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Reporter's Notebook: Nancy Davies

Update on Events from Oaxaca

The call is out on Radio Universidad that the PFP is once again moving toward the university grounds from Parque La Amor.

The attempt to block Radio Universidad is annoying, but not entirely successful. I tried walking around the house with a transistor in my hand like a dowsing rod and indeed found the spot where I could hear it. I can also pick up the broadcast streaming on the internet, but accompanied by the same interference. Intelligible, though.
Another good note is that Noticias is broadcasting at 2:00 the daily news, unblocked. They were reporting on the federal financial investigations of URO, the debate going on in the PRI of how to get rid of him and still maintain the PRI in power in Oaxaca, the non-opening of the schools, since the teachers are not safe, the occasional assaults by sicarios—the whole thing. So that's a good back up.

I went down to the zocalo post-march this AM to have a look, and it is a dismal scene. The police are surrounding the entry streets but letting people through along the sidewalks, one by one. Inside the zocalo the police boys are lounging in every area, eating their ice cream cones and adding to the gray; the zocalo has gone gray. A few Oaxaqueños and a few tourists and ex-pats were walking through. It doesn't look like a place where you want to linger.

When I stepped out onto the pedestrian Alcala, it was like Dorothy dropping into Oz – color, music, energy, all the vendors of clothing and food, as well as the APPO encampment, have transferred themselves to the entire length of Alcala, the Parque Labastida, the Plaza del Carmen Alto and the Santo Domingo grounds. I'd guess about 3,000 people are there.

I heard on the radio that the marches continue, as do the blockades, especially on the southern area in Juchitan where the highways will be held. The PRI is calling for an opposition march to break the barricades.

There was an APPO meeting today that can be described as “tenacious”; they keep saying they're on the brink of winning, and I tend to believe them. The state is ungovernable, that's for sure.

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