Fwd: [AGL] Oaxaca disaster

[Frances Morey]

Charlie,
  This is shocking news--reminds me of the massacre in Mexico City against student demonstrators in 1968. Some 350 college students were killed in Zocalo square during a protest over subway construction. Many of us knew about it but somehow it didn't make the world news at the time. Later it was treated as a footnote in history. I loved Oaxaca and thought it such a peaceful place tucked away from Mexico's mainstream. Apparently not.
  Thank you for keeping us informed.
  Best,
  Frances

Frances Morey <frances_morey at yahoo.com> wrote:
  Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 07:24:15 -0800 (PST)
From: Frances Morey <frances_morey at yahoo.com>
Subject: Fwd: [AGL] Oaxaca disaster
To: Up <fed_up_with_status_quo at yahoogroups.com>

  I just got this from Charlie Loving who has spent much time in Mexico and whom I've known for decades as a reliable informant about that country's state of affairs. This is shocking and definitely not urban legend fodder however surreal it may seem. 
  Best,
  Frances Morey

Igor Loving <lovingigor at hotmail.com> wrote:
  From: "Igor Loving" <lovingigor at hotmail.com>
To: austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 05:56:17 -0600
Subject: [AGL] Oaxaca disaster

>Subject: Oaxaca Update
>
>Saturday, October 28, 10:30AM
>
>Dear Friends,
>
>A few hours ago it was announced that President Fox had ordered the
>Federal Police (PFP) to enter the city and they are expected to
>arrive throughout the day. This follows yesterday's coordinated
>attack by undercover municipal police on the city's barricades which
>left 4 dead (among them Brad Will, a 36 year old American reporter
>with Indymedia) and as many as thirty five injured. The city is on
>edge, and my own understanding of what is happening is based mainly
>on Radio Universidad, the last surviving movement-controlled radio
>station.
>
>As some of you may already know, the teachers union, Section 22,
>ratified a vote on Wednesday to return to work, subject to certain
>guarantees from the Secretary of the Interior in Mexico City. The
>vote itself produced a crisis within the union, and the final vote,
>30 thousand to return to work against 20 thousand to stay out,
>appears to have fallen along geographic lines with Oaxaca city and
>the Valles Centrales strongly determined to stay out. Yesterday
>(Friday) the leadership of Section 22, including the now widely-
>discredited leader Enrique Rueda Pacheco sat down with the Interior
>Minister to finalize an agreement at the very moment that the
>coordinated attacks were underway here in the city. As teachers and
>movement supporters were facing roaming death squads, the
>negotiations in the capital took on a surreal appearance. For among
>the principal issues being discussed in Mexico City was the
>government's former offer of a general amnesty, and the movement's
>demand that all political prisoners arrested during this struggle be
>released, and arrest warrants dropped.
>
>Listening to the radio yesterday was chilling as reports were called
>in from throughout the city and outlying areas -- in the town of
>Santa Maria Coyotepec (where the 'Govenor's Palace' is now located
>and the site of one of the largest occupations) we learned that up to
>twenty five people had been shot, by evening the wounded were
>gathered in the church and volunteer medics were trying to get to
>them; in Calicante just east of the historic center, Brad Will and
>two others were shot at another important barricade; in another part
>of town a woman was reported dragged from a barricade shouting and
>taken away in a car. At midday the radio itself came under attack and
>the student and teacher announcers called for emergency
>reinforcements of the surrounding barricades. Over and over we heard
>that people at the barricades were being shot at while they had only
>rocks and sticks to defend themselves.
>
>This morning, with the news of the imminent arrival of the PFP, I
>spoke with a friend who is a member of Section 22. A young teacher,
>she had just returned from bringing food to the barricade in San
>Antonio de la Cal. It is one of perhaps a dozen barricades in the
>city that the APPO this morning has directed people to defend --
>they have called on people to abandon the small barricades of which
>there are hundreds, and to concentrate forces around the critical
>ones outside government offices. She told me that though there were
>only a hundred or so people at the barricade, and though they are
>hungry and tired, they plan to do everything possible to defend the
>barricade today against the PFP. On the radio moments ago, the
>announcer said that they had been informed that the 'Caravans of
>Death' would be reactivated today at noon. Meanwhile, the Federal
>Police are on their way, and while the Minister of the Interior has
>insisted that they will enter the city peacefully, everyone here
>remembers what they did in Atenco in early May. What will happen
>today is still uncertain -- both in terms of what the PFP will do,
>but also, more importantly, what the hundreds of thousands of
>residents of the city will do.
>
>Please help to spread the word, and alert others in the network of
>media to turn their attention to the struggle ongoing.

MAYBE CNN COULD COVER IT INSTEAD OF ....
>
>David
>



Charlie Loving



    
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