Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Oaxaca, Mexico: It's worse than I thought


NOTE: Telmex lost internet late yesterday afternoon and we just got it back in this part of the city. I wrote this post last night but I had to save it to Word until I could post it at this time. One brief update: APPO is setting up yet more street blockades at some points around the city. I'll have to do some checking to see what their beef might be now. There are some traffic signals at strategic points around that city that have become inoperable. They have been inoperable all day and no city work crews have been sent to fix them. I haven't seen any evidence of vandalism so I don't know if these traffic signals have been sabotaged or if the city government is simply demonstrating its usual incompetancy.


The agreement between the federal government and the APPO/SNTE gangsters described in the preceding post is less than I originally reported. As new details come out it seems that the federal government has received, well, nothing.

  • Some but not all blockades will be abandoned by APPO on a schedule to be determined by a "citizens committee"
  • The tent city in the center of Oaxaca city (2 blocks out on all sides from the Zócalo) will be maintained until the national Senate agrees to remove Governor Ruiz Ortiz from office. In other words, Oaxaca is still under the control and will remain under the control of the APPO anarchists for the foreseeable future.
  • The newly installed tent city in Mexico City in front of the national Senate will also remain in place until Governor Ruiz is removed.
  • In addition to the removal of the governor and the 6 city and state officials already removed, APPO and the SNTE now demand that the state Secretary of Interior and the state Secretary of Education also be removed from office.
  • In the next 6 years, the incoming government of Felipe Calderon agrees to spend an additional 41.2 billion pesos (about 3.75 billion dollars US) to increase salaries of the entire country's teachers to the same level as is paid to teachers in Mexico City.
  • The federal government agreed to not send any federal police forces into the city. Security is to be maintained by state and city police under the command of a federal undersecretary who will report to a local civilian citizens committee.
  • The Secretary of the Interior, Carlos Abascal, announced that, after consultations with the state governmet which took place during the 8 hour negotiating session, the federal government agreed to all the proposals and was ready to put the agreement into effect immediately.

Abascal emphasized that the teachers' union and APPO must hurry to meet with their respective memberships to get their approval of the agreement. He also emphasized that the teachers' union must hurry to work out a plan to return to work in order to "salvage" the current school year.



Here is a video of APPO in action while simultaneously "negotiating" with the federal government (in another location, of course). The narration is in Spanish and is preceded by an irritating 30 sec. commercial for Chevy SUV's, but you'll soon get the idea. The APPO followers had arrived outside the national Senate building in Mexico City and tried to get inside. What follows is, er, messy. The point being that this is how APPO "negotiates" and how APPO forced the federal government to capitulate. Keep in mind that the violence you are seeing in the video was occurring at the very same time that APPO and the SNTE were negotiating to end the violence. Well, I guess you keep shooting until the surrender documents are signed, sealed and delivered, eh?

Here is the justice that we can all look forward to in the Oaxaca of the future.


An unarmed traffic cop snatched from an intersection he was directing.


An unarmed security guard kidnapped from a government building when he attempted to stop
an APPO thug who had climbed a wall and entered the building through a second story window. That's green paint you see splashed all over the unfortunate fellow. This guy was grabbed
in Colonia Reforma and dragged all the way to the Zócalo for display, about a mile away.


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