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The Battle of the Day of the Dead.

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm writing this Friday evening, November 3. We have been under occupation by Federal forces for several days now. The day they entered, Sunday, was ugly. The next day, three large marches converged on the Zocalo, and marchers circled around it, taunting the police and demonstrating that the police presence did not scare them or stop the movement. A plantón was set up outside the Santo Domingo Cathedral. All of the teachers and those who were sitting in the Zocalo are now sitting outside the church, three or four blocks from the Zocalo. One joke I heard was that while the PFP were busy taking the Zocalo, the APPO was busy taking Santo Domingo.

Not only have the teachers moved, but the vendors, unrelated to the movement, have also moved. Walking through today, I laughed and said, "If the PFP takes over the Zocalo, the people will just move the whole damn Zocalo somewhere else."

The Santo Domingo Fathers have offered the church as a place to reopen the Table of Dialogue, which has not convened for a little while because of the occupation.

When people talk about the police presence, they call them "the PFP." There are PFP in the Zocalo, members of a highly trained national police force. They are mixed with other levels of police and low ranking members of the army, who seem to have been doing most of the dirty work. Some of these soldiers are from Oaxaca, and many of them are from the South. I'm as tall, or taller, than half of them.

On Monday afternoon, we took a walking tour around the edge of the Zocalo, or the "Zoological Park," as we call it. A woman was talking to the soldiers, and they were so bored that they were talking back. She said, "You all look like you could be from Oaxaca. Hey you, are you from Zaachila?" She kept on, and they began to laugh. You could see them relax their stance, and they dropped their shields. One of them halfheartedly asked her, "Why don't you go back to work?"

It was Wednesday or Thursday that we got word that armed Priistas had entered and re-taken the local TV Channel 9, in the name of "the pueblo," after it had been occupied by the movement for some time. I don't have information about injuries or deaths.

Day of the Dead festivities began the night of the 31st with the huge sand tapestries. The sand comes in by the truck load and is dumped in the streets. It is sculpted into forms by different artists who make shapes, for example of huge skulls. The artists then add colors, flowers and candles to their creations.

I guess some people tried to make sand tapestries in the Zocalo, and the police threw water on them and destroyed them. The press was called to witness.

They were making the sand tapestries about a half a block from where the police were, and there was a VW bug with a big speaker attached to the top. The artists were blaring revolutionary songs, so that I'm sure that all the police who were near by could hear it. I have a video of riot police standing guarding the Zocalo with "Venceremos" playing in the background.

The night of November 1st I went to Santo Domingo, and there was drumming, dancing and drinking.

I don't know if anyone predicted what would happen the next day. The next day the police arrived with tanks and hundreds of troops to try to take the University radio station, the last functioning station the movement had. Apparently, the way the government wanted to celebrate the Day of the Dead was with more deaths. They do not have permission yet to use guns on University grounds because the University is autonomous. Instead they used water cannon, rocks, and a ton of gas, which was fired from helicopters circling low, and from the ground. The water from the water cannon was mixed with some kind of chemical that made it turn orange. The most effective weapons the APPO had were molotov cocktails and rocks.

It appeared that the police were gaining ground as they revved the tanks and advanced them threateningly at the people. Then APPO reinforcements began arriving from other parts of the city, and neighbors came out of their houses to help. An enormous amount of gas was used. One person described moments when he just could not breathe. He said women came out of the radio station "like angels," with bottles of Coca Cola to pour on people's eyes. The battle that ensued is being called fondly, The Battle of the Day of the Dead. For seven hours the fight raged on. At least 26 APPO members and 30 police were seriously injured, but some of the newspapers have the total injuries, major and minor, around 200. Hard to know.

Area hospitals closed their emergency rooms to wounded from the movement. The ambulances began kidnapping people instead of taking them to the hospital. Other wounded were arrested on sight by the police. At least a few were treated by PFP medics, but we have very little information about the dozens of people who disappeared yesterday. The Red Cross was not responding to calls (but we in the U.S. bore witness to the corruption of this organization following September 11.)

The battle over the radio station was the most intense of the day, but there were others, some instigated by Priistas. I don't know numbers of injuries or deaths, except that there were many at the University, and in the nearby neighborhood of Cinco Señores, and at least one death on another barricade.

Today the radio station reinforced itself with supplies, and is expecting another equally intense ground and air assault. Tomorrow, Saturday, is supposedly the day they are going to "clean every one out."

Today has been mostly quiet. Right now there is strong signal interference with APPO radio coming from the Priista-controlled Channel 9 TV station. APPO radio technicians are working to solve the problem, but I don't know how.

Neighbors in Santa Lucia, where the American journalist was killed by Priista gunfire, are threatening to attack CIPO, the Indigenous Peoples Council of Oaxaca.

That's all the news I have at the moment. Many thanks to everyone who attended protests and contacted the Embassy to express their opposition to the outrageous actions the Mexican government is taking against the people of Oaxaca.

We heard today that the Peoples Popular Assembly of Canada is meeting in Vancouver, B.C. in solidarity. There are actions in the U.S., Canada and Europe, and in various states in Mexico. In Chiapas they are blocking roads and highways (they have a lot of practice).

Keep up the good work, everyone. Keep sending messages to the Embassy that the international community does not support the actions of the Mexican government. Stay informed and up to date and pass the information on to others. Write letters to the editor if you can.

Your personal news correspondent in Oaxaca, Kate Sherman