Oaxaca’s State TV Station Under Popular Control
August 2, 2006
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The remarkable social uprising in the Mexican stat of Oaxaca continues to break new ground. Yesterday, a large group of
Oaxacan women, after marching through the city center, descended on the state television station and peacefully took it
over. Within hours the women had begun broadcasting - the TV channel is fully under popular control and the people have
begun to seize the means of communication.
Nancy Davies writes from Oaxaca City:
"Women have played a strong part from the beginning of the movement, as they comprise half of the teachers’ union and/or
are mothers of students affected. As parents they have expressed rage against lack of decent schools and classrooms, and
most recently against paying enrollment fees for public schools. Free education is guaranteed by the Mexican
Constitution. Fees to register, as well as purchase of uniforms and books, appear to have fronted yet another method of
state theft.
"About 350 women marched into the state TV Channel 9 facilities at approximately 1:30 p.m. Nobody stopped them. Perhaps
a thousand women and children more stood on watch outside the building. At 3:30 the channel went off the air. Within an
hour, the women telephoned Radio Universidad, the radio station at the Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca
(UABJO), to say they had two radio stations working from the site, one AM and one FM, but no television. They reported
that there had been no opposition, no struggle, and nobody was hurt. They asked the listeners for back-up – guards,
food, water, and people who know how to operate television cameras.
"...at 7:00 this evening Channel 9 went back on the air. Terrible sound, full of static, but there was the APPO. Seated
in front of a movement banner, which read 'When a woman advances there is no man who stays behind,' Daniela, a lawyer
who works both with APPO and the civil rights commission CODEP, introduced half a dozen women (none introduced by name,
I simply recognized Daniela). The women took turns with a hand-held microphone to demand that URO resign. 'The women
organized for a great march,' one said. 'We are in the struggle. Thanks to Ulises Ruíz the people have risen up, with
marches, and concentrations of citizens. Channel 9 never gave us information, only lies. The APPO is the people. In a
peaceful way we have taken the channel which is the public channel.'"
Read the whole story in The Narco News Bulletin:
From somewhere in a country called América,
Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin