GENERAL TIMELINE OF EVENTS SINCE THE ESCALATION OF VIOLENCE AND THE ENTRANCE OF FEDERAL FORCES
FRIDAY 27
_Ulises Ruiz’s paramilitary groups shoot at the barricades of Santa Maria and San Bartolo Coyotepec, injuring approximately 20 people, and assassinating 3 people: Esteban López Zurita, the teacher Emilio Alonso Fabián and Brad Will, correspondent from Indymedia New York
_The “death caravan” (paramilitaries in unidentified vehicles) continue their random attacks on various barricades
_At least 15 people are reported to have been kidnapped at different barricades, being brought the following day to the military base in Miahuatlan.
SATURDAY 28
_Elements of the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) arrive at the Oaxaca airport and begin to surround various barricades. Shots are heard in various neighbourhoods.
_The Secretary of the Interior (Secretaria de Gobernacion) gives an ultimatum to the APPO to hand over the city and the government offices that very afternoon
Radio Universidad, the radio of the movement, starts coming under attack.
SUNDAY 29
_At 7 a.m., the PFP begin advancing on the city accompanied by armored vehicles to lift the barricades, riot police armed with clubs and shields, backed up by federal units with firearms.
_Approximately 4,500 elements of the PFP try to enter the city with armored vehicles and high pressure water canons (water which was mixed with chemicals), shooting teargas and firearms, and backed up by helicopters pertaining to the PFP and the Army.
_The APPO calls for peaceful resistance. To impede the advance of the armored vehicles, people take the streets creating human shields by laying down in the streets. Among the nonviolent actions, citizens distributed flowers and food to the Federal officers, formed human shields, and even sung the Mexican national hymn 10 meters from federal forces. In further protest of the violent incursion by these repressive forces, many citizens confronted the police, cutting themselves and letting their blood fall to the ground in a symbolic act.
_Attacks against Radio Universidad continue with unmarked patrols shooting towards the installations, blockage of their signal, and even at one point cutting the electricity to the station. The transmission went in and out throughout the night, due to various attempts to silence the last voice of the APPO in their disinformation campaign (Radio APPO can be heard on their website at http://www.asambleapopulardeoaxaca.com).
_The operative this Sunday, October 29th, leaves a toll of 4 dead, among them a nurse, two teachers (one man and one woman) and a child of 12 years. As of 1 p.m. on Monday, October 30th, Radio Universidad reported a total of 40 disappearances. For its part the APPO (Press Release, 10/30, 11 a.m.) reports more than 60 people detained, many of whom were transported to military bases, illegal under Mexican law.
_Police begin raiding houses in search of members of the APPO.
_The PFP evicts and occupies the zocalo (main plaza) of the city. APPO members withdraw to the university campus (ciudad universitaria), only to return with more strength and surround the federal forces that occupy the zocalo.
_Section 22 (the teacher’s union) informs in a communiqué that they will not return to classes.
_The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) announces an indefinite national strike in the states of Guerrero, Michoacan, Tlaxcala, Morelos, Zacatecas, Mexico City, and Oaxaca
_On Sunday 29/10, the bodies of 6 APPO members who were assassinated are found in the mountains of Oaxaca - at every moment the number of disappeared continues to increase.
_In Mexico City, 20 protestors are arrested at the demonstration in front of the Secretary of the Interior (Segob): 8 women and 12 men. Today, Monday 30/10, the twenty were set free with legal conditions.
MONDAY 30
_Jorge Alberto Lopez Bernal, a 30 year old nurse, the professor Fidel Garcia and an approximately 14 year old youth, still unidentified, die in the violent police siege in Oaxaca City. Police raid certain homes and detain 50 people who are then transported to the 28th Military Zone.
_Aggressions against Oaxaca's Radio Universidad continue. The radio urgently calls for defense in the face of paramilitary and PFP attempts to destroy the radio facilities and cut the signal.
_ A caravan of 6 buses of students from Mexico City headed for Oaxaca is detained by PRIistas in Nochistlan. The students are beaten and at least 17 people are reported missing, although some reports claim that has been as three entire buses of students are missing.
_The detention of at least 23 people by the special operations unit of the PFP this past Sunday has been confirmed. Before being turned into the prosecutor’s office, these people were transported to the 28th military zone.
_At one in the afternoon, a large mobilization departs from three different places in the city of Oaxaca (Procuraduría, IEEPO and Santa Rosa) in order to arrive at the city´s zocalo. The marchers surrounded the police that were guarding access to the central plaza with tanks, clubs, tear gas and assault rifles. Mexico City’s Independent Media Center reports that 20,000 people were present in the march.
