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Where Murderers Still Stalk the Streets,
Protected by the Police
Dispatch
from Oaxaca
By ROCHELLE GAUSE
Running as fast as I can, surrounded
by hundreds of others, I can hear screams behind me. Glancing
back, through the darkness of night I can only differentiate
between the masses running with me and the federal police by
the light reflecting off their shields and face masks. They
are still advancing. A hand pushes my left shoulder and I realize
there are medics behind me trying to run from the police while
carrying a man on a stretcher clasping a bloody cloth to his
head. The medics are trying to reach the makeshift clinic that
the movement set up in a building just a few feet ahead. I continue
to run block after block as more people pour in from side streets.
The police are obviously advancing on multiple streets simultaneously.
Panic is starting to set in. Rushing through my mind are the
stories I have listened too over an over in the past two weeks
while interviewing those who have suffered human rights violations
at the hands of the federal police; the stories of sexual assault,
of beatings, of psychological torture, of death threats. A few
men duck in to an alley, I follow unsure if I am escaping the
danger or running directly into it. A woman and her daughter,
who recognize me from the internet cafe, motion us into their
home. Inside I lean against the wall and slide to the floor.
Immediately I think of those who were unable to find a place
to hide, of those who could not run, people of all ages had been
in the streets all day. I hear gunshots.
7th Mega
March Turned Confrontation
Saturday, November 25th, had
begun with the 7th Megamarch. Thousands had marched from the
outskirts of Santa María Coyotepec to the Oaxaca City
center. It was yet another incredible showing of support for
the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). The march
was calling for the removal of both the corrupt governor of Oaxaca,
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, and the Federal Preventative Police (PFP)
who have been in Oaxaca for almost a month now. The demonstrators
were a highly diverse group, including people of all ages, from
various indigenous groups, unions, social organizations and rural
villages. People gathered along the streets applauding as the
march passed. Many handed out tangerines, water and sandwiches
to the crowd.
When they arrived in the city
the plan was to encircle the center square for 48 hours. This
is the square where striking teachers from all over the state
of Oaxaca created an encampment which led to the beginning of
the movement over 6 months ago. The federal police have occupied
it since they entered Oaxaca on October 29th. As the people
began the circle, the police in full riot gear, refined their
formation at each of the entrances backed by a police officer
armed with live ammunition on top of an armoured vehicle. Although
APPO had made it clear that the plan was to remain completely
non-violent, within half an hour street battles broke out between
the movement and the police in at least two of the entrances.
Some members of the movement, armed with rocks, Molotov cocktails
and fireworks, faced off with the police who used an incredible
amount of tear gas, rocks and marbles shot with slingshots. Also,
according to LIMEDDH, the Mexican League in Defense of Human
Rights, state government backed paramilitaries were seen on the
roofs of buildings helping to provoke the confrontations. Earlier
in the day the radio station affiliated with Ulises political
party (Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI) had called for
people to dump boiling water and acid on the demonstrators.
Federal
Police Advance
After awhile the police pushed
the people north up the hill, at one point taking over the Santo
Domingo plaza where the movement has been centered since the
police forced them out of the main square. The police continued
to fire teargas into the crowd and burnt the tarps and other
belongings of the movement and vendors in the Santo Domingo plaza.
The report from APPO's most recent Constitutive Congress were
scattered all over the ground. During this time plain clothed
police were detaining people in the streets. After the police
retreated back to the main square, many movement members regrouped
in Santo Domingo as night was falling.
Suddenly the police advanced
over eight blocks forcing the crowd to continue running north
of the main square. Paramilitary groups also arrived on the scene
shooting into the crowd as people ran for their lives. Movement
members attempted to set up barricades, I witnessed many women
scrambling to gather rocks for defense, breaking stones off the
fancy plazas were Ulises has squandered the states money. Cars
and government buildings were lit on fire. Throughout the next
few hours federal police and plain clothed gunmen continued to
attack members of the movement who had taken cover in various
locations. Three movement members were killed, 39 disappeared,
149 detained, and over 140 injured (20 with live ammunition),
not including the hundred people the medics assisted who were
overwhelmed by the gas and pepper spray. And this is just on
November 25th.
The people of Oaxaca who are
facing this fate are guilty of the crime of demanding justice
and trying to organize a democratic alternative to the corrupt
and repressive leadership that governs their state. The Mexican
federal government's response, supposedly to restore order, has
instead attempted to maintain the exploitive status quo through
further repression and with no regard for the true root causes
of this conflict, the extreme poverty and unjust government policies
that benefit a few at the cost of the majority. According to
Yessica Sanchez of LIMMEDH, "It is clear that the PFP are
not interested in instilling peace, what they come to do is intimidate
and try to criminalize the social movement in Oaxaca."
If the federal police had come to Oaxaca with the true intention
of restoring order, those who have committed the violence in
the last 6 months of the struggle would be brought to justice.
Nowhere are movement members safe from the threat of armed attack.
Members of the movement have been killed while handing out coffee
to late night barricades, while participating in a march, or
while leaving a neighborhood APPO meeting. Their murderers still
walk the streets, now with the added protection and assistance
of the PFP.
Ulises
Claims Victory
On the morning after the mass
repression, standing in the very spot where hundreds had run
for their lives less than 18 hours before, Governor Ulises claimed
victory. It had been months since he had been able to show his
face in the city. As helicopters flew overhead, Governor Ulises,
surrounded by plain clothed police, explained that now Oaxaca
belongs to the true Oaxaqueños. "We who love Oaxaca,
its history and its traditions feel profoundly offended and attacked
by the vandals' actions on Saturday. The responsible are being
arrested and should be held accountable for their actions in
the face of justice. Today with the help of the PFP and the state
forces we have recuperated the heart of Oaxaca for the Oaxaqueños
and for all Mexicans." For hours prior to this press spectacle
workers had cleaned up the remains of the police repression,
they has picked up the tear gas canisters, the graffiti and stencils
had been painted over. A large water truck has sprayed away
the dried blood and burnt remains of the movement from the square.
Since November 25th the federal
police have surrounded the Santo Domingo plaza and most large
parks in the city, they are routinely patrolling the streets
of Oaxaca. Reports of people being taken out of their homes
or picked up off the streets by armed gunmen are being called
in to Radio Universidad regularly. The station has once again
called for support in fear that the police will manage to ignore
the autonomous nature of the university and destroy the station,
the primary means of communication remaining for the movement.
Students of the College of Medicine at the Benito Juárez
Autonomous University organized a press conference to share their
testimonies of witnessing municipal police kill three demonstrators
during Saturday's repression, taking their bodies with them.
During the press conference armed gunmen fired into the building
and took one student. There were 60 more detentions on November
27th. The PRI radio station has called for the burning of EDUCA
offices, a well respected social organization that operates throughout
the state. The station has also been reading on the air the
addresses where suspected movement members and internationals
are hiding. Over 140 of the movement members detained by the
police have been transported far from their families, out of
the state of Oaxaca, to federal prison.
Those in power continue to
try to suppress this movement with intimidation, with violence,
with murder because change is in motion. According to Cesar
Chavez, "once social change begins, it cannot be reversed.
You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You
cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress
the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future,
and the future is ours." On November 10th-12th, the movement
held a Constitutive Congress where they elected 220 representatives
from all seven regions, formalizing the popular governance structure
of APPO. 3000 people attended the forum further defining their
program of struggle and creating a true bottom up alternative
to the corrupt political parties that run the state. I still
fear for the people, how much suffering they will have to face.
On November 20th there were an incredible number of actions
worldwide in solidarity with the people of Oaxaca but there needs
to be an even larger outcry. Please consider getting involved
in solidarity actions. This is not simply to support the people
of Oaxaca achieve self determination and social justice. They
are providing a model for the rest of Mexico to also stand up
in the face of poverty estimated at over 50 percent of the population,
of losing their land and resources to foreign corporations, of
having to flee to the US illegally to be able to provide for
their families.
On the national level, Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador held his own swearing in ceremony on November
20th as the "legitimate president" of Mexico in front
of hundreds of thousands of supporters. Two days prior he told
his supporters "Those neo-fascist reactionaries better not
think they'll have room to maneuver, we're going to keep them
on a short leash." Massive civil disobedience is planned
for December 1st, the date of the inauguration ceremony for Felipe
Calderon, who "won" the presidential election by less
than one percentage point with clear evidence of fraud. The
trend of electing leftist leadership continues in Latin America,
confronting the injustice of neoliberal policies and beginning
to unravel the exploitive policies that have left the majority
of their population in immense poverty. At the same time, President
Bush has quietly dropped the ban on training the militaries of
Latin America. As our country readies itself to carry on our
legacy of genocide to prevent the much needed changes the people
are demanding, we must become active. Not only for the people
of Oaxaca, or Mexico, or Latin America but for the global struggle
that is taking root.
Rochelle Gause lives in Olympia, Washington. She
can be reached at rochelle@riseup.net
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