[Marxism] Hundreds of thousands march in Oaxaca City

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

Barricades are Reconstucted in Oaxaca City as Hundreds of Thousands  
March on June 14th, 2007

http://elenemigocomun.net/960

Jun 15th, 2007 - Barucha Calamity Peller writes: At around five in  
the morning on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 hundreds of fireworks  
cracked the quiet dawn and burst in the sky above Oaxaca City,  
Mexico. Though the streets remained still, people began waking up and  
movement chants could be heard coming from the windows of houses. “If  
Ulises doesn’t go there will be no peace!”.

This isn’t like any other day in Oaxaca. Thursday marked the one year  
anniversary of the violent attempted eviction by the state police of  
the Section 22 teachers sit in strike in the Zocalo, and what  
happened that day set off a chain of events that led to a statewide  
uprising and a popular movement with millions of participants to  
remove the right-wing governor Ulises Ruiz from office and replace  
the entire state government with popular assemblies. An organization  
of thousands of civil groups was formed, called the Peoples’ Popular  
Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO). Physically removing local governments from  
office, the APPO lived autonomously in the capitol city and other  
communities for nearly five months until the entrance of the  
Preventive Federal Police in the last days of October.

In the early afternoon of June 14th, 2007, a megamarch of over 300  
thousand participants began to arrive in the Zocalo of Oaxaca City.  
The march began at the airport nearly 8 kilometers away, and as the  
beginning of the march entered the Zocalo people were still leaving  
from the airport. Contingents from Chiapas and Michoacan and other  
states in Mexico participated in the march as well.

At approximately 7pm barricades reappeared for the first time since  
November throughout the city. People spontaneously constructed  
barricades, and at least two major thoroughfares were blockaded using  
buses and cars. Crowds gathered to reinforce the barricades, and a  
festive mood took over Oaxaca City.

Though the movement to remove Ulises Ruiz from office and replace the  
existing government with popular assemblies was brutally repressed  
and many members of the movement were forced into hiding after the  
violent battle between protesters and police on November 25th, 2006,  
the struggle in Oaxaca is far from over. On May 1st and again on June  
14th, 2007, hundreds of thousands of people marched in Oaxaca City in  
a strong show of force of the remaining presence of dissent among the  
Oaxacan people and their continuing demands for justice and autonomy.
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