El Enemigo Común

Material published on elenemigocomun.net is sourced by countless volunteer contributors. Much of the content was written or produced by activists and organizations, mainly based in Mexico and the USA. The types of organizations include social–political organizations based in Oaxaca and Mexico City, media collectives and solidarity groups around the world. At the website, you can access audio, video, photos and articles that provide updates on state repression of activists, communiqués about important events, analysis of US military intervention in Mexico, and calls for people to take action, such as contacting their electoral representatives or demonstrating at one of the many Mexican Consulates in the USA and around the world.

Austin Independent Media Center emerged in 2002 out of a group of students and community members looking to produce radical media and join the Indymedia network. During numerous visits to Oaxaca as journalists and human rights observers, Austin IMC volunteers worked with community-based organizations to bring global exposure to the atrocities that flourish in Oaxaca. Austin IMC collaborated with the Oaxacan Popular Magonista Antineoliberal Coordination (COMPA) on the production of El Enemigo Común. Austin IMC collective members are responsible for mailing copies of the film to our donors. [Austin.Indymedia.org]

Barucha Calamity Peller is a writer and photographer, high school dropout, and rabel rouser. For years she has worked within and reported on Mexican social movements. Her photographs and analysis have been widely distributed through alternative media outlets such as CounterPunch and the Independent Media Center. Peller reported from Lebanon during the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon war just before entering Oaxaca. She is known for getting herself into very dangerous situations and then escaping with photographs that depict both old women and young anarcho-punks fighting for peace and justice in the streets. Peller asserts that 2006 uprising in Oaxaca could not have been reported from the safety of a hotel room, but only from the barricades themselves. [Read her articles on elenemigocomun.net]

Bradley Stuart lives in Santa Cruz, California and volunteers with the Independent Media Center network. In February of 2006, he created the website elenemigocomun.net to support the documentary film, El Enemigo Común. Stuart is responsible for maintaining the website and the publishing of content, except for comments, which can be posted by anyone. His photographs are included in El Enemigo Común, widely published on the Internet, and featured in numerous video documentaries about the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca. [BradleyStuart.net]

Brent Perdue is a volunteer with the Austin Independent Media Center. He captured dramatic footage for El Enemigo Común and reported from Oaxaca after the film’s release. An article Perdue wrote titled, “Oaxaca Explodes” documents the police invasion and attempted displacement of striking teachers on June 14, 2006. Another important article by Perdue was published in September 2006 called, “With Impunity, Ruiz Ortiz, the Face of Repression.” The article provides an overview of the recent violence and resistance in Oaxaca and ends with an urgent call for international solidarity to support the work of the social movements of Oaxaca.

Carolina S. Romero lives in Mexico and has been a key source for translating news from Oaxaca from Spanish to English. Utilizing her skills and dedication to the social movements in Oaxaca, she has played a very significant role in distributing urgent news and communiqués to people around the world, especially in regards to political prisoners and the Zapotec (indigenous) community of Santiago Xanica in the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca.

danielsan traveled to mexico in 2006 to learn from the teachers struggle and popular resistance in oaxaca. Finding english language information about the struggle full of propaganda and false assumptions, lacking context or analysis, and ‘dumbed down’ for a readership with no knowledge or curiosity about Mexico and its complicated political discourse, during the months of October & November, he published audio, video, photos, and articles on indymedia that attempted to let oaxaqueños speak for themselves, without a corporate media filter. [Audio, photos and video by danielsan on elenemigocomun.net]

Friends of Brad Will is a network of social and environmental activists based in the USA. It was founded in memory of Brad Will, a New York City Indymedia journalist who was shot and killed in Oaxaca, Mexico on October 27th, 2006 by paramilitaries affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Friends and family members of Brad Will are working to expose the Mexican government’s assassination of Brad Will and are vocal and active opponents of expanding the failed US ‘drug war’ into Mexico under the guise of “Plan Mexico.” [FriendsOfBradWill.org]

Jen Lawhorne, whether in her hometown of Richmond, VA, Mexico City, Oaxaca City or Northern California, helps to relay breaking news from Oaxaca and make translations into English for Independent Media Center websites, the Free Media Center in Mexico City (CML-DF — Centro de Medios Libres, Distrito Federal) and elenemigocomun.net. Lawhorne filmed and produced short video documentaries about the women involved in the historic take over of Oaxaca state television station Channel 9 as well as 13 privately owned radio stations. Lawhorne has been a featured presenter at educational fundraising events in solidarity with the people of Oaxaca.

Miguel Zafra is an Indigenous photographer from the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, Mexico, who now lives in Santa Cruz County, California. For the past 18 years he has been documenting the Mixtec and Afro-Mexican coastal communities, as well as Indigenous immigrants working in the U.S. He is a member of the FIOB (Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations) and has worked with the FIOB as a photo-journalist, documenting the struggles for social justice. [ZafraPhoto.com]

Simón Sedillo is a community based human rights film-maker whose work has centered on placing skills, cameras and editing equipment in the hands of communities in resistance so that they may be able to document their own histories and human rights situation. Sedillo has spent the last 6 years documenting and teaching community based video documentation in indigenous communities in Oaxaca, in immigrant communities in the US, and with youth of color across the US. [Read More]