Brad Will, New York Documentary Filmmaker and Indymedia Reporter, Assassinated by Pro-Government Gunshot in Oaxaca
While Reporting the Story
October 27, 2006
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Brad Will in Chetumal, Quintana Roo
Photo: D.R. 2006 Narco News
See also…
Death In Oaxaca - Another Death In The Months Long Resistance In Oaxaca Mexico - By Brad Will David Rovics on Brad Will - Brad Will Was A Dear Friend, And A True Revolutionary Brad Will (1970-2006): Final Report - Final Moments Captured by the Slain Journalist’s Camera
Today, pro-government forces attacked barricades manned by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). Brad
Will, a documentary filmmaker and reporter for Indymedia in New York, Bolivia and Brazil, was shot and killed while
reporting on the story.
Al Giordano reports on our colleague's death:
"Brad went to Oaxaca in early October to document the story that Commercial Media simulators like Rebecca Romero of
Associated Press distort instead of report: the story of a people sick and tired of repression and injustice, who take
back the government that rightfully is theirs. In that context, his assassination is also a consequence of what happens
when independent media must do the work that Big Media fails to do: to tell the truth. My friend and colleague since
1996 when we labored together at 88.7 FM Steal This Radio on New York's Lower East Side, I bumped into him again in
Bolivia in 2004 during a public reception held by the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, and again on the
Yucatán peninsula last January where he came to cover the beginnings of the Zapatista Other Campaign - Brad died to
bring the authentic story to the world.
"Brad went to Oaxaca in early October knowing, assuming and sharing the risks of reporting the story. His final
published article, on October 17, titled 'Death in Oaxaca,' reported the assassination of Alejandro García Hernández on
the barricades set up by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO, in its Spanish initials).
"...Brad Will was known and liked throughout the hemisphere, and in its media centers from New York to Sao Paulo to
Mexico City. Tonight his body lies in the same Oaxaca morgue he visited and wrote about last week. He will not go
silently into the long night of repression that the illegitimate governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, President Vicente Fox and
his illegitimate successor Felipe Calderon have created in Oaxaca, and, indeed, in so much of Mexico. It was inevitable
that soon an international reporter would join the growing list of the assassinated under the repressive regimes of
Mexico (others had already been raped and beaten in Atenco, only to be deported from the country last May). Tonight it
was Brad, doing the responsible and urgent work, video camera in hand, of breaking the Commercial Media blockade."
Read the complete report at The Narco News Bulletin:
From somewhere in a country called América,
Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin