http://www.narconews.com/Issue43/article2390.html
By Nancy Davies
Commentary from Oaxaca
November 27, 2006
There was scarcely time for the blood to dry on the pavement, or for the teams of street cleaners to eliminate signs of ash and broken glass, when the Popular Assembly of the Peoples’ of Oaxaca (APPO) called for its next meeting on Sunday morning, the day when Ulises Ruiz declared that the struggle was over.
Photo: D.R. 2006 John Gibler
Saturday had seen the historic center of Oaxaca erupt into war, with Oaxaqueños fighting the police forces of the federal, state and city governments, plus unknown numbers of PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) loyalists who wore civilian clothes. According to an article in Noticias on November 25, and repeated in La Jornada, more than 200 ministerial police (Policía Ministerial de la Procuraduría General de Justicia de Oaxaca, PGJO) in Oaxaca are more or less “out of control.” They are allegedly the ones responsible for the lightning-strike detentions of members of the APPO and members of other organizations who oppose Ulises Ruiz. They are commanded by the Oaxaca government.
Sources, claims Noticias, indicate that the federal government has taken control only of the Municipal and State police, but not of the ministerial agents assigned to the city of Oaxaca. Thus they don’t discount the possibility that violence was committed by them during the march of Saturday, November 18.
The federal government investigators agreed there is a state of ungovernability in Oaxaca which “cannot be solved by police actions, but only by obtaining and administering justice, social development, infrastructure and education; but in this moment the conditions are not there and the capacity to do these things is not there because the social justice demands of the APPO, and the organizations that belong to it, have been fully validated.”
On Sunday morning, in the stunned silence as a result from the previous night, the governor called for a support rally in Llano Park. With helicopters circling overhead, about 200 people turned out to celebrate his “victory.” A victory that included, according to his government, 149 arrests. According to La Jornada, there are about thirty-eight wounded, and possibly three dead. Those arrested in Oaxaca have been consistently subjected to torture, according to the Human Rights Network. The number of those disappeared is not clear. The number of vehicles burned add up to more than a dozen. Buildings burned include offices of Foreign Relations located on Pino Suarez Street and the Superior Tribunal of Justice building located on Juarez Avenue.
The confrontations erupted in different parts of the city after a peaceful march of protest from the government buildings of Santa Maria Coyotepec to the historic center. The APPO announced that because of the risk of violence, more than 200 of their state councilors would function as human shields for security during the march itself. The purpose of the march was to demand the departure of the governor Ulises Ruiz and the withdrawal of the federal forces from the state.
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http://www.narconews.com/Issue43/article2390.html
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