Crisis in Oaxaca.

In May, teachers in Oaxaca, one of Mexico's poorest states, went on strike to demand better wages and school improvements. In June, the governor, Ulises Ruiz, sent in troops to break the strike. Days later, hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets against the military violence. A coalition of students, leftists, unionists, and other activists, called the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), sprang into action.

The teachers' union and APPO took over the downtown square of Oaxaca City and added the resignation of the governor to its list of demands. Tensions between protesters and the government authorities grew over the ensuing months, and more than a dozen people were killed.

On October 27, paramilitaries affiliated with the local governing party shot and killed several activists, including American Brad Will. An independent journalist and videographer, Will was a member of Indymedia, the international grassroots media movement.

In his last dispatch from Oaxaca, Will wrote about a demonstrator named Alejandro Garcia Hernandez, who was killed at the barricades. After visiting the morgue and seeing Garcia Hernandez's body, Will wrote, "One more death--one more martyr in a dirty war--one more time to cry and hurt--one more time to know power and its ugly head--one more bullet cracks the night."

For more information, go to www.indymedia.org.