_A contingent of the APPO installs another encampment in front of the Santo Domingo.
_ Three political prisoners, professors Germain Mendoza Nube and Evangelio Mendoze and the biologist Ramiro Aragon, are liberated after almost three months. One other, Cararino Torres, will leave the La Palma prison this coming 21st of November.
_In Mexico City there is a march of a thousand people in solidarity with the APPO in front of the Secretary of the Interior (Gobernacion). The three recently liberated political prisoners speak.
_Solidarity highway blockades are reported in the Istmo of Tehuantepec, in La Venta, in Ixtepec City and in Boca del Monte. The sixth commission of the EZLN and the Other Campaign block the bridge that links Sonora with the United States. A call is made to close streets, highways and airports all over the country on the 1st of November and to convene an indefinite national strike on the 20th of November in protest against the repression in Oaxaca and calling for the exit of Ulises Ruiz from the position of governor of Oaxaca.
_With the exception of the PRI, the remaining sections of the House of Representatives reach an agreement to ask the governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz, to request resignation or step down from the position, with the objective of recuperating the governability of the state. URO refuses to receive the correspondence from the mentioned office.
_Fox declares that the PFP entered the city without fire arms although there are photos of agents with AK-47s and R-15s.
_ The APPO decides to end negotiations with the Secretary of the Interior (Gobernacion), giving as reasons that the dialogue has not been taken seriously and that the people of Oaxaca are suffering repression at the hands of federal forces.
TUESDAY 31
_At least 60-70 people are reported detained (without arrest warrants) and others are assaulted.
_PRI groups conduct a march in the city of Oaxaca. These are groups that provoke violence and aggression.
_The PFP violently lifts barricades (used by the popular movement as a form of pacific resistance) in various parts of the city. The PFP uses sticks and bottle of water with chile in order to accomplish these displacements.
_Aggressions against Radio Universidad continue in the form of interruption of telephone service and the provocations of the PRIista march.
_Highway blockades in the Istmo demanding the exit of the PFP are reported. Caravans of solidarity with the APPO leave from various places and head toward the city of Oaxaca. The army did not allow these caravans to enter the city. The APPO begins (through the political prisoners who were liberated yesterday) to form caravans in various places that will head to the city.
_It is reported from the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of UNAM in Mexico City that there was a vote on today's strike in solidarity with the people of Oaxaca and the proposal was approved. There will also be performances, brigades and a march that will cover the university grounds. There are also solidarity actions in the following schools of the National University (UNAM): College of Sciences and Humanities (CCH) Sur, Preparatory 6, CCH Naucalpan, and there are solidarity blockades outside of the National School of Professional Studies Aragon.
_3,000 teachers of the CNTE (the dissident section of the national teachers union) in Michoacan leave for Oaxaca in order to support Section XXII and the APPO.
_The PFP has a road block set up in the highway by the exit to Tlacolula and is turning APPO solidarity groups headed for Oaxaca away from the city.
_Those who are still detained in the Miahuatlan jail will be transferred to the city of Mexico. It is unknown if the National Commission of Human Rights will following up on the detentions as there is no official list and the number of the detained is unknown, although there are reports that around 300 are held in Miahuatlan.
_The offices of the Mexican League in Defense of Human Rights (LIMEDH) are harassed. Graffite that says, "The APPO meets here," is painted.
_The businesses of Oaxaca's zocalo hold the PFP responsible for the looting of 37 businesses; what's more, they now can't open their businesses at all given the police violence in the streets.
_The teachers union does not recognize the government agreements. There will be no negotiation until the political prisoners are liberated, the disappeared persons appear and Ulises Ruiz leaves office and is held responsible for his crimes.
WEDNESDAY 1
_A PFP helicopter carries 5 compañeros away. What's more, the PFP captures a child of 13, takes him away and beats him.
_The PFP displaces the barricade outside of Canal 9 in Oaxaca, enters the offices and loots them. People are reported hurt and 30 are detained. In the areas around canal 9 another 2 compañeros are detained and carried away in a van.
_It is reported that in Tlaxiaco and Chalistenango there are break-ins in private homes (presumably carried out by PFP), searching for two teachers. Tear gases are first thrown into the houses and then the locks are broken.
_The APPO realizes a march in the historic centre from Santo Domingo. The Other Campaign conducts a march in support of the people of Oaxaca in Mexico City and 3 EZLN comandantes participate.
