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Please Copy This Film: Video and the People's Movement in Oaxaca, Mexico

Published on March 14, 2007

After I left my job as Executive Director of MediaRights, I moved to the city of Oaxaca, Mexico with my husband and daughter for 12 months to study, consult and make art. We fell in love with Oaxaca and have now been here for over 16 months. Little did I know that this quiet colonial city in southern Mexico would become the hotbed of a people's movement taking on state and federal governments in protest of the commercialization and globalization of their schools, land, food and water.

A bloody dove on the streets of Oaxaca. Photo by Nicole Betancourt

People have had to be very careful here for fear of arrest, spying and destruction of their property. During the height of the confrontation, one could no longer have honest conversations on the phone without fear of phone tapping. The most secure form of communication soon became Skype, the online phone service. For this article, I interviewed independent filmmaker Tami Gold and Ojo de Agua and Maldeojo TV member, "Enrique" (name changed to protect identity), on Skype. As a bonus, you will find links to the transcripts of their full interviews -- a very worthwhile read.

It began as a teacher's strike demanding better wages, free books and education for all children. As soon as the strike started, media activists in Oaxaca responded by documenting protests and interviewing people on the street. Then everything changed after a violent attack on the strikers by the state government on June 14th, 2006, when the movement grew into APPO, the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (Popular Assembly of the People's of Oaxaca), a coalition including many unions and nonprofit organizations. Oaxaca has the densest population of indigenous people in Mexico, and boasts over 16 spoken languages. The local indigenous political structure is the basis of APPO's representative decision-making process.

APPO's demands included the resignation of the governor Ulises Ruiz, who is commonly believed to have stolen his election. APPO took over radio and television stations, set up road blocks, burned buses, held massive "Mega Marches," and took over several Government office buildings. The Governor's supporters began violent counter attacks on the blockades, and are believed to be responsible for more than 18 deaths, including that of American Indymedia reporter, Brad Will. Barricades burned into the night and APPO proved their power and growing popularity by interrupting the commercial flow of the city.

One of hundreds of memorials to Brad Will, slain Indymedia reporter. Photo by Nicole Betancourt

I remember one night when we were walking home late after "Partes de Agua," a performance, video installation and party we had created with local artists. As we approached our block at 3 am, we were stopped by a barricade with a big bonfire and backlit figures. They shined a flashlight in our faces as we quickly explained that we live around the corner. Soon they recognized my husband, who was on the local baseball team, and escorted us through. It turns out that it was basically the entire baseball team blocking the road. They were protecting our street from anyone who wanted to get though and make trouble, including opportunistic criminals.

When I first arrived in Oaxaca I began consulting with Ojo de Agua, a collective of media makers who work with local indigenous communities. I was facilitating their strategic planning process and admired their dedication and effectiveness. I soon met many local and expat media makers, artists and activists. Through a New York contact, I was introduced to filmmaker and MediaRights.org member, Tami Gold. Both Tami and Ojo de Agua have been deeply involved in activist media production in Oaxaca during this critical year.

Media and art have played a major role in the conflict as both sides have used radio, television, music, video and graffiti to spread their messages. APPO has had particular success with their radio broadcasts, attracting people from all over the state to support their demonstrations. Tami explains, "There is a long history of popular media activism -- this has been true in Chiapas for decades and also in Oaxaca. Now with small format video production and all kinds of software for editing, people use video in Mexico much like the Mexican tradition of the painters making murals. There is a profound interconnection between class struggle/indigenous struggle/women's struggle and art -- a brilliant history. Just think of the immediate reactions to the June 14th attack by the police, there must be over a dozen corridos (ballads) about the incident. Immediately everyone picks up the tools of their art and begins to express themselves -- this is now true with video -- video activism has gone global as well as McDonalds."

