Sheffield Anarchist Federation are pleased to announce they have now donated £300 to the anarchist movement in Oaxaca. This sum is what was raised at the benefit party plus a few donations. The money was originally going to be handed over to a comrade who has been working in Oaxaca when they came to Sheffield to do a talk, but a very lucky situation arose before then.

At the 27th annual Anarchist Bookfair in London 2 weeks ago we were visited at the last minute by a Mexican comrade who has been working in the region in the Allianza Magonista Zapatista, an anarchist collective that is part of the APPO – the general assembly of workers and peasants that has been the organising forum for the resistance in the state. With the help of an interpreter we were able to host a meeting at the Bookfair, which was well received by an audience of about 60.

In May 2006, a teachers' strike began in the Zócalo (the town square) in the city of Oaxaca. This was the 25th annual strike, and each year it has heralded popular resistance way beyond the teachers union’s call for better school funding. After 3000 police were sent to evict the teachers in the Zocalo in the early morning of June 14, 2006 street battle lasted for several hours that day, resulting in more than one hundred hospitalizations, calls for the corrupt state Governor Ulises Ruiz to resign were added to the protest.

In response to the events of June 14, representatives of Oaxaca's state regions and municipalities, unions, non-governmental organizations, social organizations, cooperatives, and parents convened to form The Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). On June 17 the APPO reoccupied the town square and declared itself the governing body, plunging the city into a state of civil rebellion. Barricades were built across to prevent police raids. Various municipality offices across the state closed in unity. A popular mantra was, “No leader is going to solve our problems”. Since this time, the struggle between the APPO and the state has been constant, and similar attempts at popular government have gained pace all over Mexico.

(culled from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Oaxaca_protests)

The APPO is a huge body that contains everyone from indigenous assemblies (along the lines of the Zapatista’s in Chiapas to the south) to parliamentary political Parties. Because of this it is safest to support specific anarchist or community groups, in case we end up financing some bastard’s election campaign! The Mexican comrade works in a majority indigenous community – where people organise in ways closer to tribal society than in the cities. Decisions largely are made communally and democratically, and political parties are not trusted or excluded completely. These communities are often completely ignored by the Mexican state anyway, being incredibly poor – but are often in the frontlines of the battle between the people and the neo-liberal state. In his community for instance, the only source of clean water is a river which the local government want fill with sewage from a proposed factory. The money we have donated will go towards these struggles, but also the legal fees of the imprisoned comrades. We are also aware of plans to help make these communities ecologically sustainable and self reliant.

The money was paid out of the AF Solidarity Fund, which is what all benefit parties contribute to. The fund exists to support anarchist comrades and projects all over the world, either on our initiative or on application. Although we are pretty tight for money in the UK we can make a difference. The uneven exchange rate system that keeps the developing world dirt poor means that our money goes much further over there; for instance our Mexican comrade he could eat out for a week on £5. We hope to raise the Funds’ profile from now on. Our next event in Sheffield will be February 16th 2008 when we’ll be putting on the Inner Terrestrials (innerterrestrials.org.uk) plus support in a licensed venue so hopefully won’t get raided at 8pm this time.

We’d like to say thanks again to everyone who came and helped us out – hopefully you can see what we are about a bit more clearly now. Its not a few gigs and a t shirt and its not pile of books and a point of critique - it is the defining struggle of humanity- and we want you to be a part in whatever way you can.

Solidarity,
- The AF