Estimados Compañeros de las CASAs:

This month’s newsletter focuses on the experiences of Zaachila, an autonomous municipality which has told an impressive story of recent popular mobilization. Inspired by the staying power of their movement, CASA Chapulín members have visited the occupied municipal building and the community radio station on a number of occasions. At the radio, which has extensive programming geared towards a variety of audiences, we sat in on Children’s Storytelling Hour, listening to children call into the station to request a song or ask a question, and Migration Experiences, where migrants are invited to share their experiences and challenges working in the United States. We’ve spoken with several radio broadcasters and people involved in local politics; links to two interviews appear below. Because the experience represents such a unique example, CASA volunteers Frazer and Loren have also begun to work on a documentary film project.

                                                         _{Photo by Laura Book}

The one-party system, controlled by the Mexican political party PRI, has dominated Zaachilan and Oaxacan politics since the Mexican Revolution overthrew the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz in 1910. Last summer, as the people of Oaxaca occupied the capital city to demand the resignation of repressive state governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, the people of the ancient Zapotec capital, Zaachila, staged their own popular uprising to oust their corrupt city mayor, seize the municipal palace, and forge a new popular government. For the first time in 600 years, the people of Zaachila have power over their collective-destiny. The social movement in Oaxaca inspired many towns across the state. Zaachila is just one of 28 municipalities, catalyzed by the social movement in Oaxaca, where people looked critically at the political situation in their communities and decided to form community-assembly based governments.

After the Mexican federal police attacked the APPO in the state capital, many of the small municipalities were also forced to hand authority back to the old government. However, Zaachila’s has been able to retain its own community-revolution despite federal repression. City governmental structures have been overhauled and recreated to more equitably distribute community resources and give a direct democratic voice to its citizens. Community radio director and broadcaster Adán, interviewed by Diana and Patrick, describes how Zaachila Radio is celebrating and empowering local cultural, education and community development, and feeding healthy criticism of unequal economic and political structures.

This new era of Zaachilan politics will continue to face serious obstacles in the future. The community assembly of Zaachila decided to participate in local elections on October 7th in order to remain a legally supported entity. The candidate supported by the people’s movement, Manuel González Tomás, interviewed by Loren and Frazer, is a local activist and elementary school PE teacher who’s running with a left-centrist opposition party, one of the three big political parties in Mexico. He has pledged to retain the new governing structure in Zaachila and the community radio in the municipal building if he wins. But burning questions are left in the air: What will happen if he doesn’t win? What changes can we expect when a popular movement is melded together with a national political party? Can it maintain its autonomy? Is this just another institutionalization of a 21st century revolution? Or has the social movement run deep enough, through the radio and the new governing structure, to maintain its ability to empower the people within this community regardless of the outcome? And what can other small communities around the world aiming to redistribute power and resources learn from the experiences of the movement in Zaachila? As always, questions come easiest, and the answers arrive in pieces. We’ll continue in the work to send you these pieces, as tools for the building of something new.

Also in this month’s newsletter, please see the Urgent Action for our friend and compañero, David Venegas Reyes. In early September he was declared not guilty of all charges against him and to be released in 24 hours according to federal mandate. However, in a blatant (though not unprecedented) act of corruption, the state government invented new charges in order to continue to hold him in jail.

In Solidarity,

CASA Chapulín, Oaxaca
CASA de la Paz, Chiapas