Dear friends,
Oaxaca is under attack, several people have been killed and injured. President Vicente Fox announced today that he is sending Federal Preventive Police (PFP) troops to the capital of Oaxaca.
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Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 13:34:56 -0400Dear friends,
Yesterday we received some sad news. Our friend and comrade, Brad Will from Indymedia New York, a friend of the PGA, of the horizontals and global struggles everywhere, was killed by paramilitaries on barricades of Oaxaca. I am attaching the NYC activist press release, as well as a beautiful note written by one of his many friends.
Please post widely.
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
October 28, 2006, 12:40 a.m. 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.
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Brad Will, a friend and a friend to the international struggle for justice, was murdered. I meet Brad when went we traveled cross country and attended a radical conference in Ohio together. I remember him dancing to a contemporary dance piece during the Active Resistance conference in Chicago in the 1990s adding well done and creative art to the events.
Brad continued to dance. He danced against wrecking balls that tried to rip apart squats in New York City. He crisscrossed the global south recording and publizing the struggle for justice. He did not forget the struggle here, the last time I saw him was in NYC during the Still We Rise demonstrations against the RNC. He greeted me with his trade mark warm smile as always and was so proud of his improved Spanish skills. He was excited that he could better serve the struggles that inspire him.
He inspires us, to challenge ourselves to learn and grow to be better in service to our liberation and the liberation of others. He inspires us to live full lives, to take risks in the here and now, to never stop our dance that we must do when we listen to the voices of those fighting oppression, to never stop our dance to unite with those yearning for freedom by following the sounds of aching hearts, to never stop the dance that moves us to join those who cry in pain in the struggle, to never stop the dance that follows the rhythm of the multitudes' beating hearts for justice.
I will miss you Brad. I will miss your spontaneity, your warmth and your joy.
Brad I will dance with you, even if I am never as graceful as you are, even if I stumble and I fall and even if I am feeble at times, I will dance with you brother, forever. I love you, Brad.
Camilo Viveiros