_The APPO makes a call to install real or symbolic barricades throughout Mexico and the world. In the city of Mexico people manifest in various solidarity blockades. There are blockades in the following highways: Picacho-Ajusco and Calzada Ignacio Zaragoza in the south of Mexico City, in the entrance to the Mexico-Puebla highway and in Los Reyes Texcoco. All of the highways that cross through zapatista territory in Chiapas are closed from dawn. All of the highways that arrive to or leave from San Cristobal de las Casas, Ocosingo, Altamirano, Comitan, among others, are blocked by indigenous zapatista communities in the autonomous municipalities. The sixth commission, the other campaign in Ciudad Juarez and the other on the other side block the international border bridge Lerdo (that goes between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua) in solidarity with the dignified peoples of Oaxaca. They finish by mounting a symbolic barricade on the bridge.
_A report from Radio Universidad of Oaxaca indicates that an operative of the AFI (Mexican Intelligence) with 100 vans is headed toward ciudad universitaria (CU) in Oaxaca City. Today a search warrant against the University of Oaxaca was issued, with the pretext of an arms search. IT is feared that this is a pretext to assault Radio Universidad of Oaxaca. (CU is the area of Oaxaca city where the university is located. The radio is located inside the university grounds.)
***On the 1st and 2nd of November the Days of the Dead are celebrated in Mexico. This year the days arrive in the middle of government terror in the state of Oaxaca. In spite of this, the people of Oaxaca and of all of Mexico are preparing to celebrate the day of the dead. The social movement will remember the deaths of Pasta de Conchos, Sicartsa, the women assassinated in Juarez, the fallen in Atenco and those who have died in Oaxaca during the reign of Ulises Ruiz.
THURSDAY 2
_Radio Universidad of Oaxaca is on the air at: http://icecast.v2v.cc:8000/appo1.mp3
_At 8 in the morning the PFP advances upon the University of Oaxaca and begins firing at the radio and the university campus. Helicopters fly over and descend upon the radio university. At 9 in the morning 2 military convoys arrive as well as another convoy of PFP to help in the displacement of the radio. Throughout the morning police and tanks continue arriving. The Federal Preventative Police violently attack the people, throwing tear gas/gas bombs at the people that work inside of Radio Universidad of Oaxaca. Tear gas is also thrown from the helicopters. At 11:40 in the morning 18 people had already been detaining, including a student leader of the movement, two minors and a professor of the University of Oaxaca.
_The people form a human chain in the area immediately around Radio Universidad. The radio calls out to neighbors to come out into the streets and give flowers to the military who are also in the areas around CU with their fire arms. The radio underscores that this is a peaceful resistance. They do not want deaths or injured people.
_At ten in the morning the PFP severely attacks the population in the cross of five men where the barricade is located. In some areas of the city it is reported that the PRIistas are firing into the air, hoping to discourage people from leaving in the streets in solidarity with Radio Universidad de Oaxaca.
_Medical help is sought. Many people are hurt as the PFP is using tear gas, a non-lethal arm, as a lethal weapon, firing it directly into people’s bodies at point blank range. The hospitals do not want to receive the injured people of the social movement.
_Two of those detained were liberated. Vargas, the PFP official, was the one who had apprehended these people. They were savagely beaten before being released.
_Marches in solidarity with Oaxaca, heading toward Radio Universidad, continue to leave throughout the morning.
_In the afternoon, the PFP finds itself virtually surrounded by various groups who are in solidarity with the APPO and unable to leave.
_At 5pm the PFP leaves the university zone after 6 hours of conflict, throwing tear gas bombs into houses while withdrawing.
_The day of struggle left more than 70 injured persons and 32 detained by police, some of whom were flown away in helicopters of the federal police and army.
SOLIDARITY ACTIONS
Solidarity actions are reported in:
MEXICO:
Mexico City, Merida, Michoacán, Cuernavaca, Tlaxcala, Pachuca, San
Luis Potosí, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Sonora, Chihuahua, Jalisco
USA:
Austin, Chicago, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Raleigh, New
York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle,
Miami, Tucson, Washington DC, Fresno
Montreal, Quebec
Vancouver, Canada
Sao Paolo, Brasil
Londres, Inglaterra
Barcelona, Cataluna
Santiago de Chile, Chile
Madrid, España
Milan, Italia
Munster, Alemania
Berlin, Alemania
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Caracas, Venezuela
In a joint statement, organizations from Honduras, El Salvador,
Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay demand that Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon resolve the problems in the state of Oaxaca, and holds them accountable for all of the deaths. They make a call to all of the people of the world to work in solidarity with Oaxaca.
