October 6, 2006 – Nancy Davies writes: The organizations that constitute the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO) announced this Thursday, October 5th, the creation of a constituent congress of the Asamblea Estatal de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (AEPO), a state assembly, in November, to advance an organization with structure, principles, programs, regulations and stable directing committees so the movement will be ready to govern when Ulises resigns.
Meanwhile, this morning five people were detained for shooting from a moving Volkswagen, against a barricade. The aggressors were taken to the kiosk, stripped to the waste, and tied to posts. The public shaming is so far the only punishment that the APPO has devised.
Today the city was cleaned of barricades, streets swept, rock neatly piled on the side of the road – it looks like my mother-in-law is coming for a visit.
Students of UABJO held a march from the university to the zocalo to demand freedom for Pedro García, captured and in prison.
Carlos Abascal, Mexican secretary of Government, met Thursday with members of the APPO and members of Section 22. I read the list of names of attendees, and it sounded very solid to me, I know several. The negotiation was accepted without giving up the main demand, the removal of Governor Ulises Ruiz.
Meanwhile, the PRD insisted that the Senate resolve the conflict without the use of force. This part is really interesting: Carlos Navarrete, coordinator of the PRD in the Senate, threatened Marco Antonio Peyrot González, the secretary of the Marines, whom he accused of intimidating and provoking the people of Oaxaca and of whom “he knows a lot of things”. Navarrete referred openly to the helicopter overflight and the running of convoys of the Marines in Oaxaca territory. He accused Peyrot of being irresponsible, contrary to how the Army (which has declined to participate in the repression) has behaved. Navarrete threatened Peyrot that he wouldn’t receive senatorial authorization for a foreign diplomatic medal, which the admiral was supposed to receive, “but it’s too bad he doesn’t behave responsibly, like the army. ”
Is that a threat or what?
Navarrete asked Peyrot to stop his terror strategy, because the Senate will take measures, and topped it off with what reads like a more profound (blackmail) threat, “we know a lot and Peyrrot can read between the lines” Go, Mexico!
Navarrete reiterated that the PRD senators will be in solidarity with the legitimate presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his cabinet. “We carry the voice of the people who voted for the him.”
He revealed that a commission of senators, deputies and directors of FAP began a series of meetings to refine a legislative proposal to strengthen and consolidate the movement behind López Obrador. There’s bigger threat implicit in that.
The supposed international encampment hasn’t yet come to much. The banner is nice, the tent is nice, the video tapes are good, but I saw eight people there. The streets were empty at five o’clock. I walked home past the papelería where the owner Juan was standing idle out front. Juan said everybody was frightened and stayed home indoors. Maybe. Juan also is very APPO partisan and surmised that Mexico will have a civil uprising if the marines attack, and if they don’t attack, that Calderon will be out in a year.
That sounds like lose-lose proposition to me – so the best news is that the APPO is preparing its statewide structure.
