By Rachel Walking through the streets of Oaxaca on the morning of July 16th, the schizophrenic nature of the Oaxacan political reality was on full display. On one end of the city, in a historic plaza beside a church, thousands of supporters of the Oaxacan teachers’ union and the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) gathered peacefully to watch cultural performances as a part of the People’s Guelaguetza. If you were to wander less than a mile up the road, however, you would have entered a cloud of smoke and teargas, where police and military forces brutally attacked protesters, arresting sixty-two and leaving one teacher in a coma from which he has not recovered. The roots of the conflict in Oaxaca date back at least a year. On June of 2006, faced with an annual teachers’ strike, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (or URO, as he is known), the governor of Oaxaca, chose against negotiation, and instead sent police forces to brutally attack the striking teachers in the dead of night. The action was not his first brush with controversy or even his most brutal act since coming to power in 2004 in what many considered a fraudulent election. His career was marked with corruption, violence against indigenous communities, and political assassinations and disappearances. But his attack against the teachers sparked an incredible response, as hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the streets of Oaxaca to demand his removal from office. The APPO grew out of these marches, bringing together a diverse social movement of student, labor, women’s, indigenous and community groups, who took to the streets and reclaimed the media to demand justice for the people of Oaxaca. Over the last year, their struggle has been marked by government and paramilitary violence, leaving at least 25 dead, more than 30 disappeared, as well as hundreds who have been arrested and tortured by the Oaxacan government. (For a more thorough history of the conflict and the Oaxacan social movement, please see the newsletter archives) Since February, both sides of the conflict have been living in uneasy peace. The APPO and the teacher’s movement have limited their presence on the streets to marches and a “symbolic” occupation of the Zocalo, with each major movement organization maintaining a small tent or table. The government has continued harassing and occasionally arresting movement supporters, but the large-scale sweeps and blatant paramilitary attacks of the fall have ended. But the core issues of the conflict haven’t changed: Ulises Ruiz Ortiz is still in power, a rival government-controlled teachers’ union has taken over many of the school districts in Oaxaca, the state still holds movement prisoners, there are scores of individuals who have been disappeared, and no one has been brought to justice for the assassination of teachers, organizers and journalists, despite ample evidence. No matter how many times URO goes on television proclaiming that “There is peace in Oaxaca,” it was only a matter of time before the confrontation spilled out onto the streets once more. In July, it became clear that battle lines would be drawn for both sides around the Guelaguetza. The Guelaguetza is a cultural extravaganza—Oaxaca’s biggest tourist attraction. In a series of events over two weeks, dancers and musicians representing different regions and cultures of the state parade through the city to a large amphitheater on a hill and perform.

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