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Chronicle of the Battle of Oaxaca: Stage Three, Day One
The Majority of People on the Street Waiting to Confront the Police were Common Citizens Ready to Put Their Lives on the Line
By James Daria
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Oaxaca
October 30, 2006
With the death of at least three people (including a foreign journalist) on Friday, Mexican president Vicente Fox must have found his excuse to bring in federal police to repress the civil unrest that has made the state of Oaxaca practically ungovernable and has spurred further unrest throughout the republic. By Saturday, elements of the Federal Preventive Police landed at the Oaxaca airport and word spread about their arrival by ground just north of the city. According to word on the street the federal forces were supposed to have entered the city under the cover of darkness Saturday night. Although the city was abandoned and no new barricades were erected, the arrival of the police did not happen. Sunday morning came and the city awoke to a buzz of activity as troop movement was detected at different points of the city and helicopters could be seen flying overhead. The battle of Oaxaca was about to begin and who would control the city at the end of the day would be decided at various strategic barricades.
The majority of the federal forces were stationed at the base of the PFP near the entrance to the highway to Mexico City just past the village of Etla. The police, dressed in full riot gear and equipped with various “tanks” (actually armored vehicles with water cannons and video cameras), stationed themselves just on the edge of this highway. What laid between them and the center of Oaxaca City were no less than five major barricades made up of buses and semi trailers and the fury of thousands of common Oaxacan citizens. There were also reports of troop movements in the south of the city.
More
http://narconews.com/Issue43/article2259.html
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Oaxaca
October 30, 2006
With the death of at least three people (including a foreign journalist) on Friday, Mexican president Vicente Fox must have found his excuse to bring in federal police to repress the civil unrest that has made the state of Oaxaca practically ungovernable and has spurred further unrest throughout the republic. By Saturday, elements of the Federal Preventive Police landed at the Oaxaca airport and word spread about their arrival by ground just north of the city. According to word on the street the federal forces were supposed to have entered the city under the cover of darkness Saturday night. Although the city was abandoned and no new barricades were erected, the arrival of the police did not happen. Sunday morning came and the city awoke to a buzz of activity as troop movement was detected at different points of the city and helicopters could be seen flying overhead. The battle of Oaxaca was about to begin and who would control the city at the end of the day would be decided at various strategic barricades.
The majority of the federal forces were stationed at the base of the PFP near the entrance to the highway to Mexico City just past the village of Etla. The police, dressed in full riot gear and equipped with various “tanks” (actually armored vehicles with water cannons and video cameras), stationed themselves just on the edge of this highway. What laid between them and the center of Oaxaca City were no less than five major barricades made up of buses and semi trailers and the fury of thousands of common Oaxacan citizens. There were also reports of troop movements in the south of the city.
More
http://narconews.com/Issue43/article2259.html
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OAXACA, Mexico As the federal riot police hunkered down in Oaxaca's main square, protesters sought to protect their not-so-secret weapon in their five-month siege of the city: the pilfered radio transmitter they use to mobilize the population.
"We are in a red alert, a red alert!" a nervous-sounding announcer said over and over from inside the bullet-scarred university station, which was ringed Monday by sandbags and protected by masked supporters on the roof equipped with handmade mortars. "The police are moving in!"
The cry was premature, but it drew hundreds of supporters from across this city in southern Mexico. They prepared Molotov cocktails and reinforced the barriers around the gates of Oaxaca University in anticipation of a raid.
"We will transmit until the last minute," an announcer who described himself as a law professor, but declined to provide his name, said in an interview. "We will not run. We are like the captains of the ship, and we'll go down with the ship."
The state of Oaxaca's beleaguered governor, Ulises Ruiz, was also hunkered down. The federal police remained in control of the central square Monday, but protesters marched through the rest of downtown, denouncing Ruiz and occasionally setting fire to vehicles.
Although the governor insisted Monday that he would not resign, his support appeared thin as both houses of the Congress passed nonbinding resolutions urging him to cede power for the good of the state and the nation.
More
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/31/news/mexico.php
"We are in a red alert, a red alert!" a nervous-sounding announcer said over and over from inside the bullet-scarred university station, which was ringed Monday by sandbags and protected by masked supporters on the roof equipped with handmade mortars. "The police are moving in!"
The cry was premature, but it drew hundreds of supporters from across this city in southern Mexico. They prepared Molotov cocktails and reinforced the barriers around the gates of Oaxaca University in anticipation of a raid.
"We will transmit until the last minute," an announcer who described himself as a law professor, but declined to provide his name, said in an interview. "We will not run. We are like the captains of the ship, and we'll go down with the ship."
The state of Oaxaca's beleaguered governor, Ulises Ruiz, was also hunkered down. The federal police remained in control of the central square Monday, but protesters marched through the rest of downtown, denouncing Ruiz and occasionally setting fire to vehicles.
Although the governor insisted Monday that he would not resign, his support appeared thin as both houses of the Congress passed nonbinding resolutions urging him to cede power for the good of the state and the nation.
More
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/31/news/mexico.php
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