm population. More than 1 million Oaxaqueños now live in the United States, where they are super-exploited, treated like second-class citizens, without any rights. These people were forced to flee their homes and cherished communities because their corn was destroyed, first by NAFTA and now by these Monsanto strains. We have to stop this madness. We have to force Ulises Ruiz from office. We have to reclaim our nation! ________________________________________________________ Everybody does better when everybody does better. -Jim Hightower's daddy. Alan Benjamin, SF Labor Council & OWC Coord..>