Oaxaca rocks…!

I just stumbled across this story. I’ve heard nothing about it in recent weeks even though the city occupation has been going on since May! Talk about a de-facto news blackout. I guess for the MSM, nothing in Mexico's worth reporting unless it involves drugs, illegal immigrants or the American economy.

…Some 40,000 teachers, as well as leftists, student groups and anarchists have set up hundreds of roadblocks, seized the city's central plaza and covered businesses, homes and historic buildings with graffiti. They refuse to give up until the governor resigns.

The group leading the protests said Thursday it would accept an offer from President Vicente Fox's government to negotiate an end to the conflict, but only if state officials were not included.

Oaxaca city, the capital of a state of the same name, is ordinarily one of Mexico's premier tourist destinations. But the U.S. State Department has said rising political violence might make Oaxaca too risky for Americans to visit.

Protesters have hijacked some city and charter buses and burned others, taken over radio and television stations, blocked government buildings and forced many businesses here to close. Two protesters have been shot to death.

Blaming those deaths on state forces, demonstrators have begun burning piles of tires at night to keep police away and organizing groups of men armed with clubs to patrol the city in an effort to protect their movement.

Radio stations they have seized broadcast unconfirmed reports of new shootings nightly. At any hint of danger, protest leaders ring church bells, calling their supporters from their beds to the streets.

[snip]

Construction worker Ricardo Acevedo, one of about 300 people blocking a major intersection, said many here are also angered by the state's sale of forests outside the city to private companies who have cut down thousands of trees.

``This is a movement of thousands and thousands of people,'' said the 44-year-old. ``We don't have guns, just a lot of heart. But our hearts can hold out for a long time.''

Indeed they can!

I travelled to Oaxaca in the spring of 1973 with three hippy friends. I was a 21-year-old American innocent abroad, long blond hair, voluptuous body, entirely clueless about politics, history, geography, not to mention, my progress through the world. We were strolling in the main plaza when a leftist demonstration appeared, complete with militant chants and banners of Lenin and Marx. Without warning, someone threw a brick or rock, shattering the large plate-glass window of the hotel behind us. In the blink of an eye, the sidewalks emptied of people. I was left standing there, my jaw hanging open, when one of my older friends grabbed me by the arm and yanked me away to the safety of a side street.

Apparently, the Oaxacan revolutionary spirit hasn't dimmed in 33 years. More power to them!! May their dreams of economic and social justice come true.

Complete story here.