Oaxaca, Mexico: Fewer blockades = more violence

Some of the outlying street blockades are coming down. The remaining blockades, especially around the city's center, are being reinforced. As some blockades have come down, the level of violence has increased. An engineering professor, who had returned to work in a public school which had reopened, was stabbed to death with icepicks in broad daykight on a busy street in the colonia Cinco Señores. He was dragged from his car, had his hands tied, and was stabbed in the neck until dead.

Professor René Calva Aragón, 40, had just left the school on his way to a meeting of the Consejo Central de Lucha (CCL), a dissident group of teachers who, in defiance of the striking SNTE, had returned to work. According to another member of the CCL, Professor Alma Rosa Fernández, the murdered teacher had been receiving death threats, as have all the other teachers in the school. She also stated that the two killers had been easily identified witnesses that and the murder was the work of the SNTE and APPO. The APPO immediately charged the governor with the crime.

Armed and Ready at the Barricades
It looks like this guy is holding some type of homemade bazooka or mortar.

Molotov cocktails, torches and a supply of gasoline at the ready.

Street "Justice"
Five men in a car who approached a street blockade were accosted by masked anarchists who demanded their identification. According to the APPO, the men started shooting. When they ran out of bullets, they were dragged from their car, stripped, beaten, and taken to the Zócalo for "justice". No one was hit by the fusillade nor did the APPO present weapons or any spent cartridges to support their version.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers' strike, APPO, SNTE, violence