The war is on in Oaxaca. It began at 8:00 AM with the gathering of the PFP and an infiltration by porros (hired thugs) along with state police in plain clothes. There are 5,000 PFP and many people if they're out there. The Rector of the university has called for unity and denounced the federal gov't. The University is an autonomous community. The radio is calling for pacific resistance but since the feds are using tear gas the people are pissed off and the report is that they are starting to use rocks and sticks. Several people have been arrested and wounded, including three children. A helicopter is there and presumably may airlift people to the airport for getting them into custody.

The barricades are up in Cinco Señores and the area surrounding University City. Most of the barricades are cars and barbed wire.

They also are calling for barricades at Santo Domingo where the APPO is camped.

Oaxaca Teachers Refuse to Budge, Reject Order from their Own Union Leadership to Return to Classes

National Senate Refuses to Resolve Oaxaca Stand-Off: APPO Must Find its Own Solutions

Commentary by Nancy Davies
Reporting from Oaxaca

Oaxaca, October 22, 2006

Another difficult night in Oaxaca; around 2 a.m. church bells rang furiously, the emergency sound, dogs ran up and down our street barking madly, and rockets exploded. I got out of bed and turned on Radio Universidad, which was reporting on the statewide assembly of Section 22 of the teachers’ union.

At 8 a.m., the radio broadcast an approximation of what happened and the position of Section 22...

Another street abduction took place October 1 in Oaxaca. Pedro Garcia Garcia, identified as a student activist and law student at Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (UABJO), as well as an adherent to the popular teachers social movement, was snatched at 2:20 in the afternoon, in full view of observers. The group who took him were driving in a black Ford Lobo, and the witnesses jotted down the license plate number.

Despite broadcasts of the event, with license plates and car description repeated several time during the day and evening, Garcia was not spotted. Unidentified plainclothes thugs, presumably PRI hired by the governor, were initially reported to have snatched two others at the same time, one of them a woman with a infant, with whom Garcia was walking, but this has not been confirmed.

Publicado en inglés a las 12:18 a.m.

A las 9:15 p.m. del 22 de julio, varios gritos interrumpieron las transmisiones en vivo de Radio Universidad. Eran pedidos de auxilio. Pude escuchar durante la transmisión que alguien golpeaba las puertas- como si  estuviera tratando de romperlas – y a una mujer gritando. Una voz masculina alcanzó a avisar: “¡nos están atacando!”. Luego de que se escuchó un sonido de vidrios rotos, la estación quedó en silencio.

Un ruido blanco sonó durante unos quince minutos, mientras yo giraba el dial para ver si había otra emisora alertando sobre lo que estaba pasando. ¡Qué tonta!. Ahora son las 10:00 p.m. Una maestra  que se encuentra frente al micrófono está histérica.  En la moche, la emisora estaba llena de mujeres y niños, mientras los demás se encontraban en la Guelaguetza popular en el zócalo. Como la radio también se usa para depositar comida y materiales, no sólo para los maestros, sino también para la gente que llegó del campo para participar en esta celebración, había muchas ancianas y niños dentro del edificio.

El único pedido de auxilio que alcanzó a ser transmitido, atrajo a gente de las calles vecinas. De esta manera, los estudiantes y la gente de adentro logró repelar a los agresores.

At 9:15 PM July 22 shouts interrupted on-the-air Radio Universidad - a shout for help, while in the background I could hear the doors being pounded as if  someone was trying to smash them, and a women screaming. A male voice managed to shout, “We are being attacked!” There was a sound like glass breaking. Then the station went silent.

Static crackled for about fifteen minutes while I twirled the dial to see if anybody else was paying attention. Silly me.  It’s now 10:00 PM. The woman teacher at the microphone  is hysterical - the station was populated with women and children for the evening while everyone else was at the people’s guelaguetza in the zocalo. Since the radio station is also used as a collection area for food and supplies, for not only the teachers but now also for the guelaguetza people who have come in from the countryside, there were many elderly women and children in the building.

The single cry for help that made it onto the air brought people from the neighboring streets, but the students and people inside managed to beat back the attackers.

With the station back on the air,  the men now speaking are wild - apparently the teachers’ Radio Plantón also picked up the alarm - a man at the  microphones is screaming for SNTE people from every state to come - the immediate danger is over but the adrenalin is understandably racing.

Acting as alternative government of the state of Oaxaca, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) has moved on the legal front to oust the governor of the state. On June 21 the nine-page legal complaint was handed to the national Congress.

Based on the Constitution of the United States of Mexico, APPO issued its formal denunciation of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. The denunciation calls for revocation of his post as Governor of the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca.

The center of the city looks like a war zone. On the tourist street, broken glass and broken bricks and stones lie everywhere. Torn and crumpled tents lie destroyed, flattened in every street, along with personal belongings, trash, and burned objects.

The teachers have regrouped. According to Enrique Pineda Rios, a physical education teacher sitting with a group of five men armed with sticks on Porfirio Diaz about two blocks north of the zocalo, about 80% of the zocalo has been reoccupied by the teachers.

Oaxaca is a perfect example of a place where those in power see the collapse of order -their order. The violence escalates more in line with their fear than with ours. When they start beating up photographers and shoving around elderly women, they must be frantic.

-An opportunity to protest government repression in Oaxaca and in Mexico by writing a letter or making a fax or phone contact.-

Many people after the May Day arrests in Oaxaca,  followed by the attack in Atenco, and preceded by all kinds of violence and repression during the year, have been moved to object. A TOURIST IS A WITNESS.

Observance of the bicentennial of the birth of Benito Juarez, Zapotec president of Mexico, brought on  (political) parties. While President Vicente Fox and Governor Ulises Ruiz were busy exchanging kind words and handshakes in front of an array of political suits, in the city the reception line consisted of riot troops.