- Contact:
- Beka Economopoulos, (917) 202-5479
Brandon Jourdan, (646) 342-8169
Eric Laursen, (917) 806-6452
WILLIAM BRADLEY ROLAND, U.S. JOURNALIST/CAMERMAN, KILLED BY OAXACA PARAMILITARIES KILLER ID'D - ACTIONS BEING PLANNED IN U.S.
William Bradley Roland, aka Brad Will, a U.S. journalist and camerman, was shot and killed yesterday in Oaxaca, Mexico, by paramiliaries affiliated with the PRI, the former Mexican ruling party. Will was in Oaxaca covering the continued resistance of teachers and other workers against the PRI-controlled government of the State of Oaxaca. According to reports from New York City Independent Media Center and La Jornada, Will, 36, was shot at the Santa Lucia Barricade from a distance of 30-40 meters in the pit of the stomach by plainclothes paramilitaries and died while enroute to the Red Cross.
Centro de Medias Libres (
http://vientos.info/cml) in Mexico City reports that from Will's recovered videiotapes, they have identified his killer as a paramilitary named Pedro Carmona, ex-president of Felipe Carrillo Puerto de Santa Lucia del Camino, a colonia in Oaxaca.
At last report, Will was one of five people who died in the last day, along with 17 wounded, as paramilitaries and federal police poured in to retake the city, according to Centro de Medias Libres. The city had been in the hands of the workers for five months. Will is the first American to be killed in the months-long confrontation. A longtime journalist and activist, he covered land occupations in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., direct actions and rebellions in Argentina and Ecuador, land occupations in Brazil, and anti-privatization struggles in Bolivia. He was a much-beloved figure in the global justice movement in the U.S. and leaves behind many grieving friends.
Friends of Brad in the U.S. will be calling actions in the next day to demand that the U.S. State Department press the Mexican government to investigate Brad's murder and address the terroristic regime that made it possible. Additionally, they will press for solidarity in the U.S. with the Mexican movement for social justice that Brad gave his life to document in Oaxaca.