Maldeojo TV DVDs for sale on the street. Photo by Nicole Betancourt

The offices of Ojo de Agua became the hub for much of this video production. Along with other organizations (including Indymedia Oaxaca) and individuals, Ojo de Agua started working with a larger spontaneously-formed group, known as Maldeojo TV. Maldeojo TV has accumulated a vast library of tapes documenting recent events here. These include personal testimonies from the community and evidence of human rights abuses by the PFP (Federal Police Force) and government thugs. They have produced several documentaries, which have been distributed on DVD, the internet and at screenings all over the world. They are proud to say that DVD bootleggers have made money copying their films and selling them on the street. I have seen crowds gathered around these bootleg stands watching the videos on television monitors in the center of town. Though Maldeojo TV could use some of this earned income from DVD sales, they are happy that the films are popular, useful and getting widely distributed.

Tami Gold also wants people to copy her work for free. When she arrived in Oaxaca, her goal was to make a film about indigenous women left behind by their husbands who had gone to work in the United States. However, because of her strong interest in unions and in people's movements, she also started filming the teacher's strike in Oaxaca and she continued filming as the situation escalated. With Co-Director Gerardo Renique, she edited her own footage and Maldeojo TV footage into a twenty-eight minute film called Land, Rain and Fire, Report From Oaxaca. Tami and Gerardo's documentary deals with the larger international context of the Oaxacan conflict including the effects of NAFTA and globalization. In recent months she organized dozens of screenings in the United States and is distributing the film as part of Third World Newsreel's Call For Change Series. The DVD comes with a take action flyer that states, "Duplication of this DVD is encouraged for community use."

The courage it takes to document and distribute activist videos here is hard to describe. On October 27th, 2006, New York based Indymedia and Associated Press video journalist Brad Will was shot to death while filming an armed conflict on the street. Although many Mexican journalists have been attacked by the government, the killing of an American got the attention of the federal government and of the world. On October 28th, during a period of transition of the Mexican presidency from Vicente Fox to Felipe Calder�n, the PFP moved into the city by the thousands. They gained control of the city using tanks armed with water cannons laced with chemical irritants like pepper spray and using helicopters firing tear gas. They used video cameras to capture the images and identities of protesters.

Oaxaca Libre! This and other protest graffiti has been painted over in recent weeks. Photo by Nicole Betancourt

On November 25th a massive APPO protest against the PFP grew violent. Approximately two hundred people were arrested, many of whom were just bystanders who weren't even involved in the protests. "Enrique" of Ojo de Agua describes what it was like: "November 25 was a horrible day. There was a lot of indiscriminate violence on the streets. Police were beating up and taking away anybody they could grab. During the next few days they traveled down the streets looking for people. They said they had lists of people with photos. All the buses leaving Oaxaca were searched; teachers were picked up in the middle of their classes, beat up in front of their pupils and taken away. Information came to us through a very reliable source that Ojo de Agua and Indymedia were on their hit list."

Much later some of those arrested and taken to a far away prison were slowly released, and they are now telling stories of sexual harassment and brutal systematic beatings in prison. Now the protest graffiti has been painted over, as if the government believes that covering up the superficial signs of the conflict will make it go away. When I walked into the center of town yesterday there was an eerie calm and an appearance of normalcy that surely can't last.

Today I attended a peace journalism workshop in Oaxaca facilitated by Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen of Transcend. "Peace journalism" documents conflict in a way that works toward peaceful resolution as opposed to "war journalism," which tends to encourage further polarization in a setting of violent conflict. It was an interesting way to look at media activism and it made me hopeful for the future of Oaxaca.

To view Land Rain and Fire, Report From Oaxaca, visit Friends of Brad Will.

Check out Maldeojo's latest video about the political prisoners.

For up-to-date information about the struggle in Oaxaca, check out Narcosphere and Indymedia.

Read the full Skype chat between Nicole Betancourt and Tami Gold.

Read the full Skype chat between Nicole Betancourt and "Enrique" of Maldeojo TV.