[DEBATE] : The Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign Honours the Martyrs of Oaxaca Mexico

Thu Nov 9 07:40:56 GMT 2006

The Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign Honors the Martyrs of
Oaxaca.

Jerusalem, November 3, 2006: In this dreadful Autumn of death and
destruction, the Palestinian and Mexican people are united more than
ever in a common history, mourning and struggle.

In Palestine in the last 48 hours a new massacre has been perpetrated.
20 martyrs from the refugee camp of Beit Hanoun have been added to the
hundreds of victims that have been killed since June, when the
Occupation forces launched another ruthless offensive in the Gaza Strip.

In the same way, since June the Mexican government has started to use
all the destructive force of its military against the 70,000 educational
workers in Oaxaca who struggle for their rights. The same government
that followed the demands of the US government to send its soldiers to
invade and massacre the Iraqi people today turns these weapons against
its own people in defense of imperialist interests.

We mourn the dead of Oaxaca as we mourn our own and we take courage from
the determination in the struggle that this people has shown in response
to the repression. They have united their voices in the Popular Assembly
of the People of Oaxaca (APPO): some 350 organizations have taken back
the city and struggle to overthrow the corrupt government of Ulises Ruiz
Ortiz.

If the government wanted to crush this movement with the invasion of the
29th October and the murder of the protesters, we now know that this
goal has not been achieved and that the activists of the APPO know how
to respond to the latest brutal attacks.

We know that the Mexican Intifada continues and spreads to other states
of the nation.

As Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign representing some 50 popular
committees that struggle day after day in the villages ghettoized by the
wall and besieged by the complex mechanism of Zionist repression and
expulsion, we want to let you know that you are not alone, that your
struggle is our struggle.

60 years of occupation, dispossession, daily murder and eventually the
attempt to transform Palestine into a giant open air prison were not
enough to destroy the determination of the Palestinian people. The
majority of our people has been expelled from their land and struggles
for the return to their homes, the rest of us resists apartheid and a
life in open-air prisons behind walls and razor wire.

The experience of these 60 years of resistance enable us to recognize
our brothers in the Mexican indigenous communities who have resisted
genocide for over 500 years. We salute the resistance of the people of
Oaxaca against a corrupt puppet government and see in it a new point of
reference for the struggle against imperialism.

We join the call of our Mexican comrades to demand:

1. That Ulises Ruiz Ortiz immediately step down from his post as
governor of the state of Oaxaca. His authoritarian policies are at the
root of the bloodshed and the struggle. His permanent presence is the
main obstacle to a political solution.

2. The immediate withdrawal of the Federal Preventive Police from the
city of Oaxaca.

3. The immediate end to all forms of repression, the liberation of the
arrested and the detained and the return of the disappeared.

4. Unconditional respect for Human Rights and the guarantee of safety
for all, in particular the members of the APPO.

5. The punishment of the intellectual and material authors of the
murders perpetrated by the paramilitary groups of the state.

We further remind the Federal Government that it holds the
responsibility for the repression and assaults on the population and
organizations of Oaxaca.

We join all those that ask a political solution and the respect of the
demands put forward by the APPO.

Jamal Juma'
Coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign

For Spanish, Press Here <http://rd.bcentral.com/?ID=4650488&s=87036240>
<http://rd.bcentral.com/op.aspx?ID=4650489&s=87036240>

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