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Hundreds of Thousands March and Reconstruct Barricades in Oaxaca City

JUne 14th one year anniversary-barricades are reconstucted in Oaxaca CIty as thousands march on the capitol
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 doesnt go there wil be no peace!".

This isnt 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 state wide 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 People,s Popular Assembly of Oaxaca(APPO). Physically removing local governments from office, the APPO the people of Oaxaca 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 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 beggining of the march entered the Zocalo people were still leaving from the airport. Contigents from Chiapas and Michoacan and other states in Mexico particiapted in the march aswell.
At approximatly 7pm barricades reappeared for the first time sinse Novemeber throughout the city. People spontaneaously constructed barricades, and at least two major thourofares 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 assmeblies was brutally repressed and many memebers of the movement were forced into hiding after the violent battle between protesters and police on Novemeber 25th, 2006, the struggle in Oaxaca is far from over. On May 1rst 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.

- Barucha Calamity Peller, macheteyamor (at) gmail.com
 
 

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