Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Oaxaca, Mexico: More fun with Ricar and Juanita


Ok, an update from Oaxaca. Last night at about 10:00 PM, a group of youths tossed a gasoline bomb into a hijacked bus parked inside the grounds of Benito Juárez University. That's the second bus torched at the university.

Yesterday morning, a group of masked thugs attacked the emergency channel studio (066, like our 911) and did sufficient damage to cause it to suspend operations. The emergency services number 066 remains out of operation. The thugs also got into the station's parking lot, slashing tires and painting slogans on cars. They warned the employees that if the station was restarted "We'll be back".

This morning, two thugs fired two bullets into the offices of Las Noticias, a virulent anti-government newspaper. One female employee was hospitalized with a bullet fragment in her left breast. The government has managed to more or less retain the high ground throughout this insurrection, but incidents like this don't help. If the shooter isn't pursued with vigor, the government loses a lot of credibility with this one.

The state's attorney general announced that the leaders of the APPO insurrection are well known and that arrest warrants have been filled out against them for vandalism of public and private property, assaults and robbery. She added that two leaders of a "guerilla movement", the name of which she did not specify, were known to now be involved in the strife in the city. She named those two as Erangelio Mendoza y Rogelio Garfias. Mendoza is an ex-leader of the SNTE and now president of the "Popular City Government" of a burg called Santa Maria Jalapa Del Marques. He and his followers took over the town hall but were thrown out by Preventive Police back in May. Garfias is identified as one of the most radical members of the SNTE leadership and disagreed with the teachers' temporary return to classes.

She also said that there were many arrest warrants outstanding for the leaders of the teachers' union, but the exercize of those warrants was on hold in lieu of "dialogue and negotiation". I would add that the exercize of those warrants might also be on hold because the state doesn't stand a bat's chances in hell of serving them right now.

The occupied university radio staion was knocked off the air last night when 3 subjects threw acid on the transmission lines. The three were all captured by APPO elements and are being held at the university before being turned over to authorities. The three were identified as Carlos Alberto Paz Vázquez, Salvador Jiménez Baltazar y René Vázquez Castillejos and two of them are pictured here.

APPO sympathizers took control of the toll plaza outside Oaxaca on the main highway to Puebla at 10:00 this morning. They were allowing traffic to pass but asking that the tolls be put in their pockets.

APPO supporters in Huajapan de León, for the sixth time in a month, took over the studios of Radio XEOU, Stereo Sensation, to demand money, the resignation of the governor, and AMLO's coronation.


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