Shannon Young from Oaxaca with News in Context: Compelled to Find Justice

Talk Nation Radio for October 7, 2010
Shannon Young from Oaxaca with News in Context: Compelled to Find Justice
Produced by Dori Smith, in Storrs, CT


TRT:29:33 music fades
Download at Pacifica's Audioport here and here and at radio4all.net and archive.org

Music by Fritz Heede, also Avion de Kondoy, Banda Region Mixe, on My Space. Other music of The Mixe of Tlahuitoltepec here.
Active audio Link: http://ia700106.us.archive.org/20/items/ShannonYoungFromOaxacaMexicoWithNewsInContext/2010-10-07-TNR-ShannonYoung-Oaxaca-NewsInContext.mp3 for download as an 128 Mp3 File.

Journalist Shannon Young is a headlines producer at FSRN, and reports for PRI, Public Radio International's, The World. She has been providing breaking news reports from Oaxaca, Mexico, during years of change and upheaval there. She joins us to talk about her breaking news stories in context. For example, she expands on her report on a paramilitary siege endangering civilians in San Juan Copala. Peace convoys trying to reach them have been violently attacked and rights workers died. Organizers of a convoy that was being organized to help women and children leave San Juan Copala for their safety were killed a day before the convoy was supposed to leave.

Shannon Young’s stories are best understand in the context of Oaxaca history and in San Juan Copala where there is a three way factional struggle that has long been exacerbated by the politics of poverty versus wealth. We’ll also hear about the isolation of some indigenous groups due to violence or landslides which have left some cut off since August. Then of course there is the ever present threat to journalists.

From Shannon Young's report to FSRN: San Juan Copala, in May of 2010: "The ambush last month that killed a prominent Mexican human rights defender and a Finnish observer near San Juan Copala, Oaxaca may be the first time in Mexican history that paramilitaries have opened fire on an international humanitarian caravan, but it’s not an isolated act of violence. The fiercely independent Triqui nation has been steeped in years of bitter internal fighting which was itself preceded by decades of military occupation. Francisco López Bárcenas, an academic who has written extensively about Triqui history, traces the current crisis back to the 1940s when the government withdrew recognition of San Juan Copala’s status as a county seat municipality – Mexico’s only political district with a distinctly Triqui identity. Governor and UBISORT paramilitaries".

Underwriting for this program was brought to you by JeremyRHammond.com, political analysis from outside the standard framework. Jeremy R. Hammond is founder and editor of ForeignPolicyJournal.com and a recipient of the Project Censored 2010 Award. At jeremyrhammond.com, you will find stories about US policy on Iran, negotiating with the Taliban, Gaza, and more.

Links: Democracy Now, Oaxaca Wiki, Salon Chingon, FSRN, Mexico Celebrates Bicentenial, FSRN, Mexican Prosecutor found Dead.