Update from Oaxaca, pt 2 : AZ IMC

The Mexican Federal Preventative Police (PFP) entered Oaxaca City yesterday at around 2:00 pm, armed with assault rifles, shields, riot armor, batons, and heavily armored “mini-tanks” with cowcatcher plows and high-powered water cannons, in addition to the Caterpillar front-end loaders used to clear away barricades and burning vehicles. They advanced through the city from the west and south towards the Zocalo, the central plaza, where the main APPO camp had been located. There were confrontations in several of the barricades, and federal forces killed at least two people and arrested at least 50, 8 of which were taken away by helicopter. Prisoners are currently being held in the 28th Military Zone, an army base in the located in the northeast of the city.

The advance was slow, and met with resistance, and protestors tried their best to avoid conflict with the heavily armed feds. The police strategy was unclear at best, and involved sending in scouting teams of 50 or so officers to stand in formation in front of barricades and then retreat, after which came at least two more heavy pushes, ending at the Zocalo. At roughly the same time as one of the police battalions arrived at the southeast corner of the Zocalo, a large group of marchers from the APPO’s afternoon march arrived on the northeast corner, and ran down to meet the cops. The only confrontation was chanting and jeering, and the police didn’t enter the plaza at that point. Another hazy point in the PFP’s plan was the abandonment of a number of buses, offered for use by private transportation companies and used to move the officers in from the outskirts of the city, in a street due east of the Zocalo. According to eyewitnesses, the police arrived in the busses en masse, took the street, then left the area, at which point protestors appropriated the busses and blocked strategic intersections with them, setting several of them on fire. At roughly 8:00 pm, protestors left the Zocalo, at which point it was taken over by the PFP, and at 7:00 this morning was the hub of the downtown cleanup activities, with front-end loaders and street cleaning crews removing all remaining visible evidence of the APPO camp. There were a large number of PFP officers, still in the Zocalo, along with several mini-tanks, and more PFP spread out in the downtown area, individually standing on street corners or walking down sidewalks. Officers were not wearing riot gear this morning.

The state cut electricity to a large part of the east of the city at around 7:00 pm yesterday, which effectively ended transmission from Radio Universidad, the one remaining APPO-controlled radio station. However, the station, located inside of University City, the campus of the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca, turned on emergency generators and was up and running by roughly 8:00 pm. An APPO member with a short-wave radio reported that two radio stations had been taken over in Gelatao, a small mountain village in the Sierra Norte north of the city, and were broadcasting APPO radio during the blackout on short-wave frequencies.

It was also reported last night that protestors in Mexico City had chased Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, the governor of Oaxaca, whose resignation is APPO’s principal demand, was chased by protestors and forced to hide out in a hotel. Also coming from Mexico City were reports that solidarity protests and blockades were met with violence from the police.

Many people leaving the Zocalo last night headed east to reinforce barricades around University City. There is one main street providing access to University City, on its west side, and there were fortified barricades on each side of campus along that road. The campus itself is ringed by high walls, and the main entrance is heavily guarded, with entrants asked for ID and frisked before being allowed entrance. Support for the barricades is high, with locals coming out with coffee and sweetbread for people on the barricades all thoughout the night. Although the Zocalo was taken by the PFP, APPO leader Flavio Sosa reports that there are still more than 3,000 barricades throughout the city which will continue to resist PFP presence, and that thousands of Oaxacans are currently en route to the city to assist in the popular movement.

The APPO called for three marches today, each departing from a different place in the city at 1:00 pm, and at this moment they have converged in the streets ringing the Zocalo, chanting and shouting against the PFP presence in the city. The police are currently guarding all accesses to the city with batons, teargas grenade launchers, assault rifles, and mini-tanks.