There have now been 84 “arbitrary detentions” by the Mexican federal police in Oaxaca, according to the Miguel Augustin Pro-Juarez Human Rights Center (PRODH), which has dispatched a team of investigators to the besieged city. The group also reports 59 “disappearances,” in which the whereabouts of the detained is unknown, since the city was occupied by 4,000 Federal Preventative Police on Oct. 29. (La Jornada, Nov. 5)
Despite the massive federal police presence, paramilitary attacks continue in the city. Student supporters of the Popular People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) reported that in the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 4, the transmitter of Radio Universidad came under fire from two passing trucks. (Noticias de Oaxaca, Nov. 5) The Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca-Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-RFM) reports that paramilitaries have repeatedly attacked their offices since the federal police entered the city. The CIPO-RFM office is in the Santa Lucia del Camino suburb, near where New York Indymedia journalist Brad Will was killed on Oct. 27. (CIPO-RFM communique, Oct. 31)
The federal prosecutor’s office (PGR) says it will investigate paramilitary activity in Oaxaca, and has discussed the issue with both APPO leaders and Gov. Ulises Ruiz. (La Jornada, Nov. 5)
APPO says it is willing to re-establish dialogue with the government, but that the resignation of Ruiz is not negotiable. It has also set the immediate release of “political prisoners” and withdrawal of the federal police as pre-conditions for a return to the table. (APPO communique, Nov. 5)
Protests in support of APPO are spreading across Mexico. On Nov. 5, as thousands converged on Oaxaca City from throughout the country for the APPO “mega-march,” maquiladora workers in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, blockaded the international bridge leading to Brownsville, TX. Workers also rallied in front of the municipal palace in Mazatlan, Sinaloa. The actions were organized by the Maquiladora Pro-Justice Coalition. (La Jornada, Nov. 5)
In Chiapas, the Maya Catholic pacifist group Las Abejas announced it is organizing a caravan to Oaxaca City to support the APPO. (Las Abejas communique, Nov. 5)
In Mexico City, Zapatista delegates presided over a meeting in solidarity with APPO in the Palacio de Bellas Artes. (Enlace Zapatista, Nov. 2) Zapatista Comandante Zebedeo met with APPO hunger strikers in the capital’s Hemiciclo a Juarez plaza. (Enlace Zapatista, Nov. 2)
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See our last posts on Mexico and the Oaxaca crisis, and the Zapatista response.
