First, it looks like Mark in Mexico's internet connection has been repaired. It's up and running like 100 kb/s should (knock on every available scrap of timber in the house).
Second, Cinco Señores is still open, lots of PFP convoys circling Juarez University to make sure it stays that way. And if anything should send a chill down the spines of the APPOites, the Policia Ministerial has forces accompanying the PFP. The PM was formerly known as the Policia Judicial, a fearsome group and for mostly all the really bad reasons. At least they are under the command of the PFP and not yet running amok in the streets. I watched 5 pickup loads of police in a convoy in front of Plaza Oaxaca today. The first 3 were full of state police and the last 2 were full of PFP, there to protect them, I guess. Har, har.
At this hour, the few remaining members of the APPO gang inside the university are defiantly and futiley firing rockets into the air as a demonstration that their Bics still have some gas and their supply of kitchen matches has not yet been exhausted by the PFP.
Fat Man Sosa's brother was caught trying to escape the city by air. They nabbed him at the airport. He flew out all right. He flew out on a PFP jet to a prison in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Last Friday night they caught Sosa's cousin and now they've got his brother. At last word Granny Sosa was still on the run.
At 4:00 this afternoon, APPO's "student coordinator", Cuauhtemoc Pérez, and another fine young man who could only be identified as "Juan N", abandoned by the APPO leadership which is now in hiding just 5 blocks from my office, padlocked Juarez University Radio and skeedaddled. They had called in a Notary Public to record the momentous occasion of turning over the radio station to the university's rector, Francisco Martínez. With the padlocking of the installation, Radio Universidad ceased transmissions because Martínez can`t find the keys.
Actually, Martínez says it will take two weeks of repairs to get the station up and running again. The faulty transmissions of the past few weeks were blamed on goverment "jamming" rather than the morons who were trying to run it. Martínez said that the ceding of control of the radio station was an agreement made between the university and the thugs to avoid the PFP entering the university and taking the station by force. That thought must have had the old rector's knees a'knockin' and his rect..., never mind.
Kleenexes all around for our weepimg friends at Narco News and Indy Media.
Arriving a day late and a dollar short, President Fox today warned "if the nonconformists persist in criminal activities, all the force of the law will be applied to resolve the conflict." Listen here, Zorro (that's "fox" in Spanish, if you don't get out much), the PFP just hit the "nonconformists" right in the teeth with everything but the kitchen sink. Maybe Fox's Current Events Tutor has had the last couple of days off.
The Washington Post is also struggling to keep up with current events.
In the past few months, a large federal police force has tried, and failed, to corral the armed bandits and hordes of protesters occupying the city of Oaxaca.That's about as inaccurate a description of events in Oaxaca as can be imagined. The federal police force has only been here since October 29, just a tad shy of "past few months". And, of course, the armed bandits and hordes of protesters are nowhere to be found. The rest of the WaPo article is, unfortunately, pretty much correct.
The PFP did not struggle too much on the day they entered the city. There were several nasty fights, to be sure, but the PFP took the territory that it wanted to take. The failure came when the PFP divided its forces and tried to take Cinco Señores and Avenida Universidad. That fight was lost. So the PFP decided to sit back inside the Zócalo and wait for APPO to come to them. And the APPOites did just that and got their butts kicked, several times.
It kind of reminds me of a line in the otherwise forgettable movie, Passenger 57, a Wesley Snipes vehicle. Snipes had escaped the custody of two sheriff's deputies, throwing them down a flight of staris, if I recall. When the chagrined deputies had to report to their boss, the county sheriff, that they had lost Snipes, the sheriff chewed their butts. One of them made the unfortunate vow, "We'll go get him." The sheriff snapped, "What? So he can get more practice kickin' yer dumb asses?"
Fat Man Flavio Sosa, who, as I mentioned earlier, is hiding just 5 blocks away from my office in La Iglesia de los Pobres, is begging for someone to please, please talk to him. "There is still time to negotiate," he says ("before I get busted and hauled off for a 30 year stretch," he means). Fat Man's problem is that, while there may still be time, there are few takers. Maybe I'll cruise down there tomorrow and "negotiate" with the Fat Man, personally. Teach him how to play checkers, maybe.
Correction: The Fat Man is hiding in "Nuestra Señora do los Pobres", Our Lady of the Poor, not the Church of the Poor. I've only driven or walked past this church 1000 times and still couldn't get the name right. Bonehead.
for art, gifts and collectibles -- all hand made
by Mexican indigenous artists.
Thanks!
TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, APPO, UABJO, Flavio Sosa
No comments:
Post a Comment