Before June 2006, few were familiar with the story of how corrupt Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz came to power in the highly controversial 2004 election. Even fewer had heard of his deplorable record of human rights abuses throughout this mostly indigenous and economically impoverished southern state of Mexico. But since June, Oaxacans would bring him and Oaxaca into international focus.

With the first light of dawn on June 14th, unarmed teachers from Union Section 22 were assaulted by roughly one thousand Oaxaca State Preventative Police in the capital cityí¢â‚¬â„¢s center square. Helicopters, tear gas, bullets, batons and shields descended while they slept in their makeshift tent encampment. Their acts of non-violent civil disobedience, conducted to petition for higher wages, improved learning conditions and lower tuition fees, had become the object of official attack by Governor Ruiz Ortiz. And reproachable as the attacks have been, they have catalyzed Oaxaca into becoming the site of the most dynamic social movement for direct democracy in Mexico since the Zapatista uprising on January 1st, 1994.

From the rubble of June 14thí¢â‚¬â„¢s tear-gas canisters, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, APPO (Spanish acronym), was born. Its birth has breathed new hope into the lives of disenfranchised Oaxacans, and has supplied the world with a model of how state-sanctioned violence can be resisted against with dignity and courage instead of with brute force. It is for this reason that people all over the world are now thinking about Oaxaca in an entirely different way.

From this resistance, APPO has emerged unique for it is neither a political party nor a consolidated ideological group aimed at overthrowing the state through violent revolution. Instead, it is as its name suggests: an assembly. Modeled after how governments have historically functioned in many Oaxacan indigenous communities, APPO has representation from over 350 human rights organizations, labor unions, indigenous councils, municipalities and communities from every region throughout the state. And although founded on principles of non-violent, horizontal, leaderless alternative means of governing, national and international corporate media continue to confuse and misrepresent APPOí¢â‚¬â„¢s goals, motives and demands. Missing the purpose behind the structure, they frantically search for APPOí¢â‚¬â„¢s leaders, seek to identify APPOí¢â‚¬â„¢s members as í¢â‚¬Ëœterroristsí¢â‚¬â„¢, and persist in their attempts to compare Oaxaca to past revolutions in Cuba and other Latin American countries.

From June to October 27th, 2006, as support for the APPO grew, government sanctioned violence against its supporters followed suit. During a series of peaceful civil disobediences organized by the assembly, plain-clothes police and paramilitaries í¢â‚¬Å“disappearedí¢â‚¬ , detained, injured and assassinated many of its members. Under the pretext of cleaning up the streets to restore security so that business and tourism could once again operate in Oaxaca City, Ruiz Ortiz took increasingly extreme and violent steps to preserve public order in the state.

But on October 27th, the first international murder took place. Plain clothes officers gunned down long-time IndyMedia Journalist Brad Will, who had been filming the crimes committed by state supported forces. It was this event that finally galvanized international attention on what exactly was going on in Oaxaca. Unfortunately, the Mexican response has not been to deal with the endemic problems that lie at the root of the problems being protested against, but to engage in an even tougher militarized crackdown in Oaxaca.

On October 29th, two days after Willí¢â‚¬â„¢s death, Ruiz Ortiz finally received help from President Vincente Fox, who authorized the deployment of 4,500 Federal Preventative Police, transforming Oaxaca into a police state. By December 1st, the first day of President-elect Felipe Calderoní¢â‚¬â„¢s term, the Oaxacan Network for Human Rights recorded hundreds of injuries, over 300 disappearances, 200 unjust detentions and over 50 deaths at the hands of the Oaxacan and Mexican State authorities.

Despite the public airing of these statistics, Canada and the United States, Mexicoí¢â‚¬â„¢s closest trading partners, have refused to denounce and intervene against the human rights violations that remain a day to day occurrence. Awareness of the problems have grown both internally and internationally, but no effective measures have been put in place to halt the Mexican governmentí¢â‚¬â„¢s flagrant use of state power to silence and harm dissenters.

Throughout all of this, members of APPO and the Oaxacan people have continued to offer flowers to their state-sanctioned abusers and fight for justice peacefully. It remains to be seen how long they can resist Ulises Ruiz Ortiz and Felipe Calderoní¢â‚¬â„¢s increasing use of violence with non-violent means as the world watches intently.