The problem with groups like "Friends of Brad Will" is that they aren't necessarily friends of Oaxaca, or Mexico. The demands for special treatment by the Will family and their supporters is seen as one more arrogant gringo demand. Journalists in Oaxaca do not see FOBW as particularly supportive of the I've heard nary a peep out of FOBW about other journalists killed in Oaxaca and elsewhere throughout the Republic, only about a white foreigner. Those Mexican journalists will point out too that Will was a tourist, not a journalist, and protests in the United States following his death were the rationale for a crackdown on dissent in the State of Oaxaca.

good points richard, on FOBW.

but i have to differ on one point. he was working for indymedia. (he even had a press pass, you remember the foto, taken in mexico when he died.) and even if he was just a guy with a camera, we know what his agenda was. all you have to do is read up on him and his life and what he did. even if he was a "tourist" he was also a "citizen journalist"—it was just right before companies like Viacom and CNN branded such a thing and mass-marketed it.

and shame on ya, richard for blaming the crackdown on FOBW or USA protests! you know better than that. protests in the US might have been Mexican govt's excuse to be abusive, but it was hardly the reason. that type of oppression and police abuse is old news in MX (you know this as well as anyone, better than most around here). thats' the mexican govt. after all, do you blame Tlatelco on FOBW? do you blame Atenco on US protests? even if so, that's not why the corruption exists, nor the oppression against the citizenry.

I've written elsewhere that if you back a political or social cause in Mexico, buy a tee-shirt and pay too much, but under no circumstance should you involve yourself. Not only is it illegal, it's counterproductive. Foreigners are always seen as meddling in Mexican politics, and evidence that the group is directed by outsiders. In Oaxaca, even supporters from Mexico City or Chiapas were seen as "outside elements" and used to dismiss the APPO as a non-local (and therefore illegitimate) protest.

Will's presence in itself would be seen as foreign interference. I'm not a stickler about visas or credentialing -- having been an illegal alien for a time, and having written for the Mexican press (as a "correspondent", not a reporter)-- but Will was more than just flaunting the bureaucratic rules. Journalism in Mexico is a dangerous profession, and the journalists have fought very hard to obtain some legal protections. Foreign journalists are supposed to have a journalists' visa, which entitles them to at least minimal legal protections. Will was traveling on a tourist visa. I'm not sure his death was all that different from the Canadian tourist hit by a car while wandering drunk in Acapulco: a foreign tourist killed while engaging in dangerous activities, whose family then tries to blame the Mexican government for the tragedy.

However, in Will's case, the tragedy gave the incoming Calderon administration a legitimate excuse to do what it wanted -- put down the demonstration. I realize that was not the intention of the FOBW, but you know what they say about "good intentions". The U.S. Embassy certainly couldn't complain nothing was being done, and neither could the U.S. government. FOBW was demanding that the U.S. government force the Mexican government to "do something." They did.

Of course, the Calderon administration might have found a rationale to step in sooner or later. And there's no way of saying what might have happened. But, given Mexican history and political culture, the likelihood would have been a compromise of some sort, not simply repressing the whole protest movement.

yet, and still, i respect brad will chasing down the truth. it's what much of his life was about. even if he died before he could find it. i sort of think that's most our fate, if not played out so literally.