The 10th APPO Megamarch Observes Women's Day

The APPO’s International Women’s Day march was followed on March 9 by the arrest of activist teacher Crucita Yolanda Ramírez Ramírez, who has high visibility in both the APPO and the Coordinadora de Mujeres Oaxaqueñas (COMO, in its Spanish initials). COMO was out in force on the March 8 march.

According to witnesses, police dressed in black, traveling in two patrol cars, kidnapped the Section 22 teacher. Family and friends reported that the arrest happened at about 5:45 pm in the Crucero de Cinco Señores area when the teacher was en route with them to a press conference at the university. She was supposed to meet with the International Mediation Commission for a discussion of the violations of human rights committed during the struggle of the past year.

Ramírez, who teaches history in a secondary school in San Martín Mexicapan, participated in the hunger strike carried out by the women of COMO in front of the church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán during the conflict in 2006.

The day following her arrest friends, teachers and APPO called for another march. This one looked to me to be no more than 300 people, who responded virtually overnight. The age range was quite broad, and I saw one senior citizen who used a cane. I waited (déjà vu all over again) in a tiny park where I anticipated the marchers would pass, and waiting with me was one PFP guy in plain clothes (I recognized him having seen him in the Zócalo. He probably recognized me, too, but we didn’t exchange greetings), one youngster wearing a black anarchist t-shirt and carrying a cell phone, several couples necking, a man who is a fixture in the parks (he sells mimeographed copies of his verses), children running around, and one drunk person. I took advantage of the drunk’s approach and left the PFP man behind. I walked just about one block when the march came toward me, boisterously shouting “We are all the APPO,” “The APPO lives, the struggle continues,” “Not one more political prisoner,” and other similar slogans.

In the middle of Independent Street, below the Plaza de la Danza, the march paused for a press briefing and then turned north on Crespo. I learned that the Zócalo once again was heavily guarded, but the marchers descended eastward to the plaza of Santo Domingo. Four blocks away (toiling uphill, chatting with others in what seemed like a reprise of our social event two days ago), I could still hear them chanting.

Later I learned that the marchers had indeed occupied the Santo Domingo plaza for a rally. Yolanda Ramírez had been released earlier that very morning with no charges; simply an experience of harassment which caused her blood pressure to be so high she had not been able to march herself. However, COMO and the APPO spokesperson Florentino Lopez declared in the press conference that every arrest will be met with a counter-protest.

The armed troops guarding the Zócalo on March 8, according to Noticias, (which does not hesitate to disparage the forces of the governor at every opportunity), were so well barricaded within their circle that sandwiches to feed them had to be brought in by ambulances. The Noticias article didn’t mention how the horses and dogs were fed. The troops in force on Women’s Day, and again on March 10, did not set foot on Santo Domingo, the scene of an APPO encampment prior to the November repression where Ramírez carried out her hunger strike and was the location of the APPO gathering on March 10.