Report from the caravan to the People´s Indigenous Council of Oaxaca

The caravan arrived at CIPO in two parts. Varo, Lila, Cassidy and I came
together exactly a week after we left Tucson, but the others stayed in Mexico
City due to various illnesses. They arrived two days later. Megan said she
felt like this country was beating her up. We arrived late in the evening, and
Cesar spoke to us about CIPO, and the political climate that is happening now
with the teachers' strike in the Zocalo.

CIPO was formed around the same time as the Zapatistas, in response to the
repression associated with NAFTA. CIPO has a close relationship with the
Zapatistas, and on the tour of the Otra Compana this winter, Marcos and his
entourage stayed in the CIPO house in Oaxaca City where we are staying now.
Sesar told us that the various activist groups here are so fragmented that the
actual speaking tour was cancelled because they couldn´t cooperate long enough
to organize it. (Click the title to read more.)

The teachers' strike has united many groups for the moment, but it is sure to
devolve again rapidly after the upcoming elections on July 2. All groups are
demanding the resignation of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, the Governor of the State of
Oaxaca, because the pay and conditions for teachers here are getting worse
every year. A new coalition has formed to negotiate with the government and
organize the damands of the teachers, but as with all attempts at hierarchical
organization, many groups are unhappy with the self-appointed leaders, and
imposed processes.

The teachers strike at the same time every year and have a march on the Zocalo.
This year was one of the biggest, and continued to grow as the marches
continued, and more and more groups joined in solidarity. On the 14th of June,
as the teachers slept in the Zocalo, the police attacked at 4am, shooting
several people, and beating up many more. The women and children fled, but the
men regrouped and fought back, to regain control of the Zocalo. They remain
there now, in what is called the ´Planton´, consisting of encampments of
different groups who sleep, eat, and keep watch together. All the windows of
the hotels, government buildings and other shops are broken, whether from
police bullets and gas grenades, or the rage of the teachers is unclear. There
is grafitti on all the sandstone walls railing against Ulises.

This is the first opportunity I have had to write, as I am alone in the CIPO
house. All the others went to the fourth Megamarcha. This one is in response
to a pro-Ulises march that was staged by the government. It is rumored that
they had to pay up to $50 (500 pesos) per person to fill out the march and top
the 300,000 person mark of the third Megamarcha. I am surrounded by posters
from the Zapatistas, CIPO, and various indigenous artworks. Petates, woven mats
for sleeping, are rolled up in every corner.

The house is a squat that has been stable for about 20 years, but everyone must
ask who is at the door before opening it. They have built a beatiful house
with adobe bricks and wrought iron over huge, arching windows. At the back of
the property, a half-finished structure is planned to be a dormitory for
indigenous youth who come to the city to go to the university. The kitchen is
an open air structure with a four-burner gas stove and tanks of water for
storage on the days that water service is not available. Potable water is
purchased from the store immediately next door. The proprietor likes to talk
to people who go to buy water or use the telephone. Some think he is gathering
information on the activities, and is possibly on the payroll of the government.
There is a garden with beans, corn, squash, radishes, limes, mangoes, and
bananas growing. There are chickens in a pen. The compost box was constructed
by some visiting Canadians, but nobody maintains it. Toilet paper is not
supposed to be flushed, but thrown in a rubbish bin and burnt when full. With
the amount of foreign tourists not accustomed to the bacteria and parasites
here, many people have diarrhea which means the bin produces a raucous odor and
fills up fast. The local CIPO people use old newspapers instead of toilet
paper, but us gringos have brought our own.

The diet consists of tortillas purchased fresh from down the street, beans,
rice, corn, and Oaxacan cheese, which is like a ball of inch-wide mozarella
which must be cut into pieces with a knife.

An indigenous family just arrived. Men, women and children. I didn´t catch the
name of their village, but there have been others since we arrived. They travel
many hours, for various reasons. CIPO does not seek members, rather they assist
the indigenous communities with self-generated projects, and the word spreads
that help is available. When a community, or members of a community want to
join, CIPO initiates a series of workshops, explaining the principles of
Ricardo Flores Magon, and the process by which CIPO works. They are given a
few weeks in between each workshop to digest and consider the information
before the next one. At the end, they are asked if they still wish to be a
part of the organization. Some of the projects include organic gardening,
weaving traditional fabrics, education, and medical services. When there are
problems with a project, people will come to the city to get advice, or
sometimes CIPO asks for the community to send a delegation from each community
for the purposes of decision making.

I helped paint a banner for the planton. It said 'Autonomia y Autogestion, el
camino Magonista para la liberacion', and depicted the process of growing corn:
clearing the field, planting the seeds, cleaning out the weeds, picking the
corn, grinding it into masa, cooking and eating tortillas. The banner hung
outside the camp, and I watched as people came by and recognized the various
stages that they knew so well.

We had been planning to be assigned to work in the communities on the CIPO
projects, but the group here is so busy with the planton that they asked us to
wait until after the megamarcha to organize contacts and transportation.
Yesterday, people were sitting around the table talking about CIPO. They had
asked us to prepare food for the planton, and had said that it didn´t matter
how much we made, that it would get eaten. We made a huge amount of beans, and
then supplemented with eggs for breakfast, and rice dishes through the day.
Most of the beans came back the next day, and some of the group were angry that
they had not been given out to other camps. People began to express doubts
about CIPO, saying that they had not learned anything since they had been here,
and having doubts about the value of working in the communities. Then the idea
of leaving and having a holiday was discussed. Some wanted to go into the
mountains to find magic mushrooms, some wanted to go to the beach. Then
suddenly that evening, groupthink set in and they convinced themselves that
they had come out of a sense of 'white guilt' and that this was the wrong
motivation for coming. Four of the caravan left this morning to
purge their souls of white guilt by drinking beer on the beach.

I just looked up and saw a poster of Che Guevara, with a quote: 'En cualquier
lugar que nos sorprenda la muerte bienvenida sea'... 'Wherever death surprises
us, it is welcome'

I feel like the more Spanish I learn, the more there is to know. It seems
simple because many words are the same, but they have many meanings, some of
which are radically different. I think what Che meant was that we can´t
refrain from doing things because we are afraid of death... because if it
surprises us, that means it will be quick and we will die doing something
important. I decided not to go on the Megamarcha because I am afraid of being
arrested, deported, or possibly shot. I feel like staying here is more of a
help to CIPO than one more body in amongst hundreds of thousands would be.
Weighing up the pros and cons, I decided that staying healthy and holding down
the fort for a day may be boring, but somebody´s got to do it. I am, however,
missing a momentous event in the history of Oaxaca.

Yesterday, I took a piece of glass from one of the broken windows and rubbed it
on the stone pavement to smooth out the edges. It is not safety glass that
breaks in neat, benign little squares. This stuff could be lethal. I will
save it as a souvenir of the closest thing to genuine anarchy that I have ever
experienced.

Last night, CIPO showed films about the police repression of the 14th of June,
and about CIPO. The teachers gathered in the square and the films were
projected on the side of the church. Afterwards, two teachers stopped me and
asked where I was from. I talked with them a bit, and they thanked me
profusely, both in Spanish and halting English, for my presence here. They
said that international support was incredibly helpful, and that witnesses were
an essential part of the struggle.