Mexican riot police move in on Oaxaca (where Indymedia's Brad Will was killed)

[bobbieinok]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=59&ItemID=11299

Showdown looms as Mexican riot police move in on city occupied by protesters
by Jo Tuckman
October 31, 2006


Oaxaca -

....

Thousands of federal riot police backed by armoured trucks and helicopters pushed into the Mexican city of Oaxaca yesterday as a protest that began over teachers' pay spiralled into a major confrontation.

....

The protesters have occupied the city's central plaza, seized radio and television stations, and blocked main roads. To reach the movement's stronghold in the central square, police will have to get through dozens of barricades made from pieces of corrugated iron, burnt-out buses and lorries driven across the road.

....

Organised into a loose coalition of unions, residents' associations, indigenous and student groups, the so- called Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, Appo, ...

Appo, which has made it impossible for Mr Ruiz to appear in public in Oaxaca, says the governor has set up paramilitary groups to attack its members. It claims that 14 people have died since the occupation began, with several killed at the barricades at night in drive-by shootings.

...the tension rocketed on Friday again when a day of violence throughout the city left two protesters dead, along with a US journalist sympathetic to their cause who was shot in the chest twice as he filmed an attack by armed men on one of the barricades.

A national newspaper later identified the gunmen as police in civilian clothes.

....

However, Appo does have significant support among ordinary people, who responded to calls on a radio station controlled by the movement to provide non- violent resistance to the military-style police operation to retake the city. Elsewhere there were reports of protesters stockpiling stones and petrol bombs for a more active resistance to any police advance.

"They will be able to get through, what can we do, we don't have the weapons to stop them, we are peaceful," said 33-year-old Rosa Jiménezas she stood a few metres from the police frontline. "But while we can't stop them going in, perhaps we can stop them getting out."