The uprising that Bradly Will got caught in in Oaxaca has been very little covered in any press in the States. It is a classic Mexican event pitting the local population against the city, state and federal government that has no real interest in the local citizens. It has been a struggle lasting over 70 years at this point. The recent violence has been some of the worst, on the largest scale in quite a while, and pervades the whole city. Occasionally you may hear something about it on WBAI but practically no where else.
From Indymedia.com:
Oaxaca is a contentious state, with conflicts in towns, on public and communal lands. Assassinations each year number between 20 and 30. The state has 570 municipalities, but in 2004, 750 cases of agrarian conflict.
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (URO)-the state governor who is reputed to have won election via illegal means- has united the people of Oaxaca – in opposition to him, and to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI, in its Spanish initials), which has maintained a strangle-hold on Oaxaca for more than seventy years, maintaining caciquismo (the power of local political bosses) and aggravating the agrarian conflicts to divide the people. Selling their votes to the PRI is how towns obtain what should be rightfully theirs, including schools and educational supplies.
The uprising has drawn together a wide and loose coalition of students, teachers unions, workers organizations, anarchists and a large contingent of disenfranchized youths. They face special federal riot police, federal troops and right wing paramilitary private armed bands financed by the state governor. The recent violence is citywide and very deadly.
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I really wonder how much Will knew about the depth and degree of violence he was walking in to.