Sorry for the late post but yesterday was crazy. We met some people the night before who said they would give us a ride to the beginning of the march site on the edge of Oaxaca. We met them at 9am. They led us to a pickup truck, which had no license plate on it. Many people involved in the movement have taken their plates off their cars to avoid identification. It was a 4-door pickup and our ride insisted we sit in the backseat. So it was 2 of us and 12 communists in a pickup truck with a machete in the driver’s side door. We got to the starting point and had to wait over an hour before the start of the march. They were waiting for buses of people to come in from outside of the city. When the buses came in people got off carrying large sticks with nails in them for protection against the police. It was a diverse group, teacher’s students, farmers, the very old and the very young. The indigenous led the march and all other political groups were in the back. Along the way people were spray-painting messages telling the Governor and the PFP to get out. At one point a pickup truck with kids in all black and masked pulled up. They had home made bazookas, which they shoot out large fireworks with nails in them. A transport truck full of PFP went by the march and protesters screamed and yelled profanity at them telling them to leave. Midway though the march we passed several schools where demonstrators yelled “traitors” to the teachers who have gone back to work. One bank and a McDonalds on the route were vandalized with revolutionary messages spray-painted on them and their signs destroyed.
When the march got to the Zocalo demonstrators stopped within a blocks distance and screamed and yelled. Some people flashed their bazookas as a show of force. I did not witness any demonstrates use violence against the PFP but I don’t know what was happening the block behind me. Without any notice the police started firing tear gas. Once this happened demonstrators returned fire with their homemade bazookas. From this moment on a street battle ensued that lasted at least 3 hours. There was tear gas in pretty much every direction. People eventually retreated one block where they tore apart a construction site for material to build a barricade. One block further up old women were gathering rocks and putting them in shopping carts that young children would push to the front lines. Demonstrators held the barricades from which they launched their attack of rockets, and rocks. Many Molotov’s were prepared but none were thrown at the police that I was able to see. More then several demonstrators were injured and were carried on make shift stretchers to the clinic near Santo Domingo. Protesters torched a bus they were using as a barricade a block away from where I was and people on motorcycles were masked with bazookas sticking out of their backs. This march was supposed to stay nonviolent but once the PFP launched their barrage of teargas the battle was on. Police often taunted the demonstrators to hit them and would advance their line as if it were “Braveheart” the movie. The PFP is not trained for this type of action and it showed. They would pick up rocks demonstrators had thrown and throw them back. Eventually the PFP advanced past the barricades pushing the demonstrators back into Santo Domingo. At this point people seemed to decide it was time to go home for now since the “real” battle is supposed to take place on Saturday.
While we were walking around a masked man came to us. It was a friend we had met earlier who asked if we needed anything. We told him we needed to get to the University to meet a friend. He told us to come with him. He took us to his car (which had no license plate) and drove us around many side streets. The university is barricaded pretty well and there is a security checkpoint one must pass though to gain access. Once inside the university you can understand why it is so guarded it is the home of APPO radio, which broadcasts the movement’s message and news 24 hours a day. We were given food there and the outside kitchen the students have made is fit to serve a small army. Bottles read to be used as Molotov’s are stacked several feet high and sandbags surround the radio station. We eventually left the university and returned to our apartment. It had been a long day.
Siempre en la lucha!
More of todays photos at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffrae/sets